Murder at the Ladies Club

by Beth Byers

  She laughed at her vision of the future as they approached the ladies club. It was an unassuming brick building with double doors that were manned. A woman wearing the typical butler uniform opened the door for them to enter, and Violet held out her card.

  “We’re looking for Miss Rita Russell,” Violet said.

  The woman butler glanced at Jack, back to Violet, and read the card. “There is a small waiting room that you may take your gentlemen fellow in, but he cannot enter beyond that room.”

  “How lovely and private,” Violet said brightly. “Would you tell Miss Russell it’s a matter of some urgency?”

  “You may come in if you like, Lady Violet. I was given your name as a prospective member just today.”

  Vi glanced at Jack and he nodded, so she waved the woman forward and followed after. The halls were empty, but the walls were covered with paintings of famous women. Violet liked it immediately. Joan of Arc, Boudicca, along with the more modern women like Marie Curie—the noble laureate and Emmeline Parkhurst. Violet saw Jane Austen and smiled. Sense and Sensibility would forever be Violet’s favorite book on sisterhood, and it had all the more meaning now that she and Isolde knew each other so much better than they had as children.

  Rita Russell was sitting in a chair in the library, staring into the flames with a glass of bourbon at her side.

  “Early to have a drink,” Violet told Rita.

  “Oh,” Rita said. She frowned at Vi. “Violet?”

  “You are a quick study,” Violet told her, and then saw she was wearing the same black evening gown. Her eyes were red and bloodshot with rather cavernous puffiness underneath. “Oh you do look terrible. Are you all right, my dear?”

  Rita shook her head helplessly. “I left the hospital and went to the hotel, but—”

  “Is it bad?”

  “They don’t think she’ll live,” Rita said slowly. “They—it’s just a matter of time. She isn’t even aware anymore. You know what’s the worst of it? I was—I was so sure Father regretted her. But he broke down and wept in my arms. He said she was a ray of sunshine, so happy about the littlest things. Like dresses and such. He told me he couldn’t do it; he couldn’t lose another woman he loved. Then he staggered away and left me there with her.”

  Violet sighed and sat down, taking the bourbon and pressing it into Rita’s hands. They were shaking, so Violet helped Rita to drink from the cup, letting her slowly sip it even though she shuddered after each swallow.

  “We’re going to get Jack and take you home.”

  “I can’t—I can’t go there. It…it was her place, and she loved it, and I…can’t—” Rita trailed off helplessly and a single tear cut through what remained of the makeup from the night before.

  “You’ll come to my house,” Violet told her. “My maid will ensure you don’t drown in the bath, you’ll eat some soup or something nourishing, and then we’ll tuck you into bed.”

  Another tear chased the first, and Rita asked lamely, “Really? Might I?”

  “Of course you will,” Violet told her, as though they were longtime friends instead of mere acquaintances.

  Violet missed a second chance to view the club, her full attention on leading Rita through to the front. It seemed that the little sympathy and care was enough to send Rita into full tears. Maybe it was exhaustion, but Violet knew better. It was realizing that the silly little girl child that Mr. Russell loved was slowly dying.

  What a horror and why?

  Jack took in the scene in a moment and ordered the butler to get a black cab. While they waited, Rita wept on Violet’s shoulder, and she slowly rubbed the girl’s back. She was a woman, but she felt and seemed like a lost little girl at the moment. Violet channeled her beloved Aunt Agatha and behaved as she thought her aunt might, comforting Rita until the tears stopped.

  “Do they know what it was that made her sick?” Jack asked, as he opened the door for Rita and Violet. Rita crawled into the cab and was followed by Violet, who tucked the woman into her side, gently rubbing her hair.

  Rita shook her head. “They were discussing it possibly being hemlock. Melody didn’t eat anything that would have hemlock in it. Father said she had a piece of boiled roast and bread at dinner and hardly touched any of it. There wasn’t anything that could have accidentally been hemlock.”

  Jack had stiffened, and Violet felt her heart dropping into her stomach. She knew that look. It was the look of a man on the hunt for a killer. Melody might not be dead yet, but she would be soon enough if Rita was correct. Violet closed her eyes against the sight and kept caressing Rita’s hair, even though Vi would have preferred to curl into Jack’s lap and beg him to say it wasn’t so.

  They reached Victor’s house and took Rita inside. Violet glanced back at Jack. “Don’t leave?”

  “I’ll wait,” he said grimly.

  Violet took Rita upstairs, encountering Beatrice before reaching her room. Between the two of them, they got Rita bathed, dressed in pajamas, and fed. Rita was nearly asleep before she even hit the pillow. Violet glanced at Beatrice and sighed.

  “I know that look, my lady. Is the young woman going to die?”

  Violet nodded, not questioning how the maid knew the details. She was sure all of the servants had heard of what happened the previous evening after the odd night with Jack in the house and then the early morning arrival of a doctor and inspector.

  Hemlock? Violet shuddered. She had looked into hemlock for a book, as well as having learned of Socrates’s death. There wasn’t a cure for hemlock. Melody was young so maybe she could pull through, but somehow Violet doubted it. She felt sick as she remembered the trembling, the loss of control, the slow sliding down the ladies room counter onto the floor. And Melody’s awareness through it all.

  Hemlock poisoning was quite painful. It was a terrible way to die. She hadn’t liked Melody Russell, and Violet wouldn’t pretend otherwise now. The girl had been grasping and determined to climb as far up the social ladder as the marriage to Mr. Russell would allow. She had gone about her climbing in all the wrong ways and yet had somehow made an intelligent man who had loved before love again.

  There had to have been good in Melody Russell, and Violet flinched at her thoughts. Already she was thinking of Mrs. Russell as having died. She hadn’t though, had she? She was still battling, trying to stay alive against what had been done to her.

  She was going to lose, Violet thought. Without a miracle, Melody Russell would die. Violet pressed her fingers against her temples. She counted to ten, holding her breath until her lungs hurt and then slowly let the air out. Over and over again, she breathed until she no longer felt like crumpling into a heap.

  When she looked up, having gathered herself, she saw Jack. He watched her carefully, his penetrating gaze taking everything in. The way her fingers trembled? Certainly. The way her eyes were filled with the imagination of what it might be like to be Melody Russell? That too, of course he saw that. The way Violet’s heart was breaking a little more? The way her vision was darkening against the cruelties of this world? The way she ached to protect those she loved and had no idea how to do that?

  “I—”

  “Do you know why one of the early stories of family in the Bible is of the brothers killing each other?”

  Violet slowly shook her head.

  “We focus on the wrong things,” Jack said, sounding as exhausted and broken as Violet felt. He was letting her see his real feelings, and it made hers all the easier to bear. He was haunted by the vision of Melody Russell as much as Violet, the sick version, the healthy version—they’d seen them both, and what happened was not all right. “They say Eve tempted Adam from the garden, but I think Adam left, following his beloved. Into the wilderness? Fine—wherever she was. To work by the sweat of his brow? Also fine, welcome even. What man doesn’t want to work and put a roof over his beloved’s head? To create a refuge for his family? We can’t keep them perfectly safe, Vi, but even with the tragedy of losing Abel, I think Adam h
eld his wife, shared her tears, and never regretted leaving to be with her.”

  “So how do they stop weeping?”

  “Surely they had other sons and daughters. The ones who loved each other. Who sacrificed for each other. Who adored each other like you and Victor adore one another. They focused on the good. We’re so quick to write down the stories of the one brother killing the other. I want to read all the missing good stories. I have to believe they exist.”

  Violet stepped into his arms, pressing her face against his broad chest, and listened to his heartbeat. She thought that as long as she could hear that song, she could withstand anything. “Or we could just make our own.”

  “Let’s do that too.”

  “First, though,” Violet said fiercely, “let’s find this killer.”

  His kiss on the top of her head was his only answer.

  Chapter 9

  The club was deserted when they arrived. The front doors were locked, and Jack had to bang on the door for several minutes before it was opened. Violet recognized the man as one of the waiters from the night before, although he hadn’t been their waiter. He glanced them over with a surprise. “Can I help ya?”

  “There has been an accident. We need to speak to the staff,” Jack said. The guy glanced them over again, taking in Violet, and then his brow furrowed.

  “Detective Inspector Wakefield,” Jack said, holding out his card. His tone turned into an order. “Now gather everyone up.”

  They followed the man into the club. Two of the staff were mopping the floor as another two were wiping down tables and arranging chairs. The band was on the stage practicing.

  The man who’d let them in gestured to the bar. “Wait here and let me get the manager.”

  Violet and Jack waited for several minutes, but as they waited staff began to appear around the stage, and the music cut out. Jack led Violet to the stage, and soon the two of them were surrounded by the club’s staff, including the hat girl, the waiter from the night before, and others that Violet vaguely recognized but couldn’t quite place.

  “I’m sure many of you are aware that one of your patrons fell ill yesterday night,” Jack told them.

  No one spoke, but several people shifted and a few glanced down to the floor.

  “I need to speak with everyone who saw her. It’s important that we track her evening.”

  “You were with her the whole time, weren’t you?” their waiter demanded.

  Vi had quite liked the man the night before, but he was setting her instincts afire with that aggressiveness. She watched as Jack reminded the waiter that Mrs. Russell and her company had been at the club for at least an hour or more before they had shared a table.

  “Did anyone serve their party before they joined our table?”

  “The two blondes in the same dresses?” the barman asked. He sniffed. “I made them drinks just as they arrived. The shorter one wriggled past everyone and demanded it. Set off quite a few folks.”

  Jack nodded, glancing around and eyeing all of the staff. “Anyone else?”

  Something was nibbling at Violet’s memory, but she was distracted from it when the man who ran the club asked, “Why are you asking this? She could have become ill anywhere. You rich folks come in here with things in your pockets and pills and pipes filled with who knows what and then blame us?”

  “We’re tracking her evening and what she ate,” Jack said. “It’s as simple as that.”

  “Why? Did she get some bad shellfish?” the waiter asked.

  “You were much nicer last night,” Violet told him.

  “You were tipping last night.”

  Violet shrugged at that answer. Jack had over-tipped him more than once for delivering their drinks. Mrs. Russell had become upset time after time that she hadn’t received a drink with a rhubarb curl and—Violet blinked rapidly, remembering the three drinks.

  “Those were interesting drinks last night,” Violet said. “Who came up with the idea for rhubarb and fennel? I thought they were too sour personally, but the others liked them so well.”

  “You have to come up with new things,” the manager said. “They’ll order the unusual drink and the regular drink if you make it interesting enough.” He nodded at his staff. “These are good folks.”

  “I’m sure they are,” Jack said. “Why would they do anything to Mrs. Russell? They’d have no reason, would they?” Jack eyed them in turn.

  “Why did Mrs. Russell get the drink without the rhubarb curl three times?” Violet demanded suddenly, staring at the waiter who had served them. “Who put something in that drink and asked you to deliver it?”

  The waiter shook his head and stuttered. “I didn’t!”

  “Just tell us,” Violet urged.

  Jack had turned on the waiter, and he was focused utterly on him. Vi had never had to experience the full force of those penetrating eyes on her, not like the waiter was, but she’d seen it and she pitied him.

  “I didn’t,” he said again.

  “You had a lot of the ready money last night, Teddy,” another waiter accused. “More than even a generous table would account for.”

  The waiter flushed and hissed. “Shut it, Reggie!”

  Jack moved so suddenly Violet squeaked. He grabbed the waiter by the lapels and shoved him into the wall. “Did you alter a drink and bring it to the same table as my female?”

  Violet’s brows rose at the words ‘my female,’ but she kept her reaction to herself as the waiter shook his head frantically. She calmly answered Jack. “Of course he did. Mrs. Russell was the only one who got a different drink. She fell ill soon after we had them. What did you do?” she demanded of the waiter.

  “I—” The waiter was trembling, his face so pale, it was ghostly. “I—”

  “Out with it, Teddy,” the manager said. “Now! Or you won’t have to worry about the yard fellow killing you, I’ll do it myself.”

  “The man just had me switch the drinks. I didn’t know what it was. He gave me a hundred quid. You know I’m losing my place, Mike. What could I do? He said it wouldn’t hurt her.”

  “Who?” Jack demanded, shaking the waiter. “Who?”

  “I don’t know! I didn’t see his face. It was dark, his hat was low. Big guy, dark hair, nice suit. He said she was his wife, that she was stepping out on him, and it would make her sleepy—that’s all.”

  “You believed him? You fool!”

  “I needed the money,” the waiter whined. “He said it wouldn’t hurt her!”

  “She’s dying,” Jack told him flatly. “You gave a nineteen-year-old girl a drink with hemlock in it. She’s going to die, and it’ll be your fault that she does.”

  “I didn’t poison it!”

  “Tell that to the judge. One of you boys go get the local bobbie. I don’t have time for this fool.”

  Jack questioned the rest of the staff aggressively to see if anyone else remembered the man. The waiter was crying in the corner, and Jack used him as a reference for the man who had paid to have the poison delivered.

  “It wasn’t dark hair,” the coat girl said. “He had grey hair not brown, but it was a dark grey. If you didn’t see it in the light, you might have thought it was brown or black.”

  One of the cigarette girls agreed and added, “He had a ring. It had a—ah—I’m not sure what you call it. I can draw it.”

  The manager of the club sent for paper and a pencil.

  The cigarette girl drew a double infinity symbol. “It was gold, but the symbol part was black. Kind of spooky looking, thinking back.”

  Violet prevented her scoff from escaping, but one of the other cigarette girls didn’t. Jack lit a cigarette as they took notes on who saw what and were able to narrow down that the second gentlemen who joined Rita and her stepmother had found them at the club. He had seemed to know at least Rita and her date.

  Several of the staff had seen Mrs. Russell with the second gentleman in the corner, kissing rather explicitly. Once Mrs. Russell joined Jack
and Violet, she hadn’t left the table until Rita and Violet had headed to the ladies room.

  Violet’s head tilted as she considered what she was hearing. The waiter had calmed down and Violet crossed to him, asking gently, “Did you know Mrs. Russell before you brought her that drink?”

  He shook his head. His lips trembled. “Do you think I’ll hang?”

  She had no idea what would happen to him. Had he helped poison a woman? Yes. He hadn’t, however, known what he’d been doing. “I think it matters that you were used and didn’t realize what would happen.”

  The poor man nodded frantically. “I wouldn’t have done it if I’d known.”

  “You shouldn’t have done it at all,” Violet snapped.

  He paled again, but he snarled, “What do you know? You’re just a spoiled, idiot woman who has no idea what it’s like to struggle.”

  Violet wasn’t going to argue with that. She had never been in danger of not having a place to live or food to eat. Her struggles were nothing in comparison to the truly poor, and she knew it too well. She sighed and left the waiter. He’d made a terrible mistake, and he would certainly pay for it to some extent. But his mistake had led a young woman to her impending death, and Violet didn’t feel worse for him than she did for Melody Russell.

  Jack finished up his questioning and they left the club together.

  “I need to talk to Ham about what I found out and be officially assigned to the case. Will you be all right if I take you home?”

  Violet nodded. Jack tugged her into an alleyway, tilted her face to his, and kissed her breathless. “You gave Melody Russell your drink, and she offered to trade you. Do you remember? I could have lost you.” He kissed her again, and she felt his fingers digging into her spine and the back of her head. “I could have lost you because of that fool and a murderous idiot. I will find this man, and he’ll be lucky to survive to reach the prison.”

  Violet pulled back, just enough to look up at Jack’s face. “I’m right here. I’m all right. Nothing happened to me.”