The Enemy in Our Midst: A Lord Charles Stewart Mystery

by Conley, John E.

  “I knew nothing of this at first, other than the rumors floating around Danby. But I also knew a page was missing from the church records and that Silsbury had found it in the fireplace. So the murder hinged around a marriage or birth, or both, that somebody wanted kept secret.

  “This was made more important by the lack of a will for the Colonel. Then, when we played golf with Malcolm and found Archibald Levering’s body, the coincidences were just too significant to ignore.”

  Mary said, “And you knew the Leverings had a child?”

  “Not for sure. But Ida made it sound as if Daphne had already been in an orphanage when she went the second time, after the fire. Then, Ilene Levering admitted to giving up a daughter to adoption. Yorkshire isn’t that big, Mary, and I couldn’t rule out that Daphne, being the right age, might not have been that daughter. Malcolm realized that before me.

  “The final link was confirming that Maisie Levering was Margaret. Maisie is an old Scottish nickname for Margaret and it was her letters Bingham and I found in the Colonel’s drawer and that Malcolm knew about from the war. The lineage was complete when I found her grave.”

  “What about Mr. Parker?” Mary asked.

  “Oh, he will most likely be asked to leave England and never come back,” Charles told her. “He was clearly blackmailing the Meaths to spite Stuart Meath’s father. But he was never the type of man to kill somebody or he would have done that many times in South Africa. No, George is not a perfect man, but he is not a killer.”

  “I’m so proud of you, Charles,” Mary said. “You really should do this for a living.”

  He laughed and said, “It’s a nice hobby. It keeps me out of trouble and I get to meet marvelous women like you. Now finish eating so I can take you shoe shopping.”