Queen of Hearts

by Rhys Bowen

  There was a silence. The sheriff’s man shifted from one foot to the other, making the dried leaves crunch underfoot. Then the sheriff himself took a deep breath. “You’re right, little lady,” he said. “That blow had to come from a right-handed person. Very astute of you. When that English guy said you’d been involved in solving some murders, I didn’t take him seriously.” He turned away, staring out into the trees. “Well, dang me. Now it looks like we’re back to square one. Unless you’ve some thoughts of your own?”

  “I really don’t know what to think,” I said. “I don’t know any of these people and why they might have wanted Mr. Goldman dead. But it had to be someone who hated Miss Brightwell, didn’t it? Why else would one put the stolen candlestick in her bed?”

  He nodded. “Well, we’re actually one step closer. We’ve just found the bloody glove.” He indicated what his man was now holding in a handkerchief.

  “It’s quite small, isn’t it?” I said. “Either a man with small hands or a woman. I wonder if it was dropped accidentally or deliberately. This isn’t exactly on anyone’s route to where they were sleeping last night, is it?” I looked up at the castle wall. “But it must be below the library. Is it possible that someone did climb out of the window?”

  “Meaning that it might have been an intruder after all? Someone who came to steal valuable objects and was surprised to be caught in the act by Goldman? But then how did the candlestick get in Miss Brightwell’s bed? And how did the intruder get out without being seen?”

  I shook my head. “I know. None of it makes sense, does it? If it really was a robber, then why not take the candlestick or the El Greco painting, which is apparently even more valuable?”

  “Perhaps someone tried to set this up to make it look like an outside robbery attempt,” the sheriff said. “Dropping the glove out here where he knew it would be found. . . .”

  “That is possible—” I broke off at the sound of footsteps coming toward us and heard Darcy’s voice calling, “Georgie? Are you out here?”

  “Over here, Darcy,” I called back.

  Darcy ran over to us. “Thank God. I got worried when you didn’t come back to the kitchen and then the front door was open and I couldn’t find you.”

  “This little lady has a good head on her shoulders,” the sheriff said. “She’s just shown me that Stella Brightwell couldn’t have killed Mr. Goldman.”

  “She’s left-handed,” I said to Darcy. “That blow was struck by a right-handed person.”

  “Well done,” Darcy said.

  “And we’ve found a bloody glove.”

  Darcy stared at it. “A black leather glove like the one our cat burglar wears.”

  “What burglar is this, sir?” the sheriff asked, suddenly alert.

  “I was sent from England on the trail of a jewel thief—someone who moves with ease in upper-class society, who knows their ways, who might be one of them. A valuable ruby was stolen on the ship crossing the Atlantic and the thief tried to negotiate its sale with a well-known gangster. The letter was intercepted and it was posted in Los Angeles. That’s why I’m here. I suspected that Mr. Goldman’s recent acquisitions might be of interest.”

  “And you have your suspicions as to who this thief might be?”

  “Between ourselves I suspected Stella Brightwell, but now Georgie has proven that she didn’t kill Mr. Goldman. . . .”

  “That doesn’t necessarily prove she wasn’t the thief,” the sheriff said, wagging a finger at us with animation. “Perhaps we’re looking at two different crimes here. She sneaked a candlestick up to her room. Someone else wanted Goldman out of the way and knowing that a candlestick was missing it seemed like an opportune moment to strike—making it look as if the thief was also the killer.”

  “You know, Sheriff, that’s not bad,” Darcy said.

  “So you reckon I should keep Miss Brightwell locked up a little longer?”

  “I think it might be wise. And also might make the murderer let down his guard if he thinks he’s not your prime suspect.”

  “Right, then. Well, I appreciate your help, young man. And you too, Lady Georgiana.”

  “And I may be able to help you even more,” Darcy said. “There is one of the party that we’re not sure about. He may be who he claims to be, and maybe not. If it’s all right with you, I’d like to drive back to Los Angeles and send a cable to Scotland Yard. By tonight I should have an answer.”

  “By all means.” The sheriff was now quite affable to us. “I’ll let the guys at the gate know that you have my permission to leave.”

  “Right, then.” Darcy gave me a grin. “I’d better get going.”

  “I think I’ll ride down to the gate with you,” I said as I accompanied him to the garage on the far side of the house. “I’d like to take a look at the gate and the fence for myself. Just to see if it might be possible for a clever person to find a way in or out. You said yourself that your cat burglar could walk on ledges and cross roofs. Perhaps he can also scale barbed-wire-tipped fences?”

  “You’ll be all right walking back on your own?” he asked. “It’s quite a long way.”

  “I could do with a good walk,” I said. “And there is a road, after all. I expect the animals stay among the trees.”

  “All right. Hop in.” Darcy opened a door for me and then went around to climb in beside me. The fog thickened as we drove down the hill, swirling in wisps across the road as if it were a live entity. Also I don’t think I had quite taken in how far it was. I began to have serious second thoughts about this enterprise, but I was too proud to ask Darcy to turn around and drive me back to the house. I could always have the gatekeeper telephone to send one of the men down for me, I decided. We came at last to the fence and beside it a small building—square, unadorned, whitewashed with a Spanish tile roof. Darcy stopped the car as the gate swung slowly open. And I got out.

  “Bye-bye,” I said. “Good luck.”

  “Same to you, and don’t do anything silly while I’m away,” he said. “No risks, understand?”

  “Yes, dear,” I replied and he laughed. Then I closed the motorcar door, Darcy waved and drove off into the fog. The gate swung shut again. I stood looking up at it. Like the fence on either side it was about ten feet high and was topped with lethal-looking barbed wire. What’s more, it fitted snugly against the metal posts so that there was no way to slip through the gap. And eyes were already upon me. I turned to see a dark-skinned man and one of the sheriff’s deputies coming toward me.

  “Can we help you, miss?” the deputy asked.

  “I just rode down with Mr. O’Mara to keep him company and now I’m going to walk back to the house,” I said. “I hate being cooped up for too long. And I wanted to see the fence for myself. It’s quite formidable, isn’t it?”

  “Don’t see nobody getting in or out over this fence,” the other man said.

  “You must be Jimmy, the gatekeeper,” I said. “I’ve heard about you.”

  “Only good, I hope,” he said, and smiled, making a grim face suddenly friendly.

  “They said the gate can only be opened from inside your little house, so presumably you know exactly who comes in and out.”

  “Of course I do,” he said. “I have to log them in in my book, don’t I?”

  “And I suppose that nobody has shown up recently whom you weren’t expecting?”

  “Nobody at all. Francisco came in with supplies two days ago, then yesterday it was just you people with Mr. Goldman. Three cars all following and then Miss Brightwell a bit later.”

  “Wait a second,” I said. “Miss Brightwell was with us. She was in Mr. Goldman’s car, I’m sure.”

  “No, miss. She came on her own, a half hour or so after the rest of you in her own little convertible.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He nodded. “My job isn’t exactly taxing
. I know who comes in and out of this place.”

  “Well, thank you,” I said. “I’d better start walking back. I haven’t had breakfast yet.”

  “Watch out for the beasts,” Jimmy called after me. “Some of them can be right mean.”

  I nodded and the moment the gate was out of sight I found a stout stick lying by the side of the road and carried it for protection. And as I walked I tried to work out what Jimmy’s revelation might mean. I remembered Ronnie saying that he was going to drive Mr. Goldman and Stella. Had I actually seen her get into the car? I thought I had but there was all the usual confusion about setting off on a trip as we tried to stow Mummy’s luggage and Mummy’s maid into the motorcar. I supposed it was possible that Stella had forgotten something at the last moment and told Cy Goldman to go on without her and she’d drive her own car up later. But it was all rather coincidental that the person now being locked in her room on suspicion of robbery, if not of murder, had chosen to arrive after everyone else. Was there possibly something in her car that she hadn’t wanted anyone to see? I frowned as I strode out up the track, trying to make sense of this latest piece of news.

  I’d gone about half a mile when a huge bird burst from cover on my right and ran across the road ahead of me. It took me a moment to realize it was an ostrich, and another long moment for my heart to stop beating rapidly. But I was glad to note that it appeared to be more frightened of me than I was of it. As I watched it disappear into a thick stand of bushes and trees on my left, I thought I saw something glinting among the leaves. Metal? I left the road and sure enough, I spotted what seemed to be tire tracks in a soft patch of earth. I went on and found a small open-topped sports car, hidden among the bushes.

  “Stella’s motor,” I said to myself. But why had she hidden it here, unless she wanted to make a quick getaway? I searched the car but found nothing of interest in it, not even any identification or license in the glove box. Puzzled, I looked up to see a large antelope with impressive horns regarding me from a safe distance. When it snorted at me, I decided that discretion was the better part of valor and picked my way back to the road again, my stick clutched in my hand, at the ready. But no more wild animals appeared as I climbed the rest of the way up the hill and glimpsed the house standing on the bluff ahead of me. I confess I gave a sigh of relief. There was something strange and unnerving about this place, almost as if Mr. Goldman had created an illusion here where the rules of the rest of the world didn’t apply.

  As I approached my cottage the door opened and Belinda came out. She was still dressed in her bathrobe and slippers and her hair was tousled from sleep. “Oh, Georgie. I’m rather glad to see you,” she said in her breathless voice. “I woke up and found myself completely alone. Well, that’s unusual enough to start with, isn’t it? But then when you didn’t come back I began to feel alarmed. I wondered if you’d all been spirited off or something.”

  “We just went to get breakfast and then Darcy drove down to Los Angeles,” I said.

  “Oh good. So all is well, then,” she said. “I hoped that letting Miss Brightwell go meant that they’d sorted things out.”

  “What made you think they released Miss Brightwell?” I asked. “She was locked up in her room when I left her a few minutes ago and the sheriff was showing no signs of wanting to release her.”

  “But I saw her come out of that other cottage a little while ago,” Belinda said. “I woke up, didn’t know where I was and lifted the curtain to see out. And there was Stella Brightwell coming out of that door over there and creeping down into the trees.”

  I stared at the fairy-tale cottage, trying to digest what she had just said. I hadn’t been gone that long and when last seen the sheriff was out in the grounds, searching for more clues. And he still thought that Stella might be involved in the robbery, if not the murder. So how could she have made it as far as this and what could she possibly be doing in that cottage? Her things were still in the main house and that cottage had been unoccupied. . . . Then suddenly I realized what had struck me as odd when I looked at it earlier this morning. When we arrived yesterday there had been no curtains across that window, I was sure. Now the drapes were drawn. Someone had been in there overnight, and it couldn’t have been Stella Brightwell. What’s more, I realized I knew who it had to be.

  Chapter 28

  AT THE CASTLE

  AUGUST 4

  I stared into the trees that appeared like indistinct shadows among the fog. “How long ago did she leave, Belinda?”

  “Not long at all. Only a few minutes,” Belinda said.

  “Come on, then,” I said, attempting to grab her arm. “We must go after her.”

  She shook herself free. “What do you mean? Darling, I can’t go after anybody. I’m still in my nightclothes.”

  “We can’t let her get away and I don’t fancy following her alone. And we haven’t got time to find anyone else.”

  “But if the sheriff has let her go, then why are we going after her?”

  “Because I think she may still be involved and there is something important we don’t know.”

  “You mean she may still be involved in the murder?”

  “Possibly.”

  “I’m not like you, Georgie. I don’t actually enjoy chasing after murderers.”

  “It will be all right with two of us.” I tried to convince myself as much as Belinda. “Do come on, please, or I’ll have to go alone and I really might be in danger.”

  Belinda sighed. “I don’t know why I ever became friends with you in school,” she said. “Yes, I do. I thought you were a sweet and innocent little thing who needed protecting out in the big bad world. How wrong I was. Somebody should have told me that you’d be involving me in a constant life of crime.”

  “Well, if you’re really not coming . . .” I started to walk away.

  “Hold on,” she said. “I’ll put my shoes on. I’m not walking among wild animals in satin slippers.”

  “Then please hurry up, and don’t stop to put on your makeup or do your hair. . . .”

  “Oh, Georgie, you are a bore.” She disappeared into the house while I waited, moving impatiently from foot to foot as I stared into the trees and listened for telltale sounds. But nothing stirred apart from wisps of fog that curled up, swirled and then melted. Belinda appeared remarkably quickly for her—now wearing a jacket instead of her dressing gown and with what to her might pass for sturdy shoes.

  “Come on, then. Let’s get this over with. I’m dying for breakfast,” she said as we set off down the hill and into the trees. “I’m only coming with you because the sheriff can’t think she’s too dangerous if he let her go. . . . Oh my God. You don’t think she escaped, do you? Is that why we have to catch her?”

  “I’m not quite sure what to think yet,” I said. “I think I can safely say that Stella Brightwell did not kill Mr. Goldman, if that makes you feel any better.”

  “Let me see,” Belinda said, picking her way through scrub and tall bleached grass. “It might make me feel better about chasing Miss Brightwell, but it does little to reassure me about the various animals that are now lurking all around us.”

  “I have a stick with me,” I said. “I’ll protect you.”

  “A stick won’t do much to protect me from a charging rhinoceros,” Belinda said.

  “I don’t think he has any rhinoceroses . . . or is it rhinoceri?”

  “You don’t know. He could have a pack of lions for all we know.”

  “A pride of lions, Belinda. Get it right.”

  “Oh shut up,” she said, then muttered a naughty word that no lady should know as her jacket caught on a thorny bush. “I don’t know why I agreed to do this. It’s insane. And anyway, won’t she hear us coming?”

  “I want her to,” I said. “I want her to know we’re after her. It may make her panic. Come on.”

  “Oh yes. A po
tential murderer who panics. That’s very reassuring,” Belinda said.

  We plunged on. The forest became denser. Belinda grabbed me with a gasp as two zebras trotted out of a bush in front of us and ran off.

  “You see. I told you they were more frightened of us,” I said.

  “How do you know that? I’d say I was quite frightened. Pretty bloody frightened if you want to know. My heart leaped right out of my chest.” Then she added, “Look, Georgie. There she is.”

  And we picked up a flash of a black jacket darting among the trees.

  She was moving fast and branches clawed at my face as I hurried after her. Then, without warning, an impossibly tall shape stepped out between two large oak trees. I’d seen giraffes in the zoo, but up close like this and in a natural environment it seemed enormous. Miss Brightwell was moving fast, watching where she put her feet, and she didn’t seem to notice the giraffe coming straight at her until one of the great feet came down right in front of her. She looked up at it, gave a little gasp of horror, turned and ran straight into us.

  “Hold her,” I shouted. I grabbed one arm, and Belinda, to my intense relief, grabbed the other.

  “Let go of me,” she shouted, fighting like a mad thing. “Get yer bleedin’ hands off me before that bloody thing tramples us all to death.”

  We hung on grimly. “It was only trying to get away from you,” I said. “See, it’s gone off into the trees.”

  “This place is like a madhouse,” she said, struggling less violently now. “I wish I’d never come here.”

  Although her face was familiar, her voice was not the polished, breathy film-star voice of Stella Brightwell.

  “Wait a minute,” Belinda said. “You’re not Stella Brightwell.”

  “I rather suspect that she’s Stella’s sister, Bella,” I said. “Or, as she used to be known, Flossie Oldham. Am I right?”

  “How the bloody hell did you know that?” she demanded, still trying to wriggle free from us.

  “Her sister?” Belinda looked at the woman whose arm she was still holding. “Yes, I can see now. There’s a strong resemblance, but . . .”