“Do you think Jeremy was with Hélène?” Margaret asked.
“I do, although—oh, I don’t know. I cannot believe that he would—”
“That he would behave like most gentlemen of his class and rank?”
“He adores Amity.”
“How does that factor into the equation?” Margaret asked. “Jeremy makes no effort to hide his debauchery.”
“Yet have you ever heard of him doing something truly awful?”
Margaret hesitated. “No, I have not. However, leaving with Hélène, even if nothing came of it, would have given the appearance of debauchery.”
“In front of Mr. Wells?”
“They did not leave together,” Margaret said. “Hélène followed sometime after. That might have been a deliberate attempt at discretion. They could have met up outside, giving Jeremy the opportunity to make his friends think whatever he wanted them to.”
“It would be naïve of us to assume nothing transpired between them, although I find it difficult to believe. We ought to speak to Hélène as soon as we can.”
“Emily.” Margaret stopped walking. “I do not believe that Mr. Neville took his own life. It makes no sense—and that is what makes me believe his death to be a perfect crime, because suicide in and of itself makes no sense. The irrationality of it makes it impossible to expect a thorough explanation. We are meant to accept that we can’t have all the answers.”
“And, as a result, we are told not to ask questions,” I said.
“Who would have wanted Mr. Neville dead?”
“I am not sure anyone did. The poisoned whisky was not in his room, after all,” I said. “Perhaps the question we need to answer is who wanted Jeremy dead?”
Amity
Amity felt relief at having been able to persuade her friends—and her mother—to leave her alone at the hotel so that they might enjoy an afternoon of shopping. Perhaps it was selfish, as she knew they, too, were concerned about the ruined hat and the effect it was having on her, but she wanted to be alone. She retired to her room and paced, feeling greatly agitated. She tried lying down, but could not bear to keep still. Eventually, she decided a walk by the sea might calm her, and by the time she had descended to the lobby, she had decided she would also send a telegram to Jeremy in Monte Carlo.
“It was a foolish extravagance,” she said, some hours later when the gentlemen, who had received her message as soon as they had arrived at the casino, returned to the hotel. “And I am most heartily sorry for having ruined your day, but I felt so vulnerable and exposed. I do hope you will all forgive me.” She had summoned them to her room, where they had found her curled up on a divan, her face damp with tears.
“You did the right thing,” Jeremy said, placing a protective arm around his fiancée’s shoulder. “I do think, though, that we ought to open the curtains. It’s dire here in the dark, and the day is fine. Sunshine will lift your spirits, my poor love.” Mr. Fairchild did as Jeremy suggested, and also flung open the French doors that led to Amity’s balcony.
Amity pushed Jeremy’s arm away and rose from her seat. “I am so dreadfully sorry to have spoiled your fun. I ought never to have sent that wire.”
“You should have thought to telephone, Amity dear,” Mr. Wells said. “It would have been half the cost and even quicker.”
“This is not the time to pinch pennies,” Birdie said, her voice firm. She would brook no argument. “Amity has suffered a terrible thing.”
“Where is the hat now?” Colin asked.
“The hat doesn’t matter!” Amity said.
“I am afraid the hat does matter, very much,” Mr. Hargreaves said. His handsome face was serious, and there was no hint of humor in his dark eyes. Amity preferred him less grim. This version of Colin Hargreaves was almost frightening in its intensity.
“Madame du Lac did something with it,” Birdie said. “Amity wanted it thrown away, but the woman refused to satisfy her on that count.”
“Jack, may I have a word?” Colin asked. Amity watched as they stepped into the corridor and wished she could follow and listen to what they were saying.
“Do you trust Colin?” she asked Jeremy, taking his hand in hers.
“Hargreaves?” he asked. “With my life. There’s not a more honest bloke alive.”
“I do hope you are right. It seems impossible that Emily would have done this—I cannot believe she would hurt you in any way, even through me—but I am afraid we must consider every possibility.” Amity bit her bottom lip. “I hope you do not despise me for saying that.”
“I could never despise you, my love.”
“I have tried so very hard to befriend her.” A small sob escaped from her lips. The door opened and Madame du Lac entered, followed by Mr. Hargreaves and Jack.
“Cécile has anticipated our desire to speak with her,” Mr. Hargreaves said.
“You, as always, Monsieur Hargreaves, are too kind. I am merely responding to a note sent from Mademoiselle Wells, requesting that I meet you all here. Do forgive me if it pains you, Mademoiselle, but I have brought the hat with me.”
“Thank you, Cécile.” Colin took the box from her.
“I would ask you to remove the odious thing from my daughter’s presence at once,” Mrs. Wells said. “She has suffered enough already.”
“Of course,” Mr. Hargreaves said. “Will you accompany me, Cécile?” They quitted the room before Amity could think of a good way to stop them. She appreciated her mother’s concern, and she dreaded seeing the hat again, but curiosity about Mr. Hargreaves’s reaction to it consumed her.
“Why did you have to drive them away, Mother? I wanted to hear what they had to say. Why do you think I asked Madame du Lac to come here?” Amity balled her hands into fists and stormed toward the door. “I am going after them.”
13
Margaret and I did not hurry when making our way back to the train station, where, for verisimilitude, we would hire a cab to take us to the hotel. We thought it best not to return too early in the afternoon, as no one would believe that we had found any Roman ruins less than thoroughly satisfactory and worthy of at least a full day’s study. We stopped again at the park where we had earlier paused to watch the game of boules and sat on the same bench. I pulled out my Baedeker’s and consulted it for what was, I am sorry to say, a somewhat meager description of the ruins at Fréjus.
“I am fairly certain there is an aqueduct there,” Margaret said, shielding her eyes with her hands. The angle of the sun proved most inconvenient. “Mr. Michaels gave me a lecture on everything I ought to see while in the south of France, and I do recall an aqueduct. Yes. Yes. That was definitely in Fréjus. There may be an arena as well, but very badly preserved. Or perhaps it was a theater. I’m hopeless.”
“I think it unlikely the others will know anything about the ruins,” I said. “Furthermore, they are even less likely to be interested in hearing much about them.”
“How can you be so unfair to your own dear husband?”
“Colin will take whatever we say as necessary, even if he knows it to be incorrect. We can trust him absolutely.”
“He hasn’t the slightest idea what we have been doing?” Margaret asked.
“He doesn’t need to. He will recognize that there is more to our story the moment he spots a factual error in it.”
Margaret took off her gloves, bent over, rubbed her hands in the dirt on the ground, and then smeared it, first down my left cheek and then across her nose. “No one will believe we have been climbing on ruins if we look so well put together. We should be dusty and perspiring.”
“Truly, Margaret, you ought to abandon classics and pursue the theater. We do not need to be covered with dirt.” I wiped my face with my handkerchief.
“That is perfect,” Margaret said. “Now it looks as if you have tried to clean yourself up, which is exactly what you would have done after a day in the field. I shall leave mine untouched. No one who knows me thinks I would bother to make the effort, particularly when
Mr. Michaels is not here.”
“Anyone who knows Mr. Michaels would be well aware that he prefers you covered in ancient dust.”
“Quite right, Emily. Could I have married anyone who thought differently?”
We sat in the park for two hours before starting the walk back to the station. We paused in the telegram office there to send a message to Hélène at her mother’s house, asking that she contact me immediately. That done, we climbed into a cab and returned to the hotel, looking much the worse for wear.
“I am surprised to see none of our friends on the terrace,” Margaret said as we walked past it. “I thought they had more or less taken up residence there.”
“I am glad,” I said. “This gives us the opportunity to speak with Colin in private before having to face everyone.” We went up to my suite, where my husband and Cécile were standing by a corner table, their heads bent over a hatbox.
“What ho?” Margaret flopped onto the divan that faced the windows. “You must have met with success on your shopping expedition if hats have been purchased. Cécile, I do hope it wasn’t too very of us to have left you alone with them—”
“Too very is a compliment, Margaret,” I said, ribbing my friend with my elbow as I sat next to her. “At least so far as I can tell.” We both dissolved into laughter, stopping only when I noticed the stern look on Colin’s face.
“I am afraid things took a rather unexpected turn here today,” he said. “Someone—the desk clerk says it was you, Emily—left a parcel for Amity this morning.” I crossed to him, peered into the box on the table, and stared, rueful, at the sad remains of what had once been a lovely little hat.
“I recognize that,” I said. “Amity had admired it in a store window.”
“Yes,” Colin said. “And now she believes you bought it, destroyed it, and gave it to her.”
“I would never do that. You must know—”
“Bien sûr, Kallista,” Cécile said. “No one of intelligence could give credence to the idea.”
“Were you at the desk this morning?” Colin asked.
“Only to turn in my room key,” I said. “The concierge summoned a cab to take us to the train station.”
“Didn’t he call to the bellman?” Margaret asked.
“Yes, I think that is right,” I said. “The lobby was crowded when we were leaving. The desk clerk had a queue of people waiting to check out, so I stood at the desk for a while, but in the end left the key on it without speaking to anyone. I may have crossed back over to the concierge’s desk after that, but I can’t be sure.”
“Do you remember seeing this box on the counter next to you?” Colin asked.
“I don’t, but I am not certain that I would have noticed it.” I inspected the container. “I did not write this label.”
“No, it is not your handwriting,” Colin said. “I have already visited the shop from whence the hat came, and the girl there told me that a fashionable lady of medium height and slim build purchased it. She could not remember eye color, but thought her hair was fair, although it was covered with a hat and a veil.”
“That could be nearly anyone,” Margaret said. “My hair is dark as midnight on a moonless night, but with the right hat and veil I could probably appear fair.”
“Possibly,” Colin said. “Please do not try.” Margaret pursed her lips and refrained from replying, but I could see her mind working. No doubt, before long, we would see her attempt at passing as fair-haired.
“Did the shop girl recall writing the label?” I asked.
“She did not. She wrapped the hat in tissue, and placed it in the box, which she tied up with string, but she said the shop does not use that sort of label.”
The label—more of a tag, really—was of a thick rectangle of cardstock with a reinforced hole punched in one corner, through which a bit of red ribbon had been threaded so that it might be tied to the string fastening the box. “I do wish there were something about it that seemed out of the ordinary, but I am afraid it is the sort of thing that could be purchased nearly anywhere,” I said.
“We could hardly hope that whoever did this would have used monogrammed stationery,” Colin said. His dark hair tumbled over his forehead as he leaned down toward the table, and his eyes flashed. He never was more handsome than when his mind was fixed on an investigation. “I wonder if there is a connection between this and the incident on Sainte-Marguerite?”
“And your invitation to Mrs. Wells’s dinner,” Margaret said. “I do not believe that she accidentally wrote the wrong time.”
“Are you suggesting someone did it deliberately?” Cécile asked. “I am not sure what Amity—or her mother—could have thought to accomplish by such an act.”
“Whoever did it made us—me—look rude and inconsiderate in front of our friends,” I said.
“No one cared,” Margaret said. “If anything, Mrs. Wells made herself look bad by reacting so strongly when you did arrive.
“It is as if someone wants your friends to turn against you,” Colin said. “First, by making it appear that you played a silly trick on us in the prison to get attention, then by ruining a dinner party, and finally by sending a nasty gift to Amity.”
“The hat was a misstep,” I said, pressing both of my palms against the table. “For even if you all decided I was lying about the prison cell and the time on the invitation, why on earth would I ever sign my name to this poor hat?”
“Perhaps, Kallista, we are meant to think exactly that,” Cécile said, shaking her head and sitting down in a chair near the window. “You would not do it—it would be foolish—and, hence, you do not look guilty, unless one believes you planned this episode carefully, to make it appear that someone else is trying to hurt your reputation.”
“I see your point, Cécile, but it is causing my head to throb violently,” Margaret said, following her and flinging open the doors to the balcony. The air was still heavy with heat.
“Amity doesn’t believe I am behind this, does she?” I asked. “And what about Jeremy?”
“Amity is shaken and not thinking clearly,” Colin said. “Jeremy is only looking to protect her.” I could tell from his tone that he had very little faith in Jeremy’s opinion on the matter.
“I must go to her without delay,” I said. “I cannot let her think I am skulking around avoiding her.”
“First perhaps you could tell us how it went with the dancers?” Cécile said. “I am most disappointed not to have met them myself.”
“Margaret can tell you,” I said, feeling extremely agitated. “I must see Amity now.”
Margaret had begun to warm to the topic even before I made my way out of the room and looked as if she were about to perform the cancan as a method of getting her audience into the proper mood. When I reached Amity’s suite, Jeremy opened the door to me, grave concern etched on his face. “What is going on, Em?”
“You cannot think I did this,” I said, keeping my voice low. He stepped into the corridor and pulled the door closed behind him. “Why would I ever have signed my name to such a thing?”
“I don’t know,” he said, his voice tense. He focused his gaze, so far as I could tell, somewhere beyond my shoulder. “Mrs. Wells insists you did it just so that you could say that it was so ridiculous it proves it wasn’t you.”
“Cécile postulated that someone might come up with that theory,” I said. “Why would I want to torment Amity like this?”
“I do not think you would, and neither does she.” He shifted his weight awkwardly and blew out a long sigh before finally looking directly at me. “The others, though, are having a more difficult time agreeing with us.”
“May I please speak with her?”
“She is sulking because I did not let her follow Hargreaves and Cécile when they took the hat.”
He reached around to open the door, but it had locked when he pulled it shut. We knocked, and Jack opened it, his mouth a hard line when he saw me.
“Lady Emily,” he sa
id. He had never before in his life addressed me by my title. I walked past him without comment and went straight to Amity, who was sitting next to Christabel on a divan identical to the one in my own room.
“Amity, I cannot express my dismay at your having received such a cruel present, and I want to assure you that I had nothing to do with it.”
Christabel looked away, but Amity met my eyes and smiled. “I knew you would never do such a thing. You’ve far too sophisticated a sense of the aesthetic to destroy a hat that lovely.” Christabel glared at her. “Oh come now, Christabel, stop being so sour. Emily has never been anything but kind and gracious to me.”
“Then who did it?” Christabel all but spat the words. I crouched in front of them.
“I understand your feelings, your anger, Christabel,” I said. “I share them, and I promise that I shall do everything I can to find out who is tormenting our friend.”
It was evident, both from the strained look in her eyes, and her little clenched fists, that Christabel was employing all of her will to keep from replying.
“You will help me, won’t you?” Amity asked. “Colin said he would as well. He and Emily stop murderers, Christabel. Do you really think they will have the slightest bit of trouble finding whoever played this prank?”
“Can you prove you didn’t do it?” Jack asked, standing up very tall and very straight, every inch the soldier. “Forgive me, Emily, but I must ask.”
“It is all but impossible to prove a negative,” I said.
“You were standing at the desk next to the box,” he said. “The clerk insists he remembers that.”
“That does not mean I put the box there,” I said. “Can I prove that I did not? No.”
“But we cannot prove that you did,” Amity said. “He admitted that he did not see her carrying the box or placing it on the desk. It means so much to me that you came to me directly, Emily. I knew you had nothing to hide. Now distract me with something more pleasant. Tell me about your day. Were the ruins spectacular? I would so have liked to see them. Next time, you must include me in your plans.”
The Adventuress Page 15
