An Act of Villainy

by Ashley Weaver

  “I’m sure I could hazard a guess,” Milo said.

  “I don’t think it was like that,” I said. “After all, the landlady said they always stayed in the sitting room and weren’t alone for long.”

  “You’d be surprised what can be accomplished when two people are alone for a short amount of time,” Milo said.

  I frowned at him. “I do wish you wouldn’t always think of things in a sordid way.”

  “I’m sorry to disillusion you, darling, but most things are sordid.”

  I didn’t agree with him, but now was not the time to have an argument about the state of British morality. Whatever Milo’s insinuations, I didn’t believe that Flora Bell and Balthazar Lebeau had been having an affair. But if it hadn’t been a secret relationship, what had it been? Why would he visit her at her home in disguise? It was all so very strange.

  “I might have pressed him on the matter, but I’m afraid he distracted me.”

  “Oh?”

  “He is going to try to get the part of Armand if Christopher Landon leaves the play.”

  “The Price of Victory starring Dahlia Dearborn and Balthazar Lebeau,” Milo intoned. “If that doesn’t work out for them, perhaps they may find success in forming The Society for Preposterous Pseudonyms.”

  I laughed. “It’s Mr. Lebeau’s real name. He told me so.”

  “And what else did he tell you?”

  “He had me read the lines with him, the scene right before Armand goes off to battle and must bid Victoire farewell.”

  Milo’s brows rose. “That’s the scene that ends in a passionate kiss, I believe.”

  “He’s a wonderful actor,” I said, ignoring the implied question. “I’ve heard for years about him, you know, but I didn’t realize…”

  “Until he held you in his arms,” Milo said dryly. “I’m sure it was a very touching scene.”

  “You aren’t the only man capable of dazzling women with good looks and charm.”

  I thought again about my encounter with Balthazar Lebeau. On a practical level, I could admit that I had been awed by him. I supposed it was natural to find oneself impressed by a celebrity. But, on a deeper level, I had been impressed by the depth I had seen in him, the way in which he could draw from some well of emotion to become an entirely different person before my eyes.

  He was capable of great deception. Perhaps all good actors were. What I wondered, however, was if he was also capable of violence.

  I remembered the way that his fingers had trailed across my throat. Had he done the same thing to Flora Bell when he strangled her? A chill ran through me.

  “Daydreaming about him even now?” Milo asked.

  I made a face. “I certainly was not. I was thinking about him as a suspect.”

  “You mean to say you weren’t sufficiently wooed to remove him from your list of potential killers?”

  “There’s more to him than meets the eye.”

  “The same can be said of most people,” he pointed out.

  “Yes, every last one of our suspects, in fact,” I said glumly.

  Milo reached out and patted my hand. “Don’t fret about it, darling. Things will work out.”

  I realized he was preparing to leave, and I found myself a bit disappointed. We had not, perhaps, quite resolved our argument about marriage, but I relished the easy closeness between us this morning.

  It seemed his thoughts had gone the same way as mine, for suddenly he paused, the hand that was on mine taking hold of it. “I’m very glad you’re all right, Amory. When I found you bleeding on the floor, I had the rather unpleasant urge to commit murder myself. If anything had happened to you…”

  “It will take more than a crack on the head to rid you of me, I’m afraid.”

  “I don’t ever want to be rid of you,” he said. His free hand reached up to cup my face. “I care about you more than anything else in this world. I hope you know that.”

  I looked into his eyes even as I fought the tears that threatened to spring to my own at this unexpected sentimentality. “I know,” I said softly.

  He leaned to kiss me gently then and rose from the bed. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. You will behave yourself?”

  “I’ll try,” I said with a smile.

  He left and I had no time to process this latest development in our relationship before Winnelda came back into the room.

  “I was terribly worried about you, madam,” Winnelda said. “When you were coshed on the head, I thought how dreadful it would be if you woke up and didn’t remember anything. I’ve heard of that. People get an injury to the head and sometimes they don’t remember their own name or where they came from. And you wouldn’t remember Mr. Ames. That would be an awful pity. Of course, I’m quite sure he could make you fall in love with him all over again, but I just think it would be so tragic if—”

  “Well,” I said, cutting her off, “let us be thankful I have not lost my memory or my love for Mr. Ames. I think perhaps you both worried more than the situation warranted.”

  “I think Mr. Ames is right, though, madam. You oughtn’t be wandering around the house.”

  “I’m not going to remain in bed all day, Winnelda,” I said firmly. “I won’t do anything ill-advised, I promise you.”

  She looked uneasy, as though she were afraid I might dart past her toward the door if she let her guard down for a moment. There was no chance of that. Though I didn’t intend to admit it, I felt as though I would much rather sit very still than do any moving about.

  “Perhaps you might draw me a bath,” I suggested.

  “I’ll draw one now,” she said, glad, I supposed, that there was no means of escape from the bathroom.

  I rose slowly and found that, thankfully, I was no longer dizzy. I went to the dressing table mirror to assess the damage. I did indeed have an ugly purple bruise. It ran from my temple almost to my hairline. Gingerly, I reached up to touch it and winced. Milo and Winnelda needn’t have worried I would be going out today; it would hurt too much to apply makeup to cover my injury.

  The bath did wonders, and by the time I had dressed and gone to the sitting room, I felt much more like my old self. I put on the radio and sat on the sofa, hoping the quiet music would soothe my thoughts and help me to make sense of everything that had happened. I did not have time for it to work, however, before there was a buzz at the door. A moment later Winnelda came into the sitting room.

  “Mrs. Holloway is here to see you, madam,” Winnelda said. “Shall I tell her you’re ill?”

  “No, no. Show her in, Winnelda,” I said, surprised. I had not expected Georgina to call.

  She came into the room and stopped when she saw my face.

  “Oh, Amory! What’s happened to you?” she asked.

  “I’m afraid I had something of an accident,” I said. Though this was not exactly true, I didn’t want to cloud our conversation with the particulars.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” she asked.

  “Yes, I’m quite well now.” In truth, my head still ached and even hard blinking caused a pain in my temple, but I did not intend to let that get in the way.

  “Sit down, will you? What brings you here, Georgina?”

  “I’m sorry to drop in on you unannounced like this,” she said, taking her seat. “But Gerard came home yesterday.”

  “Oh … I see,” I said. He must have gone there after he left our flat. I wondered if he had confessed to Georgina his worries about her guilt. It made me even more curious to know why Georgina had come to see me.

  “He told me that he had spent the night here.” I wondered if she doubted his word and had come to verify his story. Well, at least I could put her mind at ease on that score.

  “Yes,” I said. “He slept on this sofa. I’m afraid he wasn’t feeling well.”

  “Yes, I could see that,” she said dryly.

  There was a moment of somewhat awkward silence, and then Georgina charged forward.

  “I’ve come to you f
or advice,” she said.

  “Oh?” I said carefully. I wondered if she was about to ask for advice on their relationship, or if it could possibly have something to do with the murder.

  “Gerard has asked me to take him back. He wants to start again, but I don’t know if I can.”

  I hesitated. I was not exactly comfortable giving advice of this sort. After all, I was still learning to find my way in my own marriage, even after six years. Up until this week, I would have thought that the Holloways could have given us marital advice.

  “I’m sure you’ll make the right decision,” I said carefully.

  “Do you remember the moment you knew you were in love?” she asked suddenly.

  I was a bit surprised by the question, but I considered it. I had felt an attraction to Milo from the start. Most women did, of course. But there had been something between us that went deeper than that. Though I knew his reputation even then, I had felt that I understood him, that we complemented each other.

  His proposal had been sudden and unexpected, and it was the moment he had asked me to marry him that I had realized that I loved him deeply.

  “Yes,” I said at last. “I remember.”

  “I don’t,” she said softly. “I’ve loved Gerard for as long as I can remember.”

  I believed her. For as long as I had known Georgina, she and Gerard Holloway had always been a pair, their names spoken together as often as they were separately. Perhaps that was why it was so hard for me to see their marriage in this state. Their love had always seemed to be a fact, something that one knew so well to be true that it was never questioned.

  “We were children when we met,” she said. “I was perhaps five or six, he a bit older. We took to each other instantly. Our parents laughingly joked that we would marry one day, but to me it wasn’t a joke. I always knew that Gerard and I would be together forever.”

  It was a romantic story, and I felt again that sadness at the way such a strong bond had begun to crumble.

  “That’s why I knew this business with Flora Bell wouldn’t last,” she said. “He had a lapse in judgment, but it was only temporary. He loved me and I loved him. Flora Bell already had her eye on another prize.”

  I looked up. “What do you mean?”

  “There was someone else she was interested in.”

  “Do you mean Mr. Landon?”

  “I suppose so. I heard, just through gossip, mind you, that there was an actor she was very fond of. I always thought she was using Gerard for his connections, though I never would have said so to him.”

  “I see,” I said, considering this information. Had Miss Bell and Mr. Landon continued their liaison after she had become involved with Mr. Holloway?

  “So I was sure everything was going to be all right.” She paused. “But now that she is dead, things are different.”

  “How so?”

  She looked at me, the pain and worry evident in her eyes, though she was clearly trying to hide it. “I will never know what he really felt for her. He said he was going to break things off with her, but I will never know the truth. How do I know that he loves me and that he is not merely turning to me now that she is gone?”

  I hadn’t considered this and felt a fresh wave of pity for Georgina.

  “What would you advise me to do?” she asked. Her tone was so cool and composed. She might have been asking her solicitor for advice on a trivial matter. But I felt the weight of the question.

  I thought of my conversation with Milo this morning, of the doubts and insecurities that had sometimes plagued me. When taken in total, marriage had not been easy for me. The ups and downs of my life with Milo were not the stuff that fairy tales were made of. But when we had spoken this morning I had realized that what he said was true. A storm doesn’t necessarily mean shipwreck if the anchor goes deep enough. And then I realized the answer I would give.

  “Some things are worth fighting for,” I said simply. “You just have to decide if this is one of them.”

  She seemed to consider this. “Yes, perhaps you’re right,” she answered at last. “I shall have to think about it.”

  “You’re certainly entitled to do that,” I said. “And please know that, whatever your decision, you have a friend who is happy to support you.”

  She smiled at me, and I could see that some of the tension had left her posture. “Thank you, Amory. I appreciate that more than you know.”

  She rose then, brushing away any traces of sentiment. “I’m afraid I’ve kept you long enough. No, don’t get up. Your head is troubling you, isn’t it?”

  “A bit,” I admitted.

  “I can show myself out. I do hope you feel better. Perhaps we may have tea when … when things are more settled.”

  “I shall look forward to it.”

  She left then and I sat for a long while thinking over our conversation. There were still a great many impediments to the Holloways’ happiness, but perhaps it was not impossible after all.

  * * *

  AFTER GEORGINA LEFT, I found my headache had returned, and, though I had been inclined to fight it, I had followed the doctor’s advice and stayed in bed for most of the day.

  When I awoke from a nap, I felt much better. Winnelda brought me tea and another dose of medicine.

  “Mr. Ames called while you were asleep, madam,” she said as I took the tablets. “He told me not to disturb you and said he’d be home a bit later.”

  “Did he say where he was going?”

  “No, only that he shouldn’t be too late.”

  This meant, of course, that he hadn’t wanted to account for his whereabouts. I did hope he wasn’t putting himself in any danger.

  I wished there was something I could do to pass the time. I was starting to feel restless after a day spent doing nothing. If only there was a way to get more information without leaving the flat. A thought occurred to me suddenly.

  “Winnelda, did you have a chance to look through your scrapbooks?”

  Excitement flashed across her face before she did a poor job of suppressing it. “Yes, madam,” she said mildly. “But I don’t suppose we had better look at them now.”

  “Why not?”

  “It might not be good for your head.”

  “For heaven’s sake, Winnelda, go and get them,” I said. “They may be of use.”

  Needing no further urging, she hurried to fetch them. A moment later she returned with an armful of large, square books in a variety of colors.

  “Set them here,” I said, patting the bed beside me. “You can help me go through them.”

  She deposited the books beside me and then perched on the edge of the bed. “I’ve brought all my books, but I’ve marked the pages related to the people you mentioned.”

  “How very clever of you, Winnelda,” I said.

  She beamed. “I did want to be helpful, madam. As I said, my mum was sweet on Balthazar Lebeau, so I made a few pages about a play he was in.” She flipped through one of the books and then pushed it toward me. “There.”

  I looked down at the neatly cut clippings that she had pasted to the page. There was an article about a play that Mr. Lebeau was set to star in.

  “‘Balthazar Lebeau may soon be seen in the comedy Too Many Husbands,’” I read aloud. “‘This will be a departure from the more serious dramatic roles in which Mr. Lebeau has previously starred.’”

  “And here are the pages I did on Christopher Landon,” Winnelda said, handing me another book.

  I looked down at the page, a clipping with a photograph catching my eye, and for a moment I was very confused.

  I looked at the headline. “Christopher Landon and Helen Whitney Are Pleased to Announce Their Engagement.”

  Helen Whitney. That was apparently the name of the woman Mrs. Roland and Inspector Jones had mentioned, the woman who had drowned in the Thames after a troubled relationship with Christopher Landon.

  The article had obviously been written before they had parted for the last time, b
ut it was not the contents of the article that interested me. It was that photograph. I looked at it again, marveling.

  Helen Whitney had looked startlingly like Flora Bell.

  25

  BY THAT EVENING my headache was gone and there was only the tender, bruised lump on my temple to remind me of the ordeal and the mystery that plagued my mind. We were close. I could feel it, as though the solution was waiting for the curtains to be pulled back so it could make itself known.

  I felt, somehow, that I knew who the killer was and yet I could not make myself realize it.

  It seemed that the more I considered it, the harder it was to determine who might be lying and who was telling the truth. There were so many conflicting accounts and tangled stories.

  Perhaps the greatest difficulty arose from the fact that each of these people was accustomed to playing roles, to hiding the truth of their lives behind the characters they played. It was something they did on a daily basis. How much easier would it be for them to do it when their lives were on the line?

  It was a depressing thought. I reminded myself, however, that there had been other cases that had seemed hopeless, and they had always worked out in the end.

  As I always did when faced with a complicated problem, I began to make a list. As Winnelda protested about my sitting at the desk, I brought paper and pencil to bed and began working my way through the suspects.

  The most obvious, perhaps, was Gerard Holloway. After all, the lover was always the first to be considered. He and Flora had quarreled that night, and the crime had apparently been a crime of passion. The fight might have become violent. Such things were more common than one would like to think.

  Or had he been trying to break off their affair after Georgina had given him the ultimatum? I still had my doubts that he had meant to do so, whatever Georgina claimed. But, if he had, Flora might have refused to accept it. Perhaps she had threatened to create a scandal. Granted, most of London already knew about their dalliance, but she could draw things out, of course, sell her story to the gossip rags and drag his name through the mud. Mr. Holloway was a proud man from a good family. An affair was one thing, but a scandal was another. But was it enough to make him kill her?