Dressed for Death

by Julianna Deering

  Drew’s stomach twisted and roiled inside him. The man was a rotter through and through, and Drew had never seen it. Never suspected it. Everything in him balked at the idea. Not Mr. Cummins. Not Tal’s old governor. There had to be some mix-up, no matter what Birdsong said. He couldn’t . . .

  No. There was no getting round it. Drew had seen the man’s face. Shame. A touch of fear. Perhaps wary resignation. No protestations of innocence. No cries for help. No pleas for Drew to uncover the truth. Cummins had simply and quietly surrendered.

  He sighed, trying to rub the tightness out of the back of his neck. If he felt dumbfounded and betrayed, how must Tal be feeling? And poor Mrs. Cummins? He ought to go up and see if there was anything he could do for them. At the very least he should see how Madeline was getting along. After all, Tal and his mother were his friends, not hers.

  He trudged up the stairs, determined to be as comforting and supportive as he could manage, but when he reached Alice’s room, Madeline was coming out. Seeing him, she put one finger to her lips and drew the door shut behind her.

  “He’s just now fallen asleep,” she told Drew. “The doctor left him something, but he wouldn’t take it. His mother had to slip it into his water.”

  He put one arm around her, and they walked toward their own room. “Poor old girl, how is she?”

  “Trying to carry on. I don’t think she’s totally taken in what’s happened with Mr. Cummins. She keeps saying it will all be straightened out by morning.”

  Drew huffed. “He’s got no business doing this to them. None at all.”

  Madeline shushed him. “Wait until we get into our room.”

  Neither of them said anything more until they were in their own quarters with the door firmly shut. Then Madeline pulled him down onto the sofa beside her, her blue eyes wide.

  “Was it really cocaine? When I saw those girls in the powder room?”

  “I’m afraid so, darling. It seemed pretty obvious from the way they were acting that some sort of drug was involved. And when you told me about one of them having powder around her nose, I thought it must be cocaine. After Cummins sent them off, I thought that would be the end of it. I had no idea it would come to this.”

  “And now poor Alice is dead.” Madeline bit her lip. “Oh, Drew, what if she did get it from them? And I could have stopped them?”

  “It still wouldn’t be your fault, sweetheart.” He pulled her into his arms. “But I don’t think she took the stuff herself. I don’t think she knew she had taken anything.”

  “But who would give it to her deliberately? You know Mr. Cummins. Would he have done such a thing?”

  He shrugged. “I shouldn’t think so, but then again, I would have sworn blue that he’d never be involved in anything shady.” He put his head in his hands. “What kind of nitwit am I?”

  “What do you mean?”

  He shook his head, not looking up. “Here I fancy myself some sort of sleuth, able to see through the most accomplished liar, capable of discerning the most obscure motive, and I’m a drooling idiot.”

  “Of course you’re not.” She ran gentle fingers through the back of his hair. “How could you have known? He’s been deceiving people for decades.”

  Again he shook his head. “Not just Cummins. There have been others. People I thought I knew. People I would have vouched for. Sworn by. Someone so easily fooled has no business trying to solve crimes.”

  “Even his own family didn’t know. You’re not a mind reader. You hadn’t even seen the man in several years.”

  “But I should have known something was wrong. I mean, I did know. Or thought I knew, but I didn’t figure out what it was. What good is it to be meant to help people when you do nothing but stand by and let them die anyway?”

  “Come on,” she said, and she helped him out of his tailcoat and the satin waistcoat beneath. “Now sit down.” She guided him a few steps backward until he felt the bed against his legs and sat down. Then she knelt at his feet and began tugging at his shoe.

  “Here now, I can do that.”

  “I know,” she said. “And so can I.” She struggled with the first and then the second, but soon both shoes were tossed at the foot of the bed and she was sitting beside him on it, her arms around his waist and her head nestled against his shoulder. “Better now?”

  He dredged up a smile. “Truly, a man who finds himself a wife finds a good thing.”

  She said nothing for a long while, and he thought perhaps she had fallen asleep. Then she pressed a little closer to him, breathing warm against his neck.

  “I don’t know how to answer your questions, Drew. I’m not wise enough to see things as God sees them, and neither are you. But I don’t think we’re responsible for outcomes, just for doing what we’re called to do. And even then, we’ll never do it perfectly. But I believe He’ll use us anyway, if we let Him.”

  “And if, in our stumbling, we do more harm than good?”

  She nuzzled his neck, tightening her hold on him. “None of this is your fault, darling. But you’re willing to do all you can to help. For Tal and for his poor mother. I think that’s ministry as much as standing in a pulpit or feeding the poor. Doing what you’re made to do the best you can do it, even if it’s not the usual thing, glorifies God more than pushing yourself into a role you’re not suited for.”

  “I suppose,” he said, and then he surprised himself with a yawn. “I don’t think I can think about this any more tonight.”

  She leaned up to kiss his cheek. “Tomorrow will be soon enough.”

  The night passed wretchedly. Drew had lain awake until the sky lightened again with the coming day and then he finally fell into a fitful sleep. He woke to find Eddie lying across his neck and sound asleep, with Madeline at the door asking Plumfield to bring them breakfast in bed.

  They went through the usual morning routine until, shortly after ten, Beddows informed Drew that Chief Inspector Birdsong was in Mr. Cummins’s office waiting to see him.

  Birdsong sat behind Cummins’s desk, clearly having commandeered the room for his headquarters while he was investigating Alice’s death. Evidently, Endicott had done the same in the small sitting room across the corridor.

  “Do sit down, Mr. Farthering,” Birdsong said, and Drew complied.

  “I take it our Scotland Yard chaps have been keeping an eye on the house for some little while.”

  “They have,” the chief inspector said. “They’ve been trying to pin down Cummins on trafficking charges for several months now, but they haven’t been able to figure out how he gets the stuff into the country and up to his warehouse in London. They’re sure this French wine fellow is involved, but they’ve never been able to find anything on him. When the girl died, they decided they’d better make an arrest.”

  “They got here rather quickly last night,” Drew said. “How’d they know something had happened?”

  Birdsong shrugged. “Endicott told me they got a telephone call from one of their men. However it was, they want to stop the drugs coming into London. I want to stop them coming into Hampshire and, on top of that, I have to find out if Cummins had anything to do with Alice Henley’s death.”

  “Right,” Drew said. “I don’t know how much help I can offer, but I’ll certainly do my best.”

  “Fair enough. There is a small matter you might be able to clear up for me to begin with.” Birdsong reached into his coat pocket and drew out a long string of pearls with a diamond clasp. “I believe these belong to your wife.”

  “They do.” Frowning, Drew took them from him, only just then remembering the fabricated mystery had never been solved. Quite the detective, eh, Farthering? “Might I ask how you came by them?”

  “Bring him in, Griffiths.”

  The constable at the door nodded and disappeared into the corridor. A moment later, he brought in Laurent’s valet.

  The chief inspector smiled coolly. “One Mr. Edmund Adkins, gentleman’s gentleman. Seems he was in the process of ‘r
eturning’ them, but was interrupted when we happened to bring him in for questioning.”

  “It’s true,” Adkins said, a fierce scowl on his freckled pug-nosed face. “I didn’t want nobody else to take ’em off. If I hadn’t meant to hand ’em in, why’d I have ’em in so daft a place as my own pocket? With all the bother about the girl and Mr. Cummins, I might’ve stashed ’em anywhere.” He glared at Birdsong. “But don’t mind me. I know you lot. Never mind the swells when you can haul in a poor working-class bloke for anything that goes missing.”

  Drew studied him for a moment, keeping his expression mild. “And might I ask how you came by them?”

  Birdsong pursed his lips, and Adkins’s glare turned even fiercer. “I found ’em in the back of the mantel clock in the library, and I put ’em in my coat pocket for safekeeping. With all the fuss since last night, I never had the chance to give them back.”

  So that was why Madeline and Carrie had giggled every time they said “face” or “hands” or anything to do with time. Yes, he was a brilliant sleuth. Just deuced brilliant.

  “Ah. Well, good of you to finally get round to it.” Drew slipped the pearls into his own pocket. “Thank you. We hadn’t even thought to miss them yet.”

  Birdsong narrowed his eyes. “You don’t seem very surprised to hear where he found them. Was that your wife’s usual place to keep them?”

  Drew gave him a weary grin. “We were playing a game, a little mystery for Mrs. Farthering’s friend, Will Holland. Evidently Mr. Adkins found them first.” He turned again to the valet. “May I ask why you were looking in the back of the mantel clock in the library? I can’t imagine it’s one of your regular duties.”

  “I . . .” Adkins tugged at his collar as if it were suddenly too tight. “Well, I heard the clock chime, only it didn’t sound quite the thing, you know? I wondered if there might be something wrong with it. So when everyone had gone into dinner, I went and looked, and there they were. The pearls, I mean. I thought maybe someone was smuggling ’em out. Mrs. Farthering, she’s a nice lady. I didn’t want her to be unhappy at losing her necklace and all.”

  “Very considerate of you, I’m sure,” Drew said.

  Adkins snorted. “That’ll teach me to try to do a good turn. I’m just saying.”

  “That’s all, Griffiths,” Birdsong said. “You can take him out again.”

  P.C. Griffiths took the suspect by one arm. “All right, Sonny Jim, this way.”

  “Do you think he’s telling the truth?” Drew asked when they had gone.

  “I can’t say one way or the other,” Birdsong said, “but I’ve been asked to see if you would like to press charges in the matter.”

  “You’ve been asked?”

  Birdsong nodded.

  “I, uh, well . . . no, I suppose not. Now that we have the pearls back, I don’t see the point. But isn’t this sort of thing your province, as it were? Why didn’t you just ask me?”

  The chief inspector’s mouth tightened. “I’d’ve had him the minute they found the goods on him. But it seems he is a . . . person of interest in a larger investigation.”

  “I see. Scotland Yard wants you to let him go about his business until they figure out exactly what his business is.”

  “Got it in one.” Birdsong leaned in, lowering his voice. “Seems he has a history, and not just in service to the gentry.”

  Drew nodded. “Good of our Monsieur Laurent to give the man a second chance, eh?”

  “The good monsoor seems to find it in his heart to employ many who have taken a false step earlier in their lives. According to Endicott, almost all of his associates have been under investigation for one thing or another.”

  “And Laurent himself?”

  “Now there’s a puzzle.” Birdsong settled himself on the corner of the desk and crossed his arms over his chest. “Family in the wine trade time out of mind. Before the Revolution, if I remember right. If anyone had the means and opportunity to smuggle anything into the country, he would be the one.”

  “And?”

  The chief inspector shook his head. “Not a sausage. The French government have had leads from a number of suppliers that seem to indicate he’s a major player in drug traffic, though they never seem to catch him with anything. We’ve done our own investigations—I should say the Yard have—and still came up with nothing. Every cask, every bottle, every keg is declared and the duty properly paid.”

  Drew could see the smug look on Laurent’s face as he invited the police aboard his yacht and granted them permission to inspect whatever they pleased. “It would seem rather a coincidence that, thick as proverbial thieves, Cummins and Laurent aren’t somehow working together.”

  “Exactly. But how the stuff gets from Laurent’s warehouse in France to Cummins’s in London we have yet to figure out.”

  “I don’t think it comes through here,” Drew said. “The family don’t know anything about what Mr. Cummins was doing. He wouldn’t want them to. Surely he gets it up to London some other way.”

  “It seems rather a stretch of the imagination to think Monsoor Rémy Laurent, long-suspected trafficker in cocaine, comes back and forth from the Continent with cargo and docks here at the home of Mr. Sterling Cummins, long-suspected trafficker in cocaine, and the goods are transferred somewhere else? I suppose it’s possible.”

  Drew sighed. “Possible, but not very likely. Well, Scotland Yard can sort that out, can’t they? I’m more concerned about what happened to Alice Henley.”

  “We know precious little about that except she died from an overdose of cocaine. Your mate Talbot Cummins says someone had to give it to her on the sly, because she’d never have taken it on her own. Those two girls, Marlow and Deane, claim they never gave her any, nor ever saw her taking it. Sterling Cummins says he never gave her anything of the sort and would never have, but I’ll tell you a little story about that.” Birdsong leaned forward on the desk. “It seems more than likely she saw or heard something she shouldn’t have, and Cummins had to keep her from talking.”

  “What do you think she saw?”

  “Well, what would it be but proof of his involvement with the smuggling and how they’re bringing in the cocaine?”

  “And what does Mr. Cummins say to that?”

  Birdsong blew out his breath. “What would he say but that he did no such thing?”

  “It seems you have very little to go on. Is it really enough to make an arrest? What hard evidence do you have?”

  “Technically, we’re only questioning him on that at present, though it seems unlikely he wasn’t involved given the rest of his business venture.”

  “But he’s not denying the smuggling?”

  “No, he seems resigned on that point. But he says he won’t stand for being called a murderer.”

  “Well, a man must have his standards, eh?” Drew shook his head. “At least he’ll be able to tell you how the stuff was being brought into the country. And he can tell you how our Monsieur Laurent is involved, if he is.”

  “Oh, no,” said Birdsong. “That’s the fun bit. He says he won’t deny any of the smuggling charges. He doesn’t want a solicitor, though he’ll have to have one all the same. But he won’t say a word in his own defense, and he won’t tell us anything we don’t already know.”

  “Really?”

  “He’s afraid what will happen to his wife and son if he implicates anyone else now.”

  “I don’t suppose we can much blame him for that,” Drew said. “Some of these smugglers won’t stick at anything, and they don’t like to be betrayed by one of their own.”

  Birdsong scowled. “If he’d just tell us what we need to know, then we could make some arrests. And there wouldn’t be anyone on the outside left to make mischief for his family.”

  “I don’t suppose your lads can make one hundred percent sure of that, eh? Whatever he’s done, I can’t rightly blame Mr. Cummins for holding his tongue, if that’s his fear.”

  “He’s a determined cove,�
� Birdsong said. “I’ll give him that.”

  “You must have some fairly conclusive evidence against him on the smuggling.”

  “It’s something Scotland Yard have been working on for some time now. He has a warehouse in London, and there’s definite proof the contraband is coming out of there. How it gets in there before then is an entirely different question.”

  “Have you discovered anything helpful since the arrest?”

  “I interviewed Miss Henley’s friends, Georgie Deane and Violet Marlow, this morning. Separately, mind you. Miss Deane denied everything, even when I told her she’d been seen taking cocaine. She swore blue no one she knew would ever stoop to such a thing, certainly not Alice Henley.”

  “And Miss Marlow?” Drew asked.

  “She was a bit more helpful, once she calmed down enough to actually answer in complete sentences.” Birdsong looked faintly disgusted. “She admitted she and Miss Deane had been taking cocaine off and on all week, just for sport, but she said Miss Henley was afraid of the stuff and wouldn’t even get close to it. In fact, Miss Henley asked them not to use it while they were at Winteroak House, just as a favor to her. She didn’t want to upset Mr. and Mrs. Cummins.”

  “At least that agrees with what Tal said about her not taking the stuff. Did either of the girls say where they got the cocaine? Was it from Cummins, after all?”

  The chief inspector shook his head. “According to Miss Marlow, Miss Deane got it from a young man who’s been calling on her for the past few weeks.”

  “Fine fellow.”

  “We’ll have a word with him about this, never you mind. As far as the rest of the guests go, we were able to dismiss most of them late last night. We can’t see that any of them has any connection to the case.”

  “Most?” Drew asked.

  “Laurent, of course, has been given the option of staying here or joining us down at the station. I believe he’s elected the former.”

  “A wise man.”

  “The rest of Cummins’s guests have given their names and addresses and gone home.” Birdsong looked mildly annoyed. “And then there’s you lot.”