“Eh, Mother?” said her husband, cupping one hand to his ear.
“I said it was a surprise when the gentleman was brought in!”
Drew smiled and nodded at the old man, trying not to cringe at the near shout. “Yes, it must have been. Well, we’ll just take him on home and be out from underfoot.”
He managed to get Beaky to his feet. Madeline took his battered hat and put it firmly on his head, and between the two of them they got him into his coat and gloves. Sabrina stood to one side, watching the whole process, and Drew couldn’t decide quite how to read her expression. Fearful? Bewildered? As usual, she didn’t give away much, but there was something there.
Beaky leaned heavily on Drew’s shoulder and, hopping on his good leg, got down the walkway without much trouble. He got a shoe full of slush at the curb and twisted his bad wrist trying to lower himself into the back seat, but otherwise the operation was a success, and they were all soon back at the Lodge.
“I’d better get Anderson to help him to bed,” Sabrina said once they were inside.
“We can manage,” Drew told her. “Don’t you think so, old man?”
Beaky looked at the curved stairway that led to the upper floor. “I think so. Don’t you worry, Sabrina, darling. I’ll be right as rain before long.”
“I wonder you didn’t kill yourself,” she said. “I told you to be careful in this weather.”
“I was,” he said, leaning more heavily on Drew. “It was just an awful time for the brakes to go, and there’s not a lot I can do about that.”
“Had you been having trouble with them?” Drew asked.
“I didn’t usually drive the Austin. I don’t know. Had you noticed anything wrong, Sabrina?”
She shrugged. “No. But you know I don’t know anything about cars beyond driving them.”
“I’m glad you weren’t driving tonight. You drive much too fast as it is, and you might have gotten into a worse crack-up than I did.”
“I drive fast because I’m a better driver than you are. More than likely, I would have made the turn and not wrecked the car.” She sighed. “I did rather like that one.”
“And you shall have a new one, my sweet,” Beaky promised. “The very moment I’m back on my feet.”
“I don’t think you ought to still be on your feet right now,” Madeline said. “Shouldn’t you get him up to his room, Drew?”
“Right away, darling.”
They all trooped upstairs to find Miss Windham and a pair of maids in the master’s room, stoking the fire and warming the sheets and generally making things cozy. Beaky’s valet had laid out his night gear and was waiting to help him into it. Seeing they were no longer needed, Drew and Madeline went back down to the drawing room, where Miss Windham had said that sandwiches and tea would be waiting. Sabrina followed them down.
“I was afraid something was wrong,” Sabrina said, her mouth tight. “I could just feel it.”
Madeline took her arm and sat her on the sofa and then poured her some tea. “I’m glad it wasn’t any worse. Too bad about your car, though.”
Drew took a cup for himself. “I don’t much care for what Beaky said about the brakes. About their going all of a sudden. That’ll have to be looked at.”
“I don’t think it’s any use.” Sabrina set down her cup and lit a cigarette. “From what he said, the thing’s a complete loss, even if the brakes could be repaired. I’m sure it’ll have to be hauled away.”
“I’m not worried about repairs,” Drew said. “I’m wondering if someone didn’t mean for there to be an accident tonight.”
She laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. “Don’t be absurd. Who in the world would want to kill Beaky?”
“Who wanted to kill the vicar? And Miss Patterson?”
Sabrina picked up her cup. “But he almost never drove that car. Who would have known he would take it this time? Usually I—” The cup made a faint rattling noise against the saucer, and she set it down swiftly. “Usually I drive it.”
He said nothing in response.
Madeline’s eyes were round. “Drew, you don’t think . . . ?”
“I don’t think anything just yet. We’ll have to have the car looked at before we can even begin to consider it wasn’t just a breakdown.”
Sabrina shoved her teacup away and picked up her cigarette. “It doesn’t make sense,” she muttered, almost to herself. “None of it makes sense.”
“Do you know of anyone who might want you out of the way?” Drew asked.
She shook her head, making the perfect curl of fair hair against her cheek tremble.
“Don’t worry about it tonight,” Madeline said, giving Drew a reproving glance. “It was probably just an accident.”
“Right,” Sabrina said, a little tremor in her voice. “Right. Of course.”
“Come on,” Madeline said, holding out her hand. “Why don’t you go on up to bed, too? You’ll feel better out of those fussy clothes and into a hot bath. Things always look brighter in the morning.”
Sabrina rubbed one eye with her fist, smearing her mascara. She nodded and followed Madeline away like a child.
“Is she settled in?” Drew asked when Madeline returned several minutes later.
“Louise was seeing to her. I’m sure she will be fine. Thank God, Beaky wasn’t seriously hurt.”
“Yes,” Drew said. “Funny, don’t you think, that Beaky just happened to be driving her car today?”
Madeline nodded. “No matter what she says, it’s a good thing he was driving and not she. She would have been in a much worse fix, especially trying to climb out of that ditch.”
“Or there might not have been a fix at all.”
For a moment she looked puzzled. Then she looked cross. “Exactly what are you trying to say? You saw how upset she was.”
“Upset because he was in an accident? Or because it wasn’t fatal?”
She gave him a cool glance. “That’s a rather horrible thing to say, don’t you think?”
“It’s a rather horrible thing to do.” He glanced toward the door, only then noticing she hadn’t shut it behind her. “If you want to hear me out, perhaps we’d best talk in our room.”
He offered her his arm, but she merely swept out ahead of him and hurried up the stairs. He followed her up and, making sure their bedroom door was firmly shut, sat beside her on the divan in front of the window.
“Just exactly what are you accusing her of?” Madeline asked when he didn’t immediately speak.
“Nothing. Yet.”
“But what are you thinking?”
“It just seems quite the coincidence that those brakes should fail on one of the rare times he’s driving her car, and at the same time his car happens to be out of service.”
“I agree,” she said. “It seems like a very sloppy way to get rid of Beaky, if that was the plan. Why not just fix the brakes on his car?”
“That wouldn’t do. Not if one wanted to give the impression that Sabrina was the intended victim and Beaky had just been in the wrong place at the wrong moment.”
“And if that really is the case?”
“It would be quite the coincidence.” He gave her a look that plainly said he thought she knew better. “Do you genuinely believe it was? Just that?”
She sighed and began unpinning her hair. “It does seem awfully convenient. But it could have happened that way.”
“Yes, I grant you, it could.”
“But if it was all planned, as you say, someone had to have tampered with Beaky’s car before Sabrina’s. You don’t suspect their chauffeur, do you?”
Drew frowned. “I’ll talk to him, of course, but from what I’ve seen of him, he seems rather stolid and loyal.”
“Anyone might be paid off, you know.” Madeline undid her bracelet and then slipped off her rings, apart from her wedding band and engagement ring. “And who else would have had the opportunity or the means?”
“Think back, darling. When did the Be
ntley start having trouble?”
“After dinner. At Westings.”
“Precisely. And no doubt our stolid and loyal chauffeur was in the Grays’ kitchen all night with his feet up by the fire, having a mug of cider and whatever was left of our boeuf bourguignon and chatting up the parlormaid. Anyone could have gone out to the drive and done a bit of mischief. Anyone who’s familiar with engines.”
“Drew,” she breathed, “you don’t mean—?”
“Morris likes cars. Very much.”
“So you think Morris wanted to kill Beaky? Over Sabrina?” she demanded.
“Morris also likes art. And literature. And romantic foreign places.”
She wrinkled her brow, clearly not following him now.
“Think of what Nick and I saw in the lime kiln. Novels about stormy romances and forbidden loves, fine wine.” He raised an eyebrow. “Sonnets.”
“I’ll admit it does seem more like a trysting place than a murderer’s lair, but Morris Gray is certainly not the only man in the world to use a poem or a love story to seduce a woman.” She looked rather disgusted. “You’ve certainly dropped Delwyn as a suspect awfully suddenly.”
“Oh, no,” he said. “It’s decidedly not Delwyn. Not there anyway.”
“How can you be so sure?”
He stepped on the back of his left heel with his right foot, pulling off his shoe in a way that would have made his valet, Plumfield, come near tears. “Opportunity, my love. Delwyn lives in his own cottage away from everyone else. Alone. If he wanted to entertain a visitor, no one need ever know it.” He pulled off his right shoe just as he had done the left. “Morris Gray lives with his wife and father and a houseful of servants. For him, a trysting place, no matter how miserably tawdry, would be a necessity.”
She removed her necklace and put it with the rest of her jewelry in the velvet-lined case she had brought along with her. Then she slipped off her satin slippers and set them neatly in the bottom of the armoire with the others she had brought. Finally she came to stand before him again.
“You know you haven’t the slightest proof of anything.”
He shrugged. “I rarely do. But now it’s you who must be fair. It makes a bit of sense, doesn’t it?”
Her mouth tightened. She wasn’t going to admit it.
“Why do you feel you must defend her?” he pressed. “You barely know her.”
“I know she’s been hurt.”
He sat forward a little more. “She’s told you something.”
“No, not specifically, so don’t get that bloodhound look. I just . . . can tell.”
He leaned back again, disappointed. Madeline was a perceptive woman, often picking up on nuances of emotion that he himself missed. There was certainly more to Sabrina than her sophisticated and often-hard exterior, but what was it? Neither of them really knew. Not yet.
“So you haven’t the slightest proof of anything either.”
“No,” she admitted, and then her cold expression softened into regret. “Oh, I don’t know what to think. Of course I don’t know. And you don’t know. Everything you said about her and Morris is perfectly possible.” She sat next to him again, clinging to his arm. “I just don’t believe it. If you think Beaky is too dull and unattractive to suit her, how can you think poky old Morris would be? And enough to commit not one but ultimately three murders over?”
He gave her a sly little grin. “It’s hard to say what makes someone attracted to someone else. It’s not always what you’d think.”
Her lips twitched. “That’s my line.”
“It does seem a rather odd pairing. Perhaps, deep down, Sabrina is a romantic. Shall I woo you with poetry and romantic prose?”
That made her giggle. “You already do, and it’s terribly irresistible, but . . .”
“But?”
She considered for a moment, sobering once more. “I don’t know if it would be the least bit effective if I didn’t already love you. It certainly wouldn’t make me want to meet you out in some nasty hole in the ground or become a murderer.”
“But if someone else had found you out? The vicar? Your old nursemaid? If they knew and were going to spoil your comfortable and privileged situation by telling it to just the wrong person, mightn’t you? Perhaps the thing with Morris wasn’t anything like a grand passion. At least not on her part. She seems the type who might amuse herself with someone merely because she could. Perhaps even just to get one over on Frances. I hadn’t thought of that before. But Frances seems oddly unmoved by the idea of her husband making temporary liaisons. Westings will continue on.”
“But why kill Beaky, then?” Madeline asked. “If the two people who knew your secret were already dead and you didn’t actually want to be free to marry your lover, the man you were merely toying with, why go to the trouble of killing your husband?”
“So you could be free to marry the gamekeeper?”
“Ugh.” She poked his shoulder with one finger. “You’re incorrigible.”
“What? Didn’t you say Delwyn was the sort of fellow a woman might have a grand passion for?”
“Now you’re just running in circles.” She pushed away from him. “I’m going to wash my face and go to bed.”
She stood, but he caught her hand before she could take even one step. “I’ve thought of something to do for Iris.”
“Iris?”
“Midgley’s girl. You remember.”
Madeline thought for a moment. “I’m not sure you ever told me her name.”
“Didn’t I? Anyway, I thought we might go into the village in the morning and then go out and see her.”
Madeline looked faintly suspicious. “You want me to go with you this time? What if he’s there?”
“I happen to know he and Mr. Selden have a job of some sort tomorrow. Nick assures me that it’s nothing very illegal.”
“And meanwhile . . . ?”
He tugged her hand, urging her toward him so he could touch his lips to it. “Meanwhile you and I go out to visit Iris. You can tell her how much you admire her spinning, and at the same time look her over, and the cottage as well, and tell me if there’s anything I’ve missed.” Again he kissed her hand. “Even if I do bicker with you from time to time over it, I know I don’t always notice everything I ought. Especially about ladies and their particular ways.”
She tried to look annoyed. “You were going to say ‘peculiar,’ weren’t you?”
He grinned. “Either way. The point is that I wouldn’t be nearly so well off without your help. What do you say?”
“I still say you’re incorrigible, but I must be just as bad. What are we going to do for her?”
“We will, I hope, give her a passport to anywhere in the world she would care to go.”
Fifteen
The next day, as advertised, Drew and Madeline walked into Bunting’s Nest and made their way over to the Midgley cottage, Drew with a box under one arm.
She looked the place over when they approached it. “Not very nice, is it?”
“Not Buckingham Palace, for certain,” he said, “but it’s sound enough.”
He knocked on the door and immediately heard the scrape of the Midgley girl’s gun.
“Who’s there, please?” she asked, again with that forced calm that didn’t quite cover her wariness.
“Miss Midgley? It’s Drew Farthering here, and I’ve brought along Mrs. Farthering. I hope we haven’t come at an inconvenient time.”
She opened the door, her pale face puzzled. “I—I didn’t think you would come back.” She wiped her hands on her apron and gestured for Drew and Madeline to come inside. “I haven’t gotten to my tidying yet. I do hope things don’t look too very bad. My father—” she faltered—“if you’ve come to ask me about my father, I’m afraid I can’t tell you any more than I already have. He’s in and out of the house to the Lord knows where, and I certainly don’t.”
Madeline looked questioningly at Drew. He couldn’t keep the disappointment out
of his expression.
“I would be remiss, Miss Midgley, if I hadn’t asked about him, but that isn’t what we’ve come for.”
Iris made her way to one of the ladder-back chairs. “Please sit down.”
“We won’t stay but a moment.” Drew put the box down on the table. “If you would, Miss Midgley, allow me to present my wife.”
Again Iris wiped her hands on her apron and then dropped just a hint of a curtsey. “Good morning, Mrs. Farthering. I’m very pleased, I’m sure.”
“I’m the one who’s pleased.” Madeline took the girl’s outstretched hand. “I must tell you how much I enjoy knitting with your yarn. I’ve never had any that was so soft and smoothly spun.”
“You’ve come about my spinning?” The girl turned faintly pink. “You’re too kind, ma’am.”
“I don’t know how you manage it, not being able to see.” Madeline was somehow able to sound admiring and not patronizing and not the least bit awkward. “I don’t think I could do it.”
“Oh, I wasn’t born blind,” Iris told her placidly. “I had scarlet fever when I was twelve. My mother said they should have had the doctor come sooner, but it’s just as likely it wouldn’t have made any difference.”
“I’m so very sorry,” Madeline said.
“I can be sorry for myself or I can get on with things. That’s what Mum always told me.” A smile touched Iris’s pale lips. “And what I can’t see, I can imagine.”
Madeline went over to the spinning wheel, admiring the wool Iris had been working with, a soft shade of lavender that perfectly suited her coloring. Her eyes lit. “This is lovely, what you’re working on now. Is it promised to anyone?”
Drew made a note to himself to make sure they came away with some yarn that color.
“No.” Iris reached out to stroke the cloud of wool on the distaff. “Except I generally take most of it to Mrs. Preston to sell in Bunting’s Nest.”
“She wouldn’t mind if you sold us this now, would she?” Drew asked, and the girl gave a shy shrug.
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