Death of a Debutante (Riley Rochester Investigates Book 1)

by Wendy Soliman

  ‘Oh, I had best bear Jane company. She isn’t like me, you see.’ Riley had no difficulty in believing it. His niece was unquestionably unique. ‘She feels awkward and never knows what to say to people.’

  Riley smiled as he led Sophia towards her friends. Before he could reach them, they were intercepted by Lord Ashton and his son.

  ‘Rochester, there you are!’ Lord Ashton, probably aware that everyone in the room knew that Riley was investigating the murder, greeted him with exaggerated bonhomie. Anyone observing them would be left with the impression that the two of them were on the best of terms and that Ashton was not a suspect in Emily’s murder. It was skilfully done, since they were unquestionably the centre of attention, but Riley was not best pleased to be ambushed. ‘What a pleasure,’ Ashton continued. ‘Will you introduce me to your delightful partner?’

  Riley was reluctant to do so, but had little choice in the matter. Terrance seemed very interested in Sophia and spoke to her for several minutes before Riley was able to excuse them.

  ‘They are the family who allow their guests to be murdered,’ Sophia said in an exaggerated whisper as they finally moved on. Her eyes were as wide as saucers. ‘Mr Ashton is very handsome but he seems dreadfully sad. Did he love Miss Ferguson very much?’

  ‘You are allowing your imagination to get the better of you, Cabbage,’ Riley responded. ‘Come, your friends are waiting.’

  Riley steered her in their direction and allowed Sophia to introduce him to the group. He left the girls to their whispering and returned to his family, where his mother introduced him to Lady Susanna. She was a pretty little thing—delicate and trim—and probably not much older than Sophia. Ye gods! Riley whisked Amelia away when a waltz conveniently struck up.

  ‘Your mother will never speak to me again,’ Amelia said with an exaggerated sigh.

  ‘Count yourself lucky. How old was that chit? My mother should know better,’ Riley replied shortly.

  ‘Well, at least Sophia appears to be enjoying herself.’ They watched Sophia, chattering away in the centre of her group of friends. She waved to Riley as he waltzed past her with Amelia in his arms. He winked at her as he waved back. ‘Were we ever that young and unjaded?’

  ‘You still are.’

  ‘We have never danced before. Do you realise that? Not in all the years we have known one another.’

  ‘An oversight which I shall take every opportunity to rectify. You and Cabbage are the only ladies in the room whom I have any interest in dancing with.’

  ‘And you dance superbly, damn you. Why do you have to be so proficient at everything you do, Riley? It’s rather daunting.’

  ‘My chief inspector would offer you a long list of my many faults. I shall introduce you to him, if you like.’

  Amelia’s feet seemed to glide effortlessly as they followed Riley’s into a spin turn. ‘Your chief inspector is jealous of your position and success.’

  ‘My professional success reflects upon him, but he still seems to resent it.’

  ‘He probably thinks you are playing at being a detective as some kind of rich man’s hobby.’

  ‘That’s exactly how he feels,’ Riley agreed.

  ‘Oh, that went quickly,’ Amelia complained when the dance came to an end.

  Riley privately agreed, but also thought it just as well. He had enjoyed holding Amelia in his arms a little too much, pretending not to notice his mother frowning at him whenever he passed her chair.

  ‘Don’t worry about your mama,’ Amelia said, as if reading his thoughts. ‘Sophia will be out in another couple of years and that will give her an alternative focus for her ambitions.’

  ‘Poor Cabbage,’ Riley said with a wry smile.

  ‘Your niece is remarkably forthright and knows how to stand up to her grandmother with enough charm and innocent guile to get herself out of anything she would prefer not to do.’ Amelia placed her hand on Riley’s arm as they returned to the family group. ‘Beneath that gruff exterior, your mother has a kind heart.’

  ‘Lord Riley. Mrs Cosgrove.’ Lord Ashton intercepted them for a second time. ‘I did not anticipate having the pleasure of seeing you here tonight. You didn’t mention your intention earlier, Mrs Cosgrove.’

  ‘Was there any reason why I should have shared my plans with you?’ Amelia asked, an edge to her voice.

  ‘We could have offered you a lift, had we known.’ Amelia’s frosty expression eventually penetrated Ashton’s hard shell and he turned towards Riley. ‘I am relieved to hear about this young friend of Emily Ferguson’s. Clearly you have got your man. Thank the lord that we can put this wretched business behind us.’

  ‘I haven’t interviewed any of Emily’s friends,’ Riley replied curtly.

  ‘Then perhaps that’s what you should be doing tonight, rather than waltzing.’

  Riley fixed Ashton with a vitriolic look that caused him to recoil. ‘Please don’t tell me how to discharge my duties.’

  ‘Oh, don’t take offence. I didn’t mean to imply—’

  ‘I’d ask you how you already know about such an important break in the case, but I know my superior officer too well,’ Riley snapped, and excused them from Ashton before he completely lost his temper.

  ‘Damn it!’ he muttered.

  ‘How did he know?’ Amelia asked.

  ‘Danforth,’ Riley replied. ‘My chief inspector goes to him like a trained lapdog. He lets Ashton bully him, and tells him things about the case that he damned well shouldn’t. Excuse my language.’

  ‘I have heard worse and survived the experience.’

  ‘I shall have to move fast. Faster than had been my intention to interview the young man and either charge or exonerate him. Ashton will tell all and sundry that he was right and an intruder did commit the crime, rumours will circulate and the poor lad won’t stand a chance.’ Riley wanted to thump his fist against something in frustration. ‘How the devil Danforth rose through the ranks I shall never know.’

  ‘Do you think Ashton bribes him to keep him informed?’

  ‘It has crossed my mind, but I doubt if he can afford it. Anyway, he’d do it for nothing. He likes to think he has friends in high places who can be useful to him and he’s too stupid to realise he’s being exploited.’

  ‘How difficult for you. It must seem as though you are fighting the criminals and your own superior at the same time.’

  ‘Very much so. Have you had enough of all this?’ he asked, waving a hand at the room.

  She glanced back at Ashton, who was still watching them. ‘Absolutely,’ she replied.

  ‘Then I shall take you home. I have another early start in the morning.’

  ‘By all means.’

  ‘Ah, Riley, there you are.’ His mother dredged up a smile. ‘We are about to go in to supper. You can escort me.’

  ‘Sorry, Mother, but I have to leave. I only came so that I could dance with Sophia.’

  ‘Leave?’ His mother sounded scandalised. ‘You only just got here.’

  Riley kissed his mother and sister, shook Daniel’s hand and gave Sophia a hug. ‘Behave!’ he told her.

  ‘Me?’ She sent him an innocently sweet smile. ‘I always do.’

  ‘That’s what worries me.’

  Riley was still smiling when he left the house. A gentle breeze, the first for days, had risen. It was not unwelcome. Behind the gas lights the leaves on the trees that lined the street were stirred by it.

  ‘Perhaps we are finally about to see the back of this stifling heat,’ Amelia said, lifting her face to the breeze.

  Stout halted the landau in front of them and Riley helped Amelia into it, retaining possession of her hand as the conveyance moved forward. Amelia didn’t attempt to snatch it back.

  ‘Thank you for tonight,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry that my mother was so impolite to you.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I knew that she would be. She has set ideas about who should and should not be involv
ed with her family. I am definitely fall into the latter category.’

  ‘That’s where my mother and I disagree.’

  Riley had always resisted the temptation to discuss his feelings with Amelia, but something about the way she had been treated that evening—and how she had reacted to it with strength and grace—changed things. He could no longer pretend that he didn’t care for her. She was the only woman of his acquaintance who could rouse him to anger, laughter, passion, exasperation…and jealousy. He was irrationally jealous of Ashton’s interest in her, even though it wasn’t returned. But he had noticed a similar interest in the eyes of a lot of the men in Lady Bilton’s ballroom. Several of them were eligible, and were under similar pressure to Riley to find a wife.

  He couldn’t bear to think of her sharing a bed with any of them. Had the time come to make the ultimate commitment? And would she have him, if he declared himself? Had she not earlier denounced all men as unnecessary? Riley decided that he needed to distance himself from her and think the matter through in a rational manner, without the distraction of her…well, distracting presence.

  The carriage arrived outside Amelia’s house. Riley alighted and escorted her inside. He declined her invitation to remain for brandy, kissed the back of her hand and again thanked her for her company. He then astonished himself, and clearly her, by fleetingly—very fleetingly—covering her lips with his own.

  He glanced back from the doorway as he took his leave. She stood just where he had left her, in the centre of her entrance vestibule, looking dazed as she touched her fingers to the lips he had just kissed.

  ‘What did the coachmen have to say?’ he asked Stout when he joined him in Riley’s reception room, having stables the horses.

  ‘Ashton’s man was the centre of attention.’

  Riley grunted something unintelligible and impolite as he raised a brandy glass to his lips and took a healthy swig of vintage cognac.

  ‘He told everyone that you had caught the cove who killed the girl. Seems it was a friend of Miss Ferguson’s who broke into Lord Ashton’s grounds and did for her in a fit of jealous rage.’

  ‘Damn!’

  Riley swallowed the remnants of his drink and stomped off to bed, cursing Ashton, Danforth and the chain of gossip that had so readily spread such a false rumour. He thought of Amelia, but the confused jumble of emotions he entertained for her failed to smother his disgruntled mood. He flung the bedroom window wide and lay on his bed as sleep refused to come, watching a half moon hanging in a clear sky and listening to a fox barking for its mate.

  Chapter Eleven

  Riley arrived at the Yard early the following morning, grainy-eyed and irritable as a result of his largely sleeplessness night. He was still fuming because Danforth had, wittingly or otherwise, forced his hand.

  ‘At least news of an arrest ain’t in the newspapers this morning,’ Salter, to whom Riley had vented at some length, pointed out. ‘Either they haven’t heard yet, or the news broke too late for the morning editions. What will you do? Talk to Danforth?’

  ‘Absolutely not.’ Riley glanced at the clock. ‘If Peterson and Harper have followed the instructions I gave them last night, they will already be on the way back here with Grant. You and I will interview him, Salter, and see what he has to say for himself. How much of that we repeat to Danforth remains to be seen.’

  ‘In other words, unless you can prove beyond measure that he is guilty, you’ll move heaven and earth to prevent Danforth from insisting upon charging him.’

  Riley ground his teeth. ‘Precisely. Let’s hope he was miles away from Knightsbridge at the time of the murder and has witnesses to vouch for him. Otherwise…’ Riley shook his head. ‘Ashton has made sure that half the world thinks he’s guilty, so it will be an uphill struggle for the lad to clear his name.’

  ‘Even if he didn’t do it.’

  ‘Quite.’

  Constable Peterson knocked and stuck his head round the door.

  ‘Grant is here, sir.’

  ‘What do you make of him?’ Riley asked, beckoning the young constable into his office.

  ‘Very distraught over the death of Miss Ferguson. Looks like he hasn’t slept for a week. But I didn’t ask him nothing. Thought it best not to. He came along with us with no fuss. It was like he’d been expecting us.’

  ‘Does he strike you as the murdering type?’ Salter asked.

  Peterson scratched his head, as though he failed to understand why he was being asked to express an opinion. ‘He’s very artistic by all accounts,’ he said eventually. ‘Passionate types, the artistic lot, so I’m told. He seems harmless, but it’s hard to say what he might be capable of, if roused.’

  ‘Very well. Thank you, Peterson. Sergeant Salter and I will take matters from here.’

  Riley stopped at the front desk on his way to the interview room and exchanged a few words with the Sergeant Barton, who had been reluctant to offer Peterson and Harper’s services to Riley. Detective Constables Carter and Soames had been assigned to other cases and so Barton was expected to provide any further manpower that Riley required. But that didn’t mean he had to be happy about it. Riley always made a point of thanking him and hastened to do so now.

  ‘Didn’t have a lot of choice,’ Barton replied dismissively.

  ‘You’ll get dozens of reporters in here this morning, wanting to know who we have in custody and using all sorts of tricks to get past you. Not a word, Barton. I can rely on you to make sure no one else speaks out of turn too, I trust. Despite rumours to the contrary, there’s nothing to say that the lad we’ve brought in has anything to do with this whole sorry business.’

  Barton gave a reluctant nod. He might resent the Detective Department, but he disliked newspaper men even more. ‘I’ll do my best, but the word I’m hearing is that the case is already solved. I knew that couldn’t be right. Anyway, none of those newspapers types will get anything out of me and I’ll flay any of my lot alive if they speak a word to them.’

  Glad to have made a little headway with Barton, Riley nodded his appreciation. ‘Good man,’ he said.

  Riley and Salter entered the bare room that was kept for interviewing suspects. It was a glorified cell with walls that had been painted a dull green long before Riley’s time. The paint was now peeling in places and the space smelt of mould. There was one small window, covered with bars, so high up in the wall that the limited amount of light it let in failed to reach the level of the suspect. The atmosphere was intimidating, and Riley had long ago formed the opinion that such austere surroundings were more likely than not to encourage a confession just so that the accused could escape its confines. Since more often than not the suspects in question were guilty of the crimes they were arrested for, that seemed reasonable to Riley. The only thing that could be said in favour of the room was that it was cool, almost to the point of chilliness. In the centre of the room was a table and three chairs, in one of which Grant was sitting.

  One glance at Grant persuaded Riley that his devastation was no act. Thick blond hair flopped over enormous eyes that were blotchy and swollen. He leaned both elbows on the rickety table and stared sightlessly at the opposite wall, totally lost in his own misery. Riley exchanged a look with Salter, who shrugged. Grant was definitely not the type they usually entertained in these salubrious surroundings.

  ‘I am Detective Inspector Rochester and this is Sergeant Salter,’ Riley said briskly, taking one of the two chairs opposite Grant, leaving Salter standing. ‘You are Harry Grant?’

  Grant’s head shot up, and he regarded Riley through bloodshot eyes.

  ‘Emily is dead.’ He shook his head, sending a shock of hair that would benefit from a wash cascading over his eyes. ‘It’s true. I know it’s true, but I still can’t accept that she’s dead. She wouldn’t leave me. She just wouldn’t.’

  Tears spilled down his cheeks. The young man was probably the same age as Emily, perhaps younger, since his skin was still sm
ooth, untroubled by a razor. His hands were delicate, with long fingers that would provide the necessary reach to produce a piano sonata or to squeeze the life from a young girl’s neck. Grant was dressed respectably, albeit without a tie or waistcoat. Riley doubted if he had been sleeping, but he’d definitely dressed in a hurry. His coat was serge green, with bright brass buttons.

  And a button on the right sleeve had been ripped off, taking some of the fabric with it.

  Riley shared a glance with Salter and could see from his grim expression that his sergeant had noticed the missing button, too. Riley feared that they had found their murderer.

  ‘News of the young lady’s death has been in the papers for two days,’ Riley said curtly. ‘She was a close friend of yours, you are greatly distressed by her demise. It should follow that you would like to see her murderer pay for his crime.’ Riley allowed a significant pause, watching Grant closely all the while, surprised when he didn’t break the uneasy silence that settled over the dingy room like a wet blanket. Most people, in Riley’s experience, especially those with guilty consciences, were uncomfortable with silences and sought to fill them with justification, denial or idle chatter. But Grant was trapped in his own form of living hell and seemed oblivious to tense atmosphere. ‘I can’t help wondering why you didn’t come to see me before now, instead of leaving me to come to you,’ Riley concluded eventually.

  Salter stepped forward and rested his fists on the table before Grant. He leant down until his face was only a few inches from Grant’s. ‘Or maybe you hoped we wouldn’t learn of your existence?’ he asked.

  Harry Grant leaned back and wiped the tears away from his face with one hand, tapping out a complicated rhythm on the table top with the fingers of the other hand. Music, Riley thought. He’d lost himself in a musical world, didn’t seem to hear the questions being fired at him and certainly made no attempt to answer them. Riley lost patience with him, hardened his heart, suppressed his doubts about Grant’s guilt and brought the palm of his hand down onto the table. The loud slap had the desired effect. Grant’s entire body jerked and he finally looked directly at Riley.