by C. J. Archer
“Hopefully the police will arrive soon,” Harmony said with a glance at the clock. “If they don’t, make sure Peter calls them again.”
“Of course,” I said, thinking the same thing. The message he left last night must not have reached the detective inspector.
“I have to return to work,” Edith said, rising.
Harmony rose too, only to find her skirt trapped beneath Victor’s shoes. Instead of pulling it free, she glared at him until he drew his legs back, releasing the skirt. He put his hands up in surrender but didn’t offer an apology. Harmony marched out of the parlor behind Edith and the other maids. Victor watched her go, a small smile on his lips.
I left the cooks and returned to the foyer where I asked Peter if the police had arrived yet.
“Mr. Hobart just informed me they’re on their way,” he said through a smile as a guest approached his counter.
The foyer was even busier than before, with several guests milling about or arriving. I was surprised to see Aunt Lilian greeting many of them personally. She smiled brightly as she flitted between groups like a mauve butterfly, but a closer inspection revealed the dark circles under her eyes.
Flossy broke away from the women she was talking to and joined me. “There you are! I’ve been looking for you.”
“Your mother looks well this morning.”
Flossy pulled a face. “She’s cross with me. She just learned that the man she wanted me to marry isn’t coming to tonight’s ball.”
“The one with the interest in Egyptian archeology?”
She nodded. “Apparently her friend, his mother, said I’m not the right girl for him. Mother is blaming me for not putting more effort into capturing his interest. But honestly, I tried, Cleo. I truly did. I even asked questions about the temples in Egypt.”
“Do you mean pyramids?” I said, trying to keep a straight face.
“Perhaps you should try. He seems more your type, and you’re closer in age to him than I am.”
“I don’t intend to marry,” I told her.
She laughed, but when I didn’t join in, she blinked at me. “You’re serious.”
“Yes.”
“But…” She frowned and seemed to be grappling with the concept. To be fair, it must be an idea she’d never entertained. Perhaps she didn’t even know she could entertain it. “But there’s nothing wrong with you, Cleo. You might not come with a dowry, but a man with his own fortune will overlook that.”
I pressed my lips together to stop my smile from breaking free.
She patted my arm. “I’ll introduce you to some gentlemen tonight. Floyd has some friends who are in line to inherit. One or two are even good company.”
“I’m not going to the ball.”
Her pout returned. “Oh, Cleo, do change your mind. It’s not too late.”
I didn’t want to argue with her so I remained quiet.
“Isn’t that Mr. Hobart’s brother, the detective?” she asked.
I followed her gaze to see the detective inspector and another man arrive. The two Hobart brothers exchanged words, which left the hotel manager frowning. They approached me together. I excused myself from Flossy and met them halfway.
“Good morning, Miss Fox.” There was nothing friendly about the inspector’s businesslike manner. “The message that was left for me said you have information regarding the murder.”
“I think so,” I said. “Thank you for coming.”
“You can’t talk about that out here.” Mr. Hobart glanced around. “Go into my office. Quickly now, before Lady Bainbridge sees you. I can’t have her informing Sir Ronald.”
The inspector regarded his brother. “You don’t want me here solving your murder?”
“It is not my murder. And no, I don’t want you here. Not on the day of the ball. There’s too much to do, and if the guests find out the police are here, it’ll remind them of the incident.”
“Perhaps they ought to be reminded. There is a murderer here, after all.”
“We don’t know that. He could have been one of the guests who checked out.”
“I doubt that.”
Did he mean he doubted the murderer had left, or that it was a guest at all? If not a guest, then he must suspect a staff member. Even more reason to present him with my evidence against Mr. Hookly.
Mr. Hobart stiffened. “You may speak with Miss Fox in my office.”
“Can you join us?” I wasn’t quite sure whether I was asking because I wanted him to hear what I had to say about Mr. Hookly, or whether I wanted someone capable of deflecting the inspector’s ire.
“Of course, but only for five minutes. I have a lot of work to do.”
“If only you had an assistant,” the inspector muttered.
The barb stung, just as he’d intended. It would seem neither of Mr. Armitage’s parents would forgive me for what I’d done. I was glad I wouldn’t be seeing them again after this investigation was over.
“Stephen,” Mr. Hobart chided.
The inspector indicated that his brother should lead the way.
The second policeman followed and closed the door behind us. He stood in front of it while the inspector sat in his brother’s chair. Mr. Hobart remained standing while I sat on the guest chair.
“What do you want to tell me, Miss Fox?” the inspector asked.
“First of all, I wish to apologize for being responsible for Mr. Armitage losing his position here. I plan to make it up to him by pressing my uncle to give him back his position.”
“Harry won’t accept it.”
“Then if I hear of other employment opportunities, I’ll put his name forward.”
“That’s a nice sentiment, Miss Fox, but you have no friends here in London, as I understand it. You won’t hear of other suitable opportunities.”
“Stephen,” Mr. Hobart snapped.
I looked down at my clasped hands. This wasn’t going at all well. “May we discuss the murder instead?” I asked, looking up again. “I find the topic more palatable.”
The inspector grunted. “Go on.”
“There’s a guest staying here by the name of Hookly.” I told the inspector how I’d overheard Mrs. Warrick say she recognized someone, and explained how it had led me to first believe she was talking about Mr. Armitage, but then my suspicions had shifted to Mr. Duffield and Mr. Hookly.
“I discovered that he entertained a guest in his room on the night of the murder,” I went on. “He ordered two meals and wine to be brought up to his room. Mrs. Warrick didn’t dine in the hotel dining room that evening, nor did she leave the hotel, so I suspect she was his guest.”
“How do you know about the meals and her not leaving the hotel?”
“I asked the staff.”
“Is that all of your evidence?”
“There’s more. I thought it best to find out more about Mr. Hookly, so I telephoned the police station closest to where he lives.” I thought it best to leave Peter’s name out of it, particularly in the presence of his superior. “I discovered that Mr. Hookly is dead.”
“Dead?” Mr. Hobart cried. “No, he’s not. I saw him this morning.”
“He died two months ago,” I told him. “The Mr. Hookly here is not the real Mr. Hookly.”
Mr. Hobart slowly lowered himself onto a chair. “My god. He must be the murderer.”
The inspector put up his hand for silence. “How did you get the local police to tell you that, Miss Fox?” He leaned forward, his gaze on me the entire time. When he looked at me like that, with those piercing blue eyes, I felt like blurting everything out.
“I’d rather not say.”
“Hmmm.”
“So what do you think of that?” I asked. “It’s worth interviewing him now, isn’t it?”
“Very much,” Mr. Hobart agreed. “Don’t worry about Sir Ronald. I’ll smooth his feathers.”
“I can handle Bainbridge,” the inspector said.
Mr. Hobart gave his brother an arched look. “You don
’t seem to be at your most diplomatic right now, Stephen.”
The inspector sat back and clasped his hands over his stomach. “I won’t be interviewing anyone yet anyway. Hookly isn’t the murderer.”
“Why not?” I asked. When the inspector didn’t answer, I pushed on. “Is it the time of death? I was wondering the same thing. How could Mr. Hookly have poisoned Mrs. Warrick in his room at dinnertime when she didn’t die until much later?”
He regarded me with narrowed eyes. I couldn’t determine if that meant he was annoyed at my impertinent question or impressed I’d thought of it.
“Was a slow acting poison used?” I asked when he didn’t immediately answer.
“There was enough mercuric cyanide in her body to kill her instantly.”
“Could the time of death be wrong?”
“No.”
“Not even by a little?”
“The temperature of the body means death occurred between the hours of three and six. We can’t be more accurate than that.” He was definitely annoyed. If he had been impressed before, he wasn’t anymore. Not with lips pursed as severely as that.
“Could he have given her the jar of face cream as a gift and she put it on later?” I asked.
He twiddled his thumbs. Well, not so much twiddled as fought a battle.
“Was poison found in the jar?” I pressed.
The twiddling stopped and he stood. “Leave the police work to the police, Miss Fox.”
I flinched at his harsh tone and lowered my head. He was right. I’d wasted his time with an incorrect theory. I wished he’d tell me why he’d dismissed it, but the police didn’t share such details with the public.
He must have felt sorry for me, or regretted his tone, because his next words turned my assumption about the police not sharing information on its head. “There was no poison found in the jar of face cream, or the tube of toothpaste, or the bottle of tonic. There was no poison found anywhere in Mrs. Warrick’s room. Since she died in her nightclothes in bed, it’s very unlikely that she consumed the poison elsewhere, and as I already told you, there was enough mercuric cyanide in her body to kill her quickly.”
“Meaning she couldn’t have consumed it elsewhere then returned to her room and gone about her usual nighttime routine. She would have been in great pain, wouldn’t she?”
“Absolute agony.”
Mr. Hobart made a small sound of horror in his throat. “Poor Mrs. Warrick.”
“So the poisoned substance was removed from her room,” I said. “The poisoner took it away with them when they left. And since the door was locked…” Oh God. No.
“The poisoner is a member of staff,” Mr. Hobart muttered, his face draining of color. “Stephen, why haven’t you told me this?”
“The test results only came back yesterday. Since then, I’ve been sifting through the staff statements again. There are a lot of them.”
“There aren’t many with a key to Mrs. Warrick’s room.”
“Can other staff members get access to the keys easily?”
“It’s possible.” Mr. Hobart sighed. “Unfortunately it wouldn’t be all that difficult. I don’t think Mrs. Kettering would pass her key out, and I have spare keys to each room locked in the bottom drawer of my desk. The maids also have keys to the rooms they clean and are under strict instructions not to give them to anyone else.”
“That doesn’t mean they don’t,” the inspector said.
“Or that someone didn’t steal Mrs. Warrick’s key,” I added.
Mr. Hobart rubbed his forehead. “This is dreadful.”
“Nothing can be done about it today,” the inspector assured him. “I’m still reading through interviews and gathering other evidence.”
“Is that wise?” I asked. “Shouldn’t you act as quickly as possible? Perhaps you could round up all of the suspects and keep them at Scotland Yard while you interview them.”
“I can’t keep them there unless I arrest them, and I won’t arrest anyone until I have evidence. That’s not my way. At the moment, what I do have is more than a hundred statements to re-read as well as men out making inquiries to local suppliers of mercuric cyanide. Is there something else you’d like me to do, Miss Fox?”
“That sounds like enough to me,” I said, sheepish.
“I can’t believe it’s a staff member,” Mr. Hobart muttered. “They have to be exceptional to work here, the best of the best. I check all their references thoroughly, and Harry interviewed every one of them personally.”
“They duped him and forged their references,” the inspector said, matter-of-factly. “Harry might be a good judge of character but if one of them set out to be deceitful, he wouldn’t know, particularly if he’s not on the lookout for duplicity.”
“Speaking of forgeries,” I said. “Mr. Hookly must have falsified the letter from Lord Addlington. Are you going to confront him about that, Mr. Hobart?”
“No one will confront anyone about anything,” the inspector said.
“Not today,” Mr. Hobart said, gentler. “But I don’t see how the letter can be forged. I checked it against another from Lord Addlington that we have on file and the handwriting matched.”
I frowned. “Why do that when you didn’t suspect Mr. Hookly of wrongdoing?”
“A jeweler came to me asking about him. He’d become worried that Mr. Hookly was going to leave London and not settle his very substantial account. The jeweler had extended credit to Mr. Hookly based on Lord Addlington’s letter, you see. The jeweler knew Lord Addlington well too. He’s a good customer, apparently, so the jeweler had no difficulty extending credit. But as time wore on and more items were ordered, he became concerned. Since the items were sent here, he came to me and asked if I could vouch for Mr. Hookly’s character. I couldn’t, of course. Not personally, but I mentioned Lord Addlington’s letter. I came to the same conclusion as you, Miss Fox, that perhaps Mr. Hookly wrote a message on our stationery and signed it with Lord Addlington’s signature. I asked Mr. Hookly for the letter again, checked it against the letter I had on file, and saw that the handwriting and signature matched. I was relieved, to be honest. A measure of doubt crept in after the jeweler’s visit. Mr. Hookly has ordered a lot from some very expensive shops. It’s unusual.”
“What excuse did you give Hookly for borrowing the letter?” the inspector asked.
“I told him I needed to write down Lord Addlington’s address again as our copy was badly smudged and we like to send him a small gift for his birthday.”
The inspector grunted his approval. “Well done, Alfred. We’ll make a detective of you yet.”
“I doubt it. I didn’t know he’s not the real Mr. Hookly. Miss Fox is the better detective of the two of us. How do you think he managed to forge Lord Addlington’s letter?”
“Or steal that one from the dead Mr. Hookly?” I added.
“You can ask him after this is over.” The inspector rested his hand on the doorknob. “But not yet. I don’t want to rattle cages and frighten the killer into leaving before we learn who it is.”
Mr. Hobart clasped his brother’s shoulder. “Thank you for your discretion, Stephen. Sir Ronald will appreciate it.”
“I’m not doing it for him.”
“Then I appreciate it.”
The inspector’s gaze softened as he nodded at his brother. They were so alike in appearances, yet I was discovering how different they were in character. Mr. Hobart was definitely the kind-hearted, diplomatic one, whereas the detective inspector was crustier. Or perhaps he was simply that way with me because he was still annoyed with me over my role in his son’s dismissal.
The detective and his colleague left as discreetly as they’d arrived. Flossy and Aunt Lilian were still in the foyer, chatting to friends, and didn’t seem to notice. I followed Mr. Hobart to the front desk where he briefly discussed new arrivals with Peter.
When he saw me still standing nearby, he frowned. “Is there something I can do for you, Miss Fox?”
&n
bsp; “I’d like to offer my services again. Let me assist you.”
He sighed. “I appreciate the offer. I do. And don’t take this the wrong way, but you don’t know enough about how the hotel works to be helpful to me and I don’t have the time to teach you, nor can I spare anyone else to teach you. Not today. Perhaps you should start getting ready for the ball.”
“It’s the middle of the day. Anyway, I’m not going.”
“And deprive the gentlemen of your good company? That is a shame.”
I huffed out a laugh. “Nicely done, Mr. Hobart.”
Flossy spotted me and signaled for me to join her and Aunt Lilian.
“I suppose I must,” I said with reluctance dripping from every syllable.
“You can help, as it happens,” Mr. Hobart said brightly. “You can talk to the guests on behalf of the family. Your aunt will tire soon and Miss Bainbridge tries hard but she lacks…how shall I put it?”
“Sophisticated conversation?”
“She’s very young.”
She was nineteen, which wasn’t all that young, but I didn’t correct him.
I did as he suggested and found myself invited to luncheon in Flossy’s room with two of the young women. She introduced them as her friends, and while their mother joined Aunt Lilian for a light luncheon in her own suite, we four retired to Flossy’s.
We ordered sandwiches through the speaking tube and chatted for the next hour. Flossy’s friends were nice, but they only wanted to talk about the ball, what they were going to wear, who was going to be there, and which gentlemen they wanted to dance with. They were sweet and entertaining but only to a point.
Instead of being rude and excusing myself, I tuned out of the conversation. My mind naturally wandered to the meeting I’d had with Detective Inspector Hobart in Mr. Hobart’s office. I’d thought my theory about Mr. Hookly was quite solid, and to learn that it was not was disconcerting. Thank goodness I hadn’t accused him last night. He might be guilty of impersonating the real Mr. Hookly, and stealing Lord Addlington’s letter in order to get away with not paying his creditors, but he was not a murderer.
One of the staff was, however. It was a troubling turn of events. I felt as though I’d made friends with some. They’d even helped me in the investigation. It couldn’t be them or they’d not have been so encouraging and helpful. There were a lot of other members of staff, however. Almost a hundred.
