Two Birds with One Stone (A Marsden-Lacey Cozy Mystery Book 1)

by Sigrid Vansandt

  “YES, CHIEF, I WILL SEE the manuscript and give you my opinion,” Louis Devry said softly into the phone.

  “Well, Helen Ryes believes you would be the perfect person to tell us what we have or if it is already a piece of The Grange’s collection. I feel certain it may be an important part of our story regarding Sir Carstons,” Johns said.

  Devry assured him he would be at the station by midday and put the phone down on the side table beside his bed. A crippling pressure crept up his legs and arms. Squeezing each joint vengefully and knowingly like a cruel devil bent on torturing him incrementally, it finally reached the center of his body plunging him into a complete and petrifying anxiety attack.

  They had found the manuscript. How in the world had they found it? He had gone crazy looking for it the night of the garden party. Someone had removed it from under his mattress. How would he answer for it?

  Breathing rapidly with his heart pounding and the muscles of his chest tightening, he forced himself to think about her: Emilia. The anxiety attacks always made him feel like he was dying. Slipping away into madness.

  He focused again on the manuscript. Who took it from his room? If only Carstons hadn’t shown up Friday then he would have had more time to situate it into The Grange’s collection. Last week had been hell. The trip to the States, terrified he would be caught removing the manuscript from the Harvard archives and then there was Carissa’s health. Carstons’ threat to expose him almost put an end to his plan but someone fortunately killed him instead.

  Announcing his find of the manuscript to the world would have made Devry a celebrity. He would have been an overnight success story. The world had no idea the manuscript even existed. It had never been catalogued correctly all those years. When he had found it at Harvard while working in the archives, he knew it was his ticket to a name for himself.

  His chest constricted again. Everything had gone so wrong. He made himself think of her. Like a tranquilizer, her memory turned the tide on the thunderous fear eating at his mind and crippling his body.

  That dream of making a name for himself was over. Someone had taken the book from its hiding place and they would know he was a fraud. He looked at the ceiling and wished for death. Loneliness and a quiet room were the only echoes to his wish.

  He reached for the Klonopin to calm himself down. The pill would bring the anxiety attack under control and allow him to act normally towards the Chief later when they met. On the bedside table, he set the alarm on his phone to wake him in case he fell asleep. Then taking two pills, even though he was only supposed to take one each day, he lay back on his pillows and let his thoughts return to her.

  One last thing passed through his mind before the drug took affect: it was odd how the bedroom door had sucked shut. It only did that when another door opened somewhere else in the house, but he didn’t have time to consider it any further because the medicine sent him deep into a sleep.

  He was completely unaware when someone entered the room, saw him sleeping, then read the label on his medicine bottle. The visitor helped him take the rest of the pills and for good measure, washed them down with Scotch.

  A quick note saying, “I can’t go on. I killed Carstons,” was scratched out in a rough hand to disguise its provenance.

  With the gentleness of a kiss blown by a wicked fairy, Devry got what he wished for and someone else got a scapegoat.

  AFTER A DELICIOUS LUNCH AT Harriet’s, Perigrine returned home with a poppy seed cake to deliver later to the constabulary. He picked up his “English Home” magazine and adjusted his bow tie.

  Alistair watched how Perigrine was really enjoying himself for the first time in two years. He knew P. was feeling his creative and analytical mind working on something tinged with adventure, or larceny, depending on your perspective.

  Once done mentally critiquing the houses in the magazine, he turned to Alistair and said briskly, “Well, dear Ally, did you hear anything of interest today?”

  “No,” was Alistair’s simple, flat answer. Alistair had decided to keep his earlier acquisition a secret until this coming Friday.

  Friday was the day Perigrine did the financials. He was always fussing about Ally’s “spending issues,” as he liked to call them. Alistair was bad this week. He had bought a gorgeous moonlit landscape done in oil at an estate sale handled by Selkirks. It was an exquisite thing. He truly believed he was saving the beautiful piece from the clutches of riffraff who wouldn’t appreciate it properly. It was completely out of Al’s budget and would, if P. found out about it, send Perigrine on a tiresome rampage about money and self control.

  So, Alistair decided to be coy about whether he heard anything during his pruning time at the constabulary. He had managed to get hold of something that would balance the budget completely with Perigrine and send him into a whirlwind of delight, therefore forgiving the purchase of the costly landscape. Alistair would wait for the right moment to spring it.

  “I’m going to drop off the cake I purchased from Harriet and talk to Donna about the item I saw Johns carrying earlier,” Perigrine said.

  “Good.” Alistair pretended to add as an afterthought, “You know, Chief was talking with two women while I was ‘pruning.’” He added the two-handed gesture for quotation marks for effect. “They were in a meeting of sorts studying a book. Didn’t look like anything important though. Nothing you would be interested in.” He trailed off while feigning to work on a sudoku puzzle.

  “Alistair. What did you see exactly?” Perigrine jumped forward to sit on the edge of the chair.

  Alistair assumed the character of the oblivious cohort. “Johns with two women talking about a book. One said it was 19th century, handwritten and a novel. They thought the new curator at the museum, Devry somebody, should look at it.”

  Perigrine sat back in his chair with a thoughtful stare into their small back garden. Something was causing him to be extremely agitated today. He considered the delicate sculpture of the Grecian goddess, Melpomene, holding a mask and gazing down into the quiet koi pond. He and Ally had plumbed the mask so that water poured out of its mouth and into the pond. Melpomene ruled her small kingdom with grace. His musing on the statue brought enlightenment as he focused on her.

  The manuscript must have been in the envelope he saw Johns carrying across the parking lot and it must have been the same book Alistair heard the women and Johns discussing. Nervousness took over him. The Muse in the garden didn’t take her eyes off the ceaselessly swimming koi but she nevertheless sent Perigrine a wordless message: “I have touched One who was great. It will be revealed.”

  Perigrine got up like a person hypnotized and floated out the door. He left a bewildered Alistair watching him as he made his way through the garden gate carrying a small cake and heading towards the Marsden-Lacey Constabulary.

  Chapter 27

  “WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BOOK?” Johns asked at the top of his lungs.

  Constable Waters and Constable Cross came running from opposite corners of the station.

  There on the table lay the empty manila envelope. No book anywhere.

  “We only left the room five minutes ago,” he continued to bellow with an increasingly crimson face.

  “Sir, no one else has been in the building,” Constable Waters offered.

  “That’s right, sir. I’ve been up at the front desk and it’s been so quiet today. Only staff has been here unless you consider the two women you showed out,” Cross added.

  “Go bring them back here. Now!” Johns said it so loudly that both Cross and Waters jumped. “Go!”

  Both constables hurried from the room and out to the parking lot where they found Helen and Martha still trying to bring the Mini Cooper through the impound lot. They waved the ladies over and asked with remarkable composure if they would please return to the station.

  The girls shrugged, got out of the car and followed Constable Waters back into the building while Constable Cross searched the car.

  Chief Johns w
aited for them in the lobby. His face was red and he had never looked more like an irascible, angry bulldog than he did waiting for them to be brought back in.

  “What’s the problem now?” Martha asked and then sighed as she put her purse down on one of the waiting room chairs.

  “Mrs. Littleword and Mrs. Ryes, Constable Waters would like to see you ladies individually in a dressing room,” Johns said.

  “What’s this all about?” Helen demanded.

  “The book is gone. Disappeared right after you two left the room.”

  In perfect unison they both hotly denied, “It wasn’t us. We didn’t take it.”

  “That is yet to be seen.” He jabbed toward the dressing rooms with a pointed finger.

  “I cannot believe this. You actually believe we would steal that book? Where in the world do you think we have it hidden on our bodies?” Helen asked with both hands on her hips.

  Martha stood there glowering at Johns with her arms crossed. “Helen, he thinks we’ve stuffed it in our undergarments.”

  Johns gave Martha a sour, tight-lipped look then jerked his head in the direction of the dressing rooms, indicating Waters should get on with the job.

  “Fine. You may strip us bare, if that’s what it takes to be freed from this place, Helen declared like a spirited suffragette who was about to be mishandled by the cretinous police.

  Constable Waters showed them each to a dressing room and, with an apologetic tone, said, “I’m sorry, but you will have to disrobe and put on the gowns. Please leave your things on the table and then take a chair. I’ll be right back.”

  They continued to complain and plot revenge the entire time they were in the rooms but in the end, they did what they were told and sat down. Constable Waters returned and smiled kindly at them. She looked through their things with a gentle hand.

  Turning towards them she said compassionately, “You may put your things on and come out to the waiting area when you’re ready.”

  Once out in the lobby, they waited to hear if they could leave.

  “Mrs. Littleword and Mrs. Ryes, please follow me,” Constable Waters asked.

  Back down the hall they went. They were shown into the Chief’s office where he was sitting behind his desk drinking a cup of coffee and glaring at a computer screen.

  “Ladies,” he started in a more hospitable tone once he saw they were standing at his door, “please come in. You understand we had to be certain you didn’t have the manuscript.”

  They had originally decided they would give the Chief a piece of their mind, but with his unexpected reversal in approach, they found themselves without recourse but to be understanding. Still wanting to go home, they knew antagonizing him wouldn’t serve their cause.

  He continued. “We are studying our security cameras positioned around the station and they show a man crawling out of the interview room window. We will find him, but again, please accept my apology for having a brusque manner earlier.”

  “It might have been nice to check the surveillance videos first,” Martha said, still miffed by the search.

  Helen held up her hand to quiet Martha who sighed dramatically.

  “Will you please let me know if you find the manuscript? Rarely in my profession have I come across something so remarkable. I have a strong feeling it is something special,” Helen said.

  “Of course, Mrs. Ryes. I had set an appointment to meet with Louis Devry today. I’ll need to cancel it. As soon as we know something, I’ll get a message to you.” He dug in his desk. Finding a toffee, he popped it into his mouth.

  Martha turned to go. “If that’s all then, we’ll be on our way.” She was in a hurry to check on her pets.

  The girls left the chief giving orders into his phone about getting someone to go over to Louis Devry’s house since he wasn’t answering his phone.

  Helen and Martha found the Mini Cooper parked in front of the station and without looking back, drove directly to Flower Pot Cottage and its two hungry, crabby pets.

  PIERS COUSINS WAS TERRIBLY RELIEVED to be out from under the watchful and matronly care of Nurse Davis. He cringed slightly while remembering the last couple of days. Davis’ daily sponge baths were a difficult memory to free himself of. She must have confused him with a rabbit she wanted to skin. There were moments when he thought he saw a gleam in her eye while she scrubbed his legs to a ruby redness reminiscent of raw meat.

  To be fair though, she checked on him often, fussed over his pillows and monitored his diet and bowel movements with zeal. It was this ever-present care that lead to his urgent desire to get out of the place at any cost.

  When he finally saw his doctor, a woman in her early thirties, she reluctantly agreed to let him leave the hospital as long as he checked in with his general practitioner in a few days to make sure all was healing correctly. Within minutes of the papers being signed, he made his way outside and found a taxi.

  As the vehicle weaved its way through the traffic before finding the road towards Marsden-Lacey, Piers thought about the surveillance video and wondered if Louis was Sir Carstons’ killer.

  Louis denied killing Carstons but who else had such excellent motives? There was his love for Emilia and the terrible way Carstons treated her. To be fair, that could be one of Piers’ own motives for wanting Carstons dead.

  Louis also admitted to him that Carstons was trying to bully him into turning a blind eye while Carstons stole items from the collection. In return for Louis’ silence, Carstons would stay quiet about the details of Louis losing his job at Harvard, a typical Carstons’ low-life maneuver.

  The view out Piers’ backseat window showed they were reaching the outer fringes of Marsden-Lacey. He considered the story Louis told him at the hospital yesterday as he watched the countryside roll before him in all its summer glory. Remembering Emilia’s effect on almost any man who came in contact with her, Piers thought of Louis’ love for her.

  It was only after she married Carstons that Louis finally accepted the role of friend to Emilia. No one could understand what Emilia saw in Alan Carstons. Before he married her, Carstons must have spread the charm on thick.

  Only her pregnancy had ended Louis’ desire to stay close. Louis never knew about Piers’ affair with Emilia or that the child she bore was theirs.

  Louis’ visit to the hospital and his confession about Carstons blackmailing him hadn’t shocked Piers. Anything that Carstons did quit shocking Piers years ago. Carstons was forever manipulating people to get what he wanted and if that meant blackmail or cruelty, then so be it.

  If there was more to Louis’ story, Piers would have to find out. One thing was for sure, Louis was ferocious in the video when he snatched the satchel from Carstons' grasp and pointed for him to get out. If he decided later to kill him, what was the final motivating factor?

  Piers shut his eyes and lay back against the taxi’s seat. He saw the first small cottage on a bend in the road leading to the High Street of Marsden-Lacey. Impulsively, he called to the driver an alternative address. Potter Cottage on Pike Lane was Louis’ cottage. Maybe it was time to see if his old friend needed a lawyer. He would gladly help Louis Devry, even if he was Carstons’ killer. In fact, he thought to himself, he actually owed him a debt of gratitude.

  The taxi stopped and Piers jumped out. He paid the driver and told him to wait. No one answered when he rang the doorbell but he could see Louis’ Volvo parked in the adjoining shed.

  He walked around the house, peering in the windows. The house was so quiet not even a bird or bee disturbed its slumber. A final room near the back of the house with a window close to the ground allowed Piers to see into the space inside. He pressed his face against the pane of glass, shielding his eyes from the glare of the reflection. There, lying on the bed, was Louis perfectly asleep.

  Piers rapped at the window and yelled, “Louis! Wake up. We need to talk.”

  Not a twinge of movement from the man. Piers banged and called again but nothing. It was then the idea took f
orm in his soul that the picture was wrong. With a sudden knowledge that he was seeing a dead man, Piers bolted back around the cottage to the front door. He signaled to the taxi driver who rolled down his window.

  “Call an ambulance! I think the man inside is sick. Hurry!”

  With a great run at the door, he rammed through it easily and made his way to where Louis was lying in the room at the end of the hall. Once there, Piers stood above the quiet, fully-dressed figure on the bed, studying what the scene held for him to understand.

  His heart beat rapidly and he reached out to touch Louis but hesitated. There in Louis’ hand was a medicine bottle. He looked at Louis’ chest but it didn’t appear to be moving. No respiration was taking place. From desperation, Piers laid his head on Louis’ chest trying to hear something. Nothing.

  A chill crept up his skin. Piers backed away from the bed and the peaceful corpse. He slumped into a nearby chair and considered the scene. The first thought that eked into his mind was how Louis was with Emilia now. It was what he had always wanted.

  The sound of sirens moving toward the cottage and then footsteps coming down the hallway stirred him to action. He stood up as two paramedics pushed into the room. Piers pointed to the bed. They quickly moved towards Louis to assess the situation. Gloves on, they conversed only with each other while working on the lifeless body. Piers heard another set of sirens coming towards the cottage.

  Soon a constable was in the room asking questions of the two paramedics. Feeling detached as if he was watching the scene from a remote place, Piers’ emotions were dammed by the shock.

  From the back of the house he heard a gruff and familiar voice. Chief Johns’ presence preceded him and then, in his take-charge manner, he stalked into the room. He looked tired but determined and his gaze bore down on Piers.

  “You find him?” he asked.

  Piers’ brain snapped-to. “Yes,” was all he could get out before Johns stopped him with another question.