Murder in the Drawing Room

by C. J. Archer

  “That wasn’t necessary, Mr. Hobart, but thank you.”

  He waved off my gratitude. “It’s my pleasure to assist. You are working with my nephew, after all.”

  “Not quite.”

  “I know you said he gave you the case, but his own reputation is still associated with it, in a way. Besides, I’m glad to help you where I can. And there are some parts to sleuthing that I am excellent at.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as gaining information by talking to guests.” He glanced at the cluster of dour looking gentlemen he’d been chatting to. “Two of them are politicians. Since your Mr. Warrington is a politician, I thought I’d find out what I could about him, in a discreet manner, of course. I found out something most unexpected, which one of them was very happy to impart, thanks to Mr. Warrington being for the opposition party.”

  “Does that mean the information is scandalous?”

  “It could be damaging if it got into the newspapers, although not altogether ruinous.”

  “I am on tenterhooks, Mr. Hobart. What did you learn?”

  He leaned closer. “Mrs. Warrington has an illegitimate half-brother. It seems her father’s mistress had a son thirty-odd years ago. The rumor is that he made sure his son never lacked for anything. The boy was sent to a good school and was given a comfortable allowance. He was even given his father’s name, which is almost as good as being brought up in the father’s household.”

  Almost, but not quite. “Mrs. Warrington was the only legitimate child?” I asked.

  He nodded. “She inherited some or all of her father’s fortune upon his death.”

  “That must have galled the son.”

  “That depends on how much he inherited, I suppose.”

  Mr. Hobart was right to say the information was scandalous but not ruinous for Mr. Warrington’s career. Some gentlemen had illegitimate children scattered all over the country so it wasn’t unusual. It was, however, a distraction. If journalists got wind of it, they would delight in reporting it and the public would revel in it, lapping up the salacious details. Considering Mr. Warrington was not a particularly important figure in his party, and the scandal belonged to his wife’s family, not his, it wouldn’t bring down either the government or Mr. Warrington. It was a mere side-act, at worst.

  I glanced at the politicians, now heading towards the front door. “How did they know about Mrs. Warrington’s brother?”

  “It’s an open secret amongst the gentry, apparently. But that’s not all I need to tell you.” Mr. Hobart’s eyes sparkled as brightly as the crystals in the chandelier. “I asked them the name of Mrs. Warrington’s father. It’s Trickelbank.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know it.”

  “But I do.”

  “Has he stayed here?”

  “Not him. He died a few years ago and this Trickelbank is a recent guest. Very recent, in fact.”

  “Do you think it’s Mrs. Warrington’s half-brother?”

  “It’s such an unusual name that he must be related to Mrs. Warrington’s father, but if Mrs. Warrington inherited her father’s money because there were no legitimate heirs, then she has no brothers or male cousins on that side. So this Trickelbank must be her half-brother.”

  I wasn’t sure how Mr. Trickelbank could help in my investigation to prove Mrs. Warrington was seeing another man. Unless she confided in her half-brother and I could somehow extract the information from him.

  “Did your sources say whether Mrs. Warrington is close to Mr. Trickelbank?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “It’s unlikely, since he stays here and not with the Warringtons. Although there is a possibility that her husband forbade it and she is seeing her half-brother in secret.”

  It occurred to me that Mr. Trickelbank might be the man Mr. Warrington had seen entering the Midland Grand with Mrs. Warrington. If that were the case and they were meeting there in secret to avoid Mr. Warrington’s detection, then she wasn’t an adulteress at all. She was merely a woman wanting to spend some time with her half-brother.

  “I haven’t told you the best part yet.” Mr. Hobart looked positively youthful as he tried to contain his excitement. “Mr. Trickelbank is checking into the hotel today.”

  “The Mayfair?” I blurted out.

  He gave me a smug grin. “Isn’t that a coincidence?”

  “It certainly is.” I tried to think how I could use it to my advantage. “Is he staying alone?”

  “He is, and for one night only. He has one of the fifth floor traditional rooms.”

  “Traditional” was the name given to the rooms on the top floor of the hotel that didn’t overlook Green Park. Before the lift had been installed, several years before, the top floor was used by the staff who lived on-site. It was too high for guests to traipse up all those stairs. After the lift was installed and the staff moved to a nearby residence hall, walls separating the smaller rooms with the park view were knocked down to make larger rooms suitable for guests. They weren’t as large as the suites on the fourth floor, but they were sought after for the spectacular views they sported.

  The traditional rooms, however, did not have the park view. They were located on the other side of the corridor and their windows looked over gray rooftops and brick chimneys. They were smaller and did not have ensuite bathrooms. They were the hotel’s cheapest rooms, according to Flossy, who’d told me all of this with a sympathetic note in her voice as if she felt sorry for those who couldn’t afford one of the better rooms.

  “Does Mr. Trickelbank have a dinner reservation?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure. I’ll check with Mr. Chapman.”

  “I’ll do it. You’ve done enough, and I can see you are very busy.”

  Mr. Hobart smiled at a guest who waited nearby to speak to him. It was times like this he must miss having an assistant, particularly one as competent as Mr. Armitage who could share the burden of answering the guests’ numerous questions and requests.

  I went in search of Mr. Chapman the steward, but he was not in his office or the dining room. He was probably discussing the wine with the sommelier in the cellar or the food with the chef in the kitchen.

  I didn’t need to speak to him anyway. The restaurant’s reservations book was on the stand near the entrance to the dining room. I glanced around to make sure I was alone then opened it to tonight’s listings. Mr. Trickelbank was scheduled to dine alone eight.

  “What are you doing?” The waspish voice made me jump.

  I turned to see Mr. Chapman standing behind me. The steward’s usually handsome features were as thunderous as the clouds outside. He reached past me and snatched the book off the stand. He clutched it to his chest.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Chapman. Please don’t be alarmed.”

  “I’m not alarmed, Miss Fox.”

  “Oh? Then why are you holding that book as if you have something to hide?”

  He returned the book to the stand and opened it to the page listing tonight’s bookings to make his point. “If you have a question about the reservations, kindly ask me and I can check for you. It’s no trouble.”

  “I would have asked you, but you weren’t here.”

  “Is there a particular guest you hope to see in here tonight?” Mr. Chapman was a notorious busybody. I’d caught him listening at doors and hovering near tables. I wasn’t sure if he did anything with the information he learned, but I wasn’t going to risk my investigation on him keeping secrets. I wouldn’t inform him of anything.

  “I found what I wanted. Thank you, Mr. Chapman.”

  He stiffened but there was nothing he could say to make me confide in him. As a member of the family, I was outside his authority. I’d wager that galled him.

  I headed to the staff parlor, located behind the lift. Behind the parlor was a warren of store rooms and service rooms used by the maids and footmen. All manner of doors and stairs led to other parts of the hotel that only the staff accessed. It was here that a narrow flight of stairs
led down to the basement kitchen, larders, laundry and steam room.

  Harmony was waiting for me in the parlor, along with Victor. She looked annoyed, but I wasn’t sure whether she was annoyed with him or me. It was most likely Victor. The poor fellow couldn’t seem to do anything right in her eyes. Fortunately it didn’t seem to bother him. Indeed, sometimes I suspected he said contrary things just to get a rise out of her.

  They sat a little apart from another group of maids occupying the corner near the teapot. Harmony got up to pour me a cup. “Goliath said you got in a while ago.” She indicated my coat and gloves, which I still wore. “You haven’t been up to your room, so where have you been?”

  I removed my coat and folded it over the back of a chair before sitting beside Victor. He cradled a teacup between both his hands like a bowl. The tea steamed, so the cup must be hot, but he didn’t seem to notice. His hands were scarred from mishaps in the kitchen. Or perhaps mishaps in the streets. Before he worked as a cook at the Mayfair, he’d been a delinquent, although I didn’t know the extent of his crimes. He’d certainly never been caught, because no one with a criminal record was employed by my uncle—I’d learned that the hard way with Mr. Armitage.

  “Miss Fox,” he said in greeting.

  “Victor,” I said, matching his tone. “What were you two discussing before I entered?”

  Harmony pulled a face. “We weren’t talking. We were waiting for you.”

  And yet they were sitting separately from the others. I arched my brows at Victor.

  He sipped his tea. His eyes crinkled at the corners as if he were smiling.

  “So where were you?” Harmony asked.

  “You’re nosier than my cousin,” I said. “I spoke to Mr. Hobart then went to the dining room to look in the reservation book. I wanted to see if a particular guest is dining in the restaurant this evening.”

  Harmony leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Is it Mrs. Warrington’s lover? Do you know his name already? Is he staying here?”

  I held up my hand to slow her down. She really was a curious woman with a passion for detecting. So much so that she might be better suited to investigative work than me. Most likely her passion was helped along by being dreadfully bored with her work as a maid. I certainly couldn’t blame her for seeking a distraction.

  “So I can assume you’ve told Victor all about the case?” I asked.

  Harmony nodded. “And we’ve discussed it with Peter, Goliath and Frank. Sometimes they’re helpful at finding things out.”

  “And sometimes they’re helpful for opening doors that are locked.” I winked at Victor.

  His baby-faced features remained passive except for a slight uptick on one side of his mouth.

  Harmony clicked her tongue. “You shouldn’t encourage his nefarious activities, Miss Fox.”

  “You’re right. We don’t want him getting caught and losing his position here. Which is why I’d like you to teach me how to pick locks, Victor. That way I won’t have to rely on you.”

  “Miss Fox!” Harmony gawped at me. “You can’t go about breaking and entering! It’s not seemly for a lady like you.”

  If she didn’t like that then she wasn’t going to like what I was about to tell her. “I think I have moved well past seemly and landed in the sordid. Today, I followed Mrs. Warrington to a photography studio in Paddington. It so happens that this studio doesn’t limit itself to portraiture of the kind seen in parlors and drawing rooms.”

  She frowned. “They do landscapes too?”

  Victor chuckled quietly, earning himself a frosty glare from Harmony. He knew what I was inferring.

  I lowered my voice further. “They photograph couples with no clothes on and—”

  Harmony emitted a squeak. She slapped her hand over her mouth and glanced at the other maids, but they paid us no mind.

  “—and apparently the photographer sells copies of the pictures without the subjects’ knowledge.”

  “Why would anyone want to pose naked for a photograph?” she asked.

  “Money,” Victor said in that matter-of-fact way he had.

  “Surely Mrs. Warrington isn’t short of a quid.”

  “She isn’t,” I said. “She might have had her photograph taken as a memento for her lover to keep. Apparently some couples do that.”

  Harmony and I both looked at Victor, but he merely shrugged. “Toffs are strange,” he said.

  Harmony nodded sagely.

  “The photographs will likely prove that Mrs. Warrington has a lover,” I went on. “I need to get my hands on them or the negatives.”

  “Did she collect the negatives from the studio today or just the photographs?” Victor asked.

  “I don’t know for certain, but I suspect she bought all of the proof of her adultery then destroyed it. That’s what I would do if I knew my husband had hired a private detective to find evidence of my adultery. Of course, she might not have thought about the negatives and simply collected the photographs…”

  “You are not breaking into the studio to look for the negatives,” Harmony hissed. “Neither of you.”

  I sipped my tea as I gathered my thoughts.

  “Miss Fox, don’t do it. It’s one thing to break into a hotel room owned by your uncle, but quite another to break into a shop. Please, I’m begging you not to. And you, Victor, should not encourage her.” She wagged her finger at him. “If I find out you have, I’ll tell Chef you’ve been taking leftovers and giving them to the maids.”

  Victor caught her finger and enveloped it in his hand. “Would it be so terrible for me to give you food?”

  She snatched her hand away. “I didn’t say me.”

  “No, but when you said maids, all I could think about was you.”

  Her jaw slackened and her lips parted with her sharp intake of breath.

  He sat back with a smile. “You were the only one in my line of sight and shaking your finger at me, so naturally I thought of you.”

  She clamped her jaw shut and shot him a withering glare. “So.” She cleared her throat. “You won’t do anything dangerous tonight, will you, Miss Fox?”

  “You have my word.”

  Victor glanced at the clock and got to his feet. He adjusted the belt knife strapped at his hips and straightened his chef’s hat. “I have to go. You won’t tell Chef any lies about me, will you, Harmony?”

  She crossed her arms.

  “It’s just that everything makes him angry, right now. Things in the kitchen are tense all the time. No one dares get on his bad side.”

  “Why is he angry?” I asked.

  Victor shrugged then left the parlor.

  Harmony and I finished our tea then rose too. “You wouldn’t get him into trouble with the chef, would you?” I asked.

  She gave me a rare smile. “Of course not. But it won’t hurt for him to worry, will it? Sometimes I think he doesn’t worry nearly enough about himself or his future.”

  I squeezed her hand. “That’s almost sweet.”

  Out in the foyer, Goliath cut me off as I headed for the main stairs. “You had a meeting with Harmony without us, didn’t you?”

  “You were very busy, Goliath. You, Peter and Frank. In fact, you still look busy.”

  “It’s not so bad for me and Frank, but Peter’s doing extra on account of there being no assistant for Mr. Hobart.” He pulled out a folded letter from his pocket. “Terence asked me to give this to you. It arrived at the post desk just a few minutes ago.”

  I thanked him and headed up the stairs where I sat at my desk and read the note. It was from Mr. Armitage, wishing me luck with my investigation. His uncle had informed him last night that I was working on the Warrington divorce.

  I smiled as I folded it and dropped it into the top drawer then dashed off a response, updating him on my progress. I even put in the scandalous detail about the studio taking naked photographs of customers, and therefore probably also of Mrs. Warrington and her lover. Thankfully no one was around to witness
my blushes.

  How odd that I could tell Harmony and Victor about the naked photographs without my face heating, but I couldn’t even write a letter to Mr. Armitage without my cheeks burning.

  Chapter 5

  Dinner in the hotel dining room with my family was not the casual affair most families enjoyed in the privacy of their own homes. For one thing, we dined in full view of dozens of guests and for another, my uncle used the opportunity to play the friendly host. Some nights he hardly ate; he was too busy flitting from table to table like a butterfly in a spring garden, spoiled for choice. He encouraged us all to get up and speak with the guests, or invite them to our table. As one of the last family-owned luxury hotels left in London, he wanted to show off his family as much as possible.

  It could be exhausting, however. I looked forward to the evenings when he ate elsewhere. I usually dined alone in my room on those occasions, or with Flossy and my aunt. Floyd never joined us. If his father was out, then he took the opportunity to meet his friends.

  I glanced at the table where Mr. Trickelbank should be seated, according to the reservations book. He had not yet arrived.

  “What are you going to order tonight, Cleo?” Flossy asked as she took her seat beside me.

  Floyd sat opposite and waved away the waiter offering him a menu. “Never mind that. What I want to know is, who are you looking for?” He arched his brows at me.

  “I was just taking in the room,” I said. “Tell me how your day went. Did you get to ride in a motor car, Flossy?”

  She clapped her hands lightly. “It was absolutely thrilling! The driver took us on a special track so he could make it go as fast as it was able. You should have seen it take off. He took me around three times and Floyd twice.”

  Floyd crossed his arms. “I’m not taking you with me next time. You were a distraction and we couldn’t talk business with you there.”

  “Tosh. Of course you could. And I will certainly go again.” She clasped my arm. “Cleo will come too, won’t you?”

  “Perhaps.”