Читать книгу Lady Alkmene Collection: Four fabulous 1920s murder mysteries you won’t want to miss! - Vivian Conroy - Страница 26

Chapter Fifteen

‘So what do we have now?’ Alkmene said as they walked down the street away from Pemboldt’s offices. ‘The conversation I overheard was Walker asking Evelyn Steinbeck to marry him, but she refused. He knew that upon her marriage she would come into part of the fortune and he wanted it, right away, for if he knew that there was a man about claiming that he was the heir, Steinbeck’s deception might not last. So he had to marry her, fast. He said something about the major not being able to intervene after the marriage. Therefore he mentioned Gretna Green, because he knew he’d never get permission from either the major or the uncle to let the wedding go ahead and he wanted her anyway, or better, her money. The marriage had to be absolutely valid and he knew Gretna Green would make it so. Now…Evelyn Steinbeck didn’t want to marry him, and she was in no hurry to get the money, so we can rule her out. Besides, she wasn’t the person calling on Silas Norwhich that night.’

‘And whatever was taken from his dead hand was a birth certificate,’ Jake reminded her. ‘Someone was desperate to keep the fantasy alive that Evelyn Steinbeck was the real heir. It must have been Walker.’

‘But we can’t rule out the real heir either, or rather the person who appeared at the theatre to claim he was. What if he got so mad that he pushed Silas Norwhich to his death? Never meaning to kill him maybe… What if he came to prove he was the heir and gave Norwhich some sort of document to prove it, then Norwhich denied it was real and he pushed him in anger and killed him, then pulled the paper from his dead hand, not noticing a snippet stayed behind?’

Jake nodded. ‘So it is a tie between Walker and this man who appeared at the theatre.’

‘The man returned from the dead,’ Alkmene said satisfied. ‘The countess was so right. He did appear like he had risen from those marshes in which the woman and her baby were supposed to have drowned.’

‘We have no idea if he even knew about Cunningham.’

‘Yes, he said so. Why else would Silas Norwhich have been so mad at his attorney? He believed Pemboldt had spread the word and provoked these fake claims.’

‘So if the man at the theatre knew about Cunningham, but not from the lawyer, his claim could have been real.’

‘That depends.’ Alkmene touched his arm. ‘Consider. Norwhich was obsessed with Cunningham, asking around for information. That must have led to talk. Maybe somebody there thought up the same plan as the lawyers had. Produce a fake heir and cash in.’

Jake nodded. ‘So we have to go and visit Cunningham to find out who was in the know about this summer romance of old and the baby that was supposed to have been born of it. How soon can you pack for a trip?’

Alkmene stared at him. ‘Soon enough. Why?’

‘I will rent a car, and we are going to Dartmoor.’

‘Not again!’ Jake Dubois hit the brake as a whole herd of sheep poured into the narrow road. A sleek black and white dog followed, yapping at them. Then a shepherd, with a green felt hat with a feather on his curly hair and a long stick in his hand.

He lifted his free hand at them, as he watched the sheep squeeze themselves one by one through a narrow opening in the stone wall on the other side of the road. This kind of natural wall – stones held together by their own weight – had run along their road for miles now, closing in meadows and fields, or orchards with gnarled trees, their trunks covered with moss.

Jake drummed on the wheel. ‘At this pace we will never get to Cunningham.’

‘Don’t be so negative,’ Alkmene said. ‘The last sign said five more miles. We must have done four already. Look around you. Sweet little cottages with chimneys that are about to collapse, authentic characters like this shepherd.’

Alkmene waved at him with her gloved hand as he crossed, whistling to his dog that had strayed a few yards to sniff against the wall. It came running with its tail up, making a weird leap like a lamb outdoors for the first time in spring.

Alkmene sighed in satisfaction. ‘It is so peaceful here. No people in a hurry, bustling about, shouting at each other. I’d love to spend summers in the countryside like they did in the old days.’

‘You’d die of boredom,’ Jake said cynically as he hit the gas and let the engine rev.

Alkmene rolled her eyes at him.

‘Really,’ he said. ‘No shops to go to, to spend money on costumes and hats, no countesses to meet up with at fancy tea parlours.’

‘I’d go out into the fields to paint.’ Alkmene nodded firmly. ‘I’d sit down by a brook and try to capture the essence of the flowing water or I’d do a view of the moor with threatening storm clouds over it. Then just before the weather broke, I’d carry my easel to some rustic inn and order their stew.’

She could just see herself leaning back in a nice leather chair at the fire, rubbing her chilly hands and breathing the delicious scents from the kitchen.

‘You do know they put sheep’s eyes into it?’

‘In Scotland maybe. Not here.’ Alkmene settled better in the car seat and folded her hands in her lap. ‘I would have the innkeeper’s wife make me a lunch to carry along as I took my car for a spin to visit some old ruin of a castle or a settlement on the moor. I am fascinated by excavations. You?’

‘Not particularly,’ Jake said in a sour tone.

‘Oh, come on. Any adventurous heart must beat faster at the prospect of finding a gold treasure.’

Jake held his head back and laughed. ‘I don’t think a settlement on the moor would yield a gold treasure. Just shards of used pottery and dry bones. Animal but very possibly also human.’

Alkmene sobered. ‘I do wonder if that poor woman died in the marshes. She must have been desperate that her husband’s brother wanted to force her into setting him free. While she was with child. I guess she had no family who could stand up for her. Maybe they had even warned her when she started the relationship that it might not last.’

‘They could not have stood up for her either way,’ Jake said with a dark look. ‘They were probably common folk, like that authentic shepherd of yours. People you don’t have to take seriously, when you have money and power.’

Alkmene sighed. ‘Are you going to give me that again?’

‘Well, do you ever see yourself ending up in that position? Pregnant and forced to relinquish your claim on the man you love, forced by some family member who doesn’t think you good enough for his brother. Let’s be honest. That was it. They did not care for the question whether those two loved each other or not. They just wanted a wife for their son and brother who was in their league.’

Alkmene studied his profile. ‘Probably, but their opinion does make sense.’

‘Oh, come on,’ Jake said, giving some more gas.

‘Really. Consider. If you are raised a certain way, you have certain expectations hanging upon you. This brother of Silas Norwhich had friends, acquaintances back home who would expect him to present a certain type of wife to them. If the woman was not…in their league, as you put it, she would have been treated with disdain, perhaps not invited to parties, or if she was invited, people would stare at her and whisper. She’d feel outcast, unaccepted, unworthy perhaps.’

‘And what nonsense that would be.’

‘Perhaps, but she would sense it and suffer from it. Could her husband’s love compensate for what she would be missing? Her family at home, her simple life, the lack of pressure on her to be a certain way.’

Alkmene held her hands tightly together, staring ahead where a group of houses appeared with a church tower rising over them. ‘You keep saying my position is easy and privileged. But I have never failed to remember what people expect of me. You can never just do what you want, or your father will hear of it, or the people will talk about it.’

‘Tough,’ Jake said with a ridiculing click of his tongue.

Alkmene gave up for the moment. He obviously didn’t understand what she was trying to explain to him, but dug his teeth, like a terrier, into his prejudice against her class.

The road declined now and dragged them by a sharp angle into a narrow passage between the stone walls of neat little gardens of modest homes, ending in a village square, with a post office dead ahead, beside the church, and the inn with the sign ‘The Hunted Boar’.

The animal in question was pictured pursued by two dogs that snapped at it with large yellowish teeth.

Jake parked the car and got out, stretching his long limbs. Alkmene had to agree the ride had made her as stiff as an ironing board. She was happy they were there at last, even if they seemed to have ended up in a deserted town. Nothing was stirring behind the windows, no lace curtains moving as hands lifted them and curious eyes peeked out at the visitors.

The square itself lay empty, just some dead leaves rustling as the wind from the moors came to move them. It carried a hint of damp earth like a cemetery.

Thinking of the woman who had run in despair and vanished, Alkmene shivered. Jake had rounded the car to stand beside her. ‘What is wrong?’ he asked.

‘I am not quite sure. There is a bit of a…sinister feel to this place.’

He laughed. ‘Just a few minutes ago it was all so idyllic and authentic and you’d go out to paint and see excavation sites.’ He leaned over closer to her. ‘I bet that if you did and some animal stuck its head out of a ditch, you’d think it was some dead body coming back to life and you’d run screaming.’

Alkmene sighed. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Shall we go in to see if they have rooms?’

Still, she pulled her coat closer around her and didn’t look at the one oak again that was just a dead stump with a few branches clawing at the skies. Why had nobody bothered to cut it down? It had to be ill or something to die like that. It ruined the look of the entire square with its other healthy green oaks.

Jake opened the door into The Hunted Boar for her and she went in.

The place was crammed with people standing closely together, shouting and raising beer glasses. Alkmene barely managed to squeeze past the last of them to reach a reception desk where a woman with reddish hair and large coarse hands was leafing through the ledger.

In front of the room a man with a leather apron stood holding up something that looked suspiciously like…

Bleeding meat.