Читать книгу Lady Alkmene Collection: Four fabulous 1920s murder mysteries you won’t want to miss! - Vivian Conroy - Страница 30

Chapter Nineteen

Alkmene’s feet were positively on fire when they reached the inn again. She asked the innkeeper’s wife to bring her a basin with lukewarm water, large enough to put her feet into. Also some sherry and some cheese and cold cuts.

Jake hitched a brow at her. ‘Used to command?’

Alkmene was too tired to mind, or retort. She just dragged herself up the stairs and once the water had come, dipped her feet into it. It was bliss to sit and let the water play around her feet, through her toes, while the sherry warmed her from the inside out and the cheese caressed her palate.

OK, it wasn’t French and refined like at home, but with an empty stomach everything tasted sweet.

Sitting with her bed pillow behind her back, she closed her eyes and enjoyed the sense of elation that they were so close to the solution. They had their killer identified and only needed a strategy to smoke him out.

Only, hmmm?

Jake had been right that it might be harder than they thought. After all, they had no proof that Fitzroy Walker had been at the house that night, face to face with Silas Norwhich.

As long as they could not place him there, they had nothing to offer to the police. All the pieces they did have formed an intriguing picture, a motive certainly, but they also needed opportunity.

Maybe Fitzroy Walker had already cleverly bought an alibi for the night, convincing some friends or men from a bar to lie for him that he had been with them.

Maybe he would snub them to their faces, proving them wrong in their assumption it had to have been him. But who else?

Somebody knocked on her door.

‘Yes?’ she called, too tired to get up.

Jake came in, carrying her scarf in his hand. ‘This was still in my pocket. I should have returned it to you when we came in.’

She smiled at him a moment. ‘Thank you. Put it on the bed, will you? Thanks also for retrieving it and keeping it safe. It was a present from my father, and he is fussy when I lose things.’ She yawned. ‘I feel bushed. I need sleep more than anything else. You have dinner alone, if you want to. I am turning in just as soon as my poor feet have cooled down.’

Jake laughed. ‘You do know that if you stay too long in that water, your pretty little feet will get all wrinkled?’

‘Like that lasts for ever.’ She stretched her arms over her head. ‘You can’t rile me tonight, Jake. I feel glorious.’

Jake stood, tall, imposing. ‘Strange. You met a man who was done a grave injustice and you feel glorious?’

‘Well, he is about to inherit all of Silas Norwhich’s estate. That should make up for something. I suppose if Mary Sullivan still loves pretty things, she will have some now.’

Jake huffed. ‘That is so typical for your kind of people. Thinking money can buy off anything. As if injustice can simply be settled by paying a price into an account.’

He turned to the door. ‘I am glad we are not eating together tonight. I couldn’t swallow a bite.’

He slammed the door shut. The bang reverberated through the floor and creaked in the beams overhead.

Alkmene sat stiffly, suddenly sensing the water was getting too cold, her poor feet were freezing and her stomach was warm from sherry but could perhaps have used some more substantial sustenance.

But after what Jake had just yelled at her, she was not going down. She didn’t want to see his arrogant face.

Not tonight, maybe not tomorrow either. He was dead set on misconstruing everything she said. Blaming her for the bad feeling that he had over his mother’s ordeal. But she had nothing to do with his mother, his father, his past. He should stop making her pay for an injustice that was not her fault.

Despite Alkmene’s recent assertion he could not rile her, her happy feeling had vanished completely now, and she felt so tired she could just cry. Whatever they accomplished together, it did not change Jake’s views of her. He wanted to hold on to his prejudice.

Perhaps she had to distance herself from him to maintain her dignity. Just look at her – almost shedding tears because he was so unreasonable.

First thing in the morning she had to arrange for a car here in the village, to get back to London on her own.

What on earth did she need Jake Dubois for anyway?

He was just an insufferable cad!

Alkmene awoke with a slight tightness behind her eyes. Usually it was only there if she had stayed out too late partying with Freddie and his friends, drinking too much sherry and playing cards for a pound a point. Losing always made her wake up sour.

But this was not her bedroom, was it?

Opening her eyes, she realized it was the inn where she had spent the night before as well.

It was still dark outside. Sleep had not lasted as long as she would have liked. Reality fell upon her: Jake’s harsh assessment of her that had spoiled her happy mood about the day. Her decision to travel back to London alone.

It didn’t give her any satisfaction. Their trip here had been such a huge success, they should have congratulated each other on their achievement. Instead Jake had ruined it all with those words. He had some axe to grind about the past, but she refused to be the object of it, all the time.

She sat up and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. It was so quiet still. In London there always seemed to be some kind of bustle, liveliness. Here nothing stirred.

She slipped out of bed and looked out into the village square. The dead oak stood like a silent sentry, its naked branches clawing at the skies.

Among the graves beside the church something took shape in the gloom. A dark silhouette moving among the tombstones. It was impossible to make out whether it was a man or a woman. It seemed like a strange hour to go see a grave.

Worried, Alkmene pushed her forehead against the pane but could make out no more. She had no field glasses and even if she did, they would be of little use, with the dim light.

She turned to the bed and ditched her nightgown, slipped into a blouse, tweed skirt and coat. Every blister hurt when she stepped into her shoes with bare feet.

Then she moved to the door and opened it a crack. Nothing stirred in the corridor. She went down it on tiptoe, then the stairs…

One step creaked like a pistol shot popping, and she hurried on, worried someone would call out to her and halt her.

In the empty space of the inn’s main room she stared at the painting over the fireplace. Made by the father of the hostess. Mary Sullivan’s father also. The hunter for waterfowl who had known every path across the moor. Mary had used her knowledge to escape, escape the village, her family who used her like a servant, the supposed friend who had betrayed her to her mind. She had probably honestly believed Wally’s loose tongue had brought the vengeance of her lover’s family upon her.

It was so sad how one event had torn up this entire community and nothing after had ever been able to put it back in place again. Perhaps catching the killer could help some?

Alkmene went to the door and lifted the latch, stepped out into the dark square. She crossed to the right, towards the churchyard, and entered through the open metal gate.

The dark shape was scurrying in the distance, disappearing…into the church. There had to be a side door there.

Alkmene followed quickly, careful to keep her footing on the muddy path. She found the side door ajar.

She slipped in and stood a moment, her blood pounding in her ears. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness inside, lifted by a few lights that burned perpetually. Apparently this was a place of prayer where the villagers could find comfort at whatever hour of the day.

It made sense in a farming community where people rose early to work the land or travel to market. Maybe this person had not been doing anything mysterious but had simply ventured in to say a morning prayer.

However, she heard a sound as of leaves turning over.

She perked up her ears and moved in the direction of the sound. The church was long and straight, but had a side wing on the top left hand, perhaps where the vicar changed before the service began. From that very room, the rustling sound came.

Holding her breath, Alkmene went to the door and peeked in. A man stood hunched over a table, leafing through a large old book. He muttered to himself, names it seemed and dates.

Was that a registry of members of this congregation? It could easily be in a place like this.

He halted, his face lighting in relief. His finger pointed at a certain place on the page. Then it moved upwards, grabbed the edge, and without any care for the antiquity of the book or the sanctity of the place he was in, he ripped the page out of it.

Alkmene gasped.

Maybe he heard, maybe it was just because he was done and eager to get away, but he looked up at the door and he noticed something. He came for the door, in large strides.

Alkmene backed up, collided with something that clattered down. Ignoring it, she turned and ran.

Someone overtook her, grabbed her from behind and pinned her against a bench.

‘Lady Alkmene.’ The voice at her ear was low and menacing. ‘Such a shame. You are just too curious for your own good.’

She wanted to say something, but her assailant pushed a cloth thing into her mouth. She bit down on it, hoping it was not a dirty handkerchief.

‘I know the perfect place to put you,’ the voice said at her ear. ‘You might be found eventually. Or not. That would be a shame, I guess. But I have to cover my tracks. With this little piece of paper in my pocket, I am halfway done. There will be nothing left to prove that Silas Norwhich ever had any interest in Cunningham or indeed that a Mary Sullivan ever lived here. Her sister will not testify. When I came here to establish if there was any chance Mary or her dear baby would pop up and cause us trouble, the sister was the first to ask me how much money I was willing to pay to make her swear in court Mary was dead, drowned in the marshes. She was here ready and waiting to make sure dear Mary never surfaced again. Family is a wonderful thing, right?’

He began to pull her back.

Alkmene struggled, but knew it was futile. He was much stronger than she was. If only Jake…

But he was in bed, sleeping off yesterday’s long hike across the moor.

She had been a silly idiot coming here without informing him, thinking it couldn’t hurt to sleuth on her own. Hurt by his remarks, goaded by his rejection, she had endangered her life. It was only fair she was caught and now…locked up.

She just hoped that the man had been a little optimistic in surmising she’d never be found. An hour or two of discomfort would be punishment enough.

Still dragging her, the man wrestled her down some steps. She stumbled and almost fell. It smelled damp in here, chilly, like a dungeon.

He threw her to the ground and hunched beside her, dragging some rough rope around her wrists and then her ankles. Tying it, he laughed softly. ‘You are not all alone in here, Lady Alkmene. But I am afraid the others are not very talkative. All dead, you know, and have been for centuries. But then again with that cloth in your mouth you are not saying a whole lot either.’

He backed away. She tried to scream, crawl after him, grab his ankles, pull him to the floor.

But his muddy shoes had walked away already, up the steps, and then a door closed with a thud, and a chain rattled.

She was locked up. Under the village church. In a vault or something.

Probably where all the prominent citizens had been buried in times past.

In a tomb that was. A grave for the rich and wealthy.

Ironic. Jake might have had a good laugh about it.