Docketful of Poesy Read online

  *****

  “Cyanide probably,” Brian told me over cheese toasties and pints at the Cock’s Crow later that evening. “We can’t be sure ’til we’ve had a look at the coroner’s findings, but…every indication is of cyanide. The flask even smelled like bitter almonds.”

  I said, “I think I know who the intended victim was. What I don’t know is why anyone wants Miles Friedman dead.” I explained why I believed Mona’s flask had been laced with poison when the intended victim had probably been Miles, finishing, “I think there may have been earlier attempts on his life, as well. The brakes went out on his car a couple of times before he left the States. Everyone assumed it was shoddy work on the part of his garage, but looking back…I think those failed brakes may have been someone’s first try.”

  “If these attempts began in the States…”

  “Yes. It would have to be someone in the cast or crew.”

  “You don’t have any idea of whom?”

  “I do, actually. I think Roberta Lom might have a grudge against him. They were lovers at one time, and they share responsibility for this film. There might be some kind of insurance policy or clause in case the film fails or is cancelled. Something along those lines. I was thinking you might be able to check into that.”

  “I suppose I could.” He made some notes. “That’s it?”

  “Well, the problem with Roberta as a suspect is, I don’t believe she would have mistakenly murdered Mona. She knew that Mona had a flask, and she knew Mona kept misplacing it. I really think whoever killed Mona killed her by mistake, but that means the murderer has to be sort of…oblivious.”

  “Oblivious?”

  “Well, either that, or so focused on killing Miles that nothing else really impinged on her—or his—consciousness.”

  “And does someone in this motley crew strike you as particularly oblivious?”

  “Well, of course I don’t know all the crew members, but Tracy Burke seems fairly self-preoccupied. Then again, I don’t like her so maybe I’m not the best judge. Norton Edam is pretty much oblivious. He drinks a lot and he seems to really dislike Miles—so much that I’m surprised he agreed to work on this project. Although I don’t suppose his career is at a point where he could turn work down. I don’t know what his motive would be, though. The only thing anyone seems to have accused Miles of is womanizing. There hasn’t been any suggestion that he ever sabotaged someone’s career—or is even a particularly bad director.”

  “Norton Edam.” Brian made another note.

  “And I already mentioned Tracy. One of the actresses. Miles has been seeing her.”

  “The one playing you,” Brian said, grinning.

  “You had to say that, didn’t you?”

  “You have to admit —”

  “No, I don’t. In fact, I refuse to admit any such thing.”

  He laughed. “So the lovely Tracy and Miles are lovers?”

  “Well, they were. There seems to be a chill in the air between them—and suddenly there’s a lot of air between them.”

  I glanced at the fire crackling in the stone fireplace a few feet from our table. It was very warm in the pub, but a shiver rippled down my spine as I said, “I think the attack on Miles was motivated by sheer rage. Rage at having failed again to kill him. Or maybe rage at having killed the wrong person. Whoever struck Miles unconscious took a terrible chance. It was luck he didn’t see his attacker, or that someone else didn’t see them in the parking lot. I think someone willing to take that kind of a chance must have a powerful motive, and it seems to me that such a motive would show up with very little investigating.”

  He snorted. “I’ll try not to take offense at that. Is that your entire list of suspects?”

  “Well, everyone bears looking into, naturally.”

  “Naturally.”

  “But those are the people who seem the most likely to me. Although…none of them really seem that likely. None of them seem like the kind of people who commit murders.”

  “If there’s one thing you should know by now,” Brian said, “it’s that no particular type of person commits murders.”

  “Speaking of which,” I said, “what’s happening with the investigation into the deaths of the February brothers?”

  His expression changed. Closed. “You know I can’t discuss the case with you.”

  I didn’t think it would be wise to point out that he was willing to discuss the other part of the case with me.

  “But you are making headway?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you at least tell me when they died? That will be a matter of public record shortly.”

  He sighed. “The coroner is setting the time of death sometime after eleven o’clock on Wednesday night. And before you say anything, I’m already aware that you were with Peter Fox at least part of Wednesday evening because Tracy Burke was able to confirm it.”

  Now there was irony: having to be grateful to Tracy for corroborating the alibi I was going to supply Peter.

  I said, “Peter and I were together the entire night—until seven o’clock the following morning.”

  He sighed. “Grace —”

  “It’s true, Brian. Surely you know me well enough by now to know that I wouldn’t lie to protect Peter if I believed he was guilty of murder?”

  “I suppose not,” he said grudgingly. “But just because you don’t believe it doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

  “I would know if Peter were capable of killing someone in cold-blood. If Peter were the kind of man capable of cold-blooded murder he wouldn’t be who he is.”

  “Don’t push it,” Brian said dryly. “I believe you if you say you were with him the night of the twenty-fourth. I’m not buying the plaster-saint makeover.”

  “Fine. Don’t. But isn’t Peter entitled to the same protections and freedoms as anyone else in this country?”

  He was silent.

  “I believe your original suspicion was correct. I believe these attacks on Peter were made by—or, rather, hired by —criminal associates. But not like you think. Not current associates. I think these are past acquaintances. I think this has to do with the jewel robbery that went wrong in Istanbul.”

  “Not the Curse of the Serpent’s Egg again,” Brian said, shaking his head.

  “I think so. Because nothing else makes sense. According to Peter, they broke into Topkapi with a six man team. Well, technically a five man—person—team including him. After they stole the jewel, Peter and Catriona Ruthven were cornered. He gave her the jewel and a few moments head start. He was taken prisoner. She escaped and eventually handed the jewel off to their fence, the man who had brokered the heist. His name was Gordon Roget and he disappeared with the jewel. The problem is, the only people who knew Peter didn’t have the Serpent’s Egg for longer than a minute or two were Catriona and Roget. And neither of them apparently bothered to tell the remaining three thieves.”

  “And you think these remaining criminal confederates are now out to get Peter?”

  “I think it’s a possibility. I know Peter thinks it’s a possibility, whether he’s willing to admit it or not. Until that possibility arose, I think he was truly bewildered as to why anyone would want him dead.”

  Brian’s eyes looked almost dark in the firelight. “Do you know the names of these men?”

  I shook my head.

  “That’s why you’re telling me this,” he said slowly.

  “Yes,” I admitted. “You have the resources to find out who these men were. Or at least you have a better chance of finding out than I would since I would have no idea even where to start.”

  “Do you know where Fox is?”

  “No.”

  “Is he looking for these men?”

  I tried to consider this objectively. “I don’t think so. At least…he didn’t seem to have any interest in pursuing it. He may have thought better of it.” I remembered that awful morning…in fact, it had been this very morning, although it felt like days ago.
Peter had been…angry. Shocked, I thought. I hadn’t registered it at the time. I had been too angry and shocked myself.

  Now it occurred to me that something had happened to him. Something had changed his attitude. What? He had been fine the day before. We had talked and laughed, and he had not seemed to take my suspicions about his former cronies in crime all that seriously.

  That evening he had stood me up without a word, and when I saw him the following morning he had been packing to leave—and he had told me to go home to the States.

  So what had happened in the interim?

  A little wearily, Brian said, “All right, Grace. I’ll look into it. I’m not making any promises, mind. But I will look into it.”

  *****

  What had happened to change Peter between Friday morning and Saturday? The question still haunted me after I had undressed and climbed into bed that night with my Laetitia Landon book.

  Though my eyes moved down the faded pages describing L.E.L.’s strange engagement to Governor MacLean, little registered on my consciousness. This was not a part of her story I enjoyed or understood. It seemed clear from the exchange of letters that MacLean had serious doubts about marrying Landon—in one letter to Letty’s brother he had even denied the engagement existed. He had done everything but flat-out refuse to marry her, citing—mostly—that the Cape was no place for a gently bred white woman. Why he hadn’t simply and finally cried off was a mystery to me—second only to the mystery of Landon’s determination to marry him and leave England.

  She had been deserted once; perhaps that was part of it. She bore the burden for supporting her family, financing them through her prolific literary output, and perhaps she sought stability and security of her own—if so it seemed to be the stability and security of a reed buffeted by the wind.

  At first her friends tried to try to talk her out of it. Later they rallied and—for the most part—supported her decision. Her enemies seemed mostly amused by her odd choice. No one seemed to believe that the marriage would last. No one except Laetitia Landon.

  As the date of her wedding drew nearer she settled all family business, completed all her works in progress, sold her home, and gave away the possessions she could not take with her. She made her farewells. MacLean would not consider a formal wedding, so they married in a parish church with only their witnesses in attendance.

  A short time later they sailed for Africa on the Governor MacLean.

  In “The Polar Star,” written on that long, horrible voyage that Landon spent mostly sick in her cabin, she wrote:

  Fresh from the pain it was to part —

  How could I bear the pain?

  Yet strong the omen in my heart

  That says—we meet again.

  I laid aside my book, took my spectacles off, and frowned into the distance of memory. One thing that I knew for sure that had happened to Peter yesterday was that he had gone to deliver a pair of chairs to the Honourable Angela Hornsby.

  And what in the world could have happened to rock him so at the estate of a middle-aged Member of Parliament? Probably nothing. It was very unlikely, but what else did I have to go on?

  Brian had said he would check into Peter’s unknown accomplices in Istanbul, and I knew he would. He had given his word. But I had no idea how long that might take—and there was no guarantee that the answer to the attempts on Peter’s life lay in Istanbul. Perhaps the solution was closer to home than I’d dreamed.

  Perhaps the solution lay on the other side of the sleeping village: yet another secret concealed within the walls of the old Monkton Estate.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I spent Sunday morning making phone calls from Sally Smithwick’s house. I couldn’t take the risk of being overheard phoning from the downstairs lobby at the Hound and Harrier; so I called my sister-in-law Laurel from Sally’s kitchen while Sally fed me cocoa and gingerbread cake, and her enormous black cat—formerly belonging to Miss Webb of the Innisdale Historical Society—watched me balefully from the sunny window seat.

  “Am I going to help you solve a mystery?” Laurel asked. “Not that I’m unhappy to sit and read People magazines all day, but is there a higher purpose?”

  “I hope so,” I said. “It’s a long shot. But Miles seems pretty predictable in his habits—and his tastes.”

  “Okay. I’m on it,” Laurel assured me. “I meant to ask: how are things going with Peter?”

  “Ah,” I said. “Interesting.”

  “Good interesting or bad interesting?”

  “Oh, you know.”

  “Or…you-can’t-talk-right-now interesting?”

  “That would be it,” I said.

  “Gotcha. Do I call you back at this number or wait to hear from you?”

  “If you find something, leave a message at the Hound and Harrier, and I’ll run over here and call you back.”

  Laurel agreed, I rang off, and Sally, who was cleaning up the morning dishes, said, “The papers are full of that poor actress lady. I didn’t realize she was the one from that police show. Blue Angel. It ran over here for a few years.”

  “What do the papers say?” I asked.

  “Oh, you know. Mostly they go on about the time she tried to shoot that director, Mr. Friedman. And they talk about her marriage to that actor. The one who died in that car wreck. And then her second marriage to that other actor. The one she divorced. Her daughters are both actresses, did you know?”

  “No. I don’t know much about her.”

  “She was very active in a number of political causes: animal rights and clearing mine fields and vegetarianism.”

  Was being a vegetarian a political cause? I said, “Did it sound like the police were making any headway in the investigation?”

  “Oh, they never say much, do they? The police, I mean. Not ’til they’re ready to make an arrest. There were reporters prowling through the village this morning.”

  “I know. They’re camped outside the Hound and Harrier.” I glanced over the headlines of The Clarion, which was spread out over the opposite side of the large kitchen table. It looked very like Innisdale was once more being tagged as the Murder Capital of the Lake District. “Has there been any news on the investigation into the death of the February brothers?”

  Sally finished loading the dishwasher and turned it on. “It didn’t sound that way to me. They’ve connected those two louts to the shootings at Rogue’s Gallery through some shell casings.”

  “Well, that was only a matter of time.” I gazed at the cat, which was now dozing lightly in the patch of sunlight. “Did you know them?”

  “The February boys? I knew of them. Between them they didn’t have the brain of a dizzy weasel. If someone really hired them to murder Mr. Fox it was someone not from these parts. No one here would be that foolish.”

  I thought that over as I called Brougham Manor and asked for Cordelia.

  We chatted briefly, then I asked, “Can you think of a way you might be able to use your family connections to get in to see Angela Hornsby?”

  “The MP?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are we sleuthing again?”

  “Maybe.”

  She laughed merrily. “Leave it to me!”

  We made arrangements to meet later that afternoon, I thanked Sally for the use of her phone and kitchen—which she waved off, and I walked back to the Hound and Harrier.

  *****

  Partly to distract myself, and partly because I had a deadline looming, I spent most of the time before lunch working on my book.

  After glancing through my notes, I reread the final pages of both fictionalized biographies of L.E.L. Whatever dramatic and possibly erroneous conclusions Enfield and Ashton might have drawn, Landon’s letters spoke for themselves. She did her utmost to make the best of a bad situation. Her husband, whatever kind of government official he was—and he was apparently a competent and conscientious one—was an indifferent and selfish spouse. In one of her final letters she wrote:


  He is the most unlivable-with person you can imagine…He says he will never leave off correcting me ’til he has broken me of my temper, which you know was never bad.

  With the exception of Mrs. Bailey, her serving woman, Landon was the only white woman on the coast. As well as being the seat of the Gold Coast colonial government, the fort was a bastion of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The legendary Gates of No Return were the exit through which slaves passed as they were herded onto the waiting ships. The company of slavers, bachelor officers, and merchants was a far cry from the literary salons of London. Landon was untrained and mostly unprepared for her new life, for days filled with cooking, cleaning, and housekeeping.

  There was little time to write, but she did manage to keep in touch with her family and friends, though her connection to her old life grew more and more tenuous as the months passed. As she was no longer producing stories and poems in feverish quantities, the fickle public began to forget her. Yet she apparently resisted returning to England, and was not entirely unhappy. Though she seemed to spend most of her life in a state of near-exhaustion, Landon appeared to view herself as someone living a great adventure in a new, exotic life.

  As for MacLean, he seemed essentially to have lived his life in a parallel but separate existence to Landon. Undoubtedly, his was a position of great pressure and responsibility. He could hardly have chosen a less suitable wife, but Landon clearly did her best. Perhaps MacLean had loved her in his own inexpressive and self-occupied way. Or it may have been that he was pressured into the marriage by guilt and chivalry, and felt he did not owe Landon much beyond giving her his name and a home. He probably did not expect her to last long—and she didn’t. Though whether he expected their marriage to end in her death remained shrouded in mystery.

  *****

  “Ouch!” Cordelia complained as I tightly plaited her long, blond hair. “I don’t understand why I have to go collecting for charity while looking like I’ve escaped from a nunnery.”