A Crimson Warning (32 page)

Davis poked his head in the door. “An urgent message from Scotland Yard, sir.” He handed Colin a note that my husband opened and read in the space of a breath.

“Mrs. Harris has attacked her husband,” Colin said. “She’s been subdued and is in her house under police observation.”

Ivy went white. “Do you think she’s the murderer?”

“It certainly doesn’t look good for her.”

“Is Mr. Harris all right?” I asked.

“Apparently, she knocked him over the head with a fire poker,” he said. “He’s at home with a doctor.”

“This is horrible,” Ivy said. “And I feel like it’s my fault.”

“It’s not your fault in the least,” I said. “She should have restrained herself, and her husband should have had the sense to keep away from Lady Glover.”

“We knew she might be violent,” Ivy said.

“I think he’ll recover fully,” Colin said. “They haven’t even had to take him to the hospital.”

“It sounds like the old boy deserved a good whack,” Jeremy said. “He should never have left such incriminating things sitting around the house.”

“Quite,” Colin said, then frowned and looked at his watch. “I want to get over there right away and don’t know how long I’ll be gone. Let’s hope that by the time I return, this is all settled.”

“What about Lady Glover?” Ivy asked after Colin had gone. “What if Winifred’s hurt her, too?”

“I don’t think she would have,” I said. “Not after what we told her today.”

Seeing how upset Ivy was, Jeremy excused himself briefly from the room, imploring us to alert him as soon as we learned anything new. Not a quarter of an hour after he’d gone, we heard someone banging on the front door of the house. Banging on the door and screaming.

“Lady Glover!” I’d rushed into the corridor, Ivy and Jeremy right behind me. Lady Glover was soaked. Her turquoise dress, with its golden crystal beads, which had once been elegant and stylish, was covered with dirt and missing one sleeve—the one that had been found in the park. Her hair was coming down around her shoulders, twigs and leaves sticking out from it. Mud streaked her face. Despite all this, she looked almost like a much-put-upon romantic heroine.

“Emily … I didn’t know where else—” She started to step forward, but collapsed on the floor in a delicate heap.

Davis, always the master of efficiency, had her upstairs in no time. A maid drew a bath and assisted her in getting cleaned up and into one of my cotton nightgowns. I tried to persuade Lady Glover to lie down, but she refused. Instead, she wanted a wrap to throw over her shoulders and insisted on coming down to the library.

“I’ve heard too much about your port not to have some,” she said. “You must indulge me, Lady Emily. I’ve been through so much.”

I knew enough of her to understand arguing would be fruitless, so I ceded to her demands. She draped herself across a settee, accepted a glass, and asked for a cigarette.

“I don’t have one,” I said. “Tell us what happened.”

“You haven’t summoned the police yet, have you?” she asked.

“Only my husband,” I said. “He’s in the midst of investigating another matter.”

“What?” she asked.

“Don’t worry about that right now,” Ivy said.

“It’s not to do with my kidnapper, vicious man, that he is?” she asked.

“No, it’s not,” I said. “But do you think you could identify him?”

“I will never forget that face,” she said. “Beady eyes and thin little mouth. But I don’t know his name, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“Where was he holding you?” I asked.

“In the lodge where you saw me. I cannot tell you how it bolstered my spirits to see you coming to save me!”

“I didn’t realize you could see us,” I said. “I’m only sorry it didn’t work.”

“I didn’t mean to suggest I’d actually
seen
you,” she said. “But he mentioned you and the duke by name when he told me we had to move.”

“Did he hurt you?” Ivy asked.

“He was terrible,” Lady Glover said, lowering her voice. “You can’t imagine.”

“We must contact your husband at once,” Ivy said.

“No.” Lady Glover sat up. “I’m angry at him. He took so long paying the ransom.”

“So far as I know, the kidnapper hadn’t sent instructions,” I said. “Did he say anything about the money when he released you?”

“No. You misunderstand. I assumed the ransom had been paid,” she said. “I took a little nap this afternoon—being held prisoner is frightfully tedious—and when I woke up, there was no sign of either of my usual guards. On a whim, I tried the door and found it open.”

“So you just walked out, unscathed?” Ivy asked.

“Oh, no! It wasn’t so easy,” she said. “At first I thought that’s how it would be. I crept down the stairs—”

“Where were you?” I asked again.

“In another lodge in Hyde Park. A much nicer one this time. That’s due to you, Emily. If you hadn’t forced him to move me, I would have been stuck in that awful place the whole time.”

“But you did have trouble escaping?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “Only one of the guards was there, and he’d gone outside. I don’t know why. So I ran out the other door and didn’t look back until I was out of the park. Actually, I didn’t look back then, either.”

“Was he following you?” Ivy asked. “Could you hear him?”

“Not that I noticed,” she said. “But one does have to make reasonable assumptions in these situations.”

“So when did the actual trouble occur?” I asked.

“I suppose it was more theoretical than actual,” Lady Glover said. “But I was terrified.”

It was clear she didn’t need a doctor; she’d risen from her faint with indecent speed. And nothing about her story rang true.

“I don’t believe you, Lady Glover,” I said.

“What can you possibly mean? How could I have been anything but terrified?” she asked.

“None of this makes sense—it hasn’t from the beginning. And look at you now: you’re not even upset.”

“I’m in shock. Once I’ve had a chance to react thoroughly I’m likely to be hysterical. How can you accuse me of—”

“Don’t,” I said, raising my hand. “I don’t believe any of this.”

She sat, silent, for some minutes, then let out a long sigh. “Was it that obvious?”

“No,” Ivy said. “I bought it entirely and it is I who is in a state of shock. Did you really make it up?”

“I am a master of intrigue, you know,” Lady Glover said.

“I feel a complete fool,” Ivy said. “I never doubted you. You are quite an actress.” There was a twinge of admiration in her voice.

“How did you arrange it?” I asked.

“I hired actors. We staged the kidnapping—it was rather exciting, I must say—and holed up in a lodge I knew to be vacant. A few days of that, though, and I started to get bored. My husband wasn’t responding to any of the ransom instructions—”

“I don’t think he received any,” I said.

“He did. My spies saw him read them. He just didn’t want to deal with me.” Tears flashed in her eyes. Part of me felt sorry for her, but the rest knew she was probably acting. “I tried to increase the stakes by having my men drop my sleeve in the park, but that didn’t light a fire under him, either. The whole experience was thoroughly depressing. In the end, I got tired of it and decided to go home. After making a stop here, first.”

“Why would you do such a thing?” Ivy asked. “I, for one, have been worried sick about you.”

“I guess I can’t get the stage fully out of my blood,” she said.

“That’s not a valid reason,” I said.

“My husband used to dote on me,” she said. “But lately I’d come to realize he didn’t care anymore. I wanted to know if that was the truth. And I found out, didn’t I?”

“What about the letters?” I asked. “Did you invent those as well?”

“No, I swear to you I didn’t,” she said. “And I got one more before my abduction.” She pulled it out of her décolletage and handed it to me:

I am whipp’d and scourg’d with rods,

Nettled, and stung with pismires, when I hear

Of this vile politician

“Henry IV, Part I,”
Ivy said. “It’s one of Robert’s favorites.”

“That’s it,” I said. “I’m going to fetch Colin. And we must send for your husband. Ivy will look after you.

I took the carriage to the Harrises’ house, but before I’d reached my destination, I saw Colin walking away from it. I called for the driver to stop and waved for my husband’s attention.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

I told him about Lady Glover. “She wasn’t kidnapped any more than I was,” I said. “It looked liked she’d rolled around in the mud to lend herself an air of authenticity. I’ll tell you the rest later. But when I read the last letter she said she’d received from our painter, I wanted to find you at once.”

“What is it?”

“We need to revisit those notebooks I found in Mr. Dillman’s house. As quickly as possible. The letter made reference to a vile politician, and the notebooks had all those records of bills before Parliament. I want to study them again.”

“They’re at Scotland Yard,” he said.

“You can tell me about Mrs. Harris on the way,” I said.

“That’s a mess of phenomenal proportion,” he said. “Mr. Harris will be fine, although he’ll have a headache for the foreseeable future. His wife has ledgers full of the most horrific gossip. And she’d made large red
X
s by the people whose houses were painted. It’s impossible to tell whether that’s to indicate that she’d already finished with them or whether she was just keeping track of what someone else was doing.”

“Was every single victim of the paint on her list?” I asked.

“All but Mr. Dillman,” he said. “But he was the first, and it’s entirely possible she didn’t start her book until after she was finished with him. And now she’s proven herself capable of violence. There’s one other thing you might find interesting. She kept a record of her correspondence in one of her journals, and was writing to Foster on a regular basis for the past year. The frequency of her letters to him increased, however, about two weeks before Dillman’s death.”

“Do you think there’s a connection between them?” I asked.

“It’s possible,” he said. “We’ll have to question Foster before we can reach any firm conclusions. Regardless, she looks to be the guilty party.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “Please, take me to Scotland Yard.”

“We’ll go, first thing in the morning,” he said. “Right now, we need to deal with Lady Glover, who may be facing some very serious charges.”

“Can we at least pick up the notebooks and bring them home?”

“You’re relentless, my dear.”

“Implacable.”

“I might as well give in?” he asked, leaning in for a kiss.

“It would be futile to do otherwise.” He kissed me again, this time more thoroughly.

And then he did as I asked, insisting that I remain in the carriage while he ran inside to fetch the notebooks. I did not object, having found the ride to Scotland Yard some of the most pleasant time I’d spent all season.

36

Back at Park Lane, it was difficult to reconcile the wrathful, seething man giving Lady Glover a most severe dressing down with the passionate and attentive gentleman who had escorted me home from Scotland Yard. A shiver of excitement charged through me as I watched him. It was bad of me, no doubt, to admire this side of him, but how could I not? He was a master of his work, and within a quarter of an hour he’d got Lady Glover to confess every detail of what she’d done, down to the names of the men she’d hired to “guard” her.

“They were actors?” Colin asked.

“I needed them to be convincing,” she said. “Darling, I’m terribly sorry, you must forgive me.”

“You will not tell me what I must do,” he said. “Sit up. I’ll not speak to you while you’re making such a terrible attempt to mimic Cabanel’s portrait of Ophelia.”

I expected a witty reply from her, but she said nothing. She sat up, pulling my dressing gown close around her shoulders.

“Your husband will be here momentarily,” Colin said. “I suggest you go upstairs and put your own clothes back on. It’s reprehensible that you’re in public rooms in such a state.”

“My clothes are all wet,” she said.

“Because you chose to make them that way.”

“Colin, I could lend her a dress so that she doesn’t—”

He interrupted me. “She doesn’t need comfort right now, Emily. Lord Glover will take her home in short order and she can wear what she likes once she’s there.” He rang for a maid and directed her to take Lady Glover back upstairs. “I’ve no tolerance for what you’ve done. Not only have we wasted time and resources searching for you, you put my wife and the Duke of Bainbridge in danger when you set your thugs on them.”

“I told them not to hit either of them too hard,” she said. “You must see I couldn’t let them rescue me all the way. I just wanted them to be able to make a good-sounding report.”

“What you’ve done is outrageous and despicable,” he said. “Your antics have made it more difficult to find the savage who killed Cordelia Dalton.”

She nodded, chastened, and followed the maid from the room.

“I don’t ever want you mad at me,” Ivy said to him. “You’re very fierce.”

“She’s behaved most appallingly,” Colin said. “Two people are dead, and she’s staged this farce to get attention? It’s outrageous. She’s fortunate I wasn’t harder on her.”

“Fortunate indeed,” I said. “Now tell Ivy what you learned at the Harrises’.”

“Mr. Harris is going to be all right. She was rough with him, and he’s banged up, but the doctor felt there’s no need for serious concern.”

“I imagine he’ll approach marital fidelity with a different view moving forward,” I said.

“Will Winifred be arrested?” Ivy asked.

“I don’t know yet,” Colin said. “Scotland Yard are searching the house right now. We already know she’s guilty of extortion, and now this. I’m afraid it doesn’t look good for her.”

“But you can’t think she killed Mr. Dillman,” Ivy said.

“Why not?” he asked.

“I just can’t believe it, despite what we’ve seen.” Ivy’s shoulders were pulled back, stiff and straight.

“She may have had an accomplice,” I said. “Which is why we need to look at those notebooks right away, Colin.”