Laura Lee Guhrke (10 page)

Violet laughed. “That’s a polite way of saying you are a nonbeliever, Mr. Dunbar.”

“Perhaps,” he admitted, laughing with her.

Sophie seemed to be the only one who didn’t find it amusing.

“I understand you take in lodgers here, Mrs. Summer-street,” he said, changing the subject.

“That is so, yes. We have four lodgers at present. Two of them are spiritualists like myself. We hold meetings every other Friday night to discuss the phenomena in and around London. I believe you would find it quite fascinating, even though you are a nonbeliever. Last night we discussed the ghosts of Apsley House at great length.”

“Really?” he said in a conversational tone. “How interesting. Are there ghosts in Apsley House?”

His pretended interest in the subject of spiritualism was galling enough, but as Auntie answered him, Sophie sensed his interest in the subject had a deeper purpose than simply making conversation. His next question proved it.

“Did all four of your lodgers attend this meeting?” he asked. “And how long did it last?”

He was trying to find out what everyone had been up to when the shot had been fired at him, and Sophie realized this might be her chance to be rid of him. Perhaps if he knew no one in her household could have done it, he’d go away and leave them alone.

“The colonel didn’t attend, of course,” Violet answered. “He plays dominoes with Mr. Shelton, the neighbor who lives behind us, on those nights. Mr. Dawes was out as well, at a coffeehouse in Chelsea with his friends, a place called Kelly’s, if I remember what he said when he left last night. They were studying,
I believe, since his examinations are in June. He’s a medical student, you see.”

She saw Violet smile at Dunbar, and she realized Auntie liked him, a fact that baffled her. “Like you,” Violet continued, “Edward and the colonel are nonbelievers. But Miss Peabody, Miss Atwood, Mrs. Shelton, myself, and two of our other neighbors attended the meeting here. Sophie, of course, had gone to see you and make sure you were still alive. Our meeting lasted from half past eight to about eleven. When Sophie came home, we were just finishing our coffee.”

Seeming to be satisfied by that explanation of everyone’s whereabouts, Dunbar glanced at his surroundings, then returned his attention to Violet. “You have a beautiful home. It must be a very pleasant place for your lodgers to live.”

Sophie stiffened, her suspicions about him sharpening again. Why was he buttering up Auntie? What did he want?

“Thank you,” Violet replied, sounding pleased. “Sophie runs things, of course, but both of us think of the people who stay here as family, and we try to provide them with all the comforts of a home.”

“Your lodgers are fortunate, ma’am. You seem to be concerned with their welfare. I wish my landlady had that same sense of consideration about her tenants. She doesn’t much care about those of us who live in her lodging house, I’m sorry to say.”

Somehow, Sophie felt a sudden empathy with Mrs. Tribble.

“Your lodgings arc disagreeable to you?” Violet asked him.

“They are, ma’am, I must confess. But finding an affordable flat in London that is clean and respectable is a nearly impossible task. I make do.”

Violet sighed. “It must be horrible to live in unpleasant surroundings.”

Sophie heard the innocent tone of her aunt’s voice, and she knew what was coming. “Oh, no!” she cried, horrified by what Violet was intending to do. “Auntie, no, he can’t stay here!”

Dunbar was looking at Violet in surprise, but when he glanced at Sophie, she understood he’d had this in mind all along. “Are you offering me a room here, Mrs. Summerstreet?” he asked, returning his attention to Violet.

“No, she isn’t.” Sophie scowled at him. “She is most definitely not offering you a room.”

“But, darling, it’s perfect all round,” Violet said. “So perfect, in fact, that I am certain the spirits have arranged it. I told you they would send us someone today.”

“It’s not perfect,” Sophie said, panicking as she thought of Cousin Katherine’s stolen necklace tucked in the secret drawer of her secretaire. “It’s not perfect,” she repeated with emphasis. “It’s a disaster.”

“But finding someone to take that last room before your mother arrives was your idea.”

“Yes, Auntie, I know, but letting the room to Inspector Dunbar isn’t what I had in mind.”

“If Mr. Dunbar takes the last bedroom in the house,” Violet went on as if her niece had not spoken, “dear Agatha will have to stay with Charlotte.”

“I know, but—”

“We’ll once again have the income from that room, which is always welcome, and we won’t even have to pay for advertisements in the papers, I thought you’d welcome this, dear. You are always so concerned about our finances. And you won’t have to deal with your mother’s presence twenty-four hours a day.”

“Yes, but—”

“Mr. Dunbar will have a decent place to live, and we will be able to watch over him so no one tries again to kill him.”

“Yes, Auntie, but he thinks one of
us
is trying to kill him,” she said, finally managing to make her point. She glared at the man across from her, who was sitting back in his chair listening to their discussion, silent and looking quite pleased with himself. “He thinks one of us is a murderer.”

Her aunt looked at her with an indulgent smile. “Inspector Dunbar knows now that it was impossible for any of us to shoot at him. Besides, this is the perfect way for you to fulfill your responsibility to help him determine who is trying to kill him.”

“Someone
is
trying to kill him!” she shot back. “That is the material point. It’s not safe for us to have him here.” Only she seemed to appreciate how true that was.

Violet studied her with a frown of concern. “Sophie, you’re becoming overwrought. It’s due to lack of sleep, I’m sure. Take some valerian tonight, dear, and you’ll sleep better.”

“Auntie, didn’t you hear me? Having him here would be dangerous.”

“If someone wants to kill him, I hardly think they will come breaking into our house to do so.” She
turned to Dunbar, who had not spoken during their discussion of him. “What is your opinion? If you were to take a room here, do you believe the villain trying to kill you would be any threat to us?”

“I doubt it,” he answered. “Given your niece’s dream, this person seems to have no connection with your household, and it would not serve him to inflict harm on any of you.”

“Of course that’s what you’d say,” Sophie said through clenched teeth. “It’s so self-serving.”

“Sophie!” Violet turned her head to look at her niece. “What an extraordinary remark. What has gotten into you?”

Sophie bit her lip at the rebuke and fell silent.

“It is most likely,” Dunbar went on, “that the assassin will come after me when I am alone, probably by another gunshot in the park or some other isolated area. Man, like all other animals, is not very original.”

Violet nodded. “So you do believe he will try again?”

“Yes, ma’am. I think he will try again. And again, and again.” He paused for what was clearly dramatic effect. “He will try until he succeeds.”

“We must see that does not happen, Inspector, and that this fiend is caught and punished. If you are willing, I will have Hannah prepare a room for you, and you may stay with us as long as you wish. I hope three guineas a week is acceptable to you?”

Sophie looked at her aunt helplessly, knowing there was nothing she could say to prevent Auntie’s awful idea from becoming reality. She glanced over at Michael Dunbar and found that he was watching her.

Beneath those thick black lashes, his eyes glimmered with amusement. He was laughing at her. It was galling. He looked like the cat who’d gotten into the cream pitcher. “My guardian angel,” he said.

Sophie had a very unangelic impulse to throw the nearest pot of orchids at his head.

Five
 

Mick left Mrs. Summerstreet’s house quite pleased. Things couldn’t have worked out better for his plans. He returned to the Yard and requested that Thacker interview the serving girls at Kelly’s Coffee House in Chelsea, and Violet’s neighbors, the Sheltons. While these tasks were handled, Mick completed paperwork on two cases that needed to be closed out, then went upstairs to his newly painted office to make sure the walls weren’t really chartreuse. He was glad to find them the same shade of eggshell white they had been before.

He then left the Yard and went in search of the hansom driver who had taken Sophie and her butler to his flat the night before. Since Mick had noted the cab’s number the previous night, it didn’t take him long to locate the driver. According to his account, he had driven
Sophie and her butler from the May fair house to Scotland Yard, then through the Embankment to Mick’s flat. The driver told him the cab had never entered the Embankment Gardens. Other than when Sophie had gone inside Scotland Yard to obtain Mick’s address, the driver swore that neither of his passengers had left the carriage until it had stopped in front of Mrs. Tribble’s house.

That afternoon Mick met with Thacker, who confirmed that Violet, Josephine Atwood, and Hermione Peabody had not been out of Mrs. Shelton’s sight from half past eight to eleven o’clock the night before. The Colonel had been with Mr. Shelton. None of them could have been in the Embankment at half past nine. The same was true of Mr. Dawes. A young man working at the coffeehouse the previous evening verified that Dawes had been there from eight to well past midnight.

Mrs. Shelton had also confirmed the presence in the house of the two female servants. Both the cook and the maid had been seen many times during the evening by those in the drawing room. Mick didn’t see how either of them could have slipped away long enough to get to the Embankment, shoot at him, and return home without her absence being noticed.

Mick went to his lodgings and packed a few of his things. Not all of them, since he wasn’t giving up his flat. For now, however, Violet’s house would give him access to Sophie’s acquaintances, and that was the only way he was going to find out who had shot at him the night before. He arrived on Mrs. Summerstreet’s doorstep just about teatime.

In his experience, no one was ever happy to see a
policeman, and Mick was accustomed to distress and resentment whenever he made inquiries into a crime, A detective moving into this house would be regarded as far worse, so when Violet’s butler opened the front door to him for the second time that day, he expected an even colder reception from the fellow than he had received this morning. He was not disappointed.

Albert Grimstock had clearly been informed of the newest lodger, and he greeted Mick’s arrival with all the frigidity of a Russian winter. He looked at Mick, then glanced down at the two worn leather valises by the door and raised one eyebrow in disapproval. “Wait here,” he said and closed the door.

After a few minutes, the front door opened again, and Grimstock motioned Mick inside. “It is teatime, Inspector,” the butler said coldly. “Would you prefer to be shown to your room or to take tea with the others?”

“I’ll have tea,” Mick replied.

The butler’s expression became more pinched than before. He informed Mick that his things would be taken upstairs to his room in due course, accepted Mick’s felt homburg hat, then led him to the drawing room, where six people were partaking of India tea, tomato sandwiches, and cream cakes.

Sophie was standing by the fireplace. She wore a white shirtwaist and pastel striped skirt. Her hair was swept up in a pile of curls and held in place atop her head by a pair of silver combs. She looked as sweet and delicious as a petit four, but the resentful look she gave him told Mick she wasn’t all sweet over him. It also made him more convinced than ever that she was protecting
someone from his investigations. But who was she protecting?

Everyone else stood up as he was announced, and Violet came forward to greet him, as pleasant and amiable as she had been that morning. She introduced him to the other lodgers and invited him to sit down beside her on the settee. As she poured him out a cup of tea, adding lemon and sugar at his request, Mick took the opportunity to study the others in the room.

Colonel Richard Abercrombie was a large, elderly man whose erect carriage, waxed mustache, and tanned, weathered face indicated him to be retired army, probably India. He gave Mick a hard stare as if thinking him an impudent young pup, then he sat back down in his chair and retreated behind the
Times
.

Miss Hermione Peabody was short and stout, with an amiable, sheeplike face, and Miss Josephine Atwood was tall and lean. Both were clearly proper spinsters whose slightly shabby clothes spoke of limited means.

Edward Dawes, he was told, studied medicine at London University Hospital, but the fellow looked more in need of medical attention than most patients did. He was thin to the point of emaciation, with a grayish complexion and a manner that was both nervous and supercilious, which wouldn’t inspire the confidence of his patients when he became a practicing physician.

Though Violet’s and Hermione’s greetings had been warm and friendly, an awkward silence fell after his new landlady handed him his tea and passed him the sandwiches. Mick could feel the apprehension in the room, which he knew meant nothing at all. People
were often nervous in the presence of police officers, and it seldom had anything to do with a crime.