The Deathsniffer’s Assistant (The Faraday Files Book 1) (11 page)

“
Mister Grey
,” the Duchess snapped. The young man flinched, and Chris could hardly blame him for it. Her voice was cutting, a warning that would not suffer to be ignored. “Did you hear me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the young man murmured, barely audible. He jostled Olivia as he passed between her and Chris. Chris caught a glimpse of a splotch of green on one of his cheeks, and then he was no more than a retreating back with hunched shoulders. No servant escorted him out as Chris and Olivia had been honoured with the night before. He simply opened the door and closed it quietly behind him.

The Duchess sighed. “Ethan Grey,” she pronounced. “My daughter’s paramour. I can’t seem get rid of that contemptible little parasite no matter how hard I try.” She trailed one hand along the banister as she descended the staircase, seeming to float. “Miss Faraday,” she greeted. “I must say, I didn’t expect to see you today.”

“Where is everyone getting that idea?” Olivia said. “Duchess, your husband was
murdered
yesterday. Does everyone think I sit in my solar and drink tea in this situation just because it’s a certain day of the week? Please don’t think so little of me. It doesn’t suit you.” The Duchess’s eyes flashed, but before Chris could witness another clash of goddesses, Olivia simply turned away. “Now! I want to look around that room again. I presume Maris and her team cleaned it all up and dealt with the leftovers?” She turned back to the Duchess for confirmation at this and received a tight nod for her efforts. “Good, I’ll need to talk with her and see if she found anything I didn’t after I see the room in its current state. I’d also like to talk to any of the staff who weren’t here yesterday, but are today. Yes?”

The Duchess nodded again. “I can arrange that.”

“Good, thank you! I’ll be down in the parlour to speak to them within the hour,” Olivia chirped. She motioned jauntily to Chris and they’d taken five steps when Olivia stopped so suddenly he had to catch himself lest there be a collision. She turned back to Duchess val Daren with a look on her face that seemed to be only idly curious, but Chris knew better. “Oh, and your daughter.”

“Ana?”

“Was that her name?” Olivia said again, with an equally convincing shrug as in the carriage. “Well, whatever it was, you have only one daughter, so that one, yes. I’d like to speak to her, as well. Alone.”

The Duchess’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“Because I think she could be useful,” Olivia replied, making her way up the stairs before the Duchess could argue.

Not long after, Chris stood in one corner of the room where the Duke had been killed, trying to make himself invisible. Olivia turned circles in the centre, muttering to herself and taking measurements with her long, graceful fingers. Chris held his book open and his mind at the ready, but it was impossible for him to make out anything she said.

The room looked completely different without a butchered corpse hanging from the rafters. Whoever this Maris person was—Olivia’s supervisor with the police, Chris hazarded—they’d done a terrific job scrubbing the place clean. A faint brownish stain was still on the floor where the Duke had bled out, but otherwise, the room looked much the same as Chris imagined it had before its inhabitant had been split open. What Olivia hoped to see in the empty, immaculate skeleton of a murder scene, however, Christopher couldn’t imagine.

“No weapon,” Olivia murmured glumly.

“Maybe Maris found it?” Chris suggested. He began transcribing their conversation.

“Absolutely not. She would have contacted me.” Olivia clucked her tongue and then sighed with a thespian’s skill. “I so wish there was a weapon. If we get lucky, I can have the culprit fingered in two days or less.”

“Were you…hoping to find it in here?”

She snorted. “No, of course not. Why would I? If it were here, I would have seen it yesterday. If I hadn’t, Maris would have found it and mirrored me. No hope of finding it today, not unless the killer came back and replaced it like an idiot.”

“Then why
are
we here?”

A chair scraped across the floor. “I’m setting the scene.”

Chris stopped taking notes and looked up.

She no longer stood in the centre of the room. Instead, she sat before the large bureau on the chair she’d pulled out. She mimed a pen in her hand and an open book. “He would have been sitting here, at his desk,” she mused. “At least, we can assume. He might have gotten up to look out the window, or gone to get a book from the case, but best guess was that he was here.” She suddenly turned her eyes on Chris, keen as a hawk. “Are you getting this down, because this is what I’m paying you for.”

Quickly, he looked down and weaved what he remembered of what she’d said…
gone to get a book from the case but best guess was that…

“Door opens,” Olivia continued. “Viktor turns about to see who it is.”
…to see who it is
(
olivia twisted in chair here to look at the door
)…

Her brow furrowed in thought. “This room has an antique lock, not a modern one. Just brass, tumblers, and old-fashioned keys. Terribly inconvenient things, those old models.” She linked her fingers, stretched her arms, and cracked all her knuckles at once. Chris winced. “So,” Olivia pronounced. “Was the door locked that night? Check your notes.”

Chris flipped through the book to yesterday’s initial tour of the room. He’d recorded that the door had an antique lock and there were only two keys, one belonging to the Duke and the other to the Duchess. The Duchess had sworn to her key’s location on her person all night. But there was nothing more about the Duke’s key, and no mention of whether the door had been locked that night. “I don’t think anyone has said.”

“Make a note to ask,” Olivia commanded. He did. “If it was locked, either someone else had to open it, or…someone had to have called to him to open it, someone he would have trusted.”

“Or someone who had the key,” Chris put in.

Olivia frowned.

“The Duke’s key,” Chris elaborated, feeling foolish.

“Hmm. That’s a thought.” Olivia tapped her chin with one of her long, long fingers. “Just where exactly is the Duke’s key? Why don’t we know that?”

“Ah,” he said, shrinking under her reptilian gaze. His eyes flicked down to the page with its messy, swirling notes, and then back up to her. She raised her eyebrows in a silent enquiry. “…are you…am…am I supposed to be…?”

She dismissed him with an airy wave. “Oh, you’re adorable.” She giggled and stood up. “Make a note of that key business. I want to know where the thing is. In any case, the Duke gets up and walks to the door, like this. We know he was killed right here.” She stopped in the brownish stain. “Because there’s no blood anywhere else.” She raised one finger to tap at her chin thoughtfully. “So, of course, he had his throat slashed first, then he was hung up,
then
his arms were cut.”

then his arms were—
Chris looked up. “How do you know?”

“What, didn’t you notice?” Olivia shot him a playful look. “Oh, ordinary people are so slow. Check your notes. Almost no blood came from the cuts down the arms. That means there wasn’t much left by the time they were made. Though why they were made, now, that
is
a mystery.” She walked in a small circle around the outside of the brownish stain. “Then, heinous deed accomplished, our killer leaves the room. Now. Tell me. What did I miss?” She gave Chris a devilish look.

He blushed and averted his eyes. He had not forgotten the ignoble peculiarity of the Duke’s death. “The, ah…”

“When did he get his pillock out?” Olivia teased.

Chris studiously avoided her gaze, focusing on the page and weaving the ridiculous sentence she’d just uttered. “You said,” he began, choosing his words like he was picking his way through a cow pasture, “it was before. He died.”

“I did.” She preened like a pleased bird. “Yes, I did. That’s the key to this whole thing, you know. Now, I’ll need to talk to Maris before I know for sure, because it’s her and her coppers who are going over the body and doing all of that postmortem foolishness. But it looked to me like there wasn’t a struggle.” She turned slowly around the room. “Do
you
remember seeing things in disarray, Mister Buckley?”

He shook his head.

“Check your notes.”

He did as he was told, and then repeated the motion with more certainty.

“I thought not.” She tapped two fingers against her chin. “I’d think if someone had tried to open his pants while also trying to kill him, he would have reacted to that, don’t you?”

“…probably.”

“So.” Olivia nodded with satisfaction. “That narrows things down quite a bit. Whoever stabbed him might have been someone he was expecting to
stab
, himself, if you know what I mean.”

“Then it’s the Duchess.” Olivia smirked, and Chris felt a rush of defensiveness. “
What
?”

“Adorable! Christopher, really. Did you hear anything she said yesterday? I think her opening up his pants would have shocked him more than the cook doing it. Women don’t kill their husbands when they
are
in bed with them. They kill them when they’re
not
.” She tapped her chin. “But this doesn’t disqualify anyone. He could have already had it out when the door opened. If the door was locked the killer was in possession of a key, he might have been so startled he didn’t take the time to make himself presentable before he stood up, took two steps, and got his throat slashed open. But I think it’s relevant. It’s too interesting not to be.”

The certainty in her voice prompted him to voice his curiosity. “Miss Faraday, meaning no offence, but don’t you just…know who it is?”

“Wouldn’t that be lovely?”

“But you’re a truthsniffer.”

She shrugged one shoulder. “There are truthsniffers in a lot of different fields. Science and engineering and law enforcement. Don’t you think things would get done faster if we could always just go with our first guess? My gut isn’t always right. Just more often than everyone else’s is.” Her eyes swept over the room and she nodded once to herself. “There’s still a lot of work left to be done.”

he parlour was empty but for a slender, dark-haired young woman curled in the window seat. She had her knees drawn up to her chest and was staring out into the countryside. Her gown was simple and her feet were bare. She didn’t stir when they came in, but jumped and turned when Olivia cleared her throat.

Chris didn’t recognize her, but Olivia did.

“Oh,” the Deathsniffer droned. “Is your mother hard of hearing? I asked for her staff
and
her daughter.”

Chris blinked. Now that it had been pointed out, he recognized Lady Analaea from the day before, but he couldn’t imagine how Olivia had done so. Her hair still hung unbound, but now was glossy and clean. Her face, no longer blotchy and puffy from unashamed tears, was made up with simple but well-chosen cosmetics. Her lips were full and pouty, her eyes soulful and intense. Her gown was austere, and she was still so thin she seemed underfed, but gone was the awkward and plain girl who’d sniffled down at them from the stairs yesterday. In her place was a fragile young blossom, not quite beautiful, not quite ethereal, not quite aristocratic, but something in between all of those, altogether remarkable.