Page 42 of Murder at the Dinner Party
Harry ruffled his hair, messing it up. “Better?”
“Hunch your back a little.”
Harry hunched. “Now?”
Harmony lifted one shoulder, giving up.
Victor told us to wait, then disappeared inside. He returned moments later with a cloth blackened with soot. He drew a smudge on Harry’s cheek, then told him to wipe his hands on the dirty cloth.
“I’m a gas inspector, not a chimney sweep,” Harry said even though he obliged.
Harmony sent us on our way, then returned inside with Victor, still carrying Harry’s jacket and hat.
“Are they a couple yet?” Harry asked.
“Yes.”
“Can we expect wedding bells soon?”
“Not everyone wants to marry, Harry. Perhaps they’re quite content as they are.”
He gave me a sharp look, but made no comment about the irritation underpinning my tone. He was wiser than most men when it came to understanding when a topic was best left alone.
We briefly discussed our plan, then separated well before reaching the Whitchurches’ house. I headed into the mews to wait at the rear of the residence. The moments ticked by slowly, but eventually Harry appeared and signaled for me to enter.
“Sorry it took so long,” he whispered. “The dowager is refusing to leave. According to the housekeeper, she says she couldn’t smell gas so is staying put. She’s in her room. I had the housekeeper assemble everyone else down the street, including Lord and Lady Whitchurch.”
It would seem the dowager was prepared to risk her life. Gas leaks could prove deadly. I’d lost count of the number of reports I’d read of corroded pipes and fittings leaking gas that exploded. If a resident or passerby smelled gas, the gas company would send a gas fitter to fix the problem, but due to the volatility of the substance, the residents had to vacate the premises in the meantime. Given no one had smelled gas, the dowager was smarter than the rest.
“You’ll need to be quiet or she’ll become suspicious,” Harry went on.
“I will.”
“I’ll help. It’ll be twice as fast with two.”
“No.” I pointed at the service stairs that led to the basement kitchen and storerooms. The gas tanks would be down there. If anyone who might recognize him checked on his progress, he could keep his face averted as he pretended to work. I suspected the fear of an explosion would keep the household away, however.
He obeyed, albeit reluctantly.
I snuck upstairs and checked all the photographs on display in the first-floor drawing room, the only room I’d already been in. I recognized Arthur, the current lord, and quickly realized which other man was his father. With various family members I’d met appearing in all other photographs, and based on their age in each, I was able to determine that not a single one was of Rupert. I took a closer look at the oddly sized photograph with the late Lord Whitchurch standing beside a horse. I’d suspected a section had been cut off, and a second look proved I was right. Part of another person’s shadow appeared on the ground.
I checked the rest of the rooms on the first floor and was surprised to find the second reception room was a dining room. Usually in grand townhouses they were on the ground floor, so that it wasn’t far for the food to travel from the kitchen. There were no photographs in the dining room, but there was a large painted portrait over the fireplace. Closer inspection proved it was the late Lord Whitchurch and the dowager aged in their late thirties or early forties. She wore a lustrous gown of white satin and a necklace of diamonds and aquamarines. But it wasn’t her clothing and jewels that interested me. It was Lord Whitchurch’s tiepin. It was shaped like a sword with a sapphire embedded in the pommel.
Why was his tiepin hidden in the toe of Mr. Hardy’s shoe?
I hurried out of the dining room and stood on the landing, uncertain whether to go downstairs to the ground floor where there ought to be a library and whatever had replaced the dining room space, or upstairs to the bedchambers where I suspected I’d have more success but might stumble across the dowager.
I decided to go up, but only search rooms where the door was open and I could see that it was empty. Unfortunately, there were only two rooms that fit that criteria. One was a guest bedchamber that held nothing of interest. The other was Lord Whitchurch’s study. Despite a thorough search of his desk and shelves, I found no photographs of his brother, nor any correspondence from him or relating to him. If any existed, they’d probably be in the wall safe, which I found behind a painting, but cracking the code was beyond my limited skills.
I crept past the closed doors on both the second and third floors, wondering which one the dowager’s bedchamber was behind. I didn’t bother with the fourth floor, as the servants’ quarters wouldn’t contain anything relevant.
With only the ground floor left, I tiptoed down the stairs. I had to be careful searching the library. Located at the front of the house, the window overlooked the pavement, so I limited my search to the desk. Finding nothing, I exited via the rear door that led to the staircase, instead of the one leading to the entrance hall. The only main room left to search was the one that should have been the dining room, beyond the staircase. Curious as to what it might house since the dining room had been relocated to the first floor, I headed toward it, only to stop dead when the door opened.
Too late, I realized why the dining room had taken over the reception room on the first floor. The elderly dowager’s bedchamber had been moved into the ground-floor room usually used as a dining room, so that she didn’t have to climb up and down stairs all day. She’d refused to vacate it during the gas inspection and had stayed behind, not on the second or third floors where I’d been so careful to remain quiet, but on the ground level.
And now she was coming out.
I opened the nearest door and ducked inside. Before the light was blocked out by the closing door, I took note of thick, long coats and fur stoles. The enclosed space smelled of cedarwood, used to keep the moths away. Hopefully, the smell hadn’t wafted out when I entered the coat closet.
