Page 55 of Murder at the Dinner Party
Somehow, he’d managed to turn my attempts to tease him to his advantage.Hewas supposed to blush, and yet I was the one trying to hide my reddening cheeks by tugging on my hat brim.
“Where did you stop after the zoo?” he asked. He still sounded amused, drat him.
I cleared my throat. “On the journey home, I sat with Cobbit and had an epiphany.”
“That sounds profound. Does it have anything to do with that?” He indicated the framed photograph under my arm.
I clasped it between both hands and turned it to show him. “Cobbit helped me realize the police missed interviewing some important witnesses twenty-two years ago.”
“Cobbit did?” He frowned as he followed the thread I’d laid until he realized the mistake we’d made. “We didn’t consider the coaching staff.”
“I returned to the Whitchurches’ house to find out if any of them still worked there. None did, but the housekeeper showed me this. It’s from 1877 and shows all the staff working in the London residence during one of the visits from Lord and Lady Whitchurch.”
He studied it and shrugged. “Am I supposed to recognize one of them?”
“Turn it around and read the names.”
He read them aloud, stopping when he reached the end. “Harding? It’s similar to Hardy, I grant you, but it’s not a very good alias if he’s trying to disappear.”
“ItisHardy. I showed this to Mrs. Turner and she recognized him.”
Harry sat back and studied the groom in the photograph. “So Hardy isn’t Rupert.”
“No. But perhaps he helped Rupert escape the night of Charlotte’s murder. By all accounts, Rupert was quite drunk. He may have needed assistance. Who better to help him escape than a groom, someone he knows better than most of the other staff because they’ve bonded over their love of horses, someone he can trust?”
“Someone with access to a horse and vehicle,” Harry added. “The question now is, who killed Hardy twenty-two years later? My money’s still on Arthur. He recognized Hardy—Harding—at dinner and realized he probably helped his brother escape years ago because Harding also went missing that night. Arthur confronted him at the pub, but Hardy refused to tell him where to find Rupert, so Arthur killed him.”
“Then he’d never find Rupert. And he can’t have accidentally killed him in anger because if he was murdered it was with poison.”
“There is still the possibility that Hardy’s death is just a coincidence and he died of natural causes.”
“Hmmm.” I didn’t like coincidences, but he was right. We had no proof that Hardy was poisoned. “There is a new suspect now. One we hadn’t considered, because we thought Hardy and Rupert were one and the same.”
“Rupert?”
I nodded. “Perhaps he returned to London after sending that last letter to his mother from America, learned that Hardy was also here and living under an assumed name, and decided to get rid of him because he knew what happened the night Charlotte died. Rupert may have been worried that Hardy would come forward and testify that he’d helped Rupert leave.”
Harry wasn’t convinced. “It doesn’t seem a strong enough motive for murder. Hardy has had years to go to the police but hasn’t. There’s no reason to suggest he was going to speak up now.”
“So you still think Arthur is the most likely suspect in Hardy’s murder?”
“Or the dowager.”
“The dowager? She’s an old lady!”
“She’s capable of poisoning someone. In fact, poison is probably the only weapon at her disposal. It doesn’t require strength or agility, it simply requires cunning and ruthlessness. You’ve met her. Do you think she possesses those traits?”
“In spades,” I conceded. Indeed, there was something I hadn’t told him about the dowager yet, which might prove his theory. “The Whitchurches’ footman mentioned an argument he overheard between Arthur and his mother on the same afternoon Arthur was seen arguing with Hardy in the Coach and Horses. The only words the footman caught were Arthur telling her to ‘Say something.’”
Harry rubbed his jaw. “Interesting. We should confront them both and see what shakes out.”
I strode to the door and removed his jacket from the stand. “Come on then.”
“Now?” Harry looked at the clock again as he rose. “Don’t you have a dinner party or ball to prepare for?”
“A dinner. There’s plenty of time. I don’t need hours to get ready.”
“When does it start?”
