Arsenic with Austen (25 page)

“Sounds like he was pretty interested in the fire.”

“More than a sympathetic interest, I'd say. And he tried hard to convince me it was time to throw in the landlord towel and vamoose.”

Luke slammed his water glass onto the table. “I know in my bones he started that fire. He's an actor—he'd know how to look like a meter reader, how to make himself up in case anyone got a good look at him. And with his background, he could easily know how to break into a house and start a delayed fire. But I can't prove it.”

“What about the bag of clothes? Have you given up on that?”

“Oh, forgot to tell you. I went by his hotel last night after dinner. The bag was sitting in the open closet, all innocent-like, so I asked him, all innocent-like, if I could take a look. He said go ahead.”

“And?”

“It was empty. We gave him too much time. He dumped the evidence.”

“Well, he must have dumped it somewhere, right? Is there a fireplace in his room?”

Luke gave a bark of laughter. “We're not talking about the Ritz here, Em. No fireplace.”

“Does the hotel have an incinerator? Or a Dumpster?”

“No incinerator. Got a couple of my guys to go through the Dumpster. Nothing.”

She drummed her fingers on the tabletop. “What about the laundry?”

“He wouldn't be that stupid. If he sent stuff to the hotel laundry, we could trace it right back to him.”

“If, as you say, it's not the Ritz, they probably don't collect guests' laundry—just have machines on-site somewhere for people to use. He could shove the stuff into a machine when no one was looking and just walk away. How could you trace that?”

“If he was careful not to leave fingerprints—and if he turned on the washer—any DNA would be gone.” Luke gazed at Emily with a new kind of admiration. “You're not so shabby at this, you know?”

She felt herself blush like the schoolgirl he had long ago called beautiful. This praise was even more welcome.

Then reality hit. “But if that's what he did, we're back where we started from. No evidence.”

“Unless somebody saw him. Or he wasn't quite as careful as he should've been.”

Sunny shuffled up and tipped two laden plates onto their table. Luke looked longingly at his burger and then picked it up in a paper napkin. “Time's of the essence on this one, Em. I'm gonna have to eat and run. See you back at the ranch?”

“All right.” Her car was a short walk away.

Emily ate her sandwich and then headed back to Windy Corner. She'd used her new cell phone to let Katie know she wouldn't be home for lunch, so Marguerite was finishing a leisurely if lonely repast when Emily came in. “Such a wonderful hostess you are,
chérie,
to leave your guest alone for luncheon. Is there such superb food in Stony Beach that you can forgo Katie's cooking without a pang?”

“It wasn't the food. It was the case. Luke actually let me go with him on an interview.” She told Marguerite about the porch lady and her lemonade.

Marguerite laughed until she had to wipe her eyes. “Ah, I should have liked to be there. She sounds like quite a character. And did you find out anything useful?”

“Only that Brock could easily have set the fire, but we have no evidence to prove it.”

“Evidence. Pah!” Marguerite snapped her fingers. “The man is guilty,
évidemment
. What more do you need?”

“Luke needs some evidence even to arrest him, and a whole lot more to get him convicted. This is America, Margot. Still at least nominally a free country.”

“You need evidence? So create some. There is no doubt a hair of his on my so-lovely black suit, after he pawed me in the hotel. Take it and plant it wherever you like.”

“Margot!” Emily was genuinely shocked. “Luke would never do that! He plays by the rules, and even if he would stoop to such a thing, it could cost him his job.”

“So you do it. And do not, how you say, spill the beans.”

“No. No way. Honestly, Marguerite—what if we did that and he turned out to be innocent? Would you send an innocent man to prison?”

Marguerite sipped her coffee as if the murder and mayhem were a million miles away. “Whatever that man is, innocent he is not. He may not have committed a crime according to the law, but he deserves whatever he gets.”

Emily threw up her hands, literally and figuratively. “You are impossible. Thank God you're not directly involved.”

She poured herself a cup of coffee from the pot on the sideboard. “How was your morning? Did you make any progress on your article?”

“
Mais oui,
it is finished, except for a few things I will have to look up when I get back to Reed. That library of yours, it has some magic in it.
Très bien
for focusing the thoughts. When I was finished, I played with
les chats
. You will see they are getting to be quite good friends now, even with Bustopher out of his catnip stupor.”

“He'll even let them in the library with him?”

“
Oui,
as long as they stay out of his particular chair.”

“That's a relief. I was afraid I'd have to choose between my own cats and my library for the length of Bustopher's life.” That would have taken much of the joy out of living at Windy Corner.

Marguerite gave her a shrewd look. “So, you will stay at Windy Corner indefinitely? You will leave me alone to handle all those men in Lit and Lang on my own?”

“You know you love it. All the more attention for you,” Emily teased, but then grew serious. Had her heart in fact made that decision without giving her head a chance to intervene?

 

twenty-five

“Mr. Elliot is a man without heart or conscience; a designing, wary, cold-blooded being, who thinks only of himself; who for his own interest or ease, would be guilty of any cruelty, or any treachery, that could be perpetrated without risk of his general character.… Oh! he is black at heart, hollow and black!”

—Mrs. Smith to Anne Elliot,
Persuasion

After lunch the sun was so warm and the breeze so mild, Marguerite decided to lie on the beach. As a good Portlander, she held to the motto
carpe sole
—seize the sun. Emily's fair complexion had never been conducive to sunbathing, and she wanted to be available when Luke returned from his fishing expedition. She took
Persuasion
onto the shaded terrace, along with a bowl of taffy.

Soon the tribulations and adventures of Anne Elliot blocked out all the engrossing dilemmas of Emily's real world. Captain Wentworth's attitude gradually shifted from disdainful to concerned to vaguely jealous of Mr. Elliot's attentions at Lyme, then to admiration and reliance on Anne's cool head and competence when Louisa took her fall. Then, abruptly, Wentworth was out of the picture, and Mr. Elliot loomed in his place.

Mr. Elliot, the handsome, suave, and plausible, the oh-so-complimentary, and all the time scheming to get his hands on his inheritance a little faster and to ensure it would not be snatched from his grasp. Soon Emily found her imagination had endowed the young Mr. Elliot with a more mature face and a rather less plausible manner: in short, the face and manner of Brock Runcible.

It was obvious Brock was trying to get his hands on the whole of Beatrice's property. That explained his advances to Emily when they first met, and when those failed, his suggestions of partnership in their business affairs. Veronica Lacey's implication that he'd expected to inherit more from Beatrice than in fact he had done. Brock's hints to Marguerite that he predicted wealth in his own future. It all fit together.

If he wanted the property that badly—and had expected to come by it automatically through her will—what was to stop him from hastening the day by getting rid of Beatrice?

Mr. William Elliot was not a murderer (at least not known to be; who knew what had really happened to his wife?). But then he didn't need to be. He had money already and wanted only a title. If Sir Walter Elliot, the incumbent baronet, had announced his engagement to Mrs. Clay, thus making a new heir possible, Emily felt certain the baronet's life would not have been worth a day's purchase. Some poison absorbed through the skin would have been added to the creams with which he attempted to preserve his youthful complexion, and Sir William would have replaced Sir Walter, with or without an Elliot wife at his side.

But
how
could Brock have done it? She still needed proof. She could hardly convince a jury of Brock's guilt by merely drawing parallels between him and a fictional villain.

She was musing on this when Luke walked around the corner of the house. “Katie told me you were out here.”

“Luke, listen. I think I've figured it out.” She told him her deductions based on
Persuasion
.

Luke sat beside her, listening attentively but with a growing expression of skepticism. “Emily, you can't accuse a man based on a book. So what if he reminds you of this Elliot guy? That doesn't make him guilty.”

“No, of course not, but don't you see? It all fits. It all points to Brock.” She laid the book down with a sigh. “Did you find anything in the laundry?”

“Nope. No uniform, no complaints about an abandoned load in a washer, nothing turned in to the lost and found.”

Emily's spirits sank, but whether because of the dead end itself or because her hunch had not been borne out, she couldn't say. “I guess I'm not such a brilliant detective as you thought.”

“Hey, ninety percent of leads we follow don't pan out.” He squeezed her shoulder. “Don't kick yourself. It was still a good idea.”

“Maybe it was a real meter reader after all. Maybe we're imagining this whole thing.”

“Nah. I checked with the power company. They didn't send anybody out yesterday. He's our man, all right. We just have to nail him.”

Emily passed him the bowl of taffy. “Have a piece. It'll help us think.” She recalled her visit to Sweets by the Sea and the news of their impending move into Brock's property. “Say, I meant to ask you. Do you have any idea why old Mrs. Sweet hates Beatrice so much?”

“Mrs. Sweet … let me think.… That goes back way before my time, but I think my grandmother said something about it once. She's a great one for local gossip, my granny.” He unwrapped a piece of peanut-butter-and-chocolate and chewed it thoughtfully. “Can't remember what it was. I just know it happened before I was born, back when they were both young.”

Emily stared. “Over fifty—sixty years ago? And she still hates her?”

“You wouldn't believe how long some people can nurse a grudge. 'Specially if it dates back to adolescence. Anything happens then gets kind of seared into you, y'know? Hard to let it go.”

Emily gazed at his profile, her mind's eye stripping away the roughened, slightly sagging skin to reveal his youthful ruddy complexion. She said softly, “I know.”

He turned to her, his gray eyes dark with emotion. She could see words springing to his lips that she longed to hear—but not quite yet.

Just then Marguerite's head appeared as she climbed up the hill from the beach. “
Bonjour, Monsieur
Luke.”

“Good afternoon.” Emily watched Luke through narrowed eyes as he took in Marguerite's appearance. She'd thrown a loose cover-up over her swimsuit but was still showing quite a few inches of very shapely leg. After one quick look, Luke kept his focus on Marguerite's face.

“So, how goes the sleuthing?” Marguerite asked, helping herself to a swig from Emily's iced tea. “Have you found your precious evidence?”

“Not yet, I'm afraid. No sign of that uniform,” Luke replied. “How was the beach?”

“Very pleasant. Lying in the sand, watching the little sailboats so far away—most relaxing.”

A light went on in Emily's brain. “Sailboat! That's it!”

Luke raised an eyebrow at her. “What is this, a word game? Sailboat?”

“When I saw Brock this morning, he was dressed for sailing. What if he went out yesterday, too? What if he dumped the uniform into the ocean?”

“Then you would be one brilliant lady. And we'd be just as stuck as we were before. Unless somebody saw him, which is about as likely as my chief's budget getting approved.”

“He would've had to rent a boat somewhere. Whoever rented him the boat might have at least seen him take the stuff on board.”

“Worth a try, I guess.” He hauled himself to his feet. “Who'd have my job?”

Emily sang a snatch from
The Pirates of Penzance
:
“When constabulary duty's to be done, to be done, a policeman's lot is not a happy one.”

He laughed. “That's catchy. You just make that up?”

“Me? That's Gilbert and Sullivan. Haven't you ever seen
The Pirates of Penzance
?”

“Can't say I have. Is it on Netflix?”

“It's an operetta. Well, there is a movie of it, so I guess it could be on Netflix. We'll have to look for it sometime. You'll love it. Though I see you more as the pirate king than the head constable.”

“I'm not sure if that's a compliment or an insult.”

“Oh, a compliment. You'll see. He's not one of your more bloodthirsty pirates. And the constable is a total wuss.”

Luke grinned. “Well, I'm glad you don't see me as a wuss, anyway.” He bent to kiss her.

“Do not mind me. I am not here at all, oh no.” Marguerite's voice cut between them.

“Sorry.” He straightened, then aimed a continental bow toward Marguerite. “Good day to you, Mademoiselle Grenier.”

Luke turned to leave but then hesitated and pivoted back to face Emily. “Come with me?”

She sprang to her feet. “You don't mind, do you, Margot?”

“
Moi? Mais non,
I shall amuse myself
avec les chats
and your so-marvelous library. But do come back for dinner, will you? I do not care to dine alone.”