Death by the Book (24 page)

“No, of course not.” He sipped more of his tea, still watching
her. “Perhaps you’re right after all, Mrs. Harkness.” He sheepishly ducked his head. “I mean, Bobbie.”

“Don’t!”

Drew flinched as she slammed her fist on the table, rattling her teacup in its saucer.

“Don’t you ever patronize me.” The pink in her cheeks had become an angry red. “I know the idea is ridiculous. Beautiful young lord of the manor and poor Mrs. Harkness, the old ratbag from the bookshop? Doesn’t matter how clever she was or how many people she got the better of or how very, very much she might have loved him.” Her eyes were pleading now. “Doesn’t matter. Better to go now on my own terms. Better than staying here, little more than invisible to the rest of the world.”

“Where are you going?”

“Far enough.” She nodded and smiled again. “Far enough so I don’t have to hear them talk about poor Bobbie Harkness. You never knew how it was, did you?”

“How what was?”

“Not to be everyone’s darling. Not to be anything but the life of the party. Not to be surrounded by family and friends.”

He tried an understanding smile. “I don’t know why you’d say that. I haven’t anyone much myself anymore. Not after my mother and stepfather were killed. I can understand how you—”

“Don’t,” she hissed again. “Don’t say you know how I feel. You’ve got that girl simpering after you, her and a hundred more you could have in exchange for a wink. And you’ve got that Nick Dennison as well, salt of the earth, stout fellow, friend in all weather. Don’t tell me you couldn’t snap your fingers and have Farthering Place full to bursting with the best of your society crowd any moment you cared to. Don’t pretend you
know what it’s like for someone upon whom God didn’t care to rain down graces.”

“But there’s Annalee. Your grandchildren. They—”

“They left me. That’s my thanks, mind you, for a lifetime of mothering. But that husband of hers, that Marcus, he must work at the new store in Liverpool, mustn’t he? Never mind leaving the old woman to herself now. Mr. Harkness did that years ago, you know.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No need to be. He left, true, but he didn’t get far. No farther than the garden behind the shop.”

She said it as matter-of-factly as if she’d told him she had planted radishes or carrots in that garden. There was only mild speculation in her expression as she watched him, nothing more, but it sent something electric, thick and burning, coursing through his veins.

She wasn’t mad; she was vengeful. She was sober and deliberate and utterly ruthless.

“So now what?”

He knew what. She’d confessed to everything. She’d have to kill him or herself. There was still that painful beating in his blood. Maybe she’d kill them both. Either way, she knew it was the end. It was written there in that fevered look in her eye.

“Look here, Mrs. Harkness, I won’t bore you with my problems. I’ll just say that my life isn’t quite so ideal as you make it out. No one’s is. No doubt you’ve heard it said that if we could all lay down our packs of troubles and choose the one we’d rather carry, we’d most of us take our own back again. Maybe you’ve had a rum go of it with everything that’s happened to you. Maybe everyone has in his or her own way.”

He was starting to get up when she pulled a little nickel-
plated derringer from the pocket of her housecoat. “I’d rather you sat back down.”

He sat back down.

She jiggled the gun in front of his face. “Oh, I know you’ve had your trials. It couldn’t have been easy for you with what happened out at Farthering Place. That’s why I thought we could both use a bit of fun. That’s why I thought you and I would reach an understanding. A sympathy, if you like. Perhaps I was wrong.”

“I . . . I hardly know what to say. All those people . . .”

“They were going to die eventually anyway. They were all good people, weren’t they?”

“I don’t know. I suppose.”

“You believe in heaven, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do.” Where was she going with this?

There was something bitter in her eyes. “Well then, what’s the harm in sending them on a bit early?”

“That’s God’s decision to make, not ours.”

“God.” She laughed. “What does He care about me? He has His favorites, and the rest of us can go to hell. Isn’t that what He says?”

“No.” Drew forced himself to look directly into her eyes. “What He says is that He offers all of us His forgiveness, and His love as well, no matter what we’ve done. All we need do is accept it.”

She shook her head. “You’re so very young, aren’t you? I sometimes forget, but you’re hardly more than a boy. Live as long as I have and see if those tales you’ve heard don’t turn sour. But no, I’d rather you not lose that little bit of fantasy. It looks well on you. Too many handsome men are nothing but sangfroid, and they always appear as if they’re sneering. I’m glad I’ll never
have to see you that way.” Then something evil came into her eyes as she stood and placed the barrel of her pistol just behind his left ear. “Better to go now.”

Dear God in heaven, she was going to kill him right here at her kitchen table.

“It’s no good using that. The chief inspector knows I was coming here.” Did he know? He knew Drew had gone to inquire about a book. Surely he would deduce . . . “And how are you going to explain a dead body at your table? Or my car outside?”

“No worry there. In a little while, once we’re done here, I’ll put on your coat and hat and drive away. Then I and my neighbors can tell your dear chief inspector we saw ‘Mr. Farthering’ leave in his car. And if they find your precious Rolls in the ditch a little way up the road, I expect they’ll have their own theories on how it got there and what might have happened to you.”

Lord God
, you hold me in the palm of your hand.

“Someone will hear the shot.”

She glanced at the derringer. “I’d never use this. It’s too loud. Besides, Veronal always does the trick nicely. It worked for that Deschner girl and even helped a bit with Mr. Bell. It worked for Mr. Harkness, as well. There was never a whimper out of him. This derringer was the only really useful thing I got from the marriage.”

His eyes flickered to the gun once more, and she pressed it just slightly harder against his skin.

“I shouldn’t have said I’d never use this. It’s more that I shouldn’t
like
to use it. Especially not on that handsome head of yours. But if you’re foolish and try to take it from me, I suppose I’ll have no choice, weak woman that I am.”

“I won’t take it. The Veronal, I mean. You’ll have to shoot me.” He did his best to look unflinchingly into her eyes. “Or let me go. Either way, what I told you is true. God will forgive you if you ask Him.”

She nodded, just a touch of a sneer on her face. “And what about you?”

He closed his eyes for a moment, knowing she would instantly pick up on any hint of insincerity now. What was he prepared to do, especially now in the face of his own death? When he very well might stand before his God in the next minute or two and answer to Him for his own deeds? He couldn’t force himself to feel anything charitable toward her, not with this sick terror running through him, but there was something he
could
do.

He took a shuddering breath and looked again into her eyes, his choice made. “I will forgive you, too.”

She froze where she was, and for an instant he saw past the hard cynicism, past the rage and ruthlessness. Instead, in those wild, dark eyes, he saw pain and fear and the dread knowledge that there was no going back. Not for her, he could see she was certain of that. But an instant was all she would allow before the smirk returned to her lips.

“You’re an absolute lamb, Mr. Farthering.” She stroked his damp forehead, pushing back an unruly lock of hair. “Truly, you are. Yet as appealing as it is, no amount of bravado or sentimentality is going to help you now. You’ve already taken the Veronal.”

He shook his head. Even that took no small effort.
Lord God, you hold me in
the palm of your hand.

“But you had tea. It was from the same pot.”

His tongue clung to the roof of his mouth, and a wave of grogginess washed over him.
Lord God, you hold me . . .

He took a couple of quick breaths, trying to fight it, but it was no use. The room was fading out of focus, and Mrs. Harkness sounded as if she were very far away.

“The honey, my precious. The honey.”

Lord God
 . . .

A
unt Ruth had just grumbled for the third time about Drew being late for dinner when the Farthering Place telephone rang.

“Calling up with some lame excuse, I suppose.”

“Please, Aunt Ruth.” Madeline turned to Nick, trying to keep the worry out of her eyes. “He would call, wouldn’t he?”

“Oh, I’m sure. He’s just had a puncture or some such thing.”

Dennison came to the parlor door. “Chief Inspector Birdsong is on the telephone for you, Nicholas.”

“Me?” Nick asked. “Did he say why, Dad?”

“He asked to speak to Mr. Farthering, and finding him not at home, he asked for you. I don’t advise you keep him waiting.”

Nick hurried off to the study. Though she knew she wasn’t invited, Madeline went after him.

“Chief Inspector,” Nick said, “how are you this evening?”

Madeline could hear the faint murmur of Birdsong’s voice through the telephone but couldn’t understand what he was saying.

“So old Llewellyn does have a sweetheart, eh?” Nick chuckled. “That explains his being out on his bicycle in the evenings, the old
roué
.”

Birdsong said something else, and Nick shook his head. “No. If they were seen together the night Mr. Bell was killed, and also when Clarice was killed, I suppose that lets him off the hook, doesn’t it?”

Madeline tried to tell what Birdsong said in reply, but all she could make out was “women murderers.”

“Yes, he did,” Nick said. “From the bookshop here in Farthering St. John. He thought whoever bought it might enjoy playing the sort of game our hatpin murderer has been involved in.”

Madeline made out the words “since this evening” from Birdsong’s reply, and again Nick shook his head.

“Not a word from him. Actually I was about to go hunting for him.”

Again the chief inspector spoke, but Madeline heard nothing but the low tones of his voice.

“Right,” Nick replied. “I’ll be ready for you. And if you find the Rolls in the ditch and happen to see him walking this way, best fetch him along home, eh?”

“What did he say?” Madeline asked when Nick hung up the phone.

Nick frowned. “Drew said something to him about finding out who ordered that book on murder. Seemed to have some idea who the killer is, but wouldn’t say till he’d found out for certain if it was the same person who wanted the book.”

“You don’t think he’s in trouble, do you?”

“Good heavens, no.” Nick gave her a reassuring smile. “Just a puncture or a breakdown somewhere. Old Birdsong said he’d like to find out about that book too, even if it is a bit late for
making official calls. Since Drew’s out, he thought I might like to go along. Maybe between the two of us and Mrs. Harkness, we can figure out what Drew was thinking.”

“You mean the three of us and Mrs. Harkness.”

Nick laughed. “I didn’t think you’d stand for being left home. Yes, well, best tell your aunt we’ll be missing dinner. Birdsong will be by for us soon. Maybe we’ll find Drew and Mrs. Harkness having a nice chat and all our worries will be for nothing.”

“There’s the Rolls,” Nick said when the chief inspector stopped in front of the bookshop. “See? Probably just having a chat and forgot the time.”

Madeline half dragged him out of the car. “I’ll feel better when I know for sure.”

Nick bounded up to the shop and tried the door. “Bolted tight.” He gave the door four or five solid raps. “Anyone there?”

Only silence answered him.

“Mrs. Harkness?” Birdsong pounded the door with his fist. “Hello?”

More silence, followed by a single gunshot.

With a cry, Madeline rattled the door in its hinges, trying to push both men aside. They wouldn’t let her.

“Stay back, miss.” Birdsong pulled off his overcoat, wrapped it around his hand and forearm and then punched through the window nearest the door. Then he reached through and released the bolt. In another instant the three of them were inside.

“Drew! Drew, are you here?” Madeline’s voice was thin and quavery in the dim stillness of the shop.

Birdsong shrugged back into his overcoat and strode past
the bookshelves and into the back room. “Mrs. Harkness? Mr. Farthering?”

“Are you here, old man?” Nick called.

“Upstairs,” Birdsong directed, but Nick was ahead of him. He took the steps two at a time with the chief inspector right behind. Madeline tried to wedge herself past them, but the passageway was too narrow and Birdsong was holding her back.

“Best let us get the door open, miss.”

“Drew!” Again and again, Nick threw his shoulder against the door. “Drew, can you hear me?”

“Drew!” Madeline’s voice cracked and choked in her throat until she could only whisper. “Please be all right. Dear God, please let him be all right.” She clung to Birdsong’s battered sleeve, biting her lower lip, tasting blood.

“Get it open, man!” the chief inspector barked, and just then there was a splintering of wood and the door slammed back against the wall.

Madeline tore past the two men into the parlor and then stood frozen in the doorway to the bedroom, her hands over her mouth. Mrs. Harkness lay on the narrow bed, her eyes wide and staring. Her right arm sprawled onto the floor, with her hand resting alongside a small nickel-plated derringer. And close by Mrs. Harkness lay Drew. His face was still, pale, and spattered with blood. A note was fastened to his chest with a long lion-headed hatpin.

The words screamed in Madeline’s head, but came out only as a pitiful whisper: “Please, God, no . . .”

Nick made a strangled sound low in his throat.

Stepping around Nick and Madeline, Birdsong went to Drew and felt for a pulse. He turned to Nick. “Go get a doctor.”

Nick blinked stupidly.

“Get a doctor!” Birdsong roared. “Now!”

Nick bolted out of the room and clattered down the stairs.

Birdsong glanced at Drew’s chest, taking a moment to scan the note’s message.

“Oh, Drew.” Madeline fell to her knees beside the bed and took him into her arms, away from . . . from
her
.

From the bookshop below she could hear Nick shouting into the telephone, demanding to be connected to Dr. Wallace at once. She held Drew tightly against her, begging for God’s mercy in sobs more than words.

After a few minutes she could feel the tiniest beating in his chest. But he remained limp against her, and his lips were bluish and cold. She breathed his name against them while Birdsong grabbed his wrist, slapping it rapidly.

“Come on, boy.” He pulled Drew up and gave his cheek a smart slap, and at last Drew stirred. “Wake up, Detective Farthering! No lying down on the job.”

Drew muttered something unintelligible and then sank back against Madeline’s shoulder.

“Here now, there will be none of that,” Birdsong ordered.

He lifted Drew to his feet, shaking him, and then lowered him into the sagging old armchair in the corner. Madeline knelt on the floor beside it, glad to see the chief inspector pull a sheet over the gruesome remains on the bed.

“Drew,” she coaxed. “Drew, darling.”

At that, Drew’s eyes opened halfway. “Oh, hullo.”

His smile was unfocused and one-sided, but she thought it was the most wonderful thing she’d ever seen. “Hello.”

“Where, uh . . .” He moved his hand, rustling the note that was still pinned to his shirtfront. “What’s this?”

The chief inspector removed the hatpin and stuffed the paper
into the pocket of his overcoat. “Time enough for that after we’ve got you properly awake.”

Between the two of them, he and Madeline got Drew on his feet and walked him into the parlor. Then, after shutting the bedroom door, Birdsong urged them over to the sofa and sat them down on it.

“How are you feeling?” Madeline asked once Drew was comfortably settled against her shoulder.

“A bit groggy,” he admitted. “Not quite sure I’m right in the head yet.” There was a tenderness in his eyes now. “I didn’t know if I’d see you again, and I didn’t care much for that thought.”

“Me either,” she admitted, feeling the heat rise in her face, this time not caring.

“Ahem.” Birdsong pulled Mrs. Harkness’s note from his pocket. “I suppose we may as well give this a look, if you feel you’re up to it, Detective. And then you can tell me what’s been going on here.”

The note was different from the others. Instead of the Elizabethan script on antique parchment, it had been scrawled hastily on what looked to be a corner torn from a paper bag.

The chief inspector read it aloud. “‘From Helena at the end of her epistle and the beginning of her pilgrimage.’”

“What . . . ?” Drew wrinkled his brow, then shook his head, covering his eyes with one hand. “Poor woman. I don’t suppose it all ended well for her.”

“What do you mean?” Birdsong asked, and then he raised the note. “What does
she
mean?”

Drew shrugged. “It doesn’t matter now. Just a final clue. It doesn’t matter.”

Understanding nothing but that he hadn’t been taken from her, Madeline wrapped him more tightly in her arms and covered his forehead with grateful, unashamed kisses.

Birdsong cleared his throat. “I’ll just go see what’s keeping that rascal with the doctor.”

“You’ve shocked the old boy,” Drew said when Birdsong disappeared down the stairs, but she didn’t care. She didn’t care in the least.

She pressed her lips again to his forehead. “When are you going to marry me, darling?”

“I don’t know. Never?” He grinned slightly. “Or now.”

Relief coursed through her veins. “Please mean it, Drew. You do, don’t you?”

“The doctor could marry us. No, I suppose that’s only parsons and registrars and sea captains.” He nestled closer to her and squeezed her hand. “Soon, darling. Not so quickly that we shock the village or give dear Auntie the vapors, but soon. Besides, you’ll want some ostentatious affair that they’ll splash all over the society pages here and in the States, won’t you?”

She caressed his cheek and traced her fingers over his handsome lips, glad to see a tinge of color in them now. “I’d marry you right here, this minute, and in my bathrobe if I had to.”

“Why, Miss Parker! What
would
Aunt Ruth say?”

Tears sprung to her eyes. “She’d say not everyone gets a second chance and I’d be a fool not to realize it.”

She brought her lips to his, unaware of the passage of time until she heard a discreet cough. She looked up to see Nick at the parlor door.

“Dr. Wallace is on his way.” He was smiling even if his face was pale, and his tawny hair looked as if he’d spent the past little while raking his hands through it. “Though it seems, old man, you’re doing quite nicely without him.”

Drew nodded. “Better than you know, Nick. Our Miss Parker has agreed to stay on at Farthering Place in an official capacity.”

“Oh, well done.” Nick took the opportunity to shake Drew’s hand and clasp his shoulder and, Madeline suspected, assure himself Drew was still solidly with them. “You might have found a less dramatic way of getting the girl to accept you, though.”

“I’ll have you know it was she who asked me.”

Madeline flashed her eyes at him. “Drew!”

“Were you or were you not even now begging me to marry you?”

“Begging? After months of you positively throwing yourself at me, now you say
I
was begging?”

He gave her that mischievous grin she thought she might never see again, and she threw herself into his arms once more.

She was vaguely aware of Nick’s laugh, the brush of his lips against her hair, and a quiet charge to take care of his friend.

Then there was the sound of the door closing behind him, and she quickly forgot everything but the steady beating of Drew’s heart against her cheek.

After Dr. Wallace had pronounced Drew “disgustingly fit” and prescribed only that he refrain from any future foolishness, Birdsong sent him home.

“We have plenty to discuss, Detective Farthering, but it’ll keep until tomorrow. Looks as if we needn’t fret over our hatpin killer any longer. My men will see to everything here. You’d do best to have a bit of sleep and perhaps a prayer of thanks that you didn’t end up with anything worse than a scare.”

Drew assured him he would do just that. He and Madeline climbed into the Rolls and, with Nick at the wheel, drove back to Farthering Place. Once there, they found Denny and Aunt Ruth equally adamant that they all make an early night of it.
Mrs. Devon, of course, insisted on a soothing cup of tea for everyone first. Drew even managed to drink his, though for once he declined to add any honey.