Manor House 03 - For Whom Death Tolls (23 page)

"Very good, your ladyship."

She winced at the derisive note in his voice.

"That's why the gray hairs were caught in the window frame. I knew Henrietta couldn't have climbed through there, but you could, dressed in her clothes and a wig, of course. It must have been you who dropped the comb."

"Bleeding fountain of information, ain't you." He took a step toward her, alarming her.

"So where is Henrietta now? Is she all right?"

Charlie ran his tongue over his lower lip. "Well now, that's where you got it all wrong. There ain't no bleeding Henrietta."

Elizabeth continued to stare at him, until finally he muttered something she didn't catch. Then in a perfect imitation of Henrietta's voice he said, "Charlie's been ever so good to me since my Albert died. Not many young men like him would bother with an old lady the way he does. Our Charlie has a heart of gold, bless him.
Comes down every now and again to see me, he does. He's a good boy, is our Charlie."

Now she understood. And with it, came the realization that maybe she was in more trouble than she'd bargained for. "So there never was a Henrietta. It was you all the time."

"Right. I'm surprised someone as brilliant as you're supposed to be didn't twig it from the start."

"And you killed Kenny," Elizabeth said flatly. Once more she drew her feet level, bringing her inches closer to the door. "There was no funeral, of course. You made the whole thing up. You supplied your own alibi. You were here that weekend, after all."

Charlie shrugged. "Had to tell you something, didn't I."

"So why did you kill Kenny?"

She managed to gain a few more inches, but Charlie had also moved forward a step. She tried to remember which side of the door the latch was on. It could mean the difference between life and death.

"Kenny got greedy. Lost all his money in a poker game and wanted to charge me more for the stuff." Charlie made a sound of disgust. "Said he'd quit if I didn't pay up. I couldn't let him do that, now, could I. I work for some pretty mean bruisers up there in the city. They'd have skinned me alive. I told him I'd blow the whistle on him if he quit. I didn't mean to kill him, but things got nasty and he pulled a knife. I didn't have no choice then, did I."

Elizabeth eased back another step. "Look, I'm sure if you plead self-defense, the courts will be lenient with you."

"Yeah, well, I'm not taking no chances on the judges." Charlie took another step toward her. "You should have left when you had the chance. But then, you always did talk too much."

Elizabeth bristled. "I beg your pardon—" Her words
broke off in a scream as Charlie produced a knife from his apron pocket. "Poor Henrietta," he said softly. "Off her rocker, she was. Stabbed the nice lady of the manor, then took off. Nobody will ever know what happened to her."

Elizabeth spun around and lunged for the door. It burst open as she reached it, cracking her knuckles so hard, the pain brought tears to her eyes. Through the mist she saw a tall man charge past her, and by the time she realized it was Earl, he had Charlie on the floor and was sitting on him.

"One move and I break your arm off," he snarled, as Charlie struggled beneath him.

She was about to ask him where on earth he'd come from when two men appeared in the doorway. "Looks like we got here just in time," Captain Johansen remarked.

Elizabeth couldn't agree more.

"You gave me one heck of a scare," Earl said later that afternoon, as he stooped to pick up a bright red ball from the grass. He drew back his arm and let fly, watching the ball as it curved gracefully through the air, chased by two pudgy, yapping puppies.

Elizabeth smiled at the sight of the two round furry bodies scrambling over each other. "I was a little unnerved myself," she admitted. "Thank goodness you arrived on the scene when you did. I was never more happy to see anyone in my life."

"In that case, I'll have to play rescuer more often."

Unsettled by the remark, she kept her gaze on the dogs. "I hope it won't be necessary in the future."

"Amen to that. I would never have forgiven myself if anything had happened to you." George had retrieved the ball and dropped it at Earl's feet. He hopped a couple of steps, then kicked it, sending it soaring across the lawn.

"You certainly wouldn't have been to blame," Elizabeth pointed out. "After all, you did warn me that Charlie might be there at the cottage."

"Yeah, but I also know that you don't pay much attention to warnings."

"A bad habit of mine. It was a mistake."

"Almost your last mistake."

The note of seriousness in his voice struck a chord. She sent him a quick glance, half afraid of what she'd see in his eyes. His face was as grave as his voice had been.

"What made you decide to follow me down to the cottage, anyway?"

He didn't answer right away. He crouched on his heels, his hand outstretched toward the puppies, who had abandoned the ball in favor of a pinecone. Finally he said quietly, "I don't really know. Just a hunch—a feeling, I guess, that you were walking into trouble. I couldn't settle down, so I left a message for the investigators to meet me there, and I checked out of the base. I was standing at the front door, trying to decide if I was making one big ass of myself when I heard you scream. Luckily the door wasn't locked. The doors in this country are thick enough to withstand a tank."

"They're built to keep out the cold." She watched the wind ruffle a lock of his hair and curled her fingers into her palm. "Thank you, Earl. You probably saved my life."

"Does that make you my slave or something?" He glanced up at her, his eyes crinkling at the edges.

She managed a light laugh. "You know the song . . . Rule Britannia and all that."

"Ah, yes . . . something about Britains never being slaves. Guess I'll just have to settle for friendship, then."

"That goes without saying."

He gave her one of those long looks that did unimaginable things to her stomach, then rose to his feet.
"Guess I'd better get back to the base before they miss me."

As always, she hated to see him go. "Thank you for being there for me. I hope I can repay the debt sometime—"

Her heart seemed to stop beating when he reached for her hand. He studied her fingers lying in his palm, while she did her best to breathe normally. "Elizabeth, I . . . "

She felt as if she were poised on the brink of a huge wave, waiting to see if it would carry her soaring to the beach, or dash her into the foaming waters.

"I have to go," he said at last.

She smiled, though her heart ached to know what it was he had been about to say. "You'll let me know how everything turns out?"

"You'll probably know before I do. The investigators will question Charlie, then, since he's a British civilian, release him to the custody of your constables to await trial."

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

He left her standing there, watching the empty driveway long after the roar of his jeep had faded into the distance.

"I can't believe that Henrietta Jones was really her grandson dressed up as her," Violet remarked, as she served her version of a beef stew for supper that evening. "I talked to her myself in the town and I never had an inkling she wasn't an old lady. He must have been very clever with makeup, that's all I can say."

"He was. I didn't realize it myself until I actually touched him." Elizabeth broke off a piece of bread and popped it into her mouth.

"Ugh!" Violet put a plate of the stew in front of Martin, who sniffed cautiously at it, then wrinkled his nose. "You must have been horrified when you found out."

"I should have realized it earlier, when I remembered
that Henrietta had opened the door to me the first time I went there, even though she was in the kitchen when I knocked. I simply thought that she was covering for her grandson and had pretended to be deaf to avoid awkward questions. It was so easy for her . . . him to pretend he didn't understand what I was asking him."

Violet brought her own plate to the table and sat down. Martin hadn't begun to eat and she gave him a sharp look. "If you're not going to eat that," she said tartly, "there are two dogs here who'd love to gobble it up."

Martin sniffed. "No doubt, since it's more suitable for their palate than mine."

"Ungrateful bugger. Just think yourself lucky you're not living on roots and berries, like some poor devils."

"That would at least be nutritious." He picked up his spoon and collected some of the stew on the end of it. "What is in this, anyway? Something that passes for meat, I presume, but what are these little green things floating around in it?"

"Parsley," Violet snapped. "It's good for your bowels."

Martin blinked at her over his glasses. "There's nothing wrong with my bowels."

"There will be if you don't eat your blinking stew." Violet rolled her eyes at Elizabeth. "Drives me bonkers, he does."

Elizabeth smiled at Martin. "Eat your supper, Martin. You need to keep up your strength."

"Yes, madam." Obediently he dug the spoon into the stew, while Violet uttered an exaggerated sigh.

"So Charlie was the one giving Percy all that food from the base," she said, after giving Martin one last glare. "I did wonder how he got all that stuff. He's always had a few bits and pieces under the counter, but nothing like the amount he had there for a while. Still,
when you get a chance to buy some extra on the side, you don't ask questions, do you."

"Which is exactly why Charlie could get away with it. I talked to George this afternoon, and he told me that Charlie was involved in a pretty big organization in London. Apparently the leaders hired small-time crooks and paid them a percentage to contact the American bases all over the country and set up black market deals with the Americans."

"Well, they won't be doing that no more, will they."

Elizabeth sighed. "No matter how many of those people get apprehended, there will always be more to take their place."

"Fortunes of war, I suppose. Some people will always make money out of it."

Even Percy
. Elizabeth refrained from uttering the thought aloud. "Anyway, all the stolen goods were supposed to be shipped directly to London, but Charlie decided to do some extra business on the side and keep the profits for himself."

"So he was selling to other people besides Percy?"

Elizabeth nodded. "Bessie, for one. I imagine he was doing business in North Horsham as well. You see, Charlie is AWOL from the army. The real Henrietta died a few months ago, and Charlie never returned from his compassionate leave. Instead, he assumed her identity and leased the cottage in Sitting Marsh to avoid being picked up by the military police. Since he was supposed to be an elderly widow, he needed some kind of transportation back and forth to town. Which is why he started supplying Percy. I suppose it all ballooned from there."

"So Charlie never did have a flat in London?"

"No. He transported the goods to London, then returned immediately to Sitting Marsh."

"Pretty good disguise, if you ask me. I don't think anyone twigged it."

"We probably never would if things hadn't started to go wrong. First there was the cricket match, which meant Charlie had to move his stores out of the pavilion and find another place for them. Then when Kenny was killed, that complicated things even more."

Violet slurped the gravy on her spoon. "How did you know the crates were in the church basement?"

"I remembered seeing the gray hairs on the window frame and the ones caught on the silver comb. When I showed them to Marlene, she said the hair was in very poor condition. When I realized that Henrietta wasn't really deaf, and I thought she was covering up for Charlie, I started thinking about those hairs at the church and what Marlene had said. That's when I guessed that Charlie had dressed up as Henrietta and was actually wearing a wig when he moved the crates. That's where the hairs came from."

"Well, you were right about that, at least."

Elizabeth watched Violet take a piece of bread and wipe it around her plate. "It just didn't occur to me that I'd been talking to Charlie all that time, instead of Henrietta. When she complained about her rheumatics, that was the pain from the knife wound Charlie had received in the fight with Kenny. That alone will be enough to convict him."

"Just goes to show, you never know who you're talking to these days."

"That's exactly what I say," Martin announced, having remained unusually quiet throughout the conversation. "I was talking to the master this morning, and before I realized it, he'd disappeared and I was talking to the suit of armor instead."

Violet looked at Elizabeth and jerked her chin in Martin's direction. "Gets worse, he does."

"Anyway," Elizabeth said, ignoring the comment, "luckily for me, Earl decided to follow up on a hunch
that I could be in danger. If he hadn't, I might well have shared the same fate as Kenny Morris."

Violet huffed out her breath. "Seems to me you and that major are getting really friendly lately."

Elizabeth cast her gaze down at her plate. Irritated to feel her cheeks growing warm, she muttered, "One has to be pleasant to the American officers. They are our guests, after all."

"Uninvited guests," Violet reminded her. She reached across the table and laid a bony hand on Elizabeth's arm. "I don't want to see you get hurt again, Lizzie. You've been through so much already with that rotter Harry. Just be careful what you're doing, all right?"

Elizabeth patted the slender fingers. "Don't worry, Violet, there's nothing like that between the major and me. In the first place, I'm much too sensible to get involved with another man, and in the second place, the major has a wife and two children waiting for him in America."

"Well, all right then." Apparently satisfied she'd done her duty, Violet sat back. "Then thank Gawd he was there. I just hope this will be a lesson to you, Lizzie, and you'll keep your nose out of any nasty business from now on. You have enough to do running this estate, without trying to do Sid and George's job for them as well."