Murder at the Mikado (25 page)

She looked away. “Well, I had to make it look as if someone were trying to kill
me
, didn’t I? I mean, if someone were trying to kill me, then it wouldn’t be likely that I was the killer, wouldn’t you think?”

Birdsong gave her a nod. “Perhaps you had better start at the beginning, Mrs. Landis. With the first murder. Ravenswood.”

She shrugged, looking petulant now. “Johnnie was being terribly difficult. I just wanted him to be reasonable, but he wouldn’t listen to me. He only laughed and said the truth must be told. I didn’t know why it should be, and I told him so. But he still laughed. I couldn’t bear it any longer.”

“So you saw that champagne bottle there by his mirror and . . .” Landis glanced hopefully at the chief inspector. “It’s not as if you meant to, is it, Fleur? Of course you didn’t go there meaning to do anything like that.”

Fleur shook her head. “It just . . . happened, and then, well, you know the rest. I just didn’t know how to get out of the mess I’d made.”

“That’s not the truth, Mrs. Landis,” Drew said. “It wasn’t
a crime of passion, a spur-of-the-moment thing. You planned this out. You and Benton. How else could he have been there when Ravenswood was murdered, with Grady specifically to alibi him? And why would you have so neatly slipped your sleeping draught into your husband’s drink so you could leave the house without his knowing? You knew what a light sleeper he is.”

“That’s why I couldn’t wake up properly the morning after he was murdered. And the morning after the girl was, as well.” Landis closed his eyes. “I was so certain Fleur hadn’t stirred all night.”

“Too bad you hadn’t noticed the pan under the car that second night, Mrs. Landis,” Nick put in. “You counted on your driver being hard of hearing but not on his noticing an oil leak.”

Fleur scowled at him but said nothing.

“And why Miss Davidson?” Birdsong asked.

Fleur huffed. “She knew about Conor, you see. She found that note and realized I had been seeing him. Poor little mouse. In her place I’d have scratched my eyes out.” She smirked. “Of course I’m not likely to ever find myself thrown over as she was. Especially not for someone like her. She was angry enough, I suppose, but all she did was cry and tell me I ought to turn myself in or she would have to speak to the police about it. Well, I couldn’t have that, could I?”

“You didn’t realize she had pulled that tassel off your cloak, did you?” Drew asked. “But planting one on Zuraw when you couldn’t possibly be the one who killed him would definitely make it seem someone else had done the other murders, too. The torn end of that tassel was cut off before you were arrested. Did you notice it on your way home?”

Benton glared at her when she made no answer. “That’s exactly what she did. And I cut one off the second cloak and left it under Zuraw, so it would look as if someone were trying to frame her.”

Birdsong’s expression was coolly professional. “What about Zuraw? He told Mr. Farthering he had information to give.”

“Only he didn’t.” Drew shook his head. “Because when I got that telephone call, he was already dead.”

“We had to have some way of proving I couldn’t have killed those people,” Fleur said, as if nothing else could be more obvious. “With that accent Mr. Zuraw had, dear Conor didn’t have to be much of an actor to imitate him.”

“And the chocolates,” Birdsong said. “You say you poisoned those to make it look as if someone were trying to kill you?”

“That’s not the only reason,” Benton said with a glance at Fleur. “Tell them.”

Fleur shrugged. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Tell them!”

“I think I know,” Drew said, turning back to Fleur. “Once Uncle’s inheritance was safely deposited, if someone sent you poisoned chocolates and your husband just happened to eat them, that would solve two problems at once, eh?”

Landis stared dumbly at his wife, his face a picture of shock and disbelief.

“And if Miss Winston and her syringe were to be blamed for it,” Drew added, “well, that would just be the whipped cream on the trifle.”

Fleur looked Miss Winston up and down, painted lips curled. “As if she could possibly imagine any man of mine
being interested in her. After being married to me? She would bore him to distraction.”

The nursemaid only watched in stunned silence.

“Fleur . . .” Landis said, his voice half choked. “You couldn’t have intended to—”

“You won’t desert me now, will you, Brent?”

Drew couldn’t help remembering a line from
The Mikado
, spoken by the vain, self-seeking Katisha.
“And you won’t hate me
because I’m just a little teeny weeny wee bit
bloodthirsty, will you?”

Landis shook his head. “Oh, Fleur.”

“No one is going to take the blame for you now, Fleur,” Benton said, his words venomous. “You’ve got no one left who’ll cover for you. You’ll have to face the music this time, and it’s not a snappy little rumba they’re playing.”

“Say what you like, Conor. You know how juries are. And judges. Men, mostly. I may spend a year or two behind bars, but I won’t hang.” She patted her sleek black hair. “I won’t hang.”

Birdsong looked faintly disgusted and started toward her. “Florence Hargreaves Landis, I arrest you for the murders of—”

He broke off as Benton yanked one of the belaying pins out of its slot in the pinrail behind him. The rope whirred in the pulley and whipped up across the fly loft as the sandbag hurtled toward the stage.

“Fleur!”

Landis’s cry split the air as he lunged toward his wife, as Drew and Birdsong lunged toward them both. They got there only in time to save Landis. It was too late, too horribly late, for Fleur.

“Don’t look,” Drew urged, pulling Landis back.

Landis fought to go to her, but Birdsong turned him away from the grim sight, propelling him toward Drew. “See to him.”

“Fleur?” Landis stopped struggling, and he looked at Drew, eyes pleading. “No. She isn’t . . . she can’t be . . .”

Drew glanced over at Birdsong, who was kneeling down with his fingers pressed to Fleur’s limp wrist. The chief inspector shook his head.

“Come now,” Drew urged Landis. “There’s nothing more to be done for her.”

Landis squeezed his eyes shut, his breath coming now in sobbing gasps. “Fleur. My beautiful Fleur . . .”

He pushed himself away from Drew, catching hold of a ship’s wheel that was part of the set decoration, clinging to it as he tried to regain control of himself.

Drew still held on to his arm, wishing there were something more he could do. Madeline and Miss Cullimore and Miss Winston merely stood there, for the moment paralyzed. Then Miss Winston hurried to Landis’s side. She draped his arm across her shoulders and helped him to a metal folding chair near the back wall.

Drew glanced up and saw Benton watching them, as if he were the audience to their little drama. The two constables had him by the arms with his wrists handcuffed behind him. He gave Drew a pleased sneer.

“He ought to thank me, you know,” Benton spat. “Landis ought. She’d have gotten rid of him next. Since he’s already come into that money.”

Drew turned to the other side of the stage. Birdsong still stood near Fleur’s body, but he had laid a cloth of some sort
over her head and shoulders. It made him a bit queasy to see it was the pirate flag from
Penzance
, the skull and crossbones.

Landis was looking that way too, one fist pressed to his mouth. He moved toward Benton. “You’ll hang. Whatever else they can or can’t prove, you can’t get away from this one. Not in front of all these witnesses.”

Again Benton smirked. “I might have hanged with her, but blast me if I was going to hang
for
her. And she was right. With her looks, they’d never have hanged her. Not in a million years.”

“Get him out of here,” Birdsong ordered, and his men escorted Benton down the center aisle and through the lobby doors.

Landis watched until the doors swung closed behind the prisoner. Then with a wrenching sob he pulled away from Miss Winston, stumbled to where Fleur lay, and sank to his knees. He didn’t say anything. Instead he held Fleur’s hand in its white lace glove, clutching it in his own two hands as tears coursed down his cheeks. Miss Winston stood behind him, steadying hands on his shoulders.

“Best let me have her seen to now, sir,” Birdsong said, taking a step nearer. “Be grateful she couldn’t have felt a thing.”

“I loved her, you know,” Landis said. “I mean, I wanted to love her. She would never quite let me close to her. I thought . . . I thought if I loved her enough, she would be content, she would change. I knew what she was, but I thought she wanted to be different. She told me she wanted to be. For Peter. For me . . .”

He looked down at the hand he still held, soft and slim and perfect, and pressed a kiss to the palm.

“I was a fool. A blind fool.” His laugh was almost soundless.
“No, I was worse than blind. I chose not to see. I so much wanted her to be what I needed her to be, I couldn’t see what she was. But I loved her.” With one more kiss he laid her hand gracefully over her heart.

Drew helped Landis to his feet while nodding at the chief inspector.

“Take him home,” Birdsong told Miss Winston. “Take care of him. We’ll see to everything here.”

Miss Winston took Landis’s arm.

“Drive them, will you, Nick?” Drew said.

“Right.”

Nick led Miss Winston and Landis down the aisle and out of the theater.

Drew looked at the form lying on the stage, at the skull on the flag draped over Fleur’s no-longer-beautiful face. The skull seemed to be grinning at him in triumph, and once again the words of
The Mikado
came to mind.
“And let the punishment fit
the crime, the punishment fit the crime.”

He was suddenly aware of Madeline pressed against his side, her eyes also fixed on the tragic figure there before the footlights. He had to get her out of here. They both had to get out.

“Madeline . . .” He shook his head, feeling helpless and weary, and she put her arm through his, saying nothing. “I would never have wished this on her, no matter what she’s done.”

“No,” Madeline whispered. “No, of course not.” After a pause, she added, “I’m so sorry—sorry for him and for her, for all of them.”

“Mr. Farthering?”

Drew took a quick breath, steadying himself before he
turned. It was Miss Cullimore. She surprised him by taking his hand in hers.

“Her name was Marie Fabron. She worked at a milliner’s off the
Rue de la Paix
. But after so long, I can’t remember if the owner was Madame Thibault or Tolbert or Travere. Something like that. It was next to a jeweler’s. Marie rarely spoke of her family, but she said they were from Grenoble. She had a younger brother in Marseilles. She was so pretty, and I recall she was very kind, too. I can’t remember anything other than that.”

He stood silent for a long moment, taking it all in, and then he opened his mouth.

“That’s all I know,” she said before he could ask, regret plain on her face. “You’ve kept your part of the bargain. Thank you. I wish I could tell you more.” She squeezed his hand. “She had blue eyes.”

“I’m sorry, Drew,” Madeline said when Miss Cullimore was gone. “I too wish she could have told you more.”

“So do I,” he said, “but at least it’s something to go on. A place to start.”

She sighed. “I suppose that’s all there is to it, then. The case, I mean. It’s all over.”

“No. It’s not all over. There’s still Benton to be seen to, and exactly why Fleur wanted to kill Ravenswood in the first place, and whatever happened to that lady reporter. And I—”

“We’ll see to all that in time,” Birdsong interrupted. “After we’ve looked after things here. Mr. Hibbert, once the coroner has seen to the body . . . ?”

“Right you are, Chief Inspector,” said Grady, touching his forehead. “I’ll see to things here. Like I always have.”

“Right.” Birdsong turned again to Drew. “You ought to take the young lady home now. The rest will wait.”

Drew didn’t argue with him. He gave the chief inspector a grateful nod and escorted Madeline out to the Rolls, and together they headed back to Farthering Place.

Dinner that evening was quiet and rather melancholy, and afterward everyone went early to bed. It wasn’t long after breakfast the next day that the chief inspector rang up and asked Drew and Madeline to come to his office to discuss the remainder of the Landis case.

“Benton’s confessed his part in it all,” Birdsong told them. “As you suspected, Mrs. Landis killed Ravenswood and Tess Davidson. He killed Zuraw to alibi Mrs. Landis.”

“Zuraw didn’t actually know anything about anything, did he?” Drew said.

“No. He was merely convenient.”

Madeline glanced at Drew, her expression troubled. “But why did she kill Ravenswood in the first place? Nobody knew about her and Benton, did they?”

“Not as far as Benton knows,” Birdsong said. “Miss Cullimore claims it wasn’t common knowledge around the Tivoli. Evidently . . .” The telephone on his desk rang. Excusing himself, he picked up the receiver. “Birdsong here.” He paused, and then the annoyance in his expression turned into incredulity. “Oh, she is, is she? Well, certainly. Send her in.” He hung up, looking smug.