The Mourning Bells (18 page)

“Won’t you introduce us, Mother?” he asked as both women rose.

“Son, may I present to you Violet Harper? She is a London undertaker—”

“Ah, and here I thought she was some neighbor coming to pay respects.” He winked at her. Violet felt a flicker of revulsion. This was no way for a sibling to behave when his brother was not yet relegated to the realm of fond memories. This man seemed no more saddened than his mother.

“—who has some questions about Roger. Mrs. Harper, this is my son and the heir to the earldom, Jeffrey Blount, the Viscount Audley.”

Audley nodded at Violet. “I would be most pleased to entertain these questions you have, Mrs. Harper.”

Mother and son exchanged an unfathomable look; then Lady Etchingham swept out of the room without a backward glance at Violet.

He sat down casually, stretching his legs out in front of him and crossing them at the ankle. Sam sometimes sat the same way, but on Audley the posture was somehow more arrogant—almost insolent—in its air of superiority.

With an elbow on the chair’s arm, displaying his black mourning band encircling a well-formed biceps, he rubbed his chin. “Please, Mrs. Harper, do sit down, and tell me what it is you need. I crave your pardon if Mother was rude to you at all; it’s just that she’s just lost a son, you understand.”

“As you have lost a brother,” Violet replied as she avoided the leather monstrosity and sat in a smaller armchair across from Audley. How did so much furniture fit in this room?

“Yes, yes, of course. The family is most devastated, but there are other matters that require attention, and so one must forge ahead, yes?”

“Other matters? Such as the death of your brother’s fiancée?”

At that, Audley turned serious. “What of Margery?”

He referred to her by first name, not entirely inappropriate, depending upon how close she was to the family already.

“I was just telling your mother that I was present for Lord Blount’s arrival at Brookwood, and was just as surprised by his condition as Miss Latham was. I’m sure you know she was there to meet his coffin.”

“What? Oh, of course. Yes, right. What surprised you?”

“That he didn’t seem well prepared by your undertaker. I was just asking Lady Etchingham who your family undertaker is.”

Audley shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t keep track of such things. An undertaker is not a man you summon that often, or at least you hope you don’t.”

Violet blinked. “You seriously don’t know who the family undertaker is?”

“It’s hardly in my sphere of concern. Mother knows, I’m sure.” Except Audley didn’t seem inclined to ring a bell and have a servant go after her. “Please, dear lady, surely you have other, more interesting questions? How about a glass of sherry?”

“No, thank you, I—”

For this, though, the viscount rose and pulled a knotted rope on the wall, resulting in a servant appearing almost instantly. “A bottle of sherry and two glasses, and be quick about it.”

While they waited, Violet continued to press him. “Were you fond of your brother?”

“As much as two brothers can be, when one is set to inherit a title and the other is not.”

Audley must have inherited the ability to sidestep questions from his mother.

“You knew his fiancée well?” she asked.

His eyes took on a distant cast, as if he were an old man reverting to the past. “Ah, Margery, a woman like no other. She would throw a barb of quick wit at you, but her blue eyes—deep like virgin pools of water—and her upturned mouth always softened the blow, so you never took offense. Instead, you couldn’t help but share her joy. Roger didn’t deserve her.” He spoke like a sentimental poet.

“Did your brother know you were in love with his fiancée?” Violet asked softly.

Audley shook off his reverie. “What? I wasn’t in love with Margery. I am a married man who—”

The servant reappeared with a tray. The viscount poured himself a generous glass and swallowed it in one gulp before offering the bottle to Violet, who shook her head.

“Suit yourself,” he said, pouring again and this time settling back in his chair with the full glass.

“As I was saying, I am a married man. Certainly I found Margery an attractive girl. What man with a beating pulse wouldn’t? Why would you ask such a thing? Wait, let me guess. You are a self-anointed detective and believe my brother was murdered, despite the fact that he dropped dead of a seizure, and you’d like to blame me for it.” His lips curved into a mocking smile.

“What makes you think anyone would consider your brother to have been murdered?” Violet countered. Was Audley voicing the question she hadn’t dared ask herself?

“For what other reason would you be here, with your ridiculous questions about the family undertaker and how Roger and I got along. Besides”—he took a long pull from his drink—“you’re groping about in a dark room. Roger was—how shall I say it?—an insignificant member of the family. A black sheep, I believe is the euphemism.”

Violet disliked the man’s disrespectful tone toward his dead brother. “So you hated your brother?”

“Hated? No, you mistake me. I didn’t think enough of Roger for it to rise to the level of hatred. My parents, though . . .” He shrugged in a manner that suggested he was eager for Violet to ask him more. She indulged him.

“Your parents, then, were bitter toward Lord Blount for some reason?”

“Yes. You can imagine that a second son with no responsibilities tends to wander into feckless and sometimes harebrained activities. Gambling, married women, that sort of thing. Some even wade into politics, just to take whatever position their parents abhor. Roger was no different.”

“He made political waves?”

“No, he was harebrained. He fancied himself a scientist and began performing experiments that started with rocks and plants and eventually extended to animals. When he killed Mother’s favorite springer spaniel in his ill-considered attempt to determine whether dogs have souls—and how the hell would he have been able to know that by anesthetizing and cutting the poor beast open?—I thought she would go completely mad.

“Then Father’s valet, Digby, nearly died when Roger cajoled the man into an experiment to see if a man could build up tolerance to lily of the valley, which Mother grows in our gardens back in Surrey, if it was crushed up and steeped in tea. When Digby finally recovered and confessed what had happened, I thought Father would murder Roger himself. My brother nearly became a pariah in the family, only mending his name a little when he announced his intentions with Margery.”

At least Violet had learned that the family’s country estate was indeed in Surrey, which explained the tomb at Brookwood.

Audley swallowed the rest of his sherry. “Sure you don’t care for a glass? It’s a bit embarrassing to carry on alone.”

Violet shook her head again. “So your parents clasped Roger to them once more when he became engaged to Miss Latham?”

“Not at all, though they thought that marrying him off to her might curb his eccentric tendencies. Father even planned to give them enough money to buy their own estate as far away from Surrey as possible. Once he dropped dead after dinner, which we all assumed to be the result of some botched, self-inflicted experiment, my parents were so disgusted that they didn’t want Roger to share burial space with the family, lest his polluted spirit contaminate the rest of the Blount clan interred in the tomb.”

“But you say you were not angry with him.”

Audley poured a third drink. Was he nervous, or was this merely his habit?

“No, I was indifferent. If Roger wanted to waste his life mucking about in a laboratory, what did I care? I have my father’s estates and my future title to worry about, and could ill afford to waste time on the health of a dog and valet. I did feel bad about Margery, though. She deserved better than that imbecile.”

With no other information to be gleaned from Audley, Violet spent just a few more minutes in idle chat and left the Blount residence, thoroughly unsettled. She was certain that Audley had led her along on a leash, permitting her to stop and sniff at only very specific flowers. Had she missed something important? Had he lied to her? It was impossible that he had no idea who the family undertaker was, and she was fairly certain the viscount was enamored of Margery Latham. Whether his affection for her was reciprocated, or if the two of them had even been involved in an affair, Violet couldn’t be sure.

Had Roger really died of a fit of some sort? Was it just an unhappy coincidence that his family wasn’t overcome by his death, or was it possible that the earl or the countess had something to do with Roger’s death? It was truly unthinkable to contemplate a parent killing his child, particularly a child who has been nurtured into adulthood, but Violet had witnessed plenty of family intrigues and schemes in her years of undertaking.

She didn’t quite believe Audley’s cavalier attitude toward his brother. Did it hide some darker, more malevolent feeling? Something concerned with Miss Latham?

Violet eschewed a private cab and this time boarded an omnibus headed for Paddington. Midafternoon London traffic bustled, but at least she would return to the shop before the bankers, merchants, and other middle-class workers stampeded out of London on trains bound for points such as Richmond, Harrow, and Bromley.

Violet paid her penny fare and ignored the crying children, exasperated mothers, and harried servants seated around her, lost in thought about her visit to Etchingham House.

What was most frustrating was that she still had nothing on which Inspector Hurst could take action. Roger Blount’s family disliked him. So what? There was no evidence of foul play with his body; Violet simply didn’t think it had been handled properly.

And what if one of the Blounts had indeed had something to do with Roger Blount’s death? Didn’t that mean that his body had nothing to do with the first two she’d seen at Brookwood? For certain it had nothing to do with the attack in Hyde Park.

The omnibus came to a sudden halt near Marble Arch, which housed a small police station. The stop was explained a few moments later as an elegant carriage bearing the royal arms went bouncing past one side of the John Nash–designed arch. The arch could only be traveled under by the royal family, and then only during ceremonial events, but traffic stopped even when a royal coach drove past. Violet could not catch a glimpse of the carriage’s occupant to know whether it was the queen herself or one of her bevy of children.

Under the driver’s constant pestering of his trio of overworked mares, the omnibus gradually picked up speed again and Violet returned to her contemplations, closing her eyes to blot out the din and jangle of London’s streets in order to concentrate.

Was there any possible link between the various seemingly unrelated situations? Were some coincidental and others intentional? When it came down to it, how many different investigations was Violet actually working on?

A thought occurred to her. Audley had been reticent to tell her who the family undertaker was when surely he knew who it was. Violet knew Julian Crugg had many society clients. Were the Blounts among them? Had he asked the family not to reveal that he was Lord Blount’s undertaker because of the shabby treatment they intended for their son, which could only harm Crugg’s reputation?

Speaking of shabby treatment, certainly Crugg had his own reasons to be angry at both Violet and Susanna, and might have been trying to attack either of them in the park. How would he have known that they would be in Hyde Park, though? Well, it was entirely possible that he had followed them.

Or paid someone else to do so.

Violet hopped down from the omnibus stop in Paddington, her stomach rumbling. She wondered what delicacy Mrs. Wren had planned for them tonight, then wondered if she should stop somewhere for tea. Seven o’clock was so very far away.

As she made her way through the streets after picking up a slice of savoy cake spread with jam, she decided that Margery Latham had clung to Julian Crugg not because he was standing nearby but because she knew him. Perhaps Audley hadn’t covered for Crugg to protect the undertaker’s reputation but because Crugg knew what had happened to Blount and was protecting the family.

It was an interesting idea. It made Violet even more sure that Crugg was somehow connected to the first two living bodies at Brookwood, although she wasn’t sure how.

By the time she arrived back at Morgan Undertaking, Violet had warmed decidedly to the idea that Crugg was not the innocent he protested he was. Despite the outburst she knew she was facing, Violet decided it was time to visit him again.

 

When Violet announced to Sam that she intended to confront Julian Crugg again, he insisted on accompanying her, stating that his protestations at the wisdom of such a visit were clearly falling on deaf ears. Violet didn’t resist his overprotectiveness. She hadn’t been too enthused about calling on Crugg, anyway, imagining that he would either forcibly remove her from his shop . . . or do worse, if he was indeed their Hyde Park attacker.

They went together around midday, once Violet had finished visiting a family who had lost their matriarch. The old woman had just died at the exceedingly ripe old age of ninety-nine, leaving behind so many children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren that Violet had asked the woman’s daughter to make up a list of them for the obituary.

Harry had stayed home to care for his wife, who was not faring well with her unborn babe. The child was already struggling to make an entrance, and its parents were struggling to keep it content a while longer. Predictably, Susanna was quite happy to mind the shop while Violet went on her errand, only cautioning her mother to “Watch for Mr. Crugg’s fangs” as Violet and Sam headed out.

The cab dropped them off in Regent Street, and they walked into the alley where his shop was located. Strangely, the “Closed” sign was in the window and no lamps were burning inside.