Verse of the Vampyre (13 page)

“Is Sir Gerald hunting?”

“I assume so.” Catriona reached for her cocktail as Ahmed arrived with the drinks tray. “It’s what Theresa would have wanted, poor girl. She lived for sport.”

“You’re going riding tomorrow?” Chaz looked from one to the other.

“Foxhunting,” Lord Ruthven (Grace just could not think of him as “Bob”) clarified.

Grace didn’t have to look at Chaz to know he was ready to start gobbling.

“You all foxhunt?”

“I sense a bourgeois disapproval,” Catriona remarked.

“Not all of us,” Lord Ruthven said. “Some of us recognize it for the barbaric custom it is.” He quoted Oscar Wilde. “ ‘The unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible.’ ”

Catriona laughed. “Rabbie is afraid of horses. Or perhaps the horses are afraid of Rabbie.” When she said “Rabbie,” the Scots pet name for “Robert,” one could hear the thistle lying beneath her carefully cultivated tones.

Grace tried the
kaju katli
. Cashew fudge made with white chocolate and ground cashew nuts. It didn’t quite go with the beer. She decided she needed the beer more than the chocolate if she was going to spend an evening with Catriona.

The conversation turned to plays and theater. Chaz asked Lord Ruthven what he had done that Chaz might have seen. Lord Ruthven named a couple of productions that Chaz had to admit he’d never heard of. Catriona interjected a few comments. Grace wondered at the Ruthvens’ relationship. Beneath what was apparently a successful working partnership ran an undercurrent of antagonism.

Did Ruthven suspect his wife of having an affair? Catriona seemed to enjoy baiting her spouse. Was there some past betrayal between them?

Her thoughts returned to the murder.

Why kill Theresa? What possible motive could there be?

But of course there were motives. The most obvious motive was that Sir Gerald had slain her in a jealous rage. Grace had read enough mysteries to know spouses were always the prime suspects in murder investigations. But why choose the night of the Hunt Ball? And why mar her body with pseudovampire marks? He could hardly hope to convince anyone a vampire had attacked his wife. Besides, it was too fanciful a touch for Sir Gerald.

The next most likely reason was that Theresa had somehow stumbled onto the robbery and been killed by the perpetrators. But that was so different from the death of the security guard. Even the police believed that death had been accidental. Why had it been necessary to kill her? Couldn’t they just have thrown her in a shed or knocked her out? Maybe after the death of the guard they believed they had nothing to lose, but they must have worn masks. Was the thief someone Theresa would have known with or without a mask? If they hadn’t worn masks, and she had seen their faces, would it have been necessary to kill her? How much was at stake?

For that matter, why had Theresa been wandering around alone outside?

Peter seemed to believe that her death was unrelated to the robbery, and, unfortunately, it appeared that he was in a position to know.

Grace’s personal favorite suspect remained Miss Coke. True, she had learned nothing this evening that confirmed her suspicions about the woman in black, but she had certainly threatened Theresa; there were witnesses to that. And Miss Coke seemed more than a little unbalanced. Nobody outside of wronged women in Victorian novels and (in the words of one of Grace’s former students) “freaking lunatics” carried on like Miss Coke. She was given to skulking; so it was not impossible that she might choose to skulk the night of the Hunt Ball, when all her enemies were gathered in one place.

Plus Miss Coke was said to be a witch, and vampires were all part of the same club, weren’t they?

Could Theresa have some unknown enemy? Surely if anyone had threatened her, she would have gone to the police. Her husband would know. Someone would know.

Her death might have appeared to be the result of a violent impulse except for the detail of the vampire bite. That mutilation implied planning, but surely more lay behind her murder than the wish to make it look like a vampire was running amuck in Innisdale?

One thing for sure, it was obvious that Theresa was not the random victim of a maniac.

“If someone is trying to sabotage the play,” Grace said, breaking into the others’ conversation, “who do you think it is?”

Catriona and her spouse exchanged a strange look.

“The old witch herself,” Catriona said.

“Miss Coke?”

Catriona laughed. “Not
that
old witch. Lady Vee.” She mimicked Lady Vee’s ultraposh accent. “Lady Venetia Brougham, my
deah!”

Fog damped out the sun, sponging all color from the landscape. The occasional tree or signpost appeared like a ghost, then vanished. The scarlet and black jackets of the field were vivid against the twilight world the Innisdale Pack rode through.

It was a smaller field than previously, subdued in spirit. Even the hounds seemed irresolute, starting, then abandoning, one trail after another.

Grace noticed that the chief constable was not present—off hunting bigger game, no doubt.

She controlled the mare’s eager tugging against the bit. The hounds were still uncertain, casting near and far, whining in frustration. The mare tossed her head, snaffle bit jingling.

“Easy, girl,” Grace murmured, and Allegra, riding a few feet away, glanced at her sharply. In this gray void a snapping twig was as loud as a shot.

Everyone was on edge. Even Catriona looked surprisingly solemn. Sir Gerald looked ill, Grace thought. His face was puffy, and there were bags beneath his bloodshot eyes. Well, that was why she had chosen to ride: to see how those most closely connected to Theresa were taking her death.

The hounds broke into a lope, and the rest of the pack cantered after, crossing a broad empty pasture. Grace was dimly aware of other riders as the field spread out around her, though they did not appear to have a line yet.

The miles melted away. The mist separated into patches of autumn sunlight and blue sky. The checkerboard fields of a farm loomed into view.

Mallow, Grace realized. They were nearing the property of the late Sam Jeffries.

And then one of the hounds gave voice. The others joined in, and they were off in full cry, racing across the land followed by the tattoo of drumming hooves.

“Yoi over!”

Far ahead, Grace saw the fox slip under a fence. The hounds poured after in flashes of white and brown. A rider cantered up to the gate, unlatching it, while other riders sailed over the fence. The less daring or “hilltoppers” filed through the gate.

Grace spotted a clear stretch and guided the mare toward it. Feeling the animal’s approval, she kicked her forward. The mare flew at the fence as though she had wings. They landed solidly, cantering back to rejoin the others.

Grace found herself riding with Sir Gerald and Allegra. They appeared to be in some kind of old fruit orchard. The gnarled trees looked aggressively ancient, all bare knuckles and pointing fingers.

“Bloody hell!” exclaimed Sir Gerald. He halted and held his crop up, signaling the rest of the field to hold hard. “Smell that?”

“Garlic,” said Allegra.

Sir Gerald began swearing. Yards ahead, Milliken turned to face them, arms spread in a gesture of defeat.

“What’s happened?” Grace asked Allegra.

“These bloody saboteurs! They’ve sprayed the ground and foliage with garlic to ruin the scent.”

Garlic? Garlic, which was used against vampires? Was there a weird connection here, or did Grace have vampires on the brain?

“They can’t have sprayed the entire valley,” Sir Gerald fumed.

Milliken blew the hunting horn in staccato blasts.

“Yo hote, Yo hote,” urged the Whipper-in. The hounds began to zigzag, snuffling the leaf-buried ground frantically.

Slowly they advanced through the orchard.

The fog had followed them; it billowed languidly, shape-shifting through the trees.

“We don’t have permission from the Shogun,” Allegra said quietly to Sir Gerald.

Sir Gerald sputtered some dismissal, finishing, “I’ll be damned if an Englishman needs permission from a bloody Jap to ride on English soil.”

Charming, thought Grace.

If Allegra had a response, she never made it.

A shot rang out. Someone screamed. There was another shot.

Pandemonium ensued. There were shouts and cries; horses reared, appearing briefly before plunging back into the concealing fog. The hounds went mad.

Heart hammering, Grace flattened herself to her horse’s neck and tried to place the direction the shots were coming from. The mare was fighting her, and Graced decided to rely on the animal’s hearing, giving her her head. The bay was off like a shot.

“Retreat, retreat!” That was Sir Gerald. He charged past Grace, heading back the way they had come.

Catriona flew past, her hair whipping back from her white face. Another rider narrowly missed colliding with Grace. The wooden fence materialized out of the fog.

A crowd of horses and riders labored over it. Grace clenched her jaw and let the mare choose her spot. They were up and over—and away. The mare thrust out her neck and lengthened her stride. The miles dissolved beneath her hooves.

“There’s something about a woman with a whip,” Peter remarked as the gallery door opened, and Grace, dressed in full riding kit, entered.

“Someone shot at the hunt,” she said. Proof of her agitation, she took a couple of steps into the shop and sat down on the nearest chair, a valuable Chippendale. She put her face in her hands.

“You’ve got to be joking.” She clearly wasn’t. Peter gave a low whistle and came to her.

“All right?” He knelt, and Grace lifted her face out of her hands.

Not many men could pose on one knee without losing either their dignity or balance, but Peter managed. His eyes were concerned, his expression serious. It was gratifying, to say the least.

“What the hell happened?”

“Someone fired shots—actual shots—at the hunt. No one was hurt, but…”

“Sabs?”

“I don’t know. That’s what everyone is saying.”

His dark brows drew together. “But you think otherwise?”

“It did disrupt the hunt,” she admitted. She shook her head. “I don’t understand what’s happening.”

Peter rose. “Come on. Upstairs. You need a drink. I’m buying.”

It occurred to Grace that it was the first time she had seen him since their encounter in Sally Smithwick’s garden. She supposed it said something that he was the one she turned to when disaster struck. Then again, since he seemed to be involved in most of the disasters striking her, maybe it wasn’t so amazing.

She let herself be coaxed upstairs and plied with alcohol.

“Who rode today?” Peter asked absently, sitting beside her on the red leather sofa. His fingers found the pins holding her hair in place and removed them. He began to massage. Shivers of sensation rippled over her scalp.

“It was a smaller turnout. Sir Gerald rode. Allegra.” She couldn’t help the caustic note that crept into her voice. “Catriona.”

No comment from Peter.

“Derek wasn’t there. That’s not surprising. I think his real interest was Theresa. Lord Ruthven never rides. Oh, and the chief constable wasn’t there.”

“No,” Peter said dryly. “He was here.”

“Oh.” His long, strong fingers were working magic with the knotted muscles in her neck and at the base of her skull. She took another sip of brandy. “What do you know about Sam Jeffries?” she asked abruptly.

“Nice chap.” Peter shrugged. “Rotten luck.”

“But what was he like?”

Peter swallowed brandy. “Why?”

“Why not? Why does everyone clam up when I ask about Sam Jeffries?”

“Do they?” He lifted his shoulders in dismissal. “I can’t speak for others, but I know you. I know what happens when you get inquisitive.”

She loosened her stock. “You’re still avoiding the question.”

Peter sighed, sounding bored. “Sam Jeffries? He was one of these hearty man’s man types. Fishing, hunting and pubbing with Sir Gerald and his merry band. Popular with the ladies.”

“He owned Mallow Farm?”

“Correct.”

“So he was wealthy.”

“Relatively speaking.” The blue eyes appraised her. “Come on, Miss Marple, give.”

“I honestly don’t know,” Grace admitted. “But Miss Coke apparently had it in for Sam. We were on Mallow property today when we were fired on. That means we were only a few miles from Miss Coke’s.”

“It would be just about impossible to arrange a foxhunting accident unless you knew which way the fox was going to run, and how could you?”

“By dragging a false scent,” Grace said. “A lot of hunt clubs do it if they don’t want to actually kill a fox. Sabs do it. It’s another method of disrupting a hunt.”

“And she got Jeffries’ horse to agree to miss its jump? Who is she, Dr. Doolittle?”