Chapter 7
Chapter
Seven
Chaos in the Grand Tier
"Steele—" Rosalynd's voice came from behind me. She had followed. Of course, she had. I hadn't expected otherwise.
"Stay back," I said, though I knew the warning was futile. Rosalynd had never stayed back from anything in her life.
"Warwick!" My aunt's voice, sharp with alarm, cut through from our box. "Warwick, what on earth—"
"Stay where you are, Aunt Lavinia. Please."
The corridor curtain was thrust aside, and suddenly the box was crowded with bodies.
Guests from neighboring boxes, drawn by Lady Hale's screams like moths to flame.
A stout woman in mauve silk, letting out a quite theatrical shriek.
A gentleman with impressive whiskers demanding to know what was happening.
Someone was calling for a doctor, though it was abundantly clear that no doctor could help Sir Edmund now.
"Everyone out," I said, putting the full weight of the dukedom into my voice. "Now. This is a matter for the police."
The authority worked—barely. The gawkers retreated to the corridor, though they didn't disperse. They hovered just beyond the curtain, whispering, watching. The story would be all over London by morning. By midnight, if the penny papers had their way.
Rosalynd had moved to Lady Hale's side, murmuring something soothing, but I saw her eyes sweeping the scene with sharp attention. She was cataloguing details. So was I.
The angle of the wound suggested the killer had struck from behind and slightly to the right—from the direction of the curtained doorway that connected to the corridor.
Sir Edmund had been seated in the front row, his attention fixed on the stage.
He wouldn't have seen his murderer approach. Wouldn't have had time to cry out.
The stiletto itself was notable—a slim blade, Italian in design, the kind of weapon favored by assassins since the Renaissance. Not a gentleman's weapon. Not a weapon of passion. This was a tool designed for one purpose: killing quickly and quietly.
The timing had been exquisite. The killer had struck during the opera's climax, when the music was loudest, when every eye in the house was fixed on poor Gilda's death. Calculated. Professional. This was not a crime of impulse.
"The killer knew what they were doing,” Rosalynd said. “The timing, the weapon, the angle—" She broke off, her gaze meeting mine. "This wasn't amateur work."
"No," I agreed. "It wasn't."
Lady Hale had subsided into quiet weeping, her head bowed, her shoulders shaking. My aunt invited her to our box, where she worked on soothing her nerves.
While we waited for Scotland Yard to make an appearance, I worked with the theatre manager to keep gawkers from the Hale’s box. We didn’t have long to wait. The police arrived within the quarter hour.
Inspector Archibald Graves was a lean, weathered man in his fifties, with sharp eyes set deep in a face that had seen too much of London's darker side.
I had encountered him before, during the Whitmore affair two years past. He was competent, thorough, and blessedly discreet—qualities in short supply at the Yard.
"Your Grace." Graves's greeting was respectful but not obsequious. Another point in his favor. "Unfortunate circumstances for our reunion."
"Indeed, Inspector.” I shot a quick glance at Rosalynd. “May I introduce Lady Rosalynd? We were in the next box.”
“Ma’am,” Graves nodded to her before turning back to me. “Tell me what happened.”
“The victim is Sir Edmund Hale. Stabbed during the third act. Lady Hale was present. Lady Rosalynd and I were in the adjacent box. We glimpsed a figure fleeing through the curtain but could not identify them."
Graves nodded, making notes in a small leather book. "And the weapon?"
“A stiletto. Italian, by the look of it. Still in the body." I pointed to the blade sticking out from Hale’s back.
"Professional job, then." It wasn't a question.
"That would be my assessment, yes."
Graves's sharp eyes studied me for a moment. "I don't suppose you'll be involving yourself in this one, Your Grace? Given your previous...assistance with certain matters?"
"No." I kept my voice flat, final. "This is a matter for the police, Inspector. Lady Rosalynd and I were merely witnesses. I have no intention of involving myself further."
I felt Rosalynd's gaze on me, but didn't meet it. She would have questions. She always did. But I meant what I said. Whatever Sir Edmund Hale had done to earn a stiletto in the back, it was none of my concern.
Graves took statements from us both—brief, factual accounts of what we had seen and heard.
Rosalynd mentioned the shadowy figure, the glint of metal.
I corroborated her statement. Graves proceeded to our box, where he talked to a weeping Lady Hale.
Once he was done with her, she was led away by her maid who’d been fetched from Hale House.
Graves returned to the Hale box, where we still were. “The lady claims she saw nothing.”
“I doubt that,” I said. “But, she may not have seen enough. The murder took place during the climax. Her attention would have been focused on the stage. As ours was.”
“Yes.” The coroner’s office arrived just then for the removal of Hale’s remains. We silently watched while they carried out that grim task.
"I'll be in touch if we require anything further," Graves said, closing his notebook. "My condolences for the ruined evening, Your Grace. My lady." He nodded to Rosalynd.
I nodded. "Inspector."
Once the box lay empty, Rosalynd, Aunt Lavinia, and I made our preparations to leave. But before doing so, the theatre manager stepped into our box. “A word, Your Grace.”
“Yes,” I said, rather impatiently. I was eager to get Rosalynd and my aunt away from what had turned out to be a disastrous evening.
“I’m afraid the press has gotten wind of the tragedy. A swarm of reporters is shouting questions at anyone who emerges from the theatre. If you wish to avoid them—”
“I do.”
“There is another way out through our backstage. We can have your carriage meet you by that exit.”
“Thank you, Mr.—”
“Conifer. At your service, Your Grace.” He left to make arrangements for our coachman and returned a short time later. “All’s at the ready.” He then guided us down the back stairs to a service corridor, past startled stagehands and costume racks, to a side door where my carriage waited.
Aunt Lavinia was pale, her earlier sparkle extinguished. She had seen death before—but not like this. Not murder, bloody and brazen, in a box at the opera.
"That poor man," she murmured as I handed her into the carriage. "And that poor woman. She was so very upset. Whatever will she do?"
“Bury him, I suppose.”
“Warwick!” Still, she laughed as I intended. And so did Rosalynd. It was enough to ward off the horror of the night.
Once we dropped Lavinia off at her home, I settled into the space next to Rosalynd.
Her midnight silk gown was incongruous against the grim reality of the evening. In the dim light of the carriage lamps, her sapphire eyes were thoughtful, her mind clearly turning over the events we had witnessed.
I knew that look. It was the same look she wore at the beginning of every investigation—curiosity kindling into determination, pieces of a puzzle arranging themselves behind those clever eyes.
"Don't," I said quietly.
She raised an eyebrow. "Don't what?"
"Whatever you're thinking."
"I'm thinking that a man was murdered not ten feet from where we sat. I'm thinking that we saw the killer flee and did nothing to stop them. I'm thinking—"
"That this is a matter for Scotland Yard," I finished. "Which it is. Graves is competent. He'll find the killer."
Rosalynd's expression suggested she found this optimism unwarranted. But she said nothing more, and the carriage fell into silence as we rattled through the London streets.
“I’m sorry we’ll miss our supper.” It was close to one in the morning. By now, the dishes would have grown cold, and the staff returned to their homes for the night. I had told them to expect us by midnight.
“Understandable given the circumstances.”
I stared out the window at the gas-lit streets, my thoughts dark. Sir Edmund Hale. A risky capitalist who had made enemies. A killer professional enough to strike in a crowded opera house and vanish without a trace.
None of my concern, I reminded myself. None of my concern at all.
We reached Grosvenor Square and Rosehaven House. The windows were dark save for a lamp in the front hall—late enough that even Rosalynd's chaotic household had retired for the evening.
I handed her down from the carriage, her gloved fingers cool in mine. For a moment, we stood in the circle of lamplight, the night air carrying the faint scent of the square's gardens.
"Not quite the evening I had planned," I said.
"No." A ghost of a smile touched her lips. “But then our evenings rarely are."
She was right. Since that first case, when we’d set out to clear her cousin’s name and my brother’s, we had become involved in matters we had not anticipated. Murder had a way of doing that.
"Goodnight, Rosalynd."
"Goodnight, Steele."
Under other circumstances, I might have kissed her—a brief press of lips in the shadows, propriety be damned. But the evening had soured, and the ghost of Sir Edmund Hale hung between us like a specter.
I watched her climb the steps, watched the door open to admit her, watched it close behind her. Then I turned to the coachman. “I’ll just walk across the square.”
“Of course, Your Grace.”
As I watched my carriage roll away, I realized there was at least one thing to be grateful for. Sir Edmund Hale's murder was none of my concern.
Little did I know that within a day, that would no longer hold true.