Chapter 3 #2
After leaving Lady Halstead’s room, Montague had gone downstairs with Violet.
In the kitchen, he had consulted with her, Tilly, and Cook, then he’d written an urgent note to Inspector Basil Stokes at Scotland Yard, sending it off via a local boy Tilly and Cook often engaged to run errands.
Montague had assisted Stokes in several cases over recent years; he’d felt confident Stokes would return the favor.
They had then waited for as long as they’d dared—for as long as they would reasonably be able to explain—before dispatching a summons penned by Violet to the doctor. That note had been sent via the first boy’s brother at eleven o’clock.
The doctor knocked on the door half an hour later.
Subdued and somber, Violet greeted the man, saying only that she and Tilly believed that Lady Halstead had died during the night.
Standing behind Violet in the shadows of the front hall, Montague assessed the doctor; he was in his late thirties and, from the cut of his coat, appeared to be prospering.
Milborne assumed a suitably grave mien. “Of course, we knew this day would come. Nevertheless, you have my condolences, Miss Matcham. You must be overwrought.”
“As to that, sir . . .” Violet paused to draw in a breath that wasn’t entirely steady. Pressing her hands together, she tipped her head toward the stairs. “We believe we need you to view the body and give your opinion as to how her ladyship died.”
“Indeed, indeed.” Milborne glanced at the stairs. “In her room, is she?” He headed for the stairs. “I know the way.”
Violet and Montague ignored the implied dismissal and followed Milborne up the stairs; they were at his heels when he walked into the bedroom.
Milborne checked at the sight of Lady Halstead’s body, but then recovered and, rather more slowly, continued to the side of the bed.
Thinking, Montague decided; Milborne was thinking hard about how best to handle the situation—about which avenue promised the greatest benefit to him.
Milborne looked down at her ladyship’s face, jaw hinged wide, mouth agape, then he reached for her wrist and made a show of checking for a pulse there, and then at the side of the old lady’s neck.
Then he raised her lids, first one, then the other, but he only gave a cursory glance at the staring eyes thus revealed.
He was going through the motions.
Violet felt certain her and Tilly’s assumptions about the doctor were correct; he would do what was best for the family.
Sure enough, after that most superficial of examinations, he sighed and turned to face her. “It seems her heart gave out. To be expected, at her age.”
Especially if someone held a pillow over her face while she screamed and screamed. Violet dragged in a breath. Wrapping her arms about her, she swallowed the words and glanced at Montague. They’d agreed it would be unwise to try to force their opinions or conclusions on Milborne, but . . .
Montague met her gaze, almost imperceptibly nodded in support. Then he looked at Milborne. “Am I to take it you intend to declare this a natural death?”
Milborne blinked, shifting his attention to Montague. “Well, in the circumstances . . .” Then he frowned. “I’m sorry—you are?”
“Heathcote Montague, of Montague and Son, in the City.” Montague said nothing more; they needed to delay Milborne, to keep him from issuing a death certificate declaring the death natural, until help, in the form of Stokes, arrived.
Stokes would take one look at this scene and know there was nothing natural about the manner of Lady Halstead’s passing.
Milborne’s frown grew more puzzled. “I’m unclear as to what your interest in Lady Halstead’s demise might be.”
“Her ladyship recently engaged me as a financial consultant with wide-ranging authority to delve into all matters concerning her situation.” Montague let Milborne puzzle over that for a moment, then, when the man was clearly searching for the correct words with which to frame his next question, added, “Given the circumstances surrounding the initiation of my consultancy, and given the scope of the formal letter of authority Lady Halstead enacted, I believe her demise most definitely falls within my purview.”
Milborne blinked, now clearly uneasy. “I . . . see.”
Meaning he no longer had any idea of what was going on, or which way he should bend. Milborne glanced again at the bed, at the frail body lying in it.
A heavy knock sounded on the front door.
Montague looked at Violet.
“Tilly will get it,” she said.
That Tilly had, indeed, opened the front door was immediately apparent as a rumble of male voices in the hall downstairs reached them.
Several male voices. Stokes had brought others—at least two others—with him.
Straining his ears, Montague caught an inflection, a certain deep drawl, one rather more sophisticated than Stokes’s raspy growl, and wondered . . . suddenly hoped.
Sure enough, when, a bare minute later, Stokes walked into the room, the tall, elegant figure of Barnaby Adair appeared behind him.
If knowing Stokes had arrived had brought relief, Adair’s coming with him meant salvation was assured.
Violet watched the large, dark-haired, and dark-featured man pause just inside the doorway, his open greatcoat hanging from broad shoulders, his eyes—slate gray and oddly piercing—taking in the entire bedroom and all in it in one single, comprehensive glance.
That glance ended on Montague, and the man inclined his head.
“Montague.”
Montague nodded back. “Inspector Stokes.” With one hand, Montague indicated Violet. “This is Miss Matcham, the late Lady Halstead’s companion of many years. And this”—Montague turned to the doctor—“is Doctor Milborne, who, I understand, has been overseeing her ladyship’s health for several years.”
“Ah—yes, about five years . . .” Milborne looked confused; he glanced from Stokes to Montague. “Did you say ‘Inspector’?”
“Yes—he was referring to me.” The dark-haired man—Stokes—moved toward the bed.
“Inspector Basil Stokes of Scotland Yard. We”—Stokes glanced back at his companion, who had curly blond hair, was most definitely a gentleman by his dress, and was lingering in the doorway—“have reason to wish to satisfy ourselves as to the nature of her ladyship’s death.
” The slate gray gaze returned to pin Milborne.
“So, Doctor, what say you? Is this a natural death, or something the Yard needs to be aware of?”
“Ah . . .” Milborne was out of his depth and floundering; he patently did not know which way to leap. “I . . . ah, had thought it might be, could be, purely the result of old age. I mean, although she appears to have struggled, well, she might have been gasping her last, as it were, and—”
“Were her eyes closed, her lids lowered, when she was found?”
The question, uttered in an urbane voice that instantly commanded attention—and respect—came from the tall, blond man who had accompanied Stokes.
Strolling into the room, he politely inclined his head to Violet, nodded briefly—as to a friend—to Montague, then glanced at Milborne, before halting by the bed and looking down at Lady Halstead’s face.
After an instant, the man glanced up at Milborne, then at Violet. “The Honorable Barnaby Adair. I’m a consultant to the Yard, and often work with Stokes. Especially”—his distinctly blue gaze returned to Lady Halstead’s face—“in cases involving members of society.”
It took Milborne another moment to digest that, then some of his tension left him. “In that case—”
Violet spoke over him. “Her eyes were shut—the lids lowered—when we found her.” At Adair’s cocked brow, she elaborated, “Tilly, her ladyship’s maid, and I came up to wake her as we usually did, and found her.” Violet nodded at the bed. “Just like that. We didn’t move her at all.”
“Excellent.” Adair crouched and looked at Lady Halstead’s face from close quarters, then angled a glance at Milborne. “Any bleeding in the eyes?”
Milborne shifted. “A little. But she’s old, and—” He broke off, then bent, raised one of the lids, and looked again. When he straightened, one could see that he’d paled. “Yes. There’s unnatural bleeding in the eyes.”
“Hmm.” Adair slowly straightened. “That’s usually a sign of suffocation, isn’t it?”
Milborne’s lips tightened, but he nodded. “Yes.”
Adair glanced at Violet. “Was there anything else in the room when you found her—or anything you’ve noticed that’s missing?”
Violet stepped forward and looked at Lady Halstead.
“The only thing that’s wrong, that’s out of place, is that pillow.
The one that’s been pushed under her head.
Her ladyship never slept with that many pillows, but that one was left on that chair by the bed”—she nodded at the armchair—“because she needed it behind her when she sat up.”
“So,” Adair all but purred, “when you and her ladyship’s maid arrived with her breakfast tray, had it been a normal morning, you would have found Lady Halstead lying asleep on one less pillow, and the pillow presently beneath her head would have been waiting on the chair for you to place at her back when she sat up.
” Adair slanted a quietly encouraging look at Violet. “Is that correct, Miss Matcham?”
Meeting his eyes, Violet raised her chin and nodded. “That’s precisely correct, Mr. Adair.”
Adair glanced at Stokes. “I believe that settles it.” He looked at Milborne. “So, Doctor, what’s your verdict?”
Milborne looked grim but dutifully intoned, “Death by suffocation by persons unknown.”
Violet glanced at Stokes and saw him smile a positively sharklike smile.
“Murder, then,” Stokes said.
Milborne grimaced. “As you will have it so, but I warn you the family aren’t going to like it.”
Stokes’s face darkened and his response came in a dark growl. “I don’t like it and I’m not even related. But I’m sure you’re not saying that the Halsteads are the sort of family who would happily sweep murder under the carpet in order to avoid a little inconvenience?”