Epilogue
P enelope looked around her dinner table and felt her heart lift at the sight of their friends enjoying themselves.
Everyone who had contributed to the solving of their most recent case was there.
Stokes sat on her left, and Thomas was on her right, while Mary and Violet flanked Barnaby at the table’s head.
In between on either side, the chairs were filled by Montague, Rose, Griselda, Curtis, and Julian.
At first, Julian, being so much younger than the other participants, had been a trifle overawed, but Griselda had worked her wiles on the lad, and he’d relaxed and was now chatting freely.
The main course had been served and consumed and the plates and platters removed when, at the other end of the table, Violet asked Mary, “How are you finding your new lodgings?”
Penelope knew that Mary and Julian had found comfortable lodgings in a house that happened to be in Red Lion Square, opposite Curtis’s house.
“They’re perfect.” Mary shot a smiling glance at Curtis, who—thanks to Penelope’s planning—was sitting beside her. “Ronald was right. Mrs. Hildebrand’s rooms suit us well, especially as she’s taken a shine to Julian, so she doesn’t worry that he’s in and out at all hours.”
“That’s handy,” Griselda observed, a twinkle in her eye, “having Julian living opposite his boss.”
Mary laughed. “It is.” She leaned forward and mischievously confided, “I strongly suspect that Mrs. Hildebrand goes in awe of Ronald. He’s quite the fixture in Red Lion Square.”
Penelope grinned. It was only through the offices of Mary and Julian that any of them had learned that Curtis’s first name was Ronald.
Ever since Mary and Julian had come to stay at Albemarle Street, before they’d left for Red Lion Square, Penelope had noticed the looks Curtis—Ronald—cast Mary whenever he thought no one was looking.
Admittedly, the situation hadn’t—yet—progressed to the outcome Penelope hoped for, but on that front, she rather thought matters were progressing, slowly but inexorably, in the right direction.
That said, she had to bite her tongue and possess her soul in patience; neither Mary nor Curtis were the sort who would appreciate being prodded.
Penelope cast her hostess’s eye around the table again, seeing Griselda talking animatedly to Barnaby, very likely exchanging news on Megan’s and Oswald’s latest adventures and comparing those to the antics of Oliver and Pip.
Meanwhile, Rose and Violet had their heads together, while Montague and Thomas, wrestling with some financial point, had appealed to Curtis for his opinion, and his reply had drawn Mary’s attention.
Closer to hand, Stokes was listening to Julian’s recounting of a search for a missing lady, a case that he and Curtis were currently involved in.
For an instant, for Penelope, time stood still, and in her head, she heard again the dowager’s words, her commitment, unwavering and steadfast, to the fundamental importance of family and the concomitant responsibility.
This is what’s important in life. These are the friendships Barnaby and I value, that we are determined to foster and cling to. We might not be linked by blood, yet this is our investigative family.
She’d been coming to that realization over the past years, over their recent cases, and that conclusion now stood, solid and clear, in her heart.
It was over a month since they’d learned who had killed the Earl of Moran, but since then, this was the first chance they’d had to gather as a group.
Consequently, Penelope wasn’t surprised when, after the desserts had been carried in and placed before them, Griselda looked up and down the table, then said, “I believe that those of us not directly involved in closing the Fitzhugh case have exercised enormous patience, and now it’s time for the three of you—Penelope, Barnaby, and my dear husband—to appease our considerable curiosity and explain. ”
“Indeed.” Violet directed a sharply interrogatory look at those named. “What, exactly, happened?”
From the head of the table, Barnaby met Penelope’s eyes and arched his brows.
Beside her, as he started on his lemon blancmange, Stokes muttered, “You’re the storyteller here, which definitely makes you the best one to answer.”
“Very well.” Accepting the role with a dip of her head, Penelope ate a spoonful of the delicious dessert while she gathered her thoughts, then commenced, “We told you—and swore you all to secrecy on the subject—that the Fitzhugh case was one of filicide. However, given the dowager countess had taken her own life—a life that, regardless, was slated to end within days—there seemed no point in bruiting abroad the facts and putting her family, the innocent people she’d killed to protect, through the diabolical wringer of the consequent sensational publicity.
Moreover, the Fitzhughs and the connected branches live within the ton, so the rumors and their likely impact would have been considerable and wide-ranging. ”
She paused to assemble the facts she had to impart into some semblance of logical order.
“The closing of this case was complex, convoluted, and extended over several weeks. On realizing what the dowager had done, we debated, then removed the bottle of laudanum and summoned the housekeeper and the dowager’s maid-cum-dresser, Hilda.
Both were devoted to the dowager and, we judged, would wish to witness the old lady’s passing.
As they did. We also remained until the dowager breathed her last. It was all very peaceful and serene, as I’m sure she would have wanted. ”
Penelope paused, then added, “In many ways, given what she’d done and, more importantly, the reason why she’d summoned the courage and the determination to kill her own son, we, too, felt she deserved to be accorded all due respect.”
From the head of the table, Barnaby said, “For the Fitzhugh family to survive, Gordon, the late Earl of Moran, had to be stopped, and in all truth, the only way he could have been stopped was by being killed.”
Penelope nodded. “Indeed. And the dowager not only had the understanding to grasp that, she also had the iron will—bolstered by her promise to her late husband—to do what needed to be done.”
“It was clear,” Stokes said, “that she hadn’t made the decision to murder her son lightly.
Far from it. She’d done her best to make him see the light and change his ways, but he’d refused.
Repeatedly. We didn’t feel that she deserved to be vilified for taking the ultimate step to protect her family. ”
“I suppose,” Violet said, “if one considers that we send soldiers onto battlefields to protect this country by killing our enemies, then the dowager killing the man who was threatening to harm the rest of her family is difficult to condemn.”
“Just so,” Penelope said. “After we’d witnessed her death, we returned to Scotland Yard with Stokes. All three of us spoke with the Commissioner, and it was immediately and abundantly clear that this case was going to require careful handling.”
“In the end,” Barnaby said, “a meeting was convened at which the Commissioner and the three of us presented the case to the assembled governors of Scotland Yard, along with members of the government as well as several Law Lords.” His lips twitched as he looked down the table at Penelope.
“The ton was further represented by Lady Osbaldestone, the Dowager Duchess of St. Ives, and the current Duchess of St. Ives.”
“And her husband, and Chillingworth, Calverton, and Raventhorne as well,” Stokes added. “It was quite a gathering.”
“We presented the case as one of justifiable homicide,” Penelope said.
“Not an action to be recommended,” Barnaby said, “but one that could be understood.”
“Ultimately,” Stokes said, “all those attending agreed that no good would come from allowing the case to become public knowledge and, indeed, that innocents would be harmed if the facts of the matter ever became widely known.”
“So,” Penelope said, “we concocted a tale of some unknown person gaining access to the earl’s study via the lane, the wall, and the courtyard. The courtyard door was unexpectedly open, and there were signs in the gravel that someone had approached and retreated that way. That was all true.”
“What our unknown person’s motive was, we couldn’t determine,” Barnaby said.
“It was impossible to prove whether it was a simple theft gone wrong or an attempt to remove political documents—for example, the parliamentary submissions Moran had on his desk—or if the intruder had intended to murder the earl all along. As for possible culprits, a theft from a Park Lane mansion could have been perpetrated by anyone, and the earl’s political enemies were drawn from a sufficiently wide spectrum of people that there was no shortage of potential suspects. ”
“In the end, that was the story that was released to the newspapers and the avidly curious public,” Stokes said. “And thus, the mystery of who actually killed the Earl of Moran will, officially, remain unresolved.”
Penelope sighed. “It took more than a week to sort all that out, but I’m pleased we were able to preserve the dowager’s secret and protect her name and that the genuine outpouring of grief over her death, so close to that of her son, was unmarred by any further sensational revelations.”
Those about the table took a moment to assimilate the tale, then Griselda said, “So thanks to the dowager, the Fitzhugh family as a whole are now able to get on with their lives.” She looked at Penelope. “How are they doing in that regard?”