The Moonlit Murders: A historical mystery page-turner (A Fen Churche Mystery Book 3) by Fliss Chester (best ereader for pc .txt) 📗

front of his face as if imagining his name in lights. ‘But I was the one who’d lucked out. I was doll dizzy about her, she drove me mad, especially in those early days in Milan. Boy, you should have seen her.’

Fen couldn’t tell if Spencer was looking somewhat cross-eyed as he mentally journeyed back to his past, or if he really was suffering from the effects of running out of oxygen. Or perhaps he was still drunk. That thought reminded her that she really should be asking him about what happened. ‘Spencer, can you tell me about last night? I saw you both go into your cabin, but then, I’m afraid, we’re all a little clueless.’ Not totally clueless, she thought as she rubbed her thumb over the braiding of the epaulette in her pocket.

Spencer tried to focus on Fen again. ‘She was cross with me, kept saying that she didn’t know if she could trust me any more. That there was a lot more than I knew riding on this… She slapped me when I said she should calm down.’ He raised his own hand to his cheek and Fen could see a faint red mark there.

‘Did the fact she hit you make you angry with her?’ Fen wondered if perhaps Spencer had retaliated and hadn’t known his own strength.

‘Yes, I was mad. But then I don’t remember much after that.’

‘Nothing at all?’ Fen found it hard to believe. Even someone so in their cups that they appeared drunk by noon the next day should remember something about what they did the night before. Then she remembered the letter she’d found in their cabin, the one from Dr Bartlett and something of what Genie had been saying to Spencer made sense to her. Did Spencer know Genie was pregnant? Fen wondered if telling him was appropriate, but if he was to have been a father, surely he should be told? Or maybe Genie had told him, and marriage and kids really hadn’t been on this rising star’s agenda? Fen’s thoughts, racing as they were, were interrupted by Spencer.

‘She was the one who couldn’t be trusted, I remember saying that.’ He mopped his brow. ‘The way she flirted with that Bisset guy, and all those times I caught her with that doctor, the one who’s old enough to be her father. I told her I knew—’

‘Oh dear,’ Fen bit her lip. Spencer really didn’t know about the pregnancy. But surely if Genie had had that accusation flung at her she would have told him?

Spencer carried on before Fen could tell him the news: ‘And that steward out there, she was off cavorting with him, too. Said she was going to the costume box in the auditorium, but…’ Spencer looked imploringly at Fen.

She felt the epaulette in her pocket. If it was a naval officer’s it might prove Spencer right, but at the same time it would give him a very good motive for killing her. On the other hand, if she showed it to him, he might react in a way which would cement his guilt. She pulled it out.

‘Spencer, I found this in your cabin. Along with… well, it doesn’t matter for now, but does it mean anything to you?’

Of all the reactions Fen was expecting, be it rage or remorse, Spencer bursting out laughing wasn’t one of them.

‘Ha, that! She had the eye of a magpie all right.’

‘What do you mean?’ Fen protectively put the epaulette back in her pocket.

‘Magpie – you know. She used to say it about herself. Anything that glinted like gold, she’d want it.’

Fen knew what being a magpie meant. She herself had those tendencies, when you can’t resist the urge to reach out and touch pretty sparkly things. She thought about the earrings she’d found in the drawer as Spencer carried on.

‘She liked to take the odd memento from the places we’d been.’

‘So you think there’s a possibility that she might have gone to the costume box, but not to spend time with Dodman?’ Fen asked him.

‘Dodman?’ Spencer said. ‘That his name? The other one she flirted with?’

At the sound of his own name. the steward appeared in the doorway. ‘Time’s almost up, miss, are you quite all right?’

‘Yes, Dodman, quite all right thank you,’ Fen replied, but didn’t take her eyes off Spencer, who was glaring at Dodman as if a murderous urge might overtake him. Perhaps not for the first time. ‘One more minute and one more question, if I may?’ Fen asked Dodman, though the request was of Spencer really.

Dodman nodded and stood back, but didn’t move so far away from the door this time.

‘Spencer, did you know that Genie was pregnant?’

Her words hung heavy in the close atmosphere of the cell. Spencer was quiet and for a moment she truly wondered if he had heard her.

‘Spencer?’

‘Pregnant? My Genie?’ He looked gobsmacked. ‘So that was why… the doctor and her…?’

‘Yes, Dr Bartlett had written to her having, well, examined her.’

Spencer was shaking his head. ‘I didn’t know, I… That changes everything… I was going to be a father? Me…’

‘Yes. I’m so sorry, Spencer.’ Fen felt that familiar fizzing in her nose as her eyes teared up slightly. Murderer or not, this poor man had lost everything.

Dodman coughed gently from behind the door and Fen took her cue. She quickly dabbed her eyes and said goodbye to Spencer, though wasn’t surprised that this time he really didn’t seem to have heard her.

She stepped over the ridge of the doorway and listened as Dodman closed the great metal door. They then both walked, in silence this time, back towards the bridge of the ship for her appointment with the captain, yet all the while, Fen kept thinking about what she had learned from Spencer.

Not much, was the conclusion. He was remorseful, that was clear, but whether it was out of pure grief or whether he had a hand in it, she couldn’t tell. One thing struck her though as she followed Dodman through the narrow corridors.