Murder at the Spring Ball: A 1920s Mystery by Benedict Brown (romantic novels in english .txt) 📗

by her vocal skills, but Grandfather was less appreciative. “Thank you, Clemmie, old girl. I do always enjoy your performances.” His voice was soaked in sarcasm, like a Christmas pudding in brandy. “Now, if I may continue…”

Clementine tilted her head in humble acceptance, as though she were a famous opera singer ceding the stage to a promising ingénue.

“Having been acquainted with my butler since he was a child, and for reasons that it is not my place to go into, I knew that Fellowes was no murderer.”

Still comforting his petite amie, Fellowes signalled his appreciation with a silent nod. Though Cora herself had stopped crying, she let out the occasional whimper as my grandfather continued his explanation.

“This knowledge reduced our list of suspects, but the killer’s identity still eluded me. While Belinda’s death could be seen as a failed attempt to snatch Cranley Hall, which George, Clementine, Cora and several more distant members of the family would have benefitted from, Maitland’s murder, moments before he was about to reveal a key piece of evidence, was another conundrum which I couldn’t at first solve.”

He paused then and turned to address the inspector, who was the only one still eating. “Blunt, I imagine that you ran tests on the champagne and found cyanide in both the bottle and every glass which Fellowes poured?”

“That’s right,” he said through a mouthful of potato and beef.

“Not a single glass was missed?”

The little man nodded and shovelled a forkful of green beans into his mouth.

Grandfather’s moustaches bunched together confidently. “As I concluded, Belinda’s murder was not targeted specifically at her, and so the possible motives were once more reduced. However, I was still stuck with the question of why the killer went on to murder my son and poison my butler. The obvious deduction was that the two men had witnessed something around the time of the first murder, but Fellowes swore that he hadn’t seen anything that would have made him a target.”

He wore a mournful look as he gazed around his audience. “I must have run through a thousand solutions in my head, but it was Christopher who finally showed me what I was missing. I was obsessed by the idea that Maitland had caught sight of the killer on his way from the terrace to the ballroom, but if that was the case, why hadn’t he told the police? Neither my son, nor my faithful retainer knew the identity of their assailant and yet they were both targeted. In Maitland’s case, he was merely a stooge; his murder was a smokescreen to distract from more significant evidence. But it was what Fellowes didn’t see that made him a target.

“When Belinda died and my world felt like it had disintegrated beneath my feet, I imagined a scenario so completely void of sense that I put it out of my mind until this afternoon. There was a solution to the crime that felt logical to me but would have involved such planning and vitriol that I didn’t want to believe it possible.”

His voice faltered. “I can see now that we haven’t been investigating a murder, so much as eliminating every last possibility to confirm that the one which seemed impossible really was correct. There is a person sitting at this table who has spent years plotting to destroy me and take Cranley Hall for herself.”

I noticed my father seize hold of his fork then and grip it in his fist, like a condemned man before his last meal. Cora let out a pained cry and, as if by prior arrangement, the room fell quiet for Lord Edgington to reveal the truth.

“Clementine, as I’ve already mentioned, I’ve always enjoyed your performances, your little songs, your eccentricities. When exactly did you take on this role?”

Great-Aunt Clementine’s face bloomed into life, as if she was happy to be asked such a question. Instead of responding, she started in on another verse of her song.

“We used to have two tiny dogs,

Such pretty little dears.

But Daddy sold ‘em ‘cause they used

To bite each other’s ears.”

“You can play the fool all you like, woman,” my grandfather continued in a wrathful tone. “It’s been standing you in good stead for years, but I know that you’re guilty. You’ve never forgiven me for taking your husband’s inheritance. The opportunity to wipe out my family in one go was too good to resist. When that failed, you killed Maitland in order to frame Walter, who you’d spotted in the petit salon just before you put the cyanide in the champagne. You knew that no one would suspect a mad old lady. You’re so much like a ghost these days that we barely notice you floating about the place and that was the perfect cover.”

If Clementine had heard his accusation, she didn’t let on.

“I cried all day: at eight each night,

Papa sent me to bed.

When Ma came home and wiped my eyes,

I cried again and said…”

Grandfather was not distracted and continued laying out the evidence against his sister-in-law. “Of course, you were doing all this for Cora, not yourself. She’s the one who would inherit Cranley if you got caught or died. So you weren’t about to murder the man she loved now, were you?”

She wouldn’t give in, but continued her whimsical act, like a naughty child who won’t admit to a mistake. “Daddy wouldn’t buy me a bow-wow! Bow wow!”

His voice rose with his anger. “When we came to your house to speak to her, Cora mentioned that she keeps no secrets from you. You knew all about her relationship with Fellowes and no doubt encouraged her to tempt him outside on the night of the ball.” Cora let out her sharpest note of the evening then, which served to confirm Grandfather’s theory. “But there was a problem. When Fellowes returned to the house, you weren’t asleep in the petit salon where Christopher and Walter had previously noticed you. He saw no one, and you were afraid that