WHEN WE GOT TO PARKSIDE HOUSE, Mrs. Pomeroy was waiting for us at the kitchen door. “You both came. How nice. Come in, come in.” We followed her inside.
The kitchen had been tidied back to its original state. Mrs. Pomeroy had tea all ready for us and brought it to the table as we sat down. “Such a relief to have my kitchen back. And in one piece. And Mr. Belmont said he’s feeling better. James is still moaning every time someone goes by his room, but he insists he doesn’t want the doctor so I think he’s just playing for sympathy. And that means I’ll be rid of Ross soon. We really should celebrate. I know. The Bordeaux. We never opened it at the dinner party. Cassie, would you be a dear? It’s in the room next to the one where the flowers were that night.”
“Of course.” I went to the storage room and found the crate. I was about to grab a bottle when I noticed an empty space in the crate.
Ross stumbled in, presumably looking for a bottle. “Sorry, I’ll come back.”
An empty space in the box. “The pipe was under the sofa?” That was what Inspector Hamilton had asked when I told him about it. Under the sofa. And it had been red wine on the shirt. That meant...
“Sorry, Miss?”
“Mr. Ross, I need you to be perfectly honest with me.”
He stopped. “Of course.”
“Did you take a bottle of the Bordeaux that night?”
“For myself? No, Miss.”
I stared at him.
“I swear it. I had a bottle of good Scotch whiskey in the teapot, and another under the serving cover upstairs. And one in a coat pocket in the hall closet. I wouldn’t have mixed the two.”
That was a story I could believe. I remembered he hadn’t taken any wine in the study either. “And Mr. Carrollton really did tell you to open the crate?”
“That’s right. Open the crate, then deliver a bottle of the Bordeaux to the study. Like I said, none for me.”
It fit. It was crazy, but it was the only way it all fit. But why, that was still the question “All right. I need you to go to Scotland Yard and tell that to Inspector Hamilton. Tell him I sent you, and that I served Burgundy in the study afterwards.”
“You believe me, then?”
“I do now. Go.”
Ross nodded and darted to the back door.
I stared at the wall. There was one question I hadn't asked myself in all of this, how could a man like Mr. Carrollton, who ran a good but not large business, afford a house in even the shabbier side of Mayfair. Or the dresses I had seen receipts for on the desk. Or any of this. His company was supposedly in good shape, but it wouldn't have given him enough to afford this place. Not unless he was the embezzler.
I was still staring at the bottles when I heard someone coming down the kitchen stairs. As far as I knew, the only other person in the house was Mr. Carrollton. I stayed quiet, waiting to see if he'd leave.
“Mrs. Pomeroy? Oh, you have guests. I thought I heard voices.”
I’d been right. It was Mr. Carrollton. I scanned the room. There was a bottle of sherry on the shelf across from me. I grabbed it and went back into the kitchen.
Mr. Carrollton was smiling at everyone. “Not a problem at all, Mrs. Pomeroy. Just glad it’s not the police again.” He heard me and turned. “And Miss Callie, right? Nice to see you.”
Mrs. Pomeroy turned to me. “Did you bring the—”
I cut her off. I held up the sherry and said, “Right here.”
“Oh, I thought I said—”
“The brandy, I know. But I couldn’t find it, so I brought this.”
I could see Mrs. Albright poke Mrs. Pomeroy in the back.
“Oh, right, dear. That will do.” Mrs. Pomeory took the bottle from me and put it near the wine glasses.
Mr. Carrollton sat down at the table and watched us. “Where did Ross go?”
I shrugged. “He said he was feeling poorly.”
“Did he now?”
Mrs. Pomeroy snorted, “Drunk, no doubt.”
Mr. Carrollton looked at the bottle of sherry on the table. “Were you going to serve that?”
Mrs. Pomeroy snapped to attention. “Of course. I’ll get the glasses.”
Mr. Carrollton turned back to me. “You’ll join us, won’t you, Miss Cassie?”
So he did remember my name. I was torn between going for help or staying to try to keep an eye on Mrs. Pomeroy and Mrs. Albright. Mr. Carrollton was watching me, so I sat down. The best thing to do was pretend everything was fine. Surely Inspector Hamilton would understand what I had seen. Surely Ross would make it there. And how could Mr. Carrollton know I'd figured it out? I would just sit quietly for a change and wait for Inspector Hamilton.
“Would you like a sugared almond?” Mr. Carrollton reached into his pocket and pulled out a tin of candy.
“No, thank you.”
“I insist.” He stood up and came around the table to lean over my chair. He held the candy box in front of me. “Then Mrs. Pomeroy can serve her almond cookies.”
I tried to lean away, but Mr. Carrollton had his other arm blocking my way.
“Mr. Carrollton, you know I haven’t made almond cookies in months.” Mrs. Pomeroy sounded very chipper, too chipper.
“Then it’s a good thing I bought some when I went to the shops. You can all enjoy them.”
“I don’t think—”
“I'm not asking you to—” And then there was the sound of metal hitting something hard, and Mr. Carrollton collapsed onto the floor.
Mrs. Albright was standing behind him, shaking, with the cast-iron skillet in her hand. “Please tell me I hit the right person.”
“You hit the right person.”
Mrs. Pomeroy glanced at the pan. “Put that aside, Agnes, so I don’t cook with it by mistake.” She stepped over Mr. Carrollton. “What should we do with him?”
Then we heard pounding on the kitchen door. “Ross must have already made it to Scotland Yard,” I said.
“I’ve never been so happy to see Inspector Hamilton,” Mrs. Pomeroy said as she ran to the door.
~ * ~ * ~
It wasn’t Inspector Hamilton, even he couldn’t have gotten there that quickly. But he was from Scotland Yard, and he did have handcuffs to restrain Mr. Carrollton until Inspector Hamilton arrived.
When we were certain we weren’t in any danger, Mrs. Pomeroy put the kettle on again. “Lucky Ross was able to find you so quickly.”
“Not luck at all, ma’am, thank you.” Constable Fulton took the tea he was offered and sat in the chair closest to Mr. Carrollton’s still-unconscious form. “I’ve been following Miss Pengear at Inspector Hamilton’s request. Seems he thinks you might get yourself in trouble.” He grinned and looked down at Mr. Carrollton. “Can’t think why.”
I wasn’t sure whether to be grateful under the circumstances or furious. Mrs. Albright put a cup in front of me. “Try a biscuit, dear. These are walnut, not almond.” So she was voting for grateful.
Constable Fulton accepted one of the cookies. “I put Mr. Ross in a cab to Scotland Yard, so Inspector Hamilton should be here any minute now.”
“I’ll just go wait for him upstairs,” I said. “To let him in.”
I had intended to give Inspector Hamilton a piece of my mind for the high-handed way he’d acted having me followed, but when he arrived with three other officers and a fingerprint man, it all seemed so official that I contented myself with glaring at him whenever he looked my way. He ignored it. In fact, all he said to me was to come by Scotland Yard in the morning to give my statement. We were all relegated to the sitting room while Inspector Hamilton revived Mr. Carrollton, then marched him out of the house.
~ * ~ * ~
When the police had left, we all went back to the kitchen, and Mrs. Pomeroy grabbed the kettle and got tea ready. Mrs. Albright got the cups. “You’ll have to tell us how you figured it out.”
Mrs. Pomeroy handed me a cup. “Yes, that was terribly clever of you.”
“Not really. Once I realized Mr. Ainsworth didn’t die at dinner—”
Mrs. Pomeroy interrupted. “Didn’t die at dinner? But you all saw him collapse.”
“Exactly. He collapsed. That’s all we saw. But he couldn’t have died then. There was no way for the poison to be administered at the table. And his symptoms were all wrong for what he was given. Besides, he had a wine stain on his shirt, and I found a pipe under the sofa in the study.”
“Couldn’t he have gotten the stain when he collapsed?” Mrs. Albright asked.
“It was red wine. When I mended his shirt, it was clean. And he collapsed as we were serving the soup. We’d only served white wine at the table up until then. So when did he spill the red? There wasn’t time for him to get anything after he left the kitchen with his mended shirt. It had to have happened after he collapsed. Once I figured out that his collapse was as much an act as Miss Carrollton's fainting, it was just a question of who had the opportunity and how.”
“The Bordeaux?” Mrs. Pomeroy asked.
“Exactly. Ross kept insisting he put a bottle in the study. We all thought he was covering for taking it himself, but he had his own Scotch hidden around the house. When I realized he might be telling the truth about the wine in the study, I wondered what happened to it. When I served wine in there later, after the police arrived, there was an unopened bottle of Burgundy, but no Bordeaux. And we were short two glasses. I had to offer the inspector tea.”
“And if it was poisoned, Mr. Carrollton would have to get rid of all traces of it,” Mrs. Albright said.
“Exactly. That and Mr. Ainsworth's pipe under the sofa showed he was alive when he was in the study, probably sitting up with his pipe drinking the wine. When he collapsed for real, he spilled the wine and dropped the pipe. Mr. Carrollton probably kicked it under the settee by accident.”
Mrs. Pomeroy refilled the cups. “But why poison James and Belmont?”
“So you would ask Ross. He knew Ross would be drunk enough by the first course to be suggestible. Then he would have someone to help him move the supposed body without giving away the game.”
“And what was the game?” Mrs. Pomeroy asked.
That had been the sticking point. I could only come up with one theory. “I think it had to be the embezzlement. Mr. Carrollton must have been embezzling money from his own company. I saw a little bit of Inspector Hamilton’s report, and it looked like there were two embezzlers. I think Mr. Warland was the other one. Inspector Hamilton’s report said the amount missing increased nine months ago; that would be just after Mr. Warland started working for Mr. Carrollton. When Mr. Sharma started to examine the books, he discovered that there was money missing. Mr. Ainsworth was going to discuss something with Mr. Carrollton, so he must have figured out Mr. Warland was embezzling. But if Mr. Warland was found out, there would be a full audit, and everyone would see that it went far beyond him, so Mr. Ainsworth had to die before he could reveal anything. Then Mr. Warland had to die since he might figure it out. His death was meant to look like suicide so he could take the blame for Mr. Ainsworth’s murder, but it didn’t work.”
“So how did he poison the pills?”
“He didn’t. Not the way we thought he did. When I was looking in the study, I noticed Mr. Ainsworth’s pillbox. I should have realized it was odd that Scotland Yard returned it to Mr. Carrollton and not the next of kin. But when I visited Inspector Hamilton, he still had a pillbox. It didn’t mean anything until I started to suspect Mr. Carrollton.”
“So Mr. Ainsworth had two pillboxes?”
“No, the one in the study was the real one. Remember Mrs. Delford left it on the table when Mr. Ainsworth collapsed. Mr. Carrollton picked it up. When she missed it, he showed her the box Inspector Hamilton has now, which was similar but not exactly the same, and already poisoned. Remember, he gave it directly to the inspector, not her, so she never noticed the difference. And with the poisoned pills, he thought no one would bother to look anywhere else for the source of the poison.”
Mrs. Albright refilled my cup. “I knew asking you to investigate was the best thing to do. Have another biscuit.”
Mrs. Pomeroy got up. “I think there’s some of the walnut cake left in the pantry. I’ll just slip in there and check.”
As I settled back with my tea, I wondered if it was very childish of me to enjoy being rewarded with sweets.