Fourteen

By the time Drew returned to the library, Birdsong had already left and Nick had escorted Carrie back to her room. Madeline was still there waiting.

“Is he all right?” she asked.

“No. He’s not all right. He’s not all right at all. This is tearing him up. I’ve got to figure this out and quickly.” Drew began pacing the room. “Did Birdsong have anything more to say?”

“Not really. He said he’d be back later to ask more questions. I don’t know what else anyone has to say. What else are we supposed to do?”

“Think,” he told her, then sat down next to her. “We’ve got to think. If Billy was already dead when those barrels fell, then someone or something had to push them over.”

“But Mrs. Ruggles was in the kitchen cooking, and Beryl was helping her. Even if they didn’t see Billy go into the pantry, they would have seen someone coming out.”

Drew nodded, again picturing the wine cellar and how everything in it had been situated. “I’ve been wondering about that smaller barrel for some while now. I couldn’t figure out how it could have spilled out where Will was and at the back of the cellar too, not if it sprung a leak when the barrels fell.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“And I’ve been thinking about how that barrel split. There’s a little place between two staves where it popped open, just a couple of inches long. The rest of it is sound as a bell. How does that happen from a blow? Unless it wasn’t the impact of the wine cellar floor that opened it.”

“Then what was it?”

“Consider this,” he said, leaning closer to her and lowering his voice. “Suppose you wanted to kill someone and not have anyone know he was dead for another hour or so.”

“That wouldn’t be very kind of me, but all right. Then what?”

“Perhaps you mean it to look like an accident, too. So you bash the fellow on the head and cover it up by dropping something heavy on him. Wine barrels are the perfect choice, but they’re deuced loud, aren’t they? You can’t be anywhere near when they fall or you’ll be found out right away, so you take this little cask of wine from one of the shelves and use it to prop up the larger barrels. Once you’ve done your dirty work, you take something—a thin blade of some kind, I’d guess—and pry open the staves of the smaller barrel, but just a bit mind you, just enough so the wine begins to leak out. And then—”

“The wine leaks out until the little barrel is too light to hold up the bigger barrels anymore, so they fall down onto the body and make a huge clatter when I’m somewhere else entirely.” She caught her breath. “Oh, it makes perfect sense.”

“Exactly, which is why some of the wine was puddled near the body and some was under the barrel where it landed at the back of the cellar.”

Madeline wrinkled her brow. “Then anybody could have done it.”

“Anybody who was around the house.”

“He’d have to get past Mrs. Ruggles, wouldn’t he? She doesn’t much like people in her pantry.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Drew admitted, “but it couldn’t be that hard. Will said he’d done it more than once.”

“And look where it got him.”

“True. And she was out at the butcher’s that morning, which would give someone plenty of time to set up the barrels and then get Will to go down into the wine cellar. Now instead of there being nobody who could have done it, we’re pretty much back to anyone being able. Anyone in the house or out of it, including Laurent and Adkins, their time on the Onde Blanc notwithstanding. I’ll have to ring up the chief inspector.”

Madeline nestled against him. “Can’t you phone him tomorrow? I don’t want you to have to worry about this tonight.”

“Certainly, darling.” He kissed the top of her head. “The chief inspector can wait until morning.”

But sleep was elusive that night. Drew turned over again, trying not to disturb Madeline, wondering how he hadn’t wakened her already with his restlessness. Even placid Eddie had gone to sleep on the window seat.

From where he lay, Drew looked out the window into the star-filled night. He couldn’t help thinking about Tal. He’d lost so much: the girl he was mad about, the father he’d admired, his whole notion about life and whom he could trust, the future and what it held for him now. No doubt he’d lost even the feeling that he was safe in his own home. Everything had changed, and there was no going back to the way things were before.

At least Tal still had his mother, though all this had been as devastating for her as for him. Yet she was a typical English woman—chin up, head held high, and carrying on regardless. Tal had that to cling to. If Drew could help them both find some peace by figuring out who had killed Alice and Will and why, then he would do it. God helping him, he would.

He had to.

He let the breath seep out of his lungs, and a wave of sleepiness overtook him. He didn’t have to figure it all out just now. Tomorrow he would start over again. He’d tell Birdsong his theory about the wine barrels, and then he and the chaps from Scotland Yard would take it from there. They’d figure this out, and at least then Tal would have a little peace. At least then—

There was an urgent tapping on the door.

Madeline woke beside him, blinking and bewildered as if trying to remember where they were and why they weren’t in their own bed at Farthering Place.

The tapping grew more insistent.

He sat up, pulling the coverlet up to her chin. “Stay here, darling. I’ll go.” He switched on the lamp on the bedside table, threw on his dressing gown that was draped over a chair, and hurried to the door. “Who is it?”

“Drew, please . . .”

He recognized the voice and immediately opened the door. “Mrs. Cummins. What’s the matter?”

“Oh, Drew.” Her voice was hardly understandable, choked as it was with tears. “Please come. Please.”

Madeline grabbed her own wrap and came to his side. “What is it?”

“Oh, my dear.” The older woman caught a sobbing breath and lowered her head. “He’s dead. I thought he was only sleeping, but he’s dead.”

Madeline took her arm, drawing her into the room so Drew could shut the door.

“Who’s dead?” Drew said, trying to keep his voice low and not too harsh.

“It’s Tibby!” Mrs. Cummins sank down onto the divan at the foot of the bed, drawing Madeline down with her. “Tibby . . .”

She thrust a wadded sheet of notepaper into Drew’s hand. He spread it out on the bedside table under the glow of the lamp, squinting to make out the blotchy scrawl.

If weakness is sin, then God forgive me. I am weak. I could bear some of this perhaps, but not all of it. Not all of it at once. Not when I know it’s all been a lie. All of it. All my life.

You took her from me. You may as well have killed me yourself. I’ll save you the trouble.

God forgive me.

Talbot Brennan Cummins

Drew looked at the two women clinging to each other there in the half-light and wanted to be sick. Tal. No, no, no.

“Is he in his room?”

“Yes.”

The word came out as a hardly audible sigh, and Drew peered into Mrs. Cummins’s slack face. “May we go in?”

Still clinging to Madeline’s arm, she led them down the corridor to her son’s room. The bedroom itself was lit only by the moonlight pouring through the tall windows, spilling over the rumpled bed and the eveningwear strewn on the floor. A long, narrow rectangle of cold white light fell from the bathroom door, illuminating the body that lay in its confines.

Tal lay on his side, clad only in the bottom half of his navy-striped pajamas. His knees were drawn up slightly, one arm crumpled under him and the other more out to the side. There was a partly unfolded towel under him, and his hair and face were wet. Mercifully, his eyes were closed.

Careful to smudge the handle as little as possible, Drew shut off the still-running tap at the sink. “How did you know something was wrong?”

Tal’s mother stood staring at nothing and did not answer.

“Mrs. Cummins?”

She dabbed her handkerchief to her eyes. “I, uh, I heard a crash. It must have been when he fell.”

The towel rack had skittered up under the sink. Four ragged holes in the wall opposite marked where it had been.

Drew knelt at his friend’s side and pressed two fingers against Tal’s neck. “He’s still warm.”

Mrs. Cummins caught her breath as Drew silently pled with heaven to let him find even the slightest sign of life. There was nothing.

He shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh, Tibby. Tibby.”

Mrs. Cummins reached for her son, but Drew got to his feet and held her back. “Better not touch anything until the police arrive.”

“But what happened?” Mrs. Cummins asked. “How did he . . . how did he do it?”

“The coroner will have to tell us for certain. He must have taken something. Then I suppose he went to splash his face in the sink and stumbled when he reached for the towel. It looks as if he fell to his knees. He must have tried to stand again after that and couldn’t make it.”

Drew looked again at the towel rack and then at the sink. Frowning, he picked up two little metal rings lying by the soap. They were grimed with what looked like ash. He started to ask Mrs. Cummins if she knew what they were, but instead slipped them into the pocket of his dressing gown. This sort of trifle could wait until later.

“May I see the note again?” he asked.

Mrs. Cummins looked confused. Madeline nodded toward Drew’s pocket. “You still have it.”

“Oh, right.” Drew pulled out the note and looked it over again, trying to find something besides disillusion and despair behind the words, behind every cutting slash of the pen. A lie. All my life. You took her from me. What would his father think now of his harmless little business venture?

“Are you certain this is his handwriting?” To his surprise, Drew’s voice came out steady, if a little hard. “We can’t afford to assume anything.”

Mrs. Cummins nodded jerkily, not lifting her head from Madeline’s shoulder. “It was on h-his bed.”

She started to sob audibly, and Madeline tried in vain to soothe her. The older woman fumbled in the pocket of her flannel robe, and Drew thought she wanted a fresh handkerchief. He gave her his own.

“No, no,” she said. “He had this, too.” She pressed an envelope into his hand. It was an old one, addressed to Tal from a Bond Street tailor, but that made no difference. The envelope was empty except for minute traces of white powder.

Drew held back the oath that leapt to his tongue.

Cocaine.

“He wants to see you.” Tal had told Drew this more than once, but Drew hadn’t seen Mr. Cummins since that day Scotland Yard had taken him from Winteroak House. But now Drew had no choice. He had to talk to the man. There had to be more Cummins could tell him.

He stopped first to see Chief Inspector Birdsong, who seemed grudgingly impressed with his theory about the wine barrels.

“You may well be right, Mr. Farthering,” Birdsong said, “but that makes our job just that much harder, don’t you think?”

“Yes, it does. Sorry. But maybe this will make it up to you.” Drew fished out the two metal rings he had in his pocket and handed them to the chief inspector. “These were by Tal’s sink the night he died. I forgot I had them until just a bit ago.”

Birdsong studied them, eyes narrowed. “What are they?”

“I hoped you could tell me that. They look as though they’ve been in a fire, don’t you think?”

The chief inspector rubbed one of the rings between his thumb and forefinger and studied the blackened mark it left behind. “I’d say so. Hmmm. Any theories?”

“Not a one,” Drew admitted, “but I’ll continue to think on it.”

“Fair enough. We’ll be keeping these, thank you.” Birdsong took a small envelope from his desk drawer, wrote Tal’s name on it, and deposited the rings inside. “I suppose you’d better be getting along now. He’s waiting for you.”

Steeling himself, Drew nodded. “Right.”

Cummins sat at a heavy-looking table, his face as gray as his prison uniform, a stark contrast to his red-rimmed eyes. With a glance at the officer at the door, Drew sat down across from him.

“Good of you to come, Drew. I know I’m the last person you want to see just now.”

Drew tried to make his expression less severe, but knew he was only marginally successful. “I see they’ve told you about Tal. I’m sorry.”

“It was never what I meant to have happen, Drew. You have to believe me.”

Cummins reached one hand across the table and then pulled it back again. Drew hadn’t meant to draw away from him, but it was difficult not to.

“That doesn’t much matter at this point. It isn’t easy when someone you’ve looked up to turns out to be—” Drew stopped, knowing there was no way he could finish the sentence without adding to the pain the man already carried. “Judging by the note Tal left, it was all more than he could bear. Especially knowing Alice died because of . . . because of the cocaine.”

“Because of me, you mean.”

Drew made no reply to that.

Cummins sighed. “What exactly did the note say?”

Drew reached into his pocket and then stopped when the guard took a warning step forward. “Just a piece of paper, Officer. You may read it if you like.” He took out his copy of the suicide note and offered it to the guard, who waved him away and leaned against the wall once more. Drew then handed the note to Cummins, watching his face as he read.

“No.” Cummins shook his head, his face contorted with grief. “He couldn’t have believed that. I told him! He said he understood! He swore he understood!”

“Understood what?”

“About Alice.” Cummins twisted his trembling fingers together. “I tell you I didn’t kill her. She was a dear girl, and I was happy she made Tal so happy. I didn’t give her the cocaine. I never had the stuff in the house. Never. I never wanted anyone in my family around it. I warned Tal about it more times than I can remember. Even you a time or two.”

He gave Drew a pitiful, pleading smile, and Drew had to press his lips tightly together to keep from cursing the man. Cummins knew what poison he had been dealing all these years, knew the relentless hold it had on those who fell victim to it, and yet he had sold it, had grown fat on it, without a pang of conscience. So long as no one he held dear was affected, he had been content to go on. Even now . . .

Cummins winced, obviously reading Drew’s feelings if not his thoughts. “Don’t hate me, Drew. I know I disgust you. I disgust myself. But I know how much Tal loved Alice. I would rather have died myself than have him lose her. Whatever else I’ve done, I didn’t kill her. I told him I didn’t, and he believed me.” He caught hold of Drew’s sleeve and wouldn’t let him pull away. “He believed me! He wouldn’t have killed himself. Not like that. Not because of me.”

“But the note says—”

“Listen to me, Drew. He wouldn’t have! I tell you he knew I never gave her cocaine. I told him so, and he promised me he believed me.”

“Then he must have found out something later. Something that changed his mind. Something that convinced him you were lying.” As you’ve lied about everything else all his life.

“He couldn’t have, because I didn’t do it. I would never have hurt him that way. He meant more to me . . .” He looked up into the bare bulb burning over his head, and his eyes filled with tears. “All of this was for him.”

Drew knew he should have forgiveness, kindness, pity for the broken man before him, knowing he himself had been given mercy rather than justice, knowing they were equally sinful before a holy God. At the very least, he ought to have sympathy for a parent grieving the loss of a child. But then again, there were other parents, hundreds, perhaps thousands over the past twenty years and more who had grieved for their own children, children whose lives had been sold for one miserable man’s gain. Pity? Sympathy? Somehow, just now, Drew couldn’t manage it.

“For him?” he said coldly, pulling free of Cummins’s grasp. “You think this is what he would have wanted?”

“No.” Cummins sniffed, blinked hard, and then sat himself a bit straighter in his chair. “Tal was a good boy. A good man. I don’t think you’d disagree with me on that, no matter what I drove him to.”

“No,” Drew said, his own grief softening his tone. “I wouldn’t disagree.”

“You don’t know what it’s like to love a child of your own, to pin every hope and every dream on him, to know there’s nothing you wouldn’t give or do to keep him happy and well.”

Drew folded his hands on the table in front of him, listening. Cummins, too, was silent. Then one corner of his mouth turned up.

“You wouldn’t think it now, but Tal was a tiny thing when he was born. Early too. Much too early. We thought we’d lose him those first few days. He and Margaret both had a number of medical issues, operations, multiple specialists, constant nursing. I’d had a bad time of it in my investments the year before, everything was mortgaged, I’d borrowed more than I had any right to already, and then this. What would you have done?”

Still Drew said nothing.

“I suppose better men would have let their wives and children die before soiling their precious honor. I wasn’t that strong. When I found I could be paid handsomely just for turning a blind eye to what was stored in my warehouse, it seemed like a blessing from heaven. An answer to my hopeless prayers. Later, when Margaret and Tal were both well and strong, I found it wasn’t so hard to expand the operation. The profits paid off my debts and made Winteroak a showplace. They sent my son to school and then to university and to study on the Continent, as well. And I didn’t spend it just on my own family, Drew. You know very well how many people my charities have helped.”

“And you think that makes up for everything else?”

Cummins looked away. “It was all I knew to do at the time.”

“You could have left it.” Drew clenched one hand into a fist. “Once Tal was well, you could have stopped.”

“Come now, Drew, you’re not as naïve as all that. These people aren’t overly dainty when it comes to keeping their business going smoothly. Do you really think I could just turn in my notice and there be no consequences? It’s a bit like climbing on a wild stallion. Once you’re on, there’s nothing you can do but hold on as best you’re able. Even now, with Tal . . .” Cummins caught a shuddering breath and then shrugged. “I’m not going to let them hurt Margaret, and they will if I say anything. I’m going to pay for what I’ve done, I’m well aware of that, but I won’t have my wife pay, too. I’ve hurt her enough as it is.”

Drew nodded. “I’ll do what I can to see she’s looked after. This has all been rather rotten for her.”

“Thank you, Drew. She deserves better than this, I know. Maybe I should have confided in her, way back when Tal was just a baby. Perhaps I would have if she hadn’t been so ill and so worried about our newborn. Together, maybe she and I could have come up with a better scheme for getting out of the mess we were in. She’s never failed me in a pinch, and now I’ve done this to her. God help me, I never meant it to come to this.”

Before Drew could come up with a response, the guard cleared his throat. “Time, sir.”

Drew’s chair legs made a harsh scraping sound on the cement floor as he pushed it back from the table.

Once more, Cummins caught his arm. “For her sake, Drew. For Margaret’s and for . . . for Tal’s. Find out who killed Alice. And the boy.”

Drew picked up his hat, pulling his arm free as he did. He believed the man was innocent, at least of murder. At least of these murders. But then he’d been certain of him before. Like Tal, all his life.

He stood there a moment more, Cummins making no more pleas except with his anguished eyes.

“Sir?” the officer prompted.

Drew put on his hat and walked through the door.

“I couldn’t bear it any longer,” Drew said, sitting on the bed as he fumbled with the buttons on his blue-striped pajamas. “I wasn’t very kind, I’m afraid, but I just didn’t feel very gracious and comforting.”

Madeline came out of the bathroom with her face freshly scrubbed and her hair a little damp at the temples. “You should have let me go with you.”

“No.”

She looked only mildly surprised when he said nothing more. “So what are we going to do now?”

He watched her in the mirror for a moment and then blew all the breath from his lungs. “I think it’s time we all went home.”

Madeline turned to face him, eyes wide. “We haven’t found out who killed Alice or Billy yet.”

“That’s a job for the police, isn’t it?”

He realized one of the pajama buttons was in the wrong hole, so he yanked the fabric on either side of it until it flew off and went skittering under the bed. Eddie leapt off the dresser and dove after it. With a huff, Drew snatched off the shirt itself, wadded it into a ball, and threw it onto the window seat.

Madeline sat down at his side and slipped her arm through his. “This isn’t much like you, you know.”

“Maybe I’ve finally realized I’ve got no business poking my nose in this sort of thing.”

She pressed a comforting kiss to his bare shoulder. “You did tell Tal you’d find out what happened to Alice.”

“Fat lot I’ve done about that.”

“It’s not your fault you haven’t found out anything yet. Neither have the police. That doesn’t mean we should just pack up and go home.”

He nodded rapidly, his smile brittle. “Oh, right. Very good. I’ll just carry on being useless then, shall I?”

“Drew.” She wrapped him in her arms, pulling his head down to her shoulder, holding him there until he gave in and relaxed against her. “Don’t say that, darling. Don’t even think it. You’re not useless.”

“Of course I am!” He shrugged away from her. “I haven’t found out who killed Alice. I’ve gotten Carrie’s brother killed. I left Tal so hopeless he killed himself.”

“None of that is your fault. And it certainly doesn’t mean you’re useless.”

“What have I done with my life? I’ve never even had a proper job.”

“What about all the good you’ve done?” she asked. “You’ve helped a lot of people. People who lost a loved one and needed to know why. People who seemed guilty but weren’t. People who might have been killed if you hadn’t exposed a murderer.”

“Will Holland would be alive right now if I hadn’t told him about some of our cases and let him nose around at Winteroak. If I am supposed to be a sleuth, I’m a pretty rotten one.”

She gave him that pert little grin of hers, though there was a great deal of love and patience in those perceptive eyes. “You think God didn’t know what He was doing when He called you to be a sleuth?”

He huffed. “But that’s the whole point. Did He call me, or did I, in my usual insufferably self-assured way, just assume He did? I have no training for this. I’m just as likely to be killed as find a killer. I was nearly killed last summer, if you remember.” Drew’s throat tightened, and tears stung his eyes. “Tal begged me to find out who killed Alice, and I’ve failed him.”

“You’ve only failed him if you quit before you do what you told him you would.”

He pulled away from her again, closing his eyes. “I’m just no good at it. I’ve fancied myself a good judge of people, but I’ve blundered over and over again. Cummins was a friend of ours for years, and all that while he was a criminal. I never saw it. Never.”

Once more she slipped her arm through his, not letting him escape her tender touch. “Mr. Cummins fooled a lot of people, people with much more experience and training than you. Why should you feel any more taken than them?”

“Because people die when I make mistakes. What if someone else dies because of me?”

She took his face in her hands, forcing him to look at her, forcing him to hear. “Alice didn’t die because of you. She was murdered. Billy was murdered. Tal took his own life. None of that is your fault. It’s awful, it’s tragic, but it’s not your fault.”

“But if I could have prevented—”

“But you didn’t. You couldn’t. That doesn’t mean you should stop trying. Who knows if you might stop this murderer from killing again?”

“And if I don’t? If I can’t? What if it’s Mrs. Cummins the next time? Or Carrie? Or Nick?” In spite of himself, his voice shook. “What if it’s . . . you?”

“Drew.” She kissed the corner of his mouth, his cheek, his closed eyes, and then she held him close again. “Our times are in God’s hands, and if it’s my time or yours or anyone else’s, there’s nothing you can do to change that. All you can do is keep on doing whatever it is He’s given you to do for the time you’re given to do it.”

“I couldn’t,” he whispered against the soft warmth of her throat. “If anything ever happened to you, I could never go on.”

“I don’t want you to worry about that. Not tonight.” She tugged him down to the pillows and curled up in his arms. “I’m not going anywhere but right here.”

He pressed his lips to her fragrant hair and closed his eyes. For tonight at least, that was enough.