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“WE SIMPLY CANNOT STAY here another day longer!”
Lady Montford and I exchanged alarmed gazes as we approached the drawing room and overheard the heated remarks coming from within.
“Ardeth’s maid did not deserve such ill-treatment! There is no saying what sort of deadly mischief will befall the rest of us!”
“Agreed!” Several voices, men and women alike, chimed in.
“We’ve no choice but to depart at once!” declared another.
“Our very lives depend upon it!” someone cried.
“What’s this?” Lady Montford exclaimed, hurrying towards the top of the room where her guests had congregated. “Ladies, gentlemen, please, calm yourselves. I assure you there is no cause for alarm!”
“You cannot assure us of anything!” declared an older, stoutly-built gentleman who wore a rumpled tweed coat and trousers and held an unlit pipe in one hand, which he angrily waved about.
I had caught a glimpse of the gentleman the previous evening after dinner as everyone streamed from the dining hall into the drawing room. I’d noticed then that the man simply carried the unlit pipe as if it were a stage prop, and that he never actually lit or smoked it.
Because last evening I did not adjourn with the others to the drawing room, therefore several of the guests were still unknown to me, with the exception of old Mr. Torbitt, who had made me feel quite uncomfortable at dinner with the many leering gazes he directed my way.
“Mr. Nordstrom, please,” Lady Montford said now. “Just because a woman traveling alone in a carriage was overtaken on the road, does not mean that the rest of us are in dan. . .”
“She was not merely overtaken on the road, madam, she was murdered!” cried Mr. Nordstrom, pointing the long stem of his unlit pipe at her. “I demand to know precisely what is being done now to apprehend the killer?”
Although her ladyship appeared taken aback by her guests’ outcries, she bravely replied, “As it happens, my husband has dispatched a party of our strongest and most capable footmen to canvass the grounds in search of the culprit. He and I are both of the opinion that the crime was committed by a roaming gypsy. The odd band of them is very often seen hereabouts and it is said they all carry knives.”
“Yes, but what of Mr. Lyttleton?” spoke up Carlotta Marydale, who was present in our coach yesterday. She and Emma Stevens, as well as myself, endured the unsettling ride to Montford Hall, the final few miles sequestered in our coach with the dead woman. Following her discovery, Mr. Lyttleton, had ridden the rest of the way on the bench with the driver and, I presume, did not know at the time that the unknown woman within our carriage was no longer alive.
“What of Mr. Lyttleton, Carlotta?” inquired Lady Montford. “If I am not mistaken, I believe he was the one who discovered the body.”
“Precisely!” replied the aging actress. “Since that time, Emma and I have conferred and we both agree that since Lyttleton quite eagerly hopped down from our coach and was the first, and only, person to peer into the disabled carriage, that he, himself, had plenty of time in which to commit the crime, and after doing so, calmly return to us carrying the dead woman’s body!” Glancing around, Miss Marydale caught sight of me. “You were there, Miss Abbott. I speak the truth, do I not?”
The eyes of nearly every one of Lady Montford’s guests standing before the stone fireplace, turned towards me. I noted that most of the women, as well as a few of the men, wore warm shawls about their shoulders. Mr. Nordstrom had even wound a muffler about his neck and also wore a hat pulled down over his ears.
“Well, Miss Abbott?” inquired that gentleman. “Do you believe Lyttleton to be guilty of murder? I, for one, have never trusted the man. Too handsome by half,” he muttered, his tone hard.
All eyes remained fixed on me. “In my estimation, sir, I do not believe Mr. Lyttleton could have possibly committed the crime for the simple reason that there was insufficient time for him to have subdued the woman, then position himself behind her in order to reach ‘round her body, which, if she were still alive, was likely squirming as she attempted to fight off her attacker, and to successfully draw the knife across her throat.”
At that, I heard gasps of alarm escape the females in the room, including Lady Montford. Perhaps I was being a tad bit too descriptive in my narration. “At any rate,” I added, “given the length of time it would take him to complete the gruesome task, I expect the lady would have some notion that the man intended her harm and would have screamed, or perhaps jabbed him with an elbow, as she attempted to ward off the attack. The fact is, we heard no such cries of alarm coming from the coach. Therefore,” I summed up, “I do not believe Mr. Lyttleton could possibly be guilty of the crime.”
Following my speech, low grumblings were heard amongst the guests, until Mr. Torbitt whose shawl was pulled tightly about his body, said, “So, I see, yet one more female bewitched by the handsome devil Lyttleton.”
I took umbrage and whirled to face my attacker but on second thought, held my tongue. This was one old man I did not wish to confront, or even speak to, for any reason.
“Miss Abbott,” Lady Montford said, “this gentleman is Anthony Torbitt. I believe the pair of you met last evening at dinner. Quite possibly he and your mother were acquainted when she appeared on the London stage.”
“Your mother was an actress, eh? Name was . . .?”
“Miss Abbott’s mother was the lovely Minette Dubois. I recall you played opposite her in The Lady Misbehaves.”
“Ah.” Mr. Torbitt’s features softened, although it was difficult to tell since his entire face could be described as soft. “Hmm. I see the resemblance now,” he muttered. “Your mother was a fine actress, young lady. And as good-looking as you are, make no mistake.”
“Thank you, sir,” I murmured. I had mentioned to him last evening that my mother was an actress. Obviously the old man’s memory was slipping, or as I noted before, his attention was not focused upon anything I said.
“Nonetheless,” declared Emma Stevens, “I refuse to remain at Montford Hall a single day longer! If Lyttleton is the killer . . .”
“Indeed.” Both Carlotta and Helen voiced agreement.
“Ladies, ladies! Mr. Lyttleton is not a killer!” exclaimed Lady Montford. “At this very moment, he is in the company of my husband searching the estate, in the snow,” she emphasized, “for the guilty party.”
“Who is likely no longer on the premises!” spoke up Mr. Egerton, the only other gentleman I had met last evening in the dining hall.
“May I also say,” I continued without being asked, “that when Mr. Lyttleton placed the dead woman inside our carriage, he declared that, in his opinion, she had fallen ill and at that moment was unconscious, not . . . deceased. Which tells me he was unaware that she was no longer . . .”
“He could have been lying!” cut in Helen Proctor, the young lady who’d been seated beside me at dinner the previous evening, and remarked then that I had a morbid curiosity in matters of a criminal nature. “It seems highly unlikely that Mr. Lyttleton would blithely announce that he had only just taken the woman’s life!” she declared hotly.
“Please, Miss Proctor, allow Miss Abbott to finish,” Lady Montford came to my rescue. “After all, she was there when it happened.”
“What I was about to say is that the blood on the woman’s throat was dry. Caked and dry. Had her throat only just been cut, the blood would have still been wet and dripping.”
“Oh, how ghastly!” cried Helen, pulling a face.
“But!” said Emma. “No doubt you will recall, Miss Abbott, the wind was quite brisk yesterday. Not nearly so brisk as it is today, to be sure, but certainly strong enough to blow a flurry of snow into our coach the instant Lyttleton opened the carriage door. Is that not right, Carlotta?” She glanced at her friend for verification. “At any rate, the wind was certainly brisk enough to dry the blood on the woman’s throat during the time it took Mr. Lyttleton to carry her back through the snow to our carriage,” she concluded, with a satisfied tilt of her graying head.
“Quite true, Emma.” Carlotta nodded before aiming another challenging gaze my way, the ever-present knitting needles in her hands presently lax.
“But, ladies,” I protested, “Mr. Lyttleton had no blood upon his person, not his gloves, or his clothing. Had he only just viciously cut the woman’s throat, droplets of it would have soiled his shirt front or his coat.”
“Did you examine Lyttleton’s clothing carefully, Miss Abbott?” demanded old Mr. Torbitt, “or is your acquaintance with the rakehell still too fresh for such close inspection.”
My jaw dropped as I cast a shocked look at the outspoken old man. Could he be angry today because I had spurned him last evening?
“Tony, that was quite vulgar!” declared Lady Montford. “You will apologize to Miss Abbott at once.”
“Hmmp.” With that the old man tottered off in the direction of the door, clutching his shawl about himself with both gnarled hands.
“Well, I doubt he committed the murder,” quipped Mr. Egerton. “The old codger couldn’t fight off a flea and he moves as slow now as he did a decade ago on the stage.”
“Yes, but back then, he was of the opinion that the slower he moved, the longer he could hold the audience’s attention,” snapped Emma.
“Well, he is clearly too old now to hold onto anything!” pointed out old Mr. Nordstrom.
“He was too old then to hold onto anything!” countered Egerton. “Certainly not his lover. By the by, where is Ardeth?” Mr. Egerton gazed about.
No one replied to Egerton’s rather crude remark. However, that the broken down Mr. Torbitt and the famous actress Ardeth Myers, now Lady Westcott, had once been lovers gave me pause. Moreover, it led me to wonder if Mr. Lyttleton could have also been a former amour of hers and if he had committed the murder as a way of extracting some sort of revenge against her by viciously killing her maid?
Although . . . since the woman in the coach was wearing a dark veil, perhaps he was unable to correctly determine her identity. I suppose, it was possible he could have been intent upon inflicting harm upon Lady Westcott, herself. If I had noticed the Westcott crest on the side door panel of the disabled coach yesterday, then Mr. Lyttleton would have also noticed it and perhaps thought he would find Ardeth Myers within. Which, could mean that he did commit the crime.
No, I thought to myself. I did not believe Mr. Lyttleton to be the guilty party. On the other hand, it is possible the crime could have been committed by someone else who was also now present at Montford Hall, someone who did intend to take the life of not Lady Westcott’s maid, but of the lady herself. Which would mean that the murder victim was actually a case of . . . mistaken identity.
But then, of course, that would also mean that the guilty party must have, at least, thought that Lady Westcott had not yet arrived at Montford Hall, and I recall Helen saying that Ardeth had planned to arrive here several days prior to her maid’s arrival.
But, Mr. Lyttleton did not know that.
Oh, dear, already the facts were becoming a tangle in my mind.
I thrust aside the confusing muddle as of a sudden it occurred to me that my quickly conceived scheme to further assist Lady Montford’s covert investigation into her sister’s disappearance might also provide the perfect ploy in which to delve deeper into who had, indeed, murdered Lady Westcott’s maid, that is, if that lady’s murderer were someone who was still present here at Montford Hall. The true reason why the crime against Lady Westcott’s maid, was carried out was another matter altogether.