| |
Revenge. Now there was a motive that rivalled greed in Charlie’s book. To lose a loved one in tragic circumstances was bad enough, without the added stigma of a possible suicide and financial ruin. All caused by another man’s mistake. The Thayne family had every reason to hate Doctor Ormsby.
Had Ormsby come to New Zealand to rid himself of his shameful past in Scotland? Had one or more of the Thayne family followed him, after the passage of years had chilled their grief into a bone-deep lust for vengeance? What better method to exact revenge than poison intended for a rat. An agonising death played out in front of colleagues at the rat’s own soirée.
Charlie went through Doctor Harvey’s evidence as he walked up the hill to the Ormsby house. Grace was right. Mrs Ormsby appeared to be a fair match for the widowed Mrs Thayne – a pretty, delicate nurse of about the right age. Wouldn’t Ormsby have recognised the nurse on the ship as Mrs Thayne, from past social events in Edinburgh? Perhaps not if the men kept to themselves and left their wives to discuss non-medical matters. Besides, a clever woman would have no problem disguising herself, by changing her hair, clothes, accent, even her personality. The current Mrs Ormsby was a clever woman, without a doubt.
If the woman who had called herself Siobhan Conway was out for long-plotted, cold-blooded revenge, then killing Ormsby’s first wife and taking her place was a masterful opening move. Why then would the new Mrs Siobhan Ormsby wait the best part of a decade to make the next move? To deflect suspicion? To gain more of Ormsby’s wealth? Charlie had detected no hint of greed or vitriol within Mrs Ormsby. Quite the opposite. She seemed kind and caring – happy with her life, for the most part.
And what of Iain Thayne children? Charlie couldn’t afford to ignore the possibility that the Thayne children were so scarred by their father’s death that they had set their sights on revenge. The children were probably of similar age to the Ormsby children. Thus, several members of the Ormsby household were about the right age. Miss Lawson, Finch, and Betsy Dean and her cousin, Duncan Grant, the gardener-stableman. Possibly even Pugh, if the Thaynes had married at a young age. Gideon Alexander too, and no doubt others within the Ormsby’s wider social circle. One of Henry’s unpleasant friends, perhaps. For that matter, Ivy Beechworth was the right age for Thayne’s wife and disliked Ormsby intensely.
Most probably, it was none of them. After all, Charlie had plenty of suspects with motive enough in the present day, without dredging the past for more. He had by no means ruled out any of the Ormsby family, male or female.
Nor could he rule out a person from outside the household. Richard’s lost keys niggled at the back of Charlie’s mind. In all likelihood, Richard had merely dropped or mislaid them. But, Richard had assured the butler he had the keys on Saturday morning when he left for the hospital. How then did the keys end up on the mantlepiece after the soirée, to be found by one of the maids on Sunday morning?
If Richard had left the house with his keys, then the keys could have been taken at the hospital. Two men with hospital connections were known to have visited Ormsby on Saturday morning. After the meeting, either might have taken the poison from the workroom and sneaked into the house to add it to Ormsby’s heart tonic. Horncastle had been angry with Ormsby, but his motive was weak. Gideon Alexander, in contrast, had good reason to want Ormsby alive, in order to secure a coveted job and a rich wife.
Of all the maybes, there was one name Charlie kept circling back to more than any other. Nelly Lawson. A young woman with an unknown past, who sailed to this country on the same ship as the Ormsby family and managed to capture the eye of both Richard Ormsby and Siobhan Conway, the future Mrs Ormsby. Lawson had ample opportunity to both steal and administer the poison. And motive aplenty. Charlie was fairly sure it was Lawson who had steamed open the will. With Doctor Ormsby out of the way, Lawson could land herself a rich husband and live a gilded life.
As Charlie walked up the path to the familiar front door, he wondered what the collective noun for a gathering of suspects was. A gang of suspects? Given the challenges of gathering this lot together without one or more buzzing off, perhaps it should be a hive of suspects. With or without Wallace, he was not about to let the opportunity to interrogate them pass.
Cecilia flung the door open before the bell had stopped ringing. “Gideon!” She turned her back and flounced off as soon as she realised it wasn’t her fiancé, leaving Charlie stranded on the doorstep.
Mr Pugh, the butler, appeared from nowhere and showed him in. “Detective Inspector Wallace telephoned to advise us of your arrival, Mr Pyke. Tea will be served in the drawing room.”
Charlie thanked him politely, happy to go along with the ludicrous pretence that this was a normal social gathering. With relief, he saw that many of the suspects were already assembled in the drawing room. Mrs Ormsby and Richard occupied the sofa. Cecilia was in the most comfortable armchair, sipping water. Nelly Lawson was in an inferior chair, seated a little behind and to the side of Mrs Ormsby.
Despite Pugh’s discreet announcement of his name, Charlie entered the room into silence. Mrs Ormsby seemed not to notice his arrival, Cecilia glared at him for his abject failure to be Gideon, and Miss Lawson gave her usual impersonation of a waxwork figure, awaiting an order before springing to life.
Only Richard maintained the pretence of a polite morning tea. He stood and showed Charlie to a chair, signalling Lawson to pour the tea. Charlie accepted a cup and a slice of lemon cake. He bided his time, content to play the game, especially as the lemon cake showed every sign of being up to Mrs Brown’s exacting standards.
“Doctor Alexander sends his apologies, Miss Cecilia,” Charlie said, allowing the half-truth to pass for the sake of Cecilia’s heavily bitten fingernails. “He was obliged to operate through the night on account of a sick duty surgeon and a serious accident on the wharf.”
“Oh, my poor darling. There now, Richard, didn’t I tell you Gideon had a good reason to be absent?”
Richard raised both eyebrows, which Charlie took to mean that it hadn’t been Richard who had doubted Alexander’s devotion.
Cecilia kept her eyes fixed on Charlie, as if trying to place a vaguely familiar face. The way she leaned forward and squinted at him suggested a mild short-sightedness she did not wish to correct with spectacles. “I hope you have come to cheer us up, Mr Sykes. The conversation has been quite dismal without Henry and Gideon, and Daddy, of course.”
Charlie spluttered his tea. Lawson looked ready to take the birch to Cecilia’s rear end.
“Cecilia, please have a care for what you say in a house of mourning,” Richard snapped. “Your thoughtlessness towards your stepmother and myself is shameful. You will apologise immediately.”
Cecilia put down her teacup and stood up. “Or what, Richard? As if any of you truly mourned Father’s loss. You’re all hypocrites, or worse. Come now, brother dear, don’t pretend to be offended. Even you must think our dear stepmother’s desolation is overdone, considering she is now a widow for the second time. To lose one husband is unfortunate, to lose two seems excessively careless. Especially when that ‘carelessness’ caused our real mother’s death.”
Lawson jumped up and shoved her chair aside, crashing it to the floor in her haste to get to Cecilia. Cecilia turned her head away, but Lawson jerked it back. “You ungrateful little sow. After all your stepmother has done for you and all the happiness she brought to your miserable father.” Lawson whipped her hand up so fast, Cecilia had no chance to avoid the slap.
Shock paralysed Cecilia for a second, before spite regained control. “How dare you talk to me like that, you despicable gold-digger. Richard might take his pleasures wherever he can find them, but he will never marry an inconsequential busybody like you.”
Cecilia took a step towards the door, but Lawson pulled her back. “At least Richard loves me for who I am. You couldn’t get a husband without dangling a huge dowry in front of a poor man. Doctor Alexander will get cold feet long before he reaches the altar, you’ll see.” Lawson grabbed Cecilia’s raised hand before the return slap connected. “Touch me and I’ll tell Detective Pyke about you going into your father’s bathroom on Saturday afternoon.”
Cecilia jerked her hand away. “I was trying a dab of my stepmother’s perfume, as you well know. You’re on thin ice, slinging accusations at me, Lawson.” She dashed for the door, letting out a shriek as she ran into a man standing outside. “Gideon, darling, I didn’t see you arrive.”
“I’m sure you didn’t, Cecilia, given your appalling behaviour over the last few minutes.” The young surgeon was as handsome as Grace had hinted and as bone-tired as Charlie knew him to be. But, right now, anger mottled Doctor Alexander’s good looks and overcame his exhaustion.
“I didn’t mean it, honestly, my love,” Cecilia pleaded. “I was only repeating what Henry told me.”
“You would do well to think for yourself, Cecilia,” Gideon snapped, “and show some respect for the family who nurtured you. After Henry came to me with his accusations about your birth mother’s death, I requested the ship’s surgeon’s report from the coroner’s archives. If you had bothered to do the same, you would know that there was never any hint of suspicion over your stepmother’s role in your mother’s death. Indeed, her actions were singled out for praise by the ship’s surgeon, as her exemplary nursing saved many passengers from the same fate.”
Alexander glared at the woman he had hoped to marry, as if seeing her true nature for the first time. “You will apologise to your stepmother, now.”
“Gideon ... darling ...” Cecilia clutched at Gideon’s arm, but showed no sign of apologising.
Alexander pulled his arm free. “Enough, Cecilia. I have worked back-to-back shifts at the hospital for more than two days. I am leaving now and not coming back until I have had a very long sleep and an even longer reflection on my future. If Mrs Ormsby has received an apology, and Inspector Wallace hasn’t arrested you or Henry for murder, I will discuss this matter again then.”
Alexander ignored Cecilia’s outstretched arms and stalked away. His footsteps retreated down the corridor, then the front door closed with a bang. Cecilia was still staring at the empty space where her almost-fiancé had stood a moment ago.
Richard rushed towards her. “Cecilia–”
She vanished in a rustle of skirts. The ensuing silence was broken only by the sound of hysterical sobs, footsteps stomping up the stairs, and Richard’s heavy breathing.