Chapter 28

AT THE CASTLE

AUGUST 4

I stared into the trees that appeared like indistinct shadows among the fog. “How long ago did she leave, Belinda?”

“Not long at all. Only a few minutes,” Belinda said.

“Come on, then,” I said, attempting to grab her arm. “We must go after her.”

She shook herself free. “What do you mean? Darling, I can’t go after anybody. I’m still in my nightclothes.”

“We can’t let her get away and I don’t fancy following her alone. And we haven’t got time to find anyone else.”

“But if the sheriff has let her go, then why are we going after her?”

“Because I think she may still be involved and there is something important we don’t know.”

“You mean she may still be involved in the murder?”

“Possibly.”

“I’m not like you, Georgie. I don’t actually enjoy chasing after murderers.”

“It will be all right with two of us.” I tried to convince myself as much as Belinda. “Do come on, please, or I’ll have to go alone and I really might be in danger.”

Belinda sighed. “I don’t know why I ever became friends with you in school,” she said. “Yes, I do. I thought you were a sweet and innocent little thing who needed protecting out in the big bad world. How wrong I was. Somebody should have told me that you’d be involving me in a constant life of crime.”

“Well, if you’re really not coming . . .” I started to walk away.

“Hold on,” she said. “I’ll put my shoes on. I’m not walking among wild animals in satin slippers.”

“Then please hurry up, and don’t stop to put on your makeup or do your hair. . . .”

“Oh, Georgie, you are a bore.” She disappeared into the house while I waited, moving impatiently from foot to foot as I stared into the trees and listened for telltale sounds. But nothing stirred apart from wisps of fog that curled up, swirled and then melted. Belinda appeared remarkably quickly for her—now wearing a jacket instead of her dressing gown and with what to her might pass for sturdy shoes.

“Come on, then. Let’s get this over with. I’m dying for breakfast,” she said as we set off down the hill and into the trees. “I’m only coming with you because the sheriff can’t think she’s too dangerous if he let her go. . . . Oh my God. You don’t think she escaped, do you? Is that why we have to catch her?”

“I’m not quite sure what to think yet,” I said. “I think I can safely say that Stella Brightwell did not kill Mr. Goldman, if that makes you feel any better.”

“Let me see,” Belinda said, picking her way through scrub and tall bleached grass. “It might make me feel better about chasing Miss Brightwell, but it does little to reassure me about the various animals that are now lurking all around us.”

“I have a stick with me,” I said. “I’ll protect you.”

“A stick won’t do much to protect me from a charging rhinoceros,” Belinda said.

“I don’t think he has any rhinoceroses . . . or is it rhinoceri?”

“You don’t know. He could have a pack of lions for all we know.”

“A pride of lions, Belinda. Get it right.”

“Oh shut up,” she said, then muttered a naughty word that no lady should know as her jacket caught on a thorny bush. “I don’t know why I agreed to do this. It’s insane. And anyway, won’t she hear us coming?”

“I want her to,” I said. “I want her to know we’re after her. It may make her panic. Come on.”

“Oh yes. A potential murderer who panics. That’s very reassuring,” Belinda said.

We plunged on. The forest became denser. Belinda grabbed me with a gasp as two zebras trotted out of a bush in front of us and ran off.

“You see. I told you they were more frightened of us,” I said.

“How do you know that? I’d say I was quite frightened. Pretty bloody frightened if you want to know. My heart leaped right out of my chest.” Then she added, “Look, Georgie. There she is.”

And we picked up a flash of a black jacket darting among the trees.

She was moving fast and branches clawed at my face as I hurried after her. Then, without warning, an impossibly tall shape stepped out between two large oak trees. I’d seen giraffes in the zoo, but up close like this and in a natural environment it seemed enormous. Miss Brightwell was moving fast, watching where she put her feet, and she didn’t seem to notice the giraffe coming straight at her until one of the great feet came down right in front of her. She looked up at it, gave a little gasp of horror, turned and ran straight into us.

“Hold her,” I shouted. I grabbed one arm, and Belinda, to my intense relief, grabbed the other.

“Let go of me,” she shouted, fighting like a mad thing. “Get yer bleedin’ hands off me before that bloody thing tramples us all to death.”

We hung on grimly. “It was only trying to get away from you,” I said. “See, it’s gone off into the trees.”

“This place is like a madhouse,” she said, struggling less violently now. “I wish I’d never come here.”

Although her face was familiar, her voice was not the polished, breathy film-star voice of Stella Brightwell.

“Wait a minute,” Belinda said. “You’re not Stella Brightwell.”

“I rather suspect that she’s Stella’s sister, Bella,” I said. “Or, as she used to be known, Flossie Oldham. Am I right?”

“How the bloody hell did you know that?” she demanded, still trying to wriggle free from us.

“Her sister?” Belinda looked at the woman whose arm she was still holding. “Yes, I can see now. There’s a strong resemblance, but . . .”

“But not quite as pretty—right?” Bella spat out the words. “Stella always had the looks and the talent, so they said, but I think I’ve done well enough in my own little way.”

“What does she mean?” Belinda asked.

“I think she means she’s been a very successful jewel thief, slipping into posh house parties where her sister was a guest. Nobody would think it strange if they happened to bump into her, disguised as her sister.”

“Good heavens,” Belinda said. “So you came here to steal the candlesticks?”

“You’re too bleeding clever,” Bella said.

“But something went wrong and Mr. Goldman caught you, so you hit him over the head?” I asked.

“No, of course I didn’t. I wouldn’t do a thing like that. I’ve never hurt anybody,” she said, shaking her head so vehemently that I noticed she was wearing a wig. A wig that was identical to Stella’s hairstyle. Aha! “I found him lying there when I came into the library, didn’t I? Lying there with his head all bashed in. I realized then that it would look bad for me if I was caught, so all I wanted to do was get away.”

“You could have left the candlesticks where they were. Why did you put one in your sister’s bed? I take it that was you?” I asked.

She gave me an evil grin. “Oh, they found that, did they? It was only to confuse things a bit and give me time to get away safely.”

“But your sister might even be charged with the murder—at the very least with the robbery,” I said. “Don’t you care about that? Why implicate her, of all people?”

“What’s she ever done for me?” Bella spat out the words. “I was only a kid when she said she was going to America and she didn’t want me to come with her. I’d only hold her back, she said. So she left me to fend for myself. She became a big star, didn’t she? I kept hoping she’d send for me but she never did. And then when I caught the flu in 1919, and nearly died, I wrote to her but she never bothered to write back. I couldn’t work for a while, but then I kept myself going, in the chorus in pantomimes and seaside shows, but the funny thing was that everywhere I went people kept telling me I looked like Stella Brightwell. So I thought—why not? Why not use that resemblance to my advantage for once? And it worked. I’ve done very nicely for myself and I don’t plan to stop now.”

“I should have thought a murder charge might put a stop to your little business,” I said.

“You can’t pin anything on me. If they ask me I just came to get a glimpse of my long-lost dear sister. I’ve never even met that poor bloke. I had no reason to kill him.”

“So they won’t find your fingerprints on the candlesticks?” I asked.

She snorted. “Do you think I’m stupid? I always wear gloves.”

“I know,” I said. “They found a bloody black glove in the grounds. And a bloody print made by that glove on the window frame. Did you really climb out of that window? It’s an awfully long way to the ground.”

“I didn’t go down. I went up. It was quite easy to lower myself down from Stella’s window and then climb back up again. I do it all the time.”

“You really are amazing,” I said in spite of myself. “Frightfully brave. The way you drove in through the main gate after everyone else, pretending to be Stella.”

“It’s always worked before,” she said. “No reason why it shouldn’t.”

“But what if Stella had been driving another of the cars?”

“I watched you lot leave, of course. I saw the young bloke driving and the car’s windows were tinted. I thought there was a good chance they wouldn’t notice who the passengers were.”

We had been walking slowly up the hill, Belinda and I with a firm grip on her arms. The house came into view ahead of us. Bella started in alarm like a spooked horse and tried to back away.

“If you take me in there they’ll think I killed him,” she said.

“I thought you were so confident a few minutes ago,” I said. I looked down at the watch on the wrist I was holding. It was her right wrist. “Your sister is left-handed, like you,” I said.

“She is. So was our mum. I don’t know about our dad. He left us when I was a baby. But what’s that got to do with anything?”

“It should prove that you didn’t kill Mr. Goldman,” I said. “As it happens, the most they can cite you for is breaking and entering. You didn’t steal anything. You just played a trick on your sister.”

“You think they’ll go for that?” There was a slight tremble of hope in her voice and I realized that for all her brashness she was a frightened young woman alone in a strange country.

“I think they will believe it when a man sent over from Scotland Yard testifies that you have never committed any violent act, even when you could have done.”

“Blimey. There’s someone come over from Scotland Yard after me, is there?”

“You’ve left quite a trail of robberies behind you, including the ones on the ship,” I said.

“Only one on the ship,” she corrected. “The Indian princess.”

“What about the diamond ring?”

“I never took no diamond ring,” she said. “That must have been someone else. Or what’s the betting the passenger lied about the ring being stolen to claim on the insurance. They often do, you know.”

When I thought of the woman in question I realized this might well be true. “But you did take the princess’s ruby?”

She grinned. “That was a piece of cake. But of course I shall deny this conversation if you mention it to anyone else. They’ve absolutely nothing on me. They can’t even prove I was on the ship. I traveled on a fake passport.”

“So, the princess,” I went on, intrigued now. “How did you do it? You dressed up like your sister and pretended you’d gone to her cabin by mistake?”

“How the devil did you know that?”

“I put two and two together,” I said, feeling rather pleased with myself.

“That was just to see where she kept things and how attentive the servant was,” she said. “The good thing is that people like her never notice servants. I borrowed a stewardess’s uniform and waited until the servant was dozing and the princess was out. Then I let myself in and helped myself.”

“And how did you hide the ruby when they searched the ship?”

She laughed then. “Under my wig, of course. I always travel with extra wigs. I’ve a nice little compartment for stowing things—and one little ruby slips in easily.”

“Oh, I see!” I nodded with understanding. “And you threw the extra wigs overboard when you thought they might search your cabin,” I said. “I saw something fall overboard, heard the splash and then saw hair floating on the water. I thought someone was drowning.”

She laughed. “Not someone. Many people. My other identities. The extra wigs, the duplicates of my sister’s dresses. I always travel with those so I can look like her anytime I want. Actually I had my eye on a good diamond brooch and I thought I might help myself to it while everyone was at the costume ball, but I was seen by a real steward trying to get into a cabin. I know he alerted security and I thought I might have been followed. I couldn’t take the risk of my cabin being searched so I bundled everything up and threw it overboard.” She looked at me appraisingly. “You’re quite smart, you know. Too bad you’re a woman. You could be a detective.”

“The man who is following you from Scotland Yard is just as good,” I said.

“I can’t get over that. Scotland Yard bothering to send someone after me.”

“You should realize that you’re quite a celebrity,” I said.

She smiled then, making her look much younger. “Go on.”

“Seriously. You are much admired at Scotland Yard for your daring exploits.”

“But that won’t stop them from putting me in Holloway Prison if they get their hands on me, will it?” She stood there, staring up at the house again and I could feel the tension in her arms as she tried to prevent us from leading her any farther.

“I’m afraid not,” I said.

“They’ll have to catch me first, though.” And she gave me a defiant grin.