Who's Sorry Now? Page 2

  And that would have been…a damned shame. Lady Adelaide was…

  Dev was thinking in ellipses, searching for suitable words. He liked Lady Adelaide far more than he should. She was the daughter of a marquess, widow of a war hero, and he was the son of a retired police inspector and his Indian-born wife. The fact that Dev’s elegant mother could out-queen the queen meant nothing in the scheme of the British social hierarchy—he would always be an outsider because of the color of his skin.

  Thus he’d made no effort whatsoever to contact Lady Adelaide in the ensuing months, fixing it so she’d have no part in the trial. She had been abroad anyhow, and his reach did not extend across the Atlantic Ocean.

  He often wondered about her, a pointless exercise. He expected to read a notice of her engagement to Lord Lucas Waring now that her year of mourning was officially up. Looking at the black-boxed announcements day after day in The Times was a little like picking at a scab, but Dev couldn’t help himself. It was best to be armed with the truth, no matter how unpleasant it was.

  He brushed his thick black hair from his forehead, as if he could brush his thoughts away, and considered his surroundings. The private nightclub called the Thieves’ Den was murky even in daytime, the harsh scent of spilled liquor an offense to his nostrils so early in the morning. It was a place he and his sergeant Bob Wells would never be welcome during regular hours, and that suited them both.

  Apart from the astronomical membership fee far beyond a policeman’s salary, he and Bob had better things to do lately. Bob was wearing a groove in the carpet with his teething daughter so his wife Francie might snatch a few consecutive hours’ sleep, and Dev continued his self-improvement plan, reading philosophy and religion into the wee hours and remembering most of it. Neither of them owned evening clothes or diamond cufflinks or patent leather shoes like the second victim, Thomas Bickley, who was still lying under a glass and bottle-strewn table waiting for the medical team to arrive. His face was almost black, a sure sign of cyanide poisoning.

  The club’s owner Fredo “Freddy” Rinaldi had called Dev as soon as the body had been discovered by the young Polish woman who came in to clean at dawn. Dev had already sent her home, in hopes she’d drink a pot of tea or a bottle of vodka and calm down.

  The last time Dev had been here, the victim had had the grace to die on the Soho sidewalk outside. Either way, though, Rinaldi was facing ruin. Members were not apt to enjoy themselves much if they expected to be knocked off when out on the town. The newest “in” venue had a grim future if word got out.

  “What can you tell me about Mr. Bickley, Freddy?”

  The club owner shrugged. “Practically nothing. He’s just a kid. Or was. Twenty, twenty-one, tops. His dad owns Bickley’s Brewery. The money was good enough for me, even if the genealogy left something to be desired. We’re not the Embassy Club or the Gargoyle Club, you know. His father bought a knighthood a couple of years ago. Sir Barry Bickley he is now.”

  All it took was ten thousand pounds. Thank Lloyd George for that, Dev grumbled inwardly. For a stretch, those wanting to elevate themselves into the peerage or honours list made hefty contributions to the parties in the coalition government, all legal but pernicious just the same. It was somewhat amusing that Freddy, whose dubious origins were far less distinguished than the beer-brewing Bickleys, held their success against them.

  “Did he come here often?”

  “Three or four nights a week, sometimes more. I’d say he was a regular. Never had no trouble with him, though, not like that Penelope Hardinge, sniffing around the band all the time.” Rinaldi, when stressed, lapsed into the rough language of his misspent youth, and two deaths were enough to stress the most hardened soul, of which Rinaldi was one.

  Penelope Hardinge had been the first to die after drinking from a silver flask on the wet pavement outside the club a week ago. At first her friends thought she’d slipped and hit her head, but the autopsy had proved otherwise. The vibrant Penny was known for her indiscriminate drug use and interest in very unsuitable men, but it was unlikely she’d drunk a cyanide cocktail by choice.

  Her father had made his fortune supplying wool for His Majesty’s troops at exorbitant rates, and the words “war profiteer” were still mumbled when his name came up. Still, it was no reason for his daughter to die so ignominiously.

  So, the Thieves’ Den membership was not precisely the cream of the creamiest crop. Dev had a list of Rinaldi’s other clientele and had every intention of interviewing as many of them as he could, tedious as that was bound to be. He also had a record of who’d been present each night the deaths occurred, too—members and their guests, and where they’d sat. Dev was interested in the overlap.

  Freddy Rinaldi was a surprisingly organized sort of chap, each table and its inhabitants labeled night after night. Dev was sure the man had an ulterior motive besides billing—blackmail? Drug sales? Tips to the press for publicity? There were scores of licensed nightclubs in London, some blameless, some mixing prostitutes and criminals with the ordinary cocktail and jazz aficionado. As a private club, the Thieves’ Den had been generally safe from the Metropolitan’s recent raids on after-hours liquor sales, but maybe that was about to change.

  “Have you called his family?”

  Rinaldi shrugged. “Thought I’d save that for you lot. Look, you’d better get to the bottom of this quick. The club is just getting started. Bad for business it is, people dropping like flies all over the place.”

  An understatement. The Thieves’ Den was the latest venue for mindless decadence. Opening on St. Valentine’s Day, it had made a quick splash amongst those Bright Young People who were at such loose ends. Dev could hear his mother quite clearly: “Those who are easily bored are boring.” To claim to be bored was practically a badge of honor nowadays, not a confession that one’s life was aimless.

  “Tell me about last night. Who did the boy come in with?” Dev slid the list back to Rinaldi over the sticky bar. The Polish girl would have her work cut out for her if she recovered.

  Rinaldi dug a pair of half-moon spectacles out of his dinner jacket pocket. He was still wearing his work uniform, white tie, and had not yet gone to bed. Dev guessed he was around forty, good-looking in a louche movie actor sort of way, all slicked back hair and clipped mustache. He wondered where Rinaldi had got the funds to start the establishment, and would probably soon have to find out.

  “Let’s see. Trix was hostess last night, and her handwriting ain’t the best. Pretty girl, though. Looks like class at the door, all curves and blonde hair. Can talk posh too if she has to—quite a mimic. Here they are, at Table 31. Tom Bickley. Bunny Dunford.” He looked up with a roll of his eyes. “Bunny’s Bernard when he’s at home, by the way. These toffs and their nicknames, I swear. Might as well be Mopsy, Flopsy, and Cottontail. Lady Lucy Archibald. Pip Dean. That’s Philippa. Roy Dean, her brother, all of them at the same table as young Thomas in the back room.”

  Dev and Bob both copied the names down in their respective notebooks. “And none of them saw young Thomas sliding to the floor at some point?” Bob asked.

  “Oh, they may have thought he was squiffy and needed a rest. They don’t give a toss for anyone but themselves, you know. They was as likely gassed themselves.”

  “Did you notice them leaving?”

  “To be honest, no. For a Wednesday night, we were busy. A bunch of ’em went off on a scavenger hunt around two. Cleared out half the club. Off to steal a bobby’s baton or some such. Madness.”

  Dev agreed so much effort and energy should be put to better use by England’s quasi-elite offspring. “I’ll want to talk to this Trix, and the rest of your staff. Please gather them together by six. I’ll come back then.”

  Rinaldi took off his glasses. “You ain’t going to pin this on me or my workers!”

  “I’m sorry, Freddy. I need to interview everyone. And it goes without saying your
club is a crime scene. You’ll have to close, at least for tonight.”

  “Jesus! You’re trying to kill me without poison! Come on, Inspector, give a guy a break.”

  “Couldn’t even if I wanted to. You’re about to be invaded—my people will be going over the place with a fine-toothed comb. It will take hours. Don’t touch anything.” Dev was thankful that the cleaner had tripped over Bickley’s patent leather-clad foot before she had a chance to clear the table. One of those dirty glasses probably contained the dregs of poison.

  Freddy Rinaldi knew enough not to argue. He’d just barely skirted propriety for over half his life and had no wish to find himself on the wrong side of the law in middle age. The man sighed, and put his glasses away. “I have a cot in the office. My temporary home. Tell your boys to knock if you need anything. But no free booze. I mean it.”

  “Of course not,” Dev said, though he wouldn’t be surprised if some of the fellows thought they could get away with a nip or two while on the premises. According to the press, the Metropolitan Police Force was plagued with corruption from top to bottom.

  But maybe if they thought the liquor was poisoned, they’d abstain.

  “Bob, you’re the welcome committee. I’m off to see Sir Barry and his wife.”

  “Don’t envy you that task, guv.”

  It was Dev’s least favorite part of the job, but it had to be done. If one believed in karma and reincarnation—which Dev was nearly sure he did—perhaps Thomas Bickley was being reborn somewhere in the world where he wouldn’t find himself murdered in the flower of his youth twenty years from now.

  But what had he done in this life to deserve it last night? Dev would have to find out.

  Chapter Two

  Saturday afternoon

  “Bored, bored, bored!” Cee kicked a white ottoman, and Addie winced. While she had made advances redecorating her “too-white,” sterile flat, that scuff mark would show. Perhaps she should bring the piece of furniture to the upholsterer. White was definitely de trop if one’s shoes were involved. A flame stitch pattern in shades of red? Charcoal gray velvet piped in bright pink? Addie rather enjoyed decorating now that she had free rein and plenty of money to pay for it. Rupert had only cared about investing in his car collection.

  And mistresses.

  “Come now, Cee. Mother says only boring people get bored.”

  “Mummy can say whatever she pleases, and I don’t have to pay attention to her, do I? You’ve stopped. So shall I.”

  All that was missing was a stamped foot. Cee was going through a difficult period. At twenty-five, she should be settled by now. The lengthy visit to New York this past winter had resulted in a refused proposal from a perfectly nice young stock broker whose ancestors had come over on the Mayflower. He was damned proud to associate his family with religious fanatics and mercenary chancers, and never let one forget his alleged pedigree. But Cee claimed she’d given her heart away last year and there was no point in trying to divert her with straight white American teeth, a Harvard degree, or a healthy trust fund.

  The recipient of that heart, a widower almost twice Cee’s age, had remarried and was expecting another child, a veritable miracle baby considering how old his new wife was. Everyone was so pleased for them. But Cee resolutely refused to cheer up, and was becoming, frankly, a bore to rival all bores herself.

  Did that mean that Addie too was boring? No doubt. And what a relief it was. After the excitement and derangement of last August’s double murders on her estate, Addie was embracing her bland and blameless life. She’d enjoyed her five-month foray into the New World, even if somewhat hampered by the constraints of Prohibition and that infamous raid where she and Cee had made a lucky escape.

  Addie had never been much of a drinker anyway, and after her husband died speeding under the influence of too many French 75 cocktails, a lesson had been more or less learned by one of them.

  She still blushed to think of the evening that she and Inspector Devenand Hunter had had dinner here in her Mount Street flat. Due to the inconvenient reappearance of her late husband Rupert in his ghostly form, Addie had consumed far too much wine. The policeman had put her to bed—unmolested—and she’d more or less sworn off alcohol when she awoke, her head pounding and her heart sore.

  Once, Addie had been convinced she was losing her marbles—being haunted was not for the faint-hearted. But Rupert was no longer jumping out of closets and bushes to aggravate her—at least not yet, even after his implied threat on New Year’s Eve—and she hardly missed their arguments.

  At first, she’d thought the entire event last summer was a temporary mental aberration, a delayed reaction to her grief. For while Rupert didn’t deserve it, she did grieve. Addie would have chalked the episode up as a summer storm, if not for his unexpected New Year’s Eve visitation.

  Their five-year marriage had not been a success, punctured as it was by Rupert’s infidelity and Addie’s naïveté. She’d been around Cee’s age when she married, dazzled by Rupert’s heroism and good looks. So many of her crowd had died in the Great War that she’d considered herself lucky to have attracted Rupert’s attention, or anyone’s.

  Addie sometimes wondered if they could have handled things differently, but it was water under the bridge. Spilt milk. And any other appropriate cliché. Let bygones be bygones.

  Let Rupert be gone. There were no such things as ghosts, she chanted to herself, even if Rupert had given her that quick New Year’s kiss on the street. Never mind what the Bible said, or that dodgy medium Gerald Dumont who used to be engaged to her friend Babs.

  “Let’s go out tonight,” Cee implored. She was spending the week with Addie in London while their mother was supervising the spring cleaning of the dower house at Broughton Park. After their long absence, Lady Broughton had a few decorating ideas inspired by New York as well, and Addie assumed Cee would be with her longer while their mother brought the dower house into the twentieth century.

  If Cee wasn’t too bored. But how could one be bored in London? What was that famous quote? Something about tiring of life altogether if one tired of London. Addie had had a decent enough education at Cheltenham Ladies’ College, but like most females of her class, had never attended university. She’d been expected to be decorative and to marry, which she was and had.

  But neither was quite enough.

  “I thought we might order something in from the Connaught.” The hotel was just around the corner and delivered perfectly delicious dinners if one knew the right people to ask, and of course as a marquess’ daughter, Addie did.

  “Bah. That’s no fun. I did so enjoy those New York speakeasies. Gin in the tea cups. Dancing until dawn. Even the raid was kind of amusing.”

  Dawn? Addie could have fallen asleep on her feet without very much trouble right this minute. They had only been home for three days, and she longed for her bed at Compton Chase, her Cotswold country house. But Cee needed to be kept out of trouble, yet somehow entertained. It was a challenge Addie was prepared to meet, once she had a little more beauty sleep.

  “I just don’t think I’m up to it. And where would we go?” At least she wouldn’t have to wear black anymore if they went out. Her year of mourning was officially over.

  “Anywhere. There probably are all sorts of divine new places that have sprung up since we were gone. Let me call around.”

  Oh, joy. Addie left Cee cradling the telephone and went into the kitchen.

  Her maid Beckett was sitting at the enamel table glumly reading a new movie magazine. Addie knew the reason for her maid’s lack of enthusiasm. She’d expected to go to Compton Chase and pick up her flirtation with Addie’s gardener Jack Robertson by now. But given the choice of where to go after the transatlantic trip, Cee had opted for Town, and now they were all stuck a hundred miles away from home. Spring was sprouting up in the country, and Addie was missing it. Missing her terrier Fitz, t
oo, who had probably forgotten her. Five months was a long time to be away, although Addie had enjoyed every minute of it, except when she was thrown out a window.

  New York society had been vastly different from London’s, and it had been a novelty not to be eternally marked as Rupert’s widow or her father’s daughter. Most of her new acquaintances had no idea who she was, not that she really was anyone special. An accident of birth was nothing to brag about. But she had been able to be herself without the British baggage. It had been… exhilarating.

  “You’ll have the night off, Beckett. Cee wants to go dancing. Don’t wait up.”

  “And what will I do, Lady A? File my nails?” The cheeky Beckett was back. It was almost a relief. For a while last September, Addie’s maid had been too good to be true, on her best behavior in order to impress Jack. It had been very odd indeed, for Addie had become used to Beckett’s cheerful insubordination.

  “Why don’t you go to the cinema?” Beckett usually went twice a week, no matter the weather or what was playing.

  “I seen everything there was to see in New York.”

  “Stop being mulish and ungrammatical. Surely there’s something new here. We were on the ship over a week.”

  Beckett slapped the magazine shut. “When can we go home? I don’t trust that Jane. Jack writes that she’s after him day and night.”

  Jane was a perfectly nice, somewhat mousy parlor maid, who was far from being a femme fatale in Addie’s opinion. The girl was missing a front tooth, if she remembered correctly. Addie really should see about sending her to the local dentist at estate expense. “He wants to make you jealous.”

  “Well, he’s succeeded. Why can’t we have Lady Cecilia to stay at Compton Chase?”

  For one thing, it was too close to Cee’s crush Sir David Grant’s house, he of the new wife and prospective baby. Addie wasn’t sure her sister could behave in a ladylike fashion if she encountered them. Instead of becoming more mature, Addie was convinced Cee was going backward through a second, peevish childhood. She wasn’t even reading the high-brow books her mother disapproved of anymore, though she clung to her vegetarian diet. According to Constance, Lady Broughton, Cee would never land a man by trying to be “different.”