A Crimson Warning

“I don’t think so,” Jeremy said. “If anything, your charming habit of adoring everyone around you is endearing. I may throw Emily over for you.”

“You’ve done excellent work, Ivy,” Colin said. “And if you hadn’t accepted Mrs. Harris—and her faults—as a friend, we wouldn’t know to suspect her now. Emily, share with us what you learned from Mr. Foster yesterday.”

I relayed to them the details of our conversation.

“I don’t trust him at all,” Ivy said. “He’s such an appearance of goodness, yet he’s got better motive than anyone else.”

“It’s never wise to trust someone who looks good,” Jeremy said.

“I can’t say I’m sure what I think about him,” I said.

“What about Mr. Barnes?” Colin asked. “He admits he put together the bottle.”

“For Mr. Dillman,” I said.

“What if he learned that Mr. Dillman was trying to destroy Mr. Foster?” Ivy asked. “He could have left the bottle on Mr. Dillman’s step in an attempt to make him stop.”

“It’s possible,” Colin said. “Barnes wouldn’t have had such an easy time getting the respect he has if he didn’t have Foster’s backing.”

“So they both have motive for wanting to keep those papers hidden,” I said. “But Winifred Harris would have no such compunction. If anything, she’d want to expose them.”

“Could she have killed Dillman in an attempt to get them?” Jeremy asked.

Ivy cringed. “I cannot believe her capable of that.”

“I’ve gone through all the files in painful detail,” Colin said. “We don’t seem to be missing anything. None of our three has a credible alibi for the murders—they were all in London at the time and not indisposed. They each have motive, and they each have the ability to move around with enough freedom to have given them opportunity.”

“Our villain, whomever he or she may be, is exceedingly clever,” Ivy said. “Look at all he’s done without leaving any real clues to his identity.”

“It’s true,” Colin said. “You’d think he would slip up eventually and reveal something.”

“He’s like you,” I said. “Maddeningly calm in the face of adversity.”

“Perhaps I’m your villain,” he said.

“No, I don’t like you for it,” I said. “You’re too fond of architecture to go around vandalizing people’s houses.”

“That’s quite a vote of confidence,” he said.

Jeremy sighed. “I don’t suppose it ever crossed your mind to suspect me?”

“No,” we all said in unison.

“Another crushing disappointment.”

“I’m sure you’ll recover unscathed,” I said. “And if you don’t, we’ll have to soothe you later. There’s no time now. What we need at the moment is to incite in our villain an emotion strong enough to cause him to make a mistake, preferably one that will lead us to Lady Glover.”

“How do we do that?” Ivy asked.

“I’m not sure yet,” I said. “But take Mr. Foster, for example. Whatever we did would need to have something to do with elections—they’re the one thing that made him lose his composure. I’m inclined to see what his thoughts are on fraud in such circumstances.”

“Mr. Barnes?”

“He’s knowledgeable about Obeah,” Colin said, “and wouldn’t have remembered how to cast an appropriate spell after all these years away from the culture unless he believed in it at least a little bit. What, in a similar vein, might frighten him into thinking someone is after him? If he’s guilty, he couldn’t help but react.”

“Mrs. Harris deserves a measure of her own medicine,” Jeremy said. “Perhaps we need her to think she’s been beaten at her own game.”

“Find out her secret and expose it?” I asked.

“Precisely,” he said.

“There may be something there,” Ivy said. “But we should focus on Winifred’s attempt to blackmail Lady Glover. Nothing she’s hiding could be worse than facing imprisonment for extortion, and we wouldn’t have to dig around in search of some unknown fact about her.”

“That’s good thinking, Ivy. Do you think Lord Glover would let us search the house?” I asked Colin. “I can’t imagine his wife didn’t keep some sort of evidence against Mrs. Harris.”

“She’s far too smart to have neglected that,” he said. “I can speak to Glover, but I think it would be preferable if you did the actual searching. I don’t want to rifle through her belongings.”

“Why not?”

“It would be more seemly for a lady to do that, don’t you think? Or, if you’re ever under suspicion, should I send a burly policeman to go through your bedroom?”

“Fair enough,” I said. “So that leaves Mr. Foster and Mr. Barnes. I’d like to take Foster as I suspect you, Colin, have an inclination to protect him?”

“I’m not ashamed to admit it,” he said. “And will be desperately disappointed if I have to acknowledge murder as one of his sins.”

“At least you’re admitting he sins,” I said. “I’ll consider that a step in the right direction.”

“You’re awfully hard on him,” Ivy said. “He’s the one who helped you in Westminster.”

“If he were prime minister, you’d have a much better chance at making real progress towards winning the vote for women,” Colin said.

“I wouldn’t want his help if he’s as bad as those papers suggest.”

“I don’t want to get distracted arguing politics right now,” he said. “But would you really rather hold back equal rights for women than let slide some accusations that can’t be sufficiently proven?”

“I’d wager that they could be sufficiently proven if you were willing to thoroughly investigate them,” I said.

“I don’t agree.”

“I see your point,” I said. “But I still can’t concur. I don’t want to support a crooked politician just because he supports my cause.”

“No one has proven him crooked.”

“As I said, no one has bothered to try. Except perhaps Mr. Dillman. And we all know how that turned out.”

33

The next morning, even before I’d finished with my toilette, Ivy called for me. I had Davis send her to my dressing room, where Meg was struggling with my hair while I tried to read The Aeneid. The persistent rain had made it even more disobedient than usual and I was half convinced my maid was using my body weight in pins in her attempt to tame it.

“You’re soaked,” I said when Ivy pulled up a chair to sit next to me.

“It’s apocalyptic out there,” she said. “And only seems to be getting worse.”

“Do you need tea?” I asked.

“No, thank you. I’ve been thinking,” she said, picking up the silver-backed hairbrush from my dressing table and pressing her fingertips against the bristles. “I need you to help me with Winifred. I’ve lost my nerve.”

“You know Winifred despises me,” I said.

“I know. But there must be some way.”

She looked every kind of distraught. Her face was crinkled and pale, her pupils tiny and hard. I took the hairbrush away from her before she made permanent dents in her fingers.

“You’re very good at this, Ivy,” I said. “Just think how well you did in the park.”

“That was different,” she said. “It was in front of strangers, not someone so well acquainted with me.”