“Habit.”
“Ah,” she said. “You told me in the garden that smoking cigarettes wasn’t one of your bad habits. Is this one of them?”
“Which?”
“Asking these questions.”
I shrugged. “Like I said. It’s what I do for a living.”
She eased herself comfortably back against the love seat and she looked over at me. “What are your bad habits?”
“Is that why you asked me here? To find out about my bad habits?”
“Among other things.” She raised the snifter to her mouth, sipped at it.
“Which other things?”
“I told you in the library. Alice is a friend of mine. If you’re asking questions about her household, I’d like to know why.”
“And like I said then, do you feel better now?”
She smiled. “Not remarkably so. Not yet.”
“Not yet?”
The black eyes were staring steadily into mine. She was holding the brandy snifter lightly in both hands, the index finger of her right hand pointed upward. The polish on her long nail was the same bright red as her lips.
She said, “Are you quite certain you don’t feel like resting?”
I could hear the ticking of the clock on the end table. I took in a breath. It seemed to me that all the air in the room had been replaced by the scent of her perfume. “Not yet,” I said.
“Then don’t you think,” she said, “that you’re a trifle overdressed?”
I smiled. I turned, set my brandy on the end table, turned back to her. I reached for her glass and she handed it to me. I set it beside my own. When I turned back again, her head was back and her black hair was fanned across the cushion of the love seat. The black eyes were staring up at me, the wide red lips were parted in another smile.
I leaned toward her.
Someone knocked at the door.
It had a tentative sound, two or three light raps, as though the knocker, whoever it was, didn’t really want to bother anyone this late at night.
I sat up.
Without moving her head from the cushion, Mrs. Corneille reached out and put her hand on my arm. “They’ll go away,” she said softly.
The knocking came again, harder.
“I don’t think so,” I said.
She sighed, lightly squeezed my arm, and stood up. “Don't move,” she said.
She waltzed around the coffee table and across the carpet to the door. She opened it a few inches, craned her head around its edge, and suddenly she said, “Jane!”
She opened wide the door and stepped out into the hallway, then stepped back into the room with her arm around Miss Turner’s shoulders.
Miss Turner’s brown hair was loose, tumbling to her shoulders. She was wearing her gray robe. It was streaked with dust and spotted with clumps of what looked like fur. Her arms were hanging limply at her sides and in her right hand she held a shiny double-bladed dagger.
Chapter Twenty-six
I stood up.
Miss Turner saw me and she said, “Oh!” Her blue eyes flew open as she wheeled to face Mrs. Corneille. She put her hand to her chest, the hand that held the dagger, its bright blade aimed toward the floor. “I didn’t know, I didn’t realize you had a guest. I’m so sorry!”
“It’s quite all right, Jane,” said Mrs. Corneille, and led her to the love seat. “Mr. Beaumont and I were just talking. Here. Do sit down.”
A gentleman might have offered to leave the parlor right about then. I took a few steps sideways, to give Miss Turner room on the love seat. Still gripping the dagger between her breasts, her knuckles white, she sat down and she leaned forward, balancing herself on the edge of the cushion. She looked up at me and suddenly her face and her throat went red. It made the blue of her eyes seem deeper and brighter. She looked away and then looked back, her lashes fluttering. “I’m sorry,” she told me. “I truly am. I didn’t mean to disturb anyone.”
She looked up at Mrs. Corneille, who stood bending over her, her hand on Miss Turner’s shoulder. “I think it would be best if I left,” Miss Turner said.
“Jane, really, don’t be silly,” said Mrs. Corneille. She looked at me. “Please, Mr. Beaumont. Sit.”
I sat.
Miss Turner said, “I…” She looked down at the dagger. She held it out, away from her, and she stared at it as if she couldn't understand how it gotten there.
“Why don’t I just take that,” said Mrs. Corneille. I didn’t say anything-if there had been any other fingerprints on the knife, they were gone now, smeared by Miss Turner’s. Mrs. Corneille reached out and Miss Turner surrendered the weapon, then winced and wiped her hand on her thigh as if her palm were bloody.
Standing upright, Mrs. Corneille examined the knife. Both the blade and the ornately carved handle were silver. “It’s very pretty, Jane,” she said. “Wherever did you find it?”
Miss Turner’s hands clutched at each other on her lap. She looked up said, “It was in my bed. I think someone tried to kill me.” She turned to me. “Does that sound utterly insane?”
I said, “Not if they used that knife.”
“You were in bed,” said Mrs. Corneille, “and someone tried to kill you?”
Miss Turner shook her head. “No, no. I was in the Earl’s room when it happened.”
Mrs. Corneille looked at me, looked back at Miss Turner. She nodded. “This sounds as though it may take a while. Would you like a brandy, Jane?”
“Yes,” said Miss Turner. “Please. Very much.”
“You sit back,” said Mrs. Corneille. “Relax. No one will harm you here.”
“Yes,” said Miss Turner. She sat back, glanced quickly around the room again. She took a long deep shuddery breath. “Yes,” she said.
She peered down at herself and she sat forward. “Oh dear,” she said. Her voice was higher now, and it sounded as if it might crack. “What a fright I look.” She brushed at the front of her robe and then plucked away a tuft of what I’d thought was fur. It wasn’t fur. It was a flattened dustball, the kind that grows underneath sofas and beds if you don’t sweep often enough. Wincing again, her mouth twisted, she shook it from her hands, then quickly rubbed her fingers on the robe.
Those sapphire eyes were a bit wild and I thought she might leap up and run away. Out the door, maybe out the window.
She didn’t. The eyes closed and she took another deep breath. She set her mouth in a firm straight line. Then she opened her eyes and looked over at Mrs. Corneille, who was pouring brandy into another snifter. With only a thin ribbon of strain left in her voice, she said, “I feel as though I’ve been pestering people and making a fool of myself all weekend.”
She was a real surprise, Miss Turner. A stronger woman than she seemed.
“Not at all,” said Mrs. Corneille. She set down the botde and carried the snifter over to Miss Turner. She had left the dagger beside the brandy bottle on the sideboard. “Only a fool,” she said, “can actually make a fool of herself.”
Miss Turner smiled with a kind of tentative irony. “Perhaps that’s why I’ve succeeded so well.”
“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Corneille. “Here you are. Have a big swallow now.”
“Thank you,” said Miss Turner. Her right hand was unsteady and the brandy shivered against the curved walls
