Page 16 of A Murder at Kew Gardens

Claire turned within his arm. Something in my face, or in the simple fact of my coming, had already begun to frighten her.

“His name was Sir Basil Crane,” I said.

Claire made a small sound and her knees gave. Cosmos’s arm took her weight before she could fall.

Over her bowed head my brother looked at me with an expression I will not soon forget. Not surprise. Recognition.

“You know who he is,” I said.

It was Claire who answered. “He was blackmailing me.”

Good heavens! “Why?”

“I—he—” She would have crumpled to the floor had Cosmos not gotten her into his desk chair.

“Some brandy, perhaps, Claire,” he offered.

“No.” She curled a hand around her stomach. “I don’t think—no. Thank you.”

It took her a moment to gather herself, and then she looked at me. “I was married before, as you know.”

“To Lord Edmunds.”

She nodded. “Given his age, he was not always able to…perform. He had a chemist make him a potion—I never knew what was in it, only that it gave him more…vigor. The last night we were intimate, he was sorely frustrated, for the potion had not worked. So he took more of it. The larger dose did its work. But while we were⁠—”

“I understand,” I said. “Go on.”

“He collapsed. I could not rouse him, so I rang for his man, who had no more success than I. We sent for his physician. But there was nothing to be done. Edmunds was dead.”

I had known her husband died in the act. I had not known about the potion.

“At the inquest the physician testified that Edmunds had died of a weak heart. He gave only a few details about the potion, though it had been made up to his own prescription. The verdict was death by natural causes.”

“So how does Crane come into it?”

“A few months ago, he called on me. He told me he knew about the potion. And then he explained, in the gentlest voice, that a coroner might be brought to wonder whether Edmunds’s tired heart had been helped to its rest, or hurried to it, by me. He said he would rather not put the question to the authorities. And then he said he was short of funds.” Her hands knotted in her lap. “I have been paying him these four months. Every month the sum has risen.”

“Did you tell Cosmos?”

“No, she did not,” Cosmos said. “But one night I was waiting for her in the morning room. We had set a time to meet, but Claire had been delayed. An open envelope lay on her desk, a note half out of it. I should not have looked, but curiosity got the better of me. That is how I learned of it. I told Claire the payments would stop. The next day I ran Crane to ground at his club. Told him I had a matter to discuss in private. We went into one of the side rooms.”

“When was this?”

“A month ago. I told him the payments were at an end, and that if he troubled her again he would answer to me. And then, God help me, I struck him.” A muscle worked in his jaw. “I did not think we were overheard.”

“This is all my fault,” Claire said, tears streaming down her face.

Cosmos put his handkerchief into her hand. “You did nothing wrong, dearest.” It was the gentlest voice I had ever heard from my brother.

I addressed Cosmos. “So you quarreled with him in a private room at his club a month before he turned up dead at Kew with your pistol by his side.”

“That is the gist of it.”

“Somebody must have overheard your quarrel and carried it to the man who arranged Crane’s murder. And that man arranged for your pistol to be left by the body so the blame would fall on you.” The very thought of how well the plan had been crafted and carried out made me ill. “And sometime in the near future, Dodson will be handed the blackmail story and an account of your quarrel with the deceased.”

“My motive, made to order,” Cosmos said.

“But you would never be so stupid as to leave a murder weapon beside the body, Cosmos,” Claire said, color returning to her face.