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With only a few gentlemen remaining in the library, I was conspicuous. Lord Bunbury gripped my elbow and steered me towards the door. “Come along, Miss. This is no place for a lady.” He clearly didn’t remember meeting me at the beginning of the night. But I knew him. He was much older than his wife with a balding head and boney fingers that dug into me. “Find your mother and go home. The ball is at an end.”
“It most certainly is not.” Lady Bunbury swooped down on her husband as I walked away. They exchanged words in harsh whispers before she clicked her tongue and strode off.
She told the hovering butler that the evening was over and to see that coats were ready to collect and carriages brought around.
“The guests can’t leave yet,” I said. “The police will want to speak to everyone.”
Lady Bunbury’s nostrils flared then she picked up her skirts and all but stomped up the stairs. She reminded me of a child unhappy with her parent’s directive.
Lord Bunbury ignored me and closed the door to the library. At least the scene would be preserved for the police, but it seemed as though the guests would be allowed to leave.
Some had remained near the library, watching on with macabre fascination, while the rest had returned to the ballroom upstairs. The butler disappeared through a door and there were no other servants about. I wanted to observe the guests and staff in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, but my uncle put a stop to me returning to the ballroom.
“There you are, Cleo!” He descended the staircase ahead of my aunt and cousins. “We’ve been looking for you. What are you still doing down here?”
Uncle Ronald would not approve of my sleuthing, so I hadn’t told him about the previous cases I’d solved. Although I hated lying to him, if I wanted to continue, I had to.
“I was looking for you,” I said. “I thought you were down here.”
“We returned upstairs along with everyone else.” His curt tone left me in no doubt he suspected I was lying. “Floyd, fetch our coats.”
“We can’t leave yet,” I said. “The police will want to speak to us, and the other guests.”
Even as I said it, guests came downstairs in a steady stream.
Uncle Ronald indicated I should walk alongside him. “Your aunt feels unwell. The…events have upset her. She needs to lie down.”
It wasn’t the murder that had her looking peaky, it was the effects of the tonic wearing off. But he wanted to pretend all was well with my aunt, so I went along with it.
Lady Bunbury rejoined us in the entrance hall to send off her guests. Her husband was nowhere in sight. It was not the usual place to farewell one’s guests after a ball, but the night had not ended in the usual way. We each thanked her for her hospitality, and she smiled in response. There was no mention of the dead body in the library, the murderer amongst us, or any other unpleasantness.
It was quite possibly the most bizarre situation I’d found myself in. There was not a single genuine word exchanged in our final minutes at the Bunburys’ townhouse.
Our journey home should have been filled with chatter about the ball, but instead, we were silent. I was bursting to talk to someone about the murder but didn’t dare bring it up in front of my uncle.
I didn’t have the opportunity to discuss it until the following morning when my maid, Harmony, joined me for breakfast. I’d slept poorly. Ambrose McDonald’s sightless gaze haunted me when I closed my eyes, and a thousand questions gnawed at me. Harmony had barely closed the door when I blurted it all out.
“There was a murder at the ball. The victim was Ambrose McDonald, a guest. Handsome fellow, charming, bit of a cad, apparently. I saw him give a maid something before he was murdered. Lady Bunbury also spotted him talking to someone. She looked angry, or worried. Lady Bunbury, that is—not the other woman. He was hit over the head with a candlestick in the library. Then Lord Bunbury sent everyone home before the police arrived, although Lady Bunbury seemed keen to continue with the ball.”
Harmony had looked more and more shocked with every detail. When I finished, she finally lowered herself onto the sofa, still staring at me. “I cannot believe that woman wanted to continue dancing while there was a dead body in her library! We shouldn’t be surprised, I suppose. We know how much appearances matter to her.”
“Indeed.” Now that Harmony had digested the facts, I posed the theories and questions that had kept me awake. “What was Ambrose McDonald doing in the library? Was he lured there? Was it a pre-arranged assignation? Did he know his killer? It could have been a man or a woman. The candlestick was large, but not unwieldy, and he wasn’t tall. With his back turned, he wouldn’t have seen it coming. And what did he give the maid earlier? Why did Lady Bunbury make a beeline for him and the woman? And does the murder have anything to do with the empty space on the library wall?”
“And why did Lord Bunbury insist everyone leave before the police had the opportunity to speak to them?” she added.
“You think that’s important?”
“He ought to know better.” She picked up the pot of coffee only to pause before pouring. “Perhaps he was protecting one of the guests, giving them time to think up a story.”
“Or organize a false alibi.”
She poured the coffee and handed the cup to me. “When it comes to the Bunburys, false seems to be a word that comes up a lot.”
It did indeed.
It was good to discuss the possibilities with Harmony. She had a sharp mind. Discussing clues with her often helped me see them in a different way. There was another person who had proved useful in the past, but I’d vowed to stay away from Harry Armitage.
Besides, the investigation wasn’t mine to take on. For one thing, there was no client and therefore no fee. For another, the police had it in hand.
