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I need you.That’s what she’s saying. Words she cannot manage, even as panic touches her voice.
“You have Sarah,” Gray says. “I am glad to see you have reunited—”
The young maid screams for help again, and Annis looks at him.
Gray sighs. “All right. Let us go inside and resolve this. Then I am leaving.”
I’m tagging along with Gray because he didn’t tell me not to. McCreadie hangs back but still follows us inside. He isn’t in uniform, and so he must have decided it’s safe to join us.
Finally we reach the hall and find Mrs. Bannerman rattling the knob while Sarah tries to calm the panicked maid.
When the maid sees Annis, she hikes her skirts and runs to us.
“Oh, ma’am,” she says. “Someone has locked His Lordship in the room, and he is not answering us, and I fear he has been done for.”
“Done for?” Annis says, arching her brows.
“Murdered. Someone has murdered him before the lawyer could arrive and…” The girl stops, her eyes rounding. “Where wereyou,ma’am? I went looking for you before His Lordship rang.”
“Turning detective now, Dolly?” Annis shakes her head. “You are a very silly girl.”
“With a very good point,” Mrs. Bannerman says.
“I believe,” Annis says dryly, “that we ought to ascertain my husband’s condition before I am interrogated for his murder. Did you not just say he rang the bell, Dolly?”
“Or someone did. Perhaps it was his killer.”
Gray moves to the door. “Can we please consider how distressing it must be for Lord Leslie to hear people shouting murder accusations before he is dead? The door has been locked by some means, and he is a very sick man who has rung his bell for help and now has to listen to everyone argue instead of coming to his aid.”
Gray begins to unbutton his jacket. “I shall break open the door.”
“You certainly will not,” Annis says. “There is a key somewhere.”
“It’s missing,” Dolly says. “Conveniently.”
The maid seems about to say more, only to stop and stare at Gray, whohas his jacket off and is now rolling up his sleeves. Now, I’ll admit he fills out a dress shirt very nicely. I will also admit that I never found men’s bare forearms nearly as attractive as I do now, when I rarely see them, and Gray has very nice ones. However, that is not why Dolly is gaping.
“Wh-what is that?” she says, pointing to a red spot on his white shirt.
“Blood,” Gray says. “A vital substance that courses through our bodies and, when we are injured, sometimes courses out of it… and through both bandages and shirt, apparently.”
“What the devil happened to you?” McCreadie says.
“I was attacked,” Gray says. “It was most inconvenient, but Mallory… What are you doing, Mallory?”
While everyone chatters, I’ve crouched before the lock with a hairpin. Victorian women get a lot of very handy pins—hairpins, stickpins, hatpins. I give this particular pin another nudge. Then I twist the knob and crack open the door.
“Well done,” McCreadie murmurs. “You really must teach me that.”
I push open the door… and there is Annis’s husband, half on the floor, head thrown back, eyes bulging.
It’s now official: Lord Leslie has been murdered.
NINE
There is an advantage to having so many people milling about, eager to accuse others of murder. They tend to ignore everyone who isn’t their target, which is why I’d been able to get that door open without anyone stopping me. It was also how McCreadie was able to join us without anyone asking who he is. And now it’s how McCreadie, Gray, and I can begin our investigation without anyone telling us to get the hell away from the body.
I must also allot some credit to Annis and Sarah. Annis wants her brother and McCreadie to get a look at the scene before Lord Leslie is taken away. She also won’t want to give Leslie’s sister ammunition by letting her realize Gray is examining the corpse, maybe even tampering with evidence.
