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“Cleo, I’ve found something.”
I joined her at the bench where she held a small bottle made of purple glass. She held it out to me. “Smell it.”
I sniffed. “Is it mint?”
She tipped a little of the oil on her finger and rubbed it with her thumb. “Pennyroyal. You know what that means.”
“No. What?”
“Oil of pennyroyal is used to get rid of an unborn child.”
I gasped. “She was pregnant to Rigg-Lyon.”
She replaced the stopper in the neck of the bottle. “It can be dangerous for the woman if taken in large doses. Even in small doses, it can leave her feeling quite unwell. She must have been desperate to take this.”
“That’s if she has taken it at all. She didn’t seem unwell when we saw her, and she wouldn’t have met with Lord Dunmere today if she was sick.” I took the bottle from her and held it up to the light. “Perhaps she decided to keep the baby. That explains why the dressmaker at the Royal Albert Hall was altering her outfits. Her waistline was expanding.”
Harmony took back the bottle and returned it to the cupboard shelf where she found it. “If she decided to keep it, and Rigg-Lyon was the father, why kill him? She’d need him to help financially. She couldn’t do it alone. She’d have to give up performing when she started to show. So why murder her best source of income?”
“Because he wasn’t a source of income. He refused to support her.”
It was a tragic story, but it was the motive we’d been searching for. Now we needed to find the proof.
I climbed onto the table near the window and peered out to make sure no one was watching. I got the fright of my life when Harry peered back at me.
He grinned that wicked grin of his. He somehow knew I was in here and had been waiting for me to re-emerge. “Need assistance?”
“No.” I put one leg out through the window, but the stool was too low for me to reach. Drat. Either I backed out through the window, both feet first and lowered myself, or I accepted his help. The first option was unladylike and had great potential for embarrassment. The second option required him to touch me. “Yes, please.”
I sat on the windowsill, legs dangling outside, and placed my hands on his shoulders. He reached up and clasped my waist, lifting me off the sill. He slowly lowered me to the ground, holding me closer than necessary and taking his time. A thrill shot through me when my chest pressed against his. The heat in his eyes warmed my own when our gazes connected.
Harmony cleared her throat, and Harry released me to assist her.
“How did you know we’d be here?” she asked him.
“The mechanic told me. He said you discovered Rosa Rivera had become Lord Dunmere’s mistress, but he didn’t say how you knew. He told me what he’d told you about collecting her from the Royal Albert Hall and driving her to the Elms, then mentioned he gave you Rosa’s address.” He glanced over his shoulder at the block of flats as we crossed the grassy common. “It was a risk coming here in broad daylight. What if she was home?”
“We knew she wouldn’t be here,” I said. “She’s at the hotel.”
“Ah. That’s how you knew she was Dunmere’s mistress.”
“How did you know to go to the mews in the first place?”
“Never mind that. You’ve found something. I can tell by the gleam in your eyes.”
Harmony explained about the oil of pennyroyal and what it was used for. Neither Harry nor I asked how she knew. Harmony had been raised in a slum, and the girls brought up in that environment had a wisdom that was beyond book-learning. Experience had taught her things I would never know.
“We think she killed Rigg-Lyon because he wouldn’t support her and the baby,” I said. “But we won’t know for certain unless she admits it.”
He removed his watch from his waistcoat pocket. “She’ll be back at the flat soon before she heads off to the Royal Albert. We could wait and confront her.”
“She’ll only deny it. We need proof. We need to find the coat in her possession.”
Harmony sighed. “But we looked everywhere.”
“It won’t be in the flat. The mechanic says he saw her leaving the Elms with the same bag she brought with her, but it was empty. She lifted it with two hands when she climbed out of his vehicle, but carried it with only one when she left.” I stopped suddenly as something the mechanic had said occurred to me. “Her other hand was dusting it off. She would only need to dust it off if it were dirty.”
Harmony shrugged. “So?”
