At the thought, he turned to his wife.
“Lillian, my dear. Would you be so kind as to see if you can persuade Mrs. Romano to replenish the sideboard, if her worthless son cannot be found?”
“I?” The raising of one of Lillian’s painted eyebrows would have quelled a lesser man, but Ruthven was this morning determined to have a private word with his brother before Albert’s habitual cycle of drunkenness began for the day. He estimated that he had less than an hour before Albert began his “hair of the dog” regimen.
With the perception born of long years in marital harness, Lillian read the significance of Ruthven’s nod in Albert’s direction.
Stifling further protest, she set off in search of the kitchen, rather like Magellan seeking a new passage to the Spice Islands.
She could be gone for days, thought Ruthven, not without a frisson of pleasure. He took the precaution of shutting the double-paneled doors after her. He knew Sir Adrian always took a breakfast tray in bed, but God knew if his inamorata was with him or if she might appear downstairs at any moment. He’d seen George leave with the delectable Natasha. Sarah, Lillian had told him, had rushed from the room without explanation shortly before his own appearance.
Albert, meanwhile, had laid his head on the table, displaying to full effect the tonsure that had started to form in the center of his hair. He was emitting periodic mewling noises.
“Buck up, old sport. This is important,” said Ruthven.
This was greeted with a weak moan. “Not so loud,” Albert whispered.
“Here, drink mine, I haven’t touched it yet. Come on, man, pull yourself together.”
Albert accepted the proffered coffee with trembling hands. He doubted it would help his heaving stomach but his pounding head was winning, for the moment, the pain war.
“My office came through this morning with everything you could want to know, and more, about the Winthrop murder. Here-” he removed several folded sheets from his inner jacket pocket-“is just a sample. It’s Violet, all right. And the story’s even more sensational than I recalled.”
Albert took the pages and unfolded them, fumbling for his glasses. The fax machine had rendered the small newsprint almost unintelligible. The top sheet was dominated by a photo of a woman sitting sidesaddle in full hunting regalia atop a horse awash in a sea of beagles. Even allowing for the bleary quality of the reproduction, he could see she was strikingly beautiful, with the widely spaced eyes, high cheekbones, and chiseled jawline bestowed by the gods on only a blessed few. She even seemed to have a tiny cleft in her chin, which was rather gilding the lily, thought Albert. The only thing marring the impression of exquisite porcelain fragility were the hands holding the reins, Violet’s hands-not as pronouncedly veined and bony as they were today but still unmistakably large and out of proportion.
“How old was she then?” asked Albert.
“Early twenties. Twenty-one, I think one of the papers said.”
“‘Was this the face that launch’d a thousand ships?’” The headline over the photo was at complete odds with this image of heavenly near-perfection. The headline asked, simply, “Lady Murderess?”
Albert squinted at the page, holding it up to the light from the mullioned windows behind him, able to make out only the words in bold in the caption and the dateline: November 15-Edinburgh. The caption read, unhelpfully: “Lady Winthrop last fall, on Dundee Prince near the Winthrop estate in Gloucester.”
“There’s more, loads more,” Ruthven was saying, “photos and the lot, but on the next page is a summary from shortly after the inquest adjourned.”
“I can’t make it out,” said Albert.
“Here.” Ruthven took back the pages. Adjusting his glasses lower on his nose, he scanned the type until he found the section he wanted.
“It begins by announcing the verdict of ‘Murder by person or persons unknown,’ and the adjournment of the hearing. There never was an official finding beyond that, apparently. The coroner concluded that the police were stumped-reading between the lines, you understand. There was the usual jargon about pursuing various lines of enquiry-and pretty much it was left at that. Lady Winthrop herself was never called to give testimony; she got her physician to stipulate she was prostrate with grief. All nonsense, of course. If she’d been a charwoman they’d have brought her to the inquest on a litter. I haven’t been in Fleet Street all these years without knowing how these things go.”
Albert, now holding his temples, made a “speed-it-up” gesture with his index fingers.
“Very well,” said Ruthven. “On the night of November 10, the Winthrop household-it was Sir Winthrop’s estate near Edinburgh- was awakened by a crash of glass and furniture from the direction of the old man’s study. This according to the testimony of one Mrs. Grant-Agnes, the head cook. Much of what she actually said was summarized-the reporter, I gather, having trouble rendering her brogue into received English. But the substance was that she herself was already awake, having been unable to sleep and having taken herself to the kitchen for a cuppa, probably laced with Scotch, again reading between the lines. But she testified plainly enough that she heard scuffling sounds and shouts. When asked if she went to investigate she replied”-and here Ruthven adopted a passable Scottish accent-“ ‘It ware jest th’ ghostie so no a reason fare me to stir.’ This produced some laughter, according to the reporter, at which Agnes took umbrage. ‘I seen him meself many a time, I have. Headless, he is. ’Tis the fairst Laird Botwin, we think, him as were kilt by the Catlicks. He main us no harm so I let him gae on aboot his business, like mare folk should do.’”
“Anyway,” Ruthven went on in a normal voice, “more in this vein, but then she testified she heard a loud crash, followed by the sound of someone running.”
“‘He ne’er doon that afore,’ she said. ‘It scairt me, like, so I thought I’d best go have a look, me in me robe an’ all, but I dinna like the soond of it.’”
“The ghost didn’t scare her but a ghost acting out of character did. Good for Agnes,” said Albert.
“Wait for it. Apparently the coroner also was caught up in the ghost-as-suspect possibility.” Ruthven read again from the newspaper account: “Asked what it was the ghost had never done before- caused a loud crash or run away-Mrs. Grant replied, ‘A ghost dunna run in high heels.’”
“A headless Lord in high heels,” mused Albert. “Not impossible, granted a public school education. Still, I don’t see where Lady Winthrop comes into it. Unless she was the only woman in the house who owned a pair of heels. Not likely.”
“Agnes gets to that. All the women visiting the house-it was one of those ‘play cards and shoot whatever moves’ weekend parties such as Violet described yesterday-were lodged in the West wing that night. Agnes Grant was adamant she heard the high heels clicking their way toward the family quarters on the East side of the house, where Lord and Lady Winthrop resided in solitary splendor. Agnes gives it as her further opinion that only Violet of all those present would caper about at three AM in high-heeled slippers, ‘her bein’ a real clues-hearse as she is,’ but the coroner ignored that, of course, and rightly so.”
“What makes me think Agnes would soon find herself out of a job?” said Albert.
“She gave her opinion on that, as welclass="underline" ‘I’ll not stay another night ’neath that roof to be mairdered in me sleep, even by her ladyship, who has always traited me fair.”
“So much for the fealty-not to say the discretion-of old retainers. Well, if that’s all the coroner had to go on I’m not surprised at the hazy verdict.”