Diamonds of Death

‘Excuse me, my lady.’ The butler bowed his head. ‘This is the late Lord Winters’ niece. Lady Alkmene Callender.’

Alkmene flashed her brightest smile, then remembered she was here because of a death, and wiped the smile away again. She said demurely, ‘I read about Lord Winters’ death in the paper and felt it pertinent to travel here at once to pay my respects to his children. Especially to Anne, who wrote to me several times since your return to England.’

The woman seemed insecure a moment as if she wasn’t certain what to say or do next. Apparently she had not known about Anne’s letters. She glanced at Jake and the bags he was carrying. ‘You intend to stay here?’

It sounded cold and hostile, as if that was the worst plan Alkmene could ever have come up with.

Alkmene resisted smiling too wide again to cover up for the rudeness of this intrusion and said, ‘I came all the way from London. Quite a tiring journey. I intend to stay for a few days and enjoy the country air. So very good for the lungs, you know.’

The woman’s eyes flashed, but she gestured at the butler. ‘Have rooms prepared at once. Lady Alkmene can have the blue room.’

The butler’s eyes went wide. ‘But my lady… The blue room is… Was…’

She waved her hand again. ‘Do as I tell you.’ And to Alkmene she said, ‘Come in. You must wish to have some tea.’

She turned back into the room she had come from, calling over her shoulder at the butler, ‘Have Ms Deeds bring tea and sandwiches at once.’

Alkmene nodded at Jake. ‘You can put the bags in the blue room, Parker. Then you may move the car. The butler can tell you where to put it.’ With a careless, dismissive hand gesture, she entered the room.

It was large with golden curtains, several delicate cherrywood chairs, a desk with inlaid ivory and a large piano with music on top of it. The woman walked over and sat down. She ran her fingers across the keys producing a soft haunting tune.

Alkmene stood listening for a few moments, then seated herself in a chair. She had not been invited to, but then her back was really a little stiff from the long ride and her hostess didn’t seem intent on inviting her to sit at all.

She frowned. The woman’s behaviour was very odd. One moment she was in total command, acting like she ruled the household; the next moment her behaviour changed and she seemed insecure, as if she was only present on the scene by mistake and had no part at all in playing hostess to the sudden visitors.

There was the sound of hoof beats outside and as Alkmene looked out of the window, she saw a tall attractive young man on a black horse racing across the lawn. As he came from the shadows into the sunlight, he threw his head back as if he wanted to feel the sun’s warmth on his face. Could this be George, the younger of the two sons?

He halted in front of the house and dismounted, throwing the reins carelessly to a stable boy who had come running at the sound of his approach.

‘Helena! Helena!’ Bellowing as if he was calling for his dog, the handsome man ascended the steps in front of the house, banged the front door open, then shut, and entered the room where Alkmene sat. He only had eyes for the woman at the piano. He called, ‘The police keep saying the burglar did not have the stones on him. But that is impossible.’

Alkmene froze at the mention of the stones. Jake had said his friend Mac had been hired by George Winters to steal the stones. What on earth could George have intended with that action?

And had this woman been in on it? Was she George’s wife?

Alkmene could not recall whether George had married but then she might have missed the announcement.

At the sudden entrance the woman had stopped playing, rising abruptly. The look on her face made the new arrival fall silent. He followed the direction of her warning gaze and saw Alkmene. She smiled up at him, not bothering to rise. ‘Good afternoon. I am Lady Alkmene Callender, the late Lord Winters’ niece.’

‘I know no one by that name. Get going.’ He gestured at the woman. ‘Come with me. We have to talk.’

The woman flushed. ‘George, please, don’t be so rude. This is really your father’s niece.’

George stood, his feet planted apart, surveying Alkmene with his deep set dark eyes. ‘So what?’ he asked at last. ‘My father is dead, and I don’t care for any niece of his. You sure never bothered to come here before.’

Alkmene blinked at the blunt statement, at the same time acknowledging it was true. Anne had written to her, and she had simply ignored the letters, not really sure what to do with them. Maybe George knew that Anne had written and never received a reply?

Or this rudeness could just be George’s way of dealing with his father’s violent death.

‘My father is away in India,’ she said hurriedly, intending to use his absence as some sort of an excuse, but the young man grabbed at his head, saying, ‘I don’t want to hear anything about that accursed place. That is where it all began, that…’

He looked at the woman, his expression suddenly vaguely panicky. ‘We really have to talk.’

The woman smiled at him and spoke in a slow, soothing tone as if to a child, ‘Of course we will. Please excuse me, Lady Alkmene. I will be back as soon as I can.’

She left the room together with the impetuous young man.

Now at least she had met two family members. Alkmene wished Father had told her more about family relations, but realizing in the same thought that if Father had any idea of what she was doing here, he would be appalled. He had carefully kept from her what exactly had happened to her aunt. There had to be some reason for it.

Nothing good.

Alkmene shifted her weight uncomfortably. Perhaps it was her own pressing awareness of duplicity in coming here. But there seemed to be something odd to this house. Unbalanced.

Vaguely threatening.

Metal clanged outside the door, and moments later, a plump woman entered with a trolley holding fine china and trays with muffins, scones and sandwiches. ‘Did I hear Master George?’ she asked, looking around the room.

Alkmene smiled. ‘He was here a moment ago, but he stepped out with his wife. He will be back soon.’

‘Master George has no wife. You must mean Lady Helena. She is married to Lord Albert. She owns it all now.’

The woman’s tone was resentful.

Alkmene flushed over her faux pas. But George’s apparent dependency on this woman and her way of accommodating him had suggested a closer bond than that of in-laws.

Alkmene said quickly, ‘I see you prepared all these delicious things for George.’

‘Whenever he goes out riding, he comes back with an appetite.’ The woman smiled, her face wrinkling round the eyes and mouth. ‘I do like to spoil him a little.’

She came over two steps and studied Alkmene. ‘You must forgive me, my lady, for saying so, but you do look a lot like your mother. I only saw her in photographs but she was so pretty. The late Lady Winters talked about her sister in England a lot. It is good to see you here.’

Alkmene returned her smile. This sudden rush of appreciation felt like a warm bath after the family members’ cold reception of her. ‘My mother died when I was very young. If you can tell me anything about her, I would be very grateful. Perhaps we can talk some time while I am here?’

The woman’s expression changed at once, from warmth and welcome to fear. ‘I do not think it possible, my lady. The new Lady Winters is very stern; she doesn’t like staff engaging with the guests.’

There was a sound in the hallway, and she shot back, curtsying nervously. ‘Thank you, my lady.’

She retreated in a rush to the door, almost bumping into the dark handsome woman who came back in. ‘Have you poured?’ Helena snapped at the servant.

‘No, but…’ The woman swallowed hard.

Alkmene jumped to her feet. ‘I said I would do it. I enjoy puttering with tea stuff.’ As she said it, she realized how ridiculous it was to act like hostess in this strange house and how she would not endear herself to the other woman by this approach. Barge in, act like she belonged here. While Helena now ‘owned it all’ as the housekeeper had aptly put it.

But Alkmene didn’t want the housekeeper to feel bad about her faux pas. If she had known her mother’s half-sister and had even seen photographs of her mother shown by this half-sister, she wanted to know more about that.

Her hostess came closer with short abrupt steps. ‘I will do it. You must be tired from your journey. You had better sit.’

It sounded like she was instructing a dog.

Alkmene sank back and folded her hands in her lap. ‘Lord Winters’ death must have come as quite a shock to you. I mean, it being so sudden and…violent. I believe he was killed in a burglary?’

‘Yes. I actually saw it happen.’

‘The murder?’ Alkmene cried. Dismay knotted her stomach. Jake had forgotten to mention to her that there was an actual eyewitness for the killing. That would make proving his friend’s innocence kind of hard.

Her hostess said, ‘I saw that dreadful man leaning over my father-in-law, his gloved hands full of blood. It was horrible to see. I was so glad there were able men here who could jump him and control him before he killed me too.’

‘You came upon the scene because you had heard noise?’

‘I saw light under the door and wanted to ask if Lord Winters needed anything.’

‘In the dead of night?’ Alkmene caught her own incredulous tone and added quickly, ‘The papers I read must have had the time of the killing wrong then. It was earlier, in the evening?’

Her hostess fussed with the teapot. ‘No, it was late, but we had had guests who had only left an hour before that. I was still awake. I have trouble sleeping sometimes when it has been an exciting day.’

Again there was this odd change from the woman in charge to a little girl talking, in a wistful tone. ‘I came from the library where I had picked up a book to read.’

‘I thought Lord Winters had died in the library.’

‘No, he had books in that room, but it was more like his private study. The library is another room, for the use of everyone in the household. It holds some precious first editions. You might like to see them later on. If you like books. Do you take sugar in your tea? Cream?’

‘Neither, thank you.’ To continue talk of the murder, Alkmene hurried to say, ‘I like books very much, thank you. So you came from the library and saw this light under the door of Lord Winters’ private study and naturally you knocked to ask if anything was…wanted.’

The woman sighed as she spooned sugar into her own cup. ‘I opened the door and there was this man, leaning over the body of my father-in-law. The blood and… It was terrible. But at least he was caught before he could leave. He will pay for what he did.’

Alkmene hesitated. ‘If you did not see the burglar killing your father-in-law, how can you be sure he actually killed him?’

Helena’s eyes flashed a moment with a strange light. ‘What else could have happened? The police have gotten out of him how he entered via the front of the house. He actually climbed up like a monkey and forced his way in through a window. He then killed my father-in-law who caught him red-handed.’

Alkmene said pensively, ‘If he climbed up, he must have noticed somebody was in the room. Why take the chances and commit murder?’

‘I assume the room was empty when he came in. My father-in-law must have walked in on him.’

‘I suppose so,’ Alkmene said. ‘How fortunate you did not pass the door earlier and were the one to walk in on the burglar.’

Again there was that flash in Helena’s eyes. She picked up Alkmene’s cup. ‘It will take me time to get over it. Get over living in this house after what happened. I never liked it much to begin with. It is so grey and solemn.’

Alkmene looked around. ‘I think it is a very grand old house.’

‘Perhaps you think there is something in the will for you?’ Helena looked her over with cold eyes. ‘That is why you are here?’

Trying to ignore her intimidating attitude, Alkmene leaned back. ‘I have no need of any inheritance. I have money of my own.’

She put a slight emphasis on the word I, implying a subtle contrast with the woman opposite to her.

Her hostess was now right in front of her, holding out the cup of tea on a saucer to her. ‘There you go.’

Then by a sudden movement she let the cup slip off the saucer and spilled the hot tea right across Alkmene’s lap.

Alkmene yelped as the hot liquid scorched her skin. She jumped to her feet and peeled the fabric of her skirt away from her legs. It still burned awfully.

‘I am so sorry,’ Helena said. ‘I will get you a cloth.’ In a flurry of cold air she quit the room.

Alkmene held the soaked garment away from her person. A haze actually came from it, so hot the water had been. She was sure Helena had dropped the tea on purpose, trying to hurt her. Had it just been a response to her subtle reference to the difference between the two of them in terms of position and wealth – born into it or having married into it – or had the woman already decided on this course of action before? From the moment the butler had announced to her who this guest was.

An unwanted guest it seemed.

Alkmene walked to the door, determined to go up to the blue room and change at once. She’d think about getting the tea stains out later.

A hysterical voice said, ‘She is despicable turning up here, like she owns the house. I am sure she thinks she will have it now. She claims to be related to your mother. Always her, always your mother.’

Then a stream of foreign words followed, punctuated by gasps for air.

Alkmene looked into the hallway. A dark-haired thickset man stood opposite to Helena, holding her by the shoulders. He shook her while she raved on, her head moving from side to side like she was in a frenzy.

Then he raised his hand and struck Helena full in the face.

She fell silent at once. Only her eyes stayed alive, on fire, burning at him with an intensity that made Alkmene cringe. She had rarely seen such raw hatred in a human’s eyes. It was more the murderous feeling of a tiger when it looks its captor in the eye, determined to get back at him someday and kill him in order to be free again.

Helena pulled herself free and ran up the stairs, almost bumping into Jake Dubois, who was coming down. The man standing below frowned at him. ‘Who are you?’

‘Lady Alkmene’s driver, sir.’

‘Sir?’ The man scoffed. ‘That is Lord Winters to you, chap. Get yourself to the kitchens and don’t dare show your face around here again.’

Lord Winters turned away from Jake to the room Alkmene was in. She retreated quickly so he found her standing close to the piano, still holding her wet skirt.

‘Ah, Lady Alkmene…’ He wanted to smile at her, but his features froze as he saw her awkward stance. ‘Is something wrong?’

‘Lady Winters spilled tea over me and went to fetch a cloth.’ Alkmene smiled. ‘Lord Winters, I presume?’

‘Yes, but you can call me Albert, if I am allowed to say Alkmene.’ He shook her hand. He had such a nice normal friendly face she could not believe she had just seen him slap his wife across the cheeks. ‘I have not had the pleasure of seeing your father in years, but then he does travel so much. I hope he is well?’

‘Very well, but on a journey again, so I felt obliged to come out here and tell you how sorry I am about your father’s death. So sudden, so violent. To be killed in one’s own home, the place where one feels safe…’

A strange emotion flickered in Albert’s eyes as she said those latter words.

He let go of her hand at once and said, turning away from her, ‘Yes, well, Father did insist on keeping precious gems here, that should better have been put in a safe in a bank. I often warned him it would attract burglars, but he never listened. You must know yourself that stubborn old men are often hard to convince of anything they do not want to hear.’

‘Of course. I dare say your father paid a high price for not heeding your good advice.’

Albert stood and arranged the papers on the piano. ‘Everybody does,’ he said in a low voice, almost like he was talking to himself. ‘Everybody always does.’

Chapter Five

Helena did not reappear with a cloth to clean off Alkmene’s stained skirt.

Alkmene had not expected her to, because the spill had been made on purpose, and the lady probably also had a fiery smudge on her face now, from her husband’s abuse. She had to be hiding in her own rooms upstairs, cooling the sore spot and applying make-up to it, eager to look better when dinner would be served.

Alkmene excused herself after a few minutes of idle chatter about her father’s travels, saying she’d like to change and rest up before dinner. ‘My back aches from sitting in a car seat for such a long stretch, you know,’ she said with a smile.

Albert made a dismissive hand gesture, either waving away her physical complaint or her excuse for wanting to go up. He rang the bell for a servant, and a maid appeared, barely twenty, looking frightened, hovering at the door.

‘Take Lady Alkmene up to her room,’ Albert said. ‘I assume my wife has ordered a room prepared for you?’

‘Yes,’ Alkmene said. She wanted to add it was the blue room, but as the response by the butler had been rather odd, she didn’t want to provoke another outburst of anger in Lord Winters. So she just rose and followed the maid out of the room, up the stairs.

She wondered how Jake was getting on in the kitchen with the staff. She assumed it would be easy enough for an attractive man like him to flirt a little with the maids and inspire confidence, although he might then meet an enemy in the stiff butler who would no doubt disapprove of such forward behaviour.

She had no idea who held the vital information, so Jake would do best to stay on good terms with everybody who might have something worthwhile to share.

Catching up with the maid on the landing, she said, ‘You must all be shocked after the murder.’

The girl cringed at the word murder. ‘It was terrible. I saw the body when they carried him away. There was a lot of blood. And his face.’

‘His face?’

‘His expression, his features. It was like he had seen a spectre.’

‘I suppose his muscles could have been contorted in pain,’ Alkmene said. ‘Or fear when he realized there was a stranger in his room waiting to club him. I heard it was done with a polo trophy?’

‘I could not say. I was not in the room. But he did have a lot of trophies there, large ones. We always had to dust them all, and make sure not a speck of dust was left on them. He liked them gleaming. He checked when the sun shone in to see if it had been done properly.’

The maid’s tone suggested that it had not been good if the master of the house found something wanting. Perhaps he had been endowed with the same nasty temper as his eldest son Albert?

‘It must be hard to run a household when there is no lady of the house to oversee to everything,’ she said casually.

The maid blinked. ‘But there is Lady Winters.’

‘I thought she died in India,’ Alkmene countered.

‘I mean, Master Albert’s wife. She has been acting like Lady Winters ever since they came here.’

The maid halted at a broad oak door with metalwork on it. ‘I never knew the real Lady Winters. As you say, she died in India.’

The maid nodded at the door. ‘This used to be her room. Her things were put there when the lord came back from India.’

Alkmene’s eyes widened. Her hostess had put her in the room that used to belong to Alkmene’s aunt? That was a little unconventional to say the least. No wonder the butler had tried to protest.

The maid retreated two steps. ‘If you need anything, you can ring.’ She turned and hurried off.

Alkmene frowned. When a servant accompanied a guest to a room, it was common for them to open the door, show the room, ask if anything was wanted. They didn’t take off like something scary was at their heels.

Or rather, waiting for them, inside of that room?

Having just encountered Helena’s venomous nature in the tea spill, she wondered if the room held another unpleasant surprise for her.

Alkmene put her hand on the door handle and took a deep breath. Her neck tingled with anticipation.

Or was it sweat?

Then she pushed the handle down.

The room was large but still seemed cramped because of everything that was in it. A huge four-poster bed, a dressing table with a chair in front of it. A side table beside the bed, a writing desk along the wall, a bookcase.

And boxes.

A lot of boxes stacked into rows of three or four on top of each other. It looked like a storage room instead of a guest room. Why had Helena put her in here?

Alkmene walked to the window and pulled the curtain aside to look out.

The view was of the back of the house, with a formal garden to the right, the stables to the left. A groom was walking a bay horse, patting it on the neck as he went. Someone had put the black horse that the youngest son had ridden home in a fenced-off area where it walked up and down, shaking its head restlessly. A dog lay lounging in the sunshine, ignoring the bustle about it.

Alkmene dropped the curtain back into place and studied the room again. She now saw her bags, which Jake had deposited on the other side of the bed. She wondered what he had thought of this room, of the many boxes in it.

She went over to them and opened the lid of the top box of one of the stacks. It was filled with clothes. Of the finest fabric with delicate lace, embroidery. A vague scent of lavender wafted out, mixed with stale perfume. Alkmene closed the lid again. She was not supposed to pry into things stored here, but instead needed to get out of her wet skirt.

She had just changed into something else when there was a knock on the door. She called, ‘Enter,’ and Jake appeared carrying a tray with a bowl of steaming water on it. ‘I heard from the butler that your skirt got stained in a little tea mishap,’ he said. ‘I insisted on taking water up to you to clean it at once.’

‘That is not your task. You will attract attention this way.’ Still she was relieved to see him and desperate to chat for a few minutes and alleviate the tension that hummed around her like an irritating mosquito.

Jake put the tray down and looked around. ‘Strange place to put a guest.’

‘This was actually my aunt’s room. Those must be all of her things transferred here after her death in India.’ Alkmene gestured at the boxes. ‘I am not sure why Helena gave me this room. She is the new Lady Winters, wife of the eldest son Albert. You met him when you came down the stairs. The house is so big that there must be other rooms available. Why of all those did she choose this room for me?’

Jake frowned as he surveyed her. ‘You look pale. Does it worry you that this is your deceased aunt’s old room?’

Alkmene straightened up. ‘Why should it worry me?’ Her heart was still beating in an irregular rhythm, but if she confessed any of her confusion to Jake, he’d just laugh at her. Think she was a rabbit, like he had thought before in Dartmoor.

She fetched the ruined garment from the bed and began to wet the tea stains over the bowl. ‘I agree it is odd, but it doesn’t bother me at all.’

Jake shrugged. ‘There seems to be a strange tense atmosphere in this place in general. I don’t think most ladies when pouring tea spill it all over their distinguished guests. She must be shaky somehow.’

‘I think she did it on purpose.’

‘What?’ Jake surveyed her with a frown. ‘Why?’

‘Either she wanted to end our cosy little tea party before it had begun, perhaps because of the questions I was asking about the death, or she wanted to get even with me for some reason. It felt like a child’s way of retaliating. Kicking into somebody, you know, throwing something all over him?’