A Masked Murderer: A Violet Carlyle Historical Mystery Read online

  “It would have been a tragedy,” Vi whined, knowing she was being ridiculous, “if that had been stolen from me.”

  They had reached the earl and she pressed up on her toes and placed a kiss on his cheek. “Father, Lady Eleanor. What a surprise.”

  “Odd really. Didn’t think you were much of a fan of young Hamlet and, of course, I wasn’t sure if he’d be here.”

  “Hamlet?” Vi asked, with a frown. “Hamlet Milton?”

  She started to demand something else but her father was greeting the others and shaking Uncle Kingsley’s hand. Hamlet Milton was one of those spoiled, entitled men who had left her skin crawling with rage so many times that Violet would turn and cross the street rather than have to greet him. His father, Balthasar Milton, was one of Vi’s father’s greatest friends, so Vi had never quite been able to truly avoid Hamlet. Neither of them, however, were connected to Pierce Brooks. Or the nameless fellow who had drawn in Vi’s friends through Denny with the promise of chocolate.

  Vi glanced at Jack who showed that he was confused only by the barest wrinkle between his brows. The man at the door slowly opened it and they stepped inside. As soon as they entered, they were told they could remove their masks. The gents in one swift move removed their masks while the ladies eyed each other with frustration. Their cosmetics would be mussed and their decisions had been made with the masks in mind.

  Vi ignored her vanity and took off her mask, pulling out her compact from her small drawstring bag. She quickly smoothed her powder and then glanced around. She was surprised to see that she either knew everyone or they were heavily familiar.

  Vi took a longer look around. Beyond the eight people that counted her friends, there was her father, her stepmother, her cousin, her uncle, Emily Allen and the man who was with her. Vi paused when she saw her father-in-law, and then placed her hand on Jack’s, squeezing lightly and directing her gaze towards him. James stood with a very willowy, elegant woman on his arm. The woman was striking, and appeared to be past forty—with the suggestion of beauty rather than being classically lovely.

  Next to them was a person that Violet recognized, but it took her long minutes to realize where from. It was another person from her childhood. He was an acquaintance of Aunt Agatha and it took Vi long, long minutes to recall anything other than her aunt mentioning a mild distaste. The woman next to the man was a mousy creature and Vi was almost certain, that despite being unable to draw out a single memory of the woman, that she had seen her before. If anything, she remembered only that the man had a quiet little wife that was mentioned as an afterthought whenever the fellow was mentioned negatively. Something like, ‘Oh! That so-and-so, but his poor wife…’

  Violet watched as the others took note of each other and to her surprise, her father slowly started to frown. Vi frowned in sympathy as she watched him start to look from face to face. Before he could say anything, the door to the house was closed and they were ushered into a large room near a dining room. Two men in black suits and white gloves were placing wine glasses on the table.

  “Did you see Father’s face?” Vi asked Jack in a whisper, but he added, “Did you see my father’s?”

  As one, their gazes met. With the same near unison, they turned their eyes to the other’s father. James, Jack’s father, was much like his son with a nearly impervious face. Vi, however, had long since learned to identify Jack’s moods and the same skills applied to her father-in-law. To her surprise, she saw that tight jaw, the slight wrinkle between the brows, the same veiled eyes that meant he was taking in everything and was not happy.

  Vi’s level of tension ratcheted up and she realized her fingers were now digging into Jack’s arm. A moment later, they were offered a drink, and Jack took one for each of them as he asked, “Has our host arrived?”

  The servant met Jack’s gaze and slightly shrugged before stepping on.

  “What in the world?” Vi whispered.

  “I don’t know,” Jack said. He turned to Ham and found him speaking with his own father and they crossed the room to them. “I don’t like it.”

  “Nor do I,” Ham added. “Where’s our host?”

  “Father,” Jack said, holding out his hand and shaking it. “I didn’t expect to find you here.”

  “Nor I you,” he said and then introduced his companion. She was named Nicole Petty. As she greeted them in return, Vi was awed by her low and smooth voice, which was clearly feminine and lovely. Up close, her nose was a little crooked, but her skin was glowing and her lips lush.

  “Who are you here to see, Father?” Jack asked.

  His father cleared his throat, his cocktail glass already empty and said, “Seymour Schuster. An old friend of mine who had sent a note with the invite saying he’d come to London for a few days and wondered if I’d mind taking this chance to get together.”

  Jack glanced at Ham and then said, “That’s the third name we’ve heard so far.”

  “Beyond our unidentified host?” Ham murmured.

  Vi’s head tilted as she glanced around the room again. “I know all of these people.”

  “You should,” James replied. “They’ve all been friends of your parents and mine. Your Aunt Agatha’s husband, Henry, had a little club. We carried on after he died, and it became a sort of joint project, although your aunt threw her energy into it more than most of us. In every couple here, barring your association of friends, one of them was once a member.”

  “A member of a club Aunt Agatha ran? My father?” Vi’s doubt was palpable.

  “Your mother. Though he came when she did. It ended about a year before your mother died.”

  “It did?” Vi asked. “What was it about?”

  “It started as a dinner party. But it evolved into something else. A theme night, sometimes even a weekend. Every time we met there was a theme. It would be something like ‘Paris.’ We might read a book or two set in Paris, eat French food, speak in French if enough of us spoke it. Sometimes we’d even travel to the location and stay together. Listen to the music, drink the drinks. It was…magical.”

  “What happened?” Jack asked. He must have heard something in his father’s voice that Vi hadn’t. There was tension in Jack’s tone, and Vi felt it in her bones.

  It took James long moments to speak and then he said, “The last time we met, the theme was ‘Sea.’ We had the most wonderful time. Lobster, crab, shrimp, shark, turtle soup. It was a feast from the sea. We generously served a special wine that had been smuggled in by a famous pirate. Most of that year had been lost at sea, and the remaining bottles were legendary.”

  “It sounds amazing,” Vi murmured and Rita echoed it.

  “It was,” James said. “It was everything you’d want it to be—until it wasn’t.”

  “What did you read?” Vi asked, somehow knowing it didn’t matter to the story.

  He smiled at her, eyes crinkling with humor and warmth that faded as his memories welled up. He said, “We couldn’t choose just one that time. I think we included Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Treasure Island, the Defoe book about Captain Singleton. Oh, John Caldigate and Captains Courageous. Your mother read them all. I read one or two. I—”

  Vi smiled at the idea, suddenly wondering what else she didn’t know about her mother. Had Penelope loved fiction as Vi did? What else did they have in common?

  “What else happened that time?” Ham asked softly.

  “It was one of our weekend jaunts. We’d taken a house near the sea. We could walk from the house down to the shore. We had a sandcastle contest early on the first day. Some of us were single at that time and there was a bit of a rivalry between the fellow with Miss Allen and our poetic friend, Ambrose Ness. That fellow there in the corner. Marjorie was lovely. Devastatingly so, and she was your mother’s dearest friend. She had some little money. Enough to take note. Not enough to change everything for her. Marjorie and your mother wrote to each other nearly every other day.”

  “My mother?” Jack asked, almost confused.

  “Indeed. It was through your mother that I met Agatha.”

  Vi closed her eyes, imagining those days and then she looked around at the room again. Was it possible that if her mother had survived, Vi might have met Jack as children? She wondered if they’d have fallen in love that way.

  “Marjorie was quite a bit younger than your mother,” James said. “But they were two creatures of the same cloth. It didn’t matter that there was a difference in their ages.”

  “What happened to her?” Rita demanded in a low whisper.

  “She disappeared. We looked for her for days. Days and days. Your mother was certain that something had happened to her, but we were never able to confirm anything.”

  “How is that possible?” Jack muttered in disgust.

  “She was unhappy at home,” James replied. “It was believed by many that she left to make her own way.”

  “But Mother didn’t believe that?”

  “Your mother would have kept that secret for Marjorie,” James said. “And, Marjorie would have never left your mother wondering. Which is why, neither of us believed that she had survived whatever happened.”

  Jack’s jaw tightened and he pulled Violet closer in the way he did when he was worried for her safety.

  “And someone arranged all of us to be here,” Rita said. “Only—”

  Rita’s brilliant blue gaze met Vi’s and they both asked, “Why us?”

  Chapter 6

  They stepped into the dining room with a cloak of tension in the air. Those who were present had slowly realized that when you peeled away the companions, the rest had been part of this group. As they stepped into the dining room, no host appeared. There were, however, silver domes at every chair with names for the guests.

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bsp; It seemed that habit of seating oneself for dinner more than anything else had them milling about and finding their seats. Violet and Jack found themselves at the end of the table near Miss Allen and her companion. Jack introduced themselves and they met the fellow who had once been a lover of Marjorie Tomlinson. His name was Montague Garber. With his blue eyes and dark, wavy hair, he looked the way Vi imagined one of the Byronic heroes would. His eyes were cool and observant, and Vi merely nodded and smiled.

  To Vi’s right was her Uncle Kingsley and cousin, and thankfully her cousin had been placed directly next to her. Just down the table was the couple she had recognized but could not remember. Next was her father and stepmother. Lady Eleanor seemed quite put out at her place of lesser honor, but her father was unperturbed.

  At the end of the table Ham and Rita were near the poet who had come along and then Jack’s father and companion. Denny and Lila were across from Ham and Rita and seated next to James and his companion.

  There was no chair at either end of the table and the servant who poured them each a glass of wine stepped back and said, “You were promised a mystery—”

  He paused long enough to gather everyone’s attention. When every eye was on him and a few of the more dominant males were beginning to bluster, the man said, “Under each dome, the first clue will appear.”

  With that, he gestured to the table behind him with several bottles of breathing wine and then he stepped from the room.

  “What the devil?” the earl demanded, rising. He glanced around and Vi realized then that the white-gloved fellows who had been quietly preparing the table were gone.

  He was the first to yank the cover off of the tray in front of him, and he uncovered a plate that had already been served with a repeat of what James had described. Lobster, crab, shrimp. Under the napkin was a folded piece of paper closed with wax. Her father roughly opened the letter and then stepped back.

  He seemed…disturbed. “What the devil?”

  “What is it?” Lady Eleanor demanded. “Why are you acting like that, Carlyle?”

  Rather than answering, he turned the paper around and there was a pencil drawing of a woman.

  The mousey woman across the table asked shrilly, “Is that Marjorie?”

  “Of course it’s Marjorie,” Vi’s father, snapped. “Why is the face of a runaway under my plate?”

  “I think the question,” Jack said smoothly, “is who engineered this. Where is our host? Why is a quite old mystery something that seems to have brought us together?”

  “Why us?” Ham asked, his gaze moving only from Rita, to Denny and Lila, and then to Jack and Vi.

  Jack lifted the cover off of his tray and found an envelope. It was numbered and Vi frowned as she looked at it.

  “Why is that envelope numbered?” Suddenly there was the clattering of silver domes on silver trays and people lifted their envelopes.

  “Mine was one,” her father announced loudly.

  “John has two!” the mousey woman said. “Why do you have two?”

  “How should I know?” he asked, shoving her to the side and she collapsed into her chair, one hand holding her side.

  “I say now,” Algie muttered darkly. “Bad form.”

  “What does it say, Branwell?”

  “I neither know nor care,” the man the earl had called Branwell said. He rose from his own seat and snapped at his wife. “We’re leaving, Helen. Come.”

  “Said it like she’s a dog,” Algie muttered to Vi. “This is why Clara was so careful choosing a fool like me to wed.”

  Vi ignored her cousin as the poet also rose to leave. Before he got a step from the table, Branwell jiggled the door handle. “What the devil!”

  Jack rose at that. He moved towards the door and shouldered his way to the handle and tried it himself. Rather than confirming, he simply said, “Ham.”

  Without a further inquiry, Ham moved towards the door through the servants’ entrance and found it locked as well. He turned and shook his head as Mrs. Branwell let out a gasping sort of scream.

  “We’re locked in?” Miss Allen demanded. “How is this possible?”

  “Where are your lock picks?” Vi asked.

  “I don’t carry them all the time.” Jack’s jaw was flexing and he rose and walked round the table taking up all the envelopes. “Why would I need them for a dinner party?”

  “Here now,” the Byronic looking hero protested. Miss Allen patted his wrist and Vi wondered how Jack’s one-time betrothed had reached the point of spending time with someone who had once spent time with both Vi and Jack’s parents.

  “Let him,” the earl ordered. “Jack and Barnes here are two of the best investigators the Yard has ever had. And Violet is downright brilliant.”

  Vi shifted. There was a part of her heart that drank in the praise from her father greedily and there was a part of her that rolled her eyes and wished that his supposed pride in her was reflected whenever it wasn’t easy, at the times when—perhaps—they weren’t locked in a room.

  “By Jove!” the slender man without a companion said. “I bloody well care little what those notes say. I want to go and be done with this nonsense.”

  “Then try to get out,” Lila said with a drawl that dared him to succeed where Jack and Ham had failed.

  “There is more going on here than just an All Hallows prank,” Jack’s father, James, declared. “Why is there a drawing of Marjorie, Ness? Why gather us back up? Why bring up that old business?”

  “It doesn’t feel like old business now,” the slender man called Ness replied. “It feels like a ghost breathing on my neck.” He met James’s gaze and then softly quoted:

  “There are more guests at table than the hosts

  Invited; the illuminated hall

  Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts,

  As silent as the pictures on the wall.

  The stranger at my fireside cannot see

  The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear—”

  “Oh don’t, Ambrose!” Mrs. Branwell said. “To think of Marjorie here as a ghost. Horribly watching us. No! No! I declare she must have run away and is somewhere secreted and happy with a good half-dozen children about her like treasure.” Mrs. Branwell pressed a handkerchief to her eyes and then wailed, “Would we were with her there.”

  “Are you so certain?” the man with Miss Allen demanded. “So certain she’s not dead?”

  “They never found a body!” Mrs. Branwell squeaked with screwed up fists even though one still held her side. “Why wouldn’t I be sure, Monty? Why should she be anywhere but somewhere happy?” She sniffled and then pressed her napkin to her face. “I will not imagine her breathing on our necks at the table like some specter. I won’t follow Ambrose into his gothic fancies and nor should you!”

  Violet approached Jack and found he’d separated the letters into four piles. “What are these?”

  She hadn’t asked the question particularly loud, but she lifted the folded paper held together with wax from its lonely pile of one. The wax had peeled away in a solitary piece and when she examined the impression, she found it formed a perfect skull and crossbones. Vi shivered at the pirate emblem and then read, Miss Emily Allen, scribe.

  “What does that mean?” Vi demanded, but she didn’t wait for an answer; she grabbed another letter from another pile and found it read, Lady Eleanor Carlyle, Witness.

  Vi took another letter and found her name on that one. It read Mrs. Violet Wakefield, sleuth. From that pile, Vi slipped through all of them quickly and found that her friends were entirely placed in the sleuth category except for Denny and Lila after whose names was written, Sleuth? Witness?

  She would have read more, but Jack said, “Perhaps we can all sit and speak rationally.”

  “What do the letters say, Jack?” his father asked.

  “Yes, tell us,” ordered the earl. Vi shook her head at her father who seemed to think he should be in charge. She lifted the stack of letters from under Jack’s hand and slipped through until she found her father’s. There wasn’t a role assigned to him as there had been to her friends.

  “We aren’t suspects,” Vi murmured. “We weren’t there.”

  “You weren’t even born yet, Vi,” her father said. “This has nothing to do with you.”