Snobbery With Violence - M. C. Beaton [73]
She took a chance. “It was you,” Rose said. “It was you who murdered Mary Gore-Desmond and killed Colette and tried to kill me.”
“But you see, you have no proof and no one will believe you.” Lady Hedley continued to stitch at the tapestry just as if Rose had been talking about the weather.
“I will find proof,” said Rose.
“But you are leaving tomorrow morning.”
“How did you manage to come and go without anyone seeing you?” demanded Rose. “How did you manage to put a drug in the constable’s drink? The voice John heard came from below him. So how could you pass him to get at the tea?”
“Simple. The back stairs for the servants are narrow and steep. One of our servants fell down and broke his neck and so after that they were instructed to use the main staircase except when carrying down the slops. I called John, ran up the back stairs and out where he had left the tray. Matter of minutes. I am very resourceful, you know.
“Colette was the worst. Silly woman. She tried to blackmail me. She had seen me on the back stairs the night Mary was poisoned. I told her I would pay her in diamonds but she was to pack her suitcase and meet me outside. I told her I would meet her at the back of the castle because I did not want anyone to see the transaction and the silly fool believed me. So we were standing by the moat and I simply pushed her in. Fortunately she could not swim, although I was fearful the splashing and noise she was making before she drowned would wake someone. The supposed box of diamonds was simply a box with two bricks in it. I put the bricks in her suitcase and threw it in the moat.
“Hedley knew nothing about it. He’s a child. He’d ordered so much arsenic from some quack in London, he didn’t even know some was missing.”
Rose got to her feet. “You are a monster,” she said. “I am going straight to Kerridge.”
The marchioness ferreted in her work-basket and produced a revolver which she pointed at Rose.
“Sit down,” she said. “You are not going anywhere until I decide what to do with you.”
Rose stayed standing. The light from the fire shone red on the barrel of the wicked-looking revolver.
Her knees were shaking, but she said, “I am going to walk out of here and you are not going to stop me. You cannot shoot me.”
The marchioness rose as well and walked around the tapestry stand to face Rose. “I can shoot you and put the gun in your hand and say you committed suicide. Everyone will believe me because you are regarded as odd.”
The door swung open and Daisy darted into the room and flung herself in front of Rose just as Lady Hedley fired.
The bullet hit Daisy in the side. But Daisy had inherited Rose’s steel-boned corsets and the bullet ricocheted off one of the steels, pinged off a bronze bust of Lord Hedley, and planted itself in the marchioness’s forehead.
Becket was shouting, “Police!” at the top of his voice.
Footmen and police came bounding up the stairs. The marchioness was lying on the rug by the fire, a hole in her forehead and her brains spilling out the back of her head over the rug.
Daisy had fainted. While Becket was rapidly explaining that he and Daisy had heard Lady Hedley’s confession, Rose ripped open Daisy’s muslin blouse. “Get me scissors,” she shouted.
A policeman handed her a pair of scissors from the work-basket and Rose cut the lacing on the stays and pulled them apart. There was no blood. She began to cry with shock and relief.
Then Harry was there with his arms around her, helping her to her feet.
“I don’t care if it’s a cover-up,” said Kerridge wearily early that evening. He and Harry were closeted in the study. “The criminal is dead and so I don’t mind bowing to pressure. The story is this. Lady Hedley took her own life while the balance of her mind was disturbed. Mary Gore-Desmond’s death was accidental. Colette? Who cares about a blackmailing French maid who doesn’t seem to have any family that we can trace?”
“So who knows the truth?”
“Just you, Becket, Daisy and Rose. Oh, and Rose’s parents. A couple of footmen. Do you know Lady Polly’s reaction? She said, ‘Do