Vivian Conroy - Diamonds of Death

‘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?’