stark black and white, while she had an unsettling feeling that nothing in this case was black and white, clear and obvious. They were not even sure Silas Norwhich had been coldly murdered. His fall and subsequent death could have been unplanned, unwanted, by the person who had been present as it happened. He or she might have fled in panic, not out of guilt. How to untangle the whole web?
Dubois was still watching her, waiting for an answer.
She tried to smile. Forcing herself to sound light and unconcerned, she lifted her glass. ‘Shall we finish off the bottle? It sours when it’s left too long.’
Still pensive, Alkmene approached the men’s wear store to get the old-new handkerchief for Dubois. He had told her as they parted that he was meeting Silas Norwhich’s manservant for dinner later that day, to get all the details about the room in which he was found. ‘If he has anything special, I might call upon you tonight, so you’d better have my handkerchief ready and waiting for me.’
The clerk who had taken the assignment from her the other day was there and waved her into the back room at once. He spread a handkerchief on the table for her, gesturing over it with his hand. ‘It is the same quality, material, colour. This should do very well.’
Alkmene demanded the specimen she had left him to make a close examination of similarities and differences, but the clerk claimed to have thrown it out with the trash. ‘I can assure you this was the best I could do.’
Alkmene hoped his best would be good enough and left, having paid for the new-old handkerchief in cash so it would not pop up on her father’s bill. He was so chaotic that he might not notice, but just in case he did, she didn’t want to answer any difficult questions about it.
She believed Jake was right in saying she should not hand over the money demanded in the blackmail note, but that meant the blackmailer might make good on his threat to inform her father of her alliance with a convict. She could hardly explain to him that the purchases ending up on his bill were for said convict. He might think she had gone mad and sign her over to an asylum before he left on his next botanical expedition.
Actually, merely hiring a chaperon for her would be bad enough.
She needed her freedom to move around.
Once home, Alkmene gave the handkerchief a critical perusal and decided it looked too new, so she crinkled it and put it under a pillow, then sat on the pillow for an hour or so reading in a French novel so she could surprise Dubois with a casual conversational phrase here and there.
Satisfied with the handkerchief’s appearance now, she moved to the theme of scent and sniffed it critically. It was too new still.
She used some of the lavender drops she poured on her pillow on occasion to sleep better to create a flowery scent that a man might mistake for soap. After all, despite all his criticism of her, Dubois didn’t launder himself either, so what did he know?
At last she put the handkerchief in some brown paper and put it ready to present to him should he appear after his meeting with Norwhich’s manservant.
She had some dinner, Cook’s leek soup, followed by mutton in cream sauce with rosemary-covered baked potatoes. She took dessert, blanched pear with whipped cream, into the living room and got out On Rigor Mortis, to find out what it meant that the dead man’s fingers had been so stiff when the police surgeon arrived that he had to break them to get the bit of paper out.
The treatise was very long and dry and not at all conclusive about hours and times of death, and instead of making copious notes that would prove vital to their quest, she just had three lines scribbled in pencil, when the butler opened the door and announced, ‘A guest for you, Lady Alkmene. He has no calling card and… Hey, wait a moment, sir.’
He was pushed aside by someone who whooshed in with the freshness of summer rain.
Indeed Jake Dubois’s dark hair was wet, and drops glistened on his suntanned skin. He raced to her and stood in front of her chair, gesturing widely as he called, ‘I know what the dead man was holding in his hand. What it was that got snatched away from him by the killer. Now we can be sure Evelyn Steinbeck is at the heart of it all.’
Alkmene snapped On Rigor Mortis shut and asked, ‘So?’
Jake glanced at the butler, who was still standing at the door, opening and shutting his mouth like a fish out of water.
‘You can go now, Brookes. Please close the door,’ Alkmene said quietly and put the volume on the side table. She patted the pillow beside her. ‘Sit down.’
Jake gestured. ‘I am soaking wet; I had better stand.’
‘Don’t be silly.’ She rose and walked over to the fireplace. ‘Here, you can sit on this stool. The fire will get you warmed and dried up in no time.’
Jake followed her and sat down. Still standing she was now towering over him. He extended his hands to the fire and smiled as he felt the heat. Waiting for him to speak, she straightened her father’s collection of marble elephants on the mantelpiece. He usually brought one from every trip to the east, and had gathered quite a herd of them.
At last, as Jake kept silent, she prompted, ‘What did Norwhich have in his hand?’
‘A birth certificate. I have looked at several, and that bit of paper definitely came from one of them.’
‘Whose birth certificate?’
‘No idea. But what if Evelyn Steinbeck wasn’t his niece? Or she wasn’t even Evelyn Steinbeck, but someone pretending to be her? I mean, an actress could play any part. I think we have to interview her as soon as we can to find out who she really is.’
‘As if she is going to tell us.’ Alkmene blew a strand of hair from her face. ‘By the way, I have your handkerchief for you – like you asked.’
She left the room to go get it. She was a bit nervous about her deception succeeding, so decided to get it over with as soon as possible.
As she came back into the room, Jake was stirring up the fire, sending sparks dancing into the chimney. He really had to be cold. She had not even noticed it had begun to rain. The house’s walls were so thick they kept out any sounds of the street.
‘Here.’ She handed him the parcel.
He opened the brown paper at once and checked the handkerchief, folding it open, turning it over.
Her heart beat like strikes on an anvil. He’d see through her ruse at once and expose her, making this very painful.
‘I don’t see any tea stains any more,’ Jake said. He glanced up at her. ‘Lemon juice?’
Lemon juice? Did that work against tea stains?
‘Uh, no.’ She crossed her arms over her chest. ‘Secret recipe, like your fish thing, you know. From my Irish nanny. Foolproof.’
He nodded slowly.
She had no idea if he was buying it. In his line of work he had to have experience with squirming, lying people and maybe he could make out a half-truth or lie from a mile in the distance.
