Page 37 of Murder Most Actual

“I think you’ll find the difference,” Hanna snapped, “is that her wife is still alive.”

At that, Mrs Ackroyd collapsed and had to be helped from the room by the professor.

“Touch insensitive, dontcha think?” observed Sir Richard.

It had been. But it had come from a good place, and Liza didn’t feel comfortable throwing Hanna under the bus. “Even if it was,” she tried, “that doesn’t mean she’s not behaving incredibly suspiciously.”

Lady Tabitha sat back, her arms folded. “Well, if being upset at her husband’s death counts as suspicious to you—let’s just say I don’t envy your marriage.”

“Perhaps”—this was Reverend Lincoln, who had a professional obligation to pour oil on troubled waters even though, as far as Liza could tell, oil was the last thing troubled waters needed—”it would be best if we focused on who has the gun, and who killed Belloc.”

“Well, it wasn’t me or Dicky,” declared Lady Tabitha. “You all saw us coming to the woods at the same time you did.”

“Or me, or the professor,” added the vicar. “For similar reasons. Or either of you ladies.” He indicated the Blaines.

“Or,” Hanna admitted begrudgingly, “Ruby. We were with her when the shot went off.”

The colonel gave a kind of snort-laugh. “Were you now?”

“Sadly,” Ruby told him, “they were terribly well behaved.”

This, Liza felt, was a topic they’d do well to move on from as quickly as possible. She turned to the colonel. “Are you trying to distract us from the fact that apart from Vivien Ackroyd, you’re the only guest without an alibi?”

Colonel Coleman shrugged. “So what if I am? You’re not the police, young lady; you’re a busybody. Mrs Ackroyd is a fine woman, and her husband was a dog who had it coming. I know I didn’t kill him, and frankly, I don’t much care if she did. You look after yourself and the missus, and I’ll take care of myself, and we’ll all get through this perfectly well. Of course, we’d get through it more easily if the bloody manager would let us defend ourselves.”

“Guns don’t make people safer,” Hanna insisted.

The colonel gave another snort. “They do if you know what you’re doing with ‘em.”

“Perhaps if you’re the only one with a gun,” observed Reverend Lincoln. “But if we were all armed, I don’t think any of us would be better off.”

The doors to the dining room opened and the professor stumbled back in looking flustered. “Oh, that poor woman, she is quite upset.”

“Well,”—the colonel fixed him with an unsympathetic glare—”wouldn’t you be? Even if she did kill her old man, she’s had a pisser of a week and Blaine here has treated her very shabbily.”

“And if she didn’t kill her old man,”—Ruby smiled at the colonel from the end of the table—”then you probably did.”

“Wish I had.” The colonel’s moustache twitched thoughtfully. “At least that way I’d have a bloody weapon.”

“It could also,” Hanna pointed out, “be a member of staff.”

“Seems a bit unlikely though, doesn’t it?” replied the colonel.

Hanna heaved a keeping-her-temper sigh. “Why? Can working-class people not be murderers?”

“I think,” said the vicar, “it’s more that it seems unlikely somebody who had worked here a long time would suddenly start murdering guests.”

“The footman hasn’t worked here a long time,” said Liza, hoping Ruby wouldn’t take it as a betrayal of confidence. Then again, if she did, that probably said more about her than Liza. “He’s doing this as a holiday job.”

A look of palpable relief spread across the professor’s face. “Ah well, there you go then. It was probably the boy. Now if you’d be so good as to go up and apologise to Vivi—to Mrs Ackroyd, that would be very helpful.”

On some level, it would be. Not because there was a huge probability of her being innocent, but because there was no point having emotions running high when they were trapped in a snowbound building and at least one person had a gun.

“Maybe you’ve got a point,” Liza conceded. Then she looked down at Hanna. “Should we …?”

“Yeah.” Hanna didn’t seem mega-thrilled at the idea of saying she was sorry to a probable murderer who’d slandered her marriage, but being the mature, sensible one, she was way more inclined to do things she wasn’t thrilled by than Liza was. Most of the time, at least.

So, begrudgingly, they got up from the table and went to tell Vivien Ackroyd that they were sorry. It was, Liza reflected, a good thing she’d thrown the gun out of her window, or they’d be about to get shot.

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