Page 35 of Murder on the Brighton Express
“Don’t defer to Cleopatra,” she whispered loudly. “She isn’t her mother, no matter how much she looks and behaves like her. My sister may have been gone all these years, yet you still value her opinion above mine, and above Floyd’s. Cleopatra may be cleverer than he is, but this hotel is in his bones. He was born here. It’s the only home he’s ever known, and he deserves a say in its future, since it will be his one day.” She paused as the sommelier poured wine into our glasses, and resumed once he was out of earshot. “It’s time you stop favoring your niece over your own son.”
I wanted to list all the times my uncle had argued with me, or forbidden me from going somewhere or doing something, to prove that hedidn’tfavor me. But my aunt was in no mood to listen, and the restaurant wasn’t the right place for such a conversation. Besides, a part of me knew there was some truth to her claims. Uncle Ronald did value my opinions, and he could be cruel to Floyd. But that was changing. I hoped.
Dinner was a tense affair. Aunt Lilian turned sullen, barely managing smiles for the friends who greeted her. Uncle Ronald sat stiffly throughout the first course. Sensing something was amiss, Flossy and Floyd exchanged worried glances.
I excused myself early and retired to my room. I had to get some rest if I was going to wake up in a few hours to meet Harry. The trouble was, I couldn’t fall asleep. I went over Aunt Lilian’s words in my head, wondering if I could have said something to reassure her. That led to the realization that her addiction was getting worse. If she didn’t stop taking the tonic soon, she was going to destroy her relationship with her family or destroy herself.
Chapter8
The starless night shrouded the backstage door of the Laneway Theater in darkness. It was the perfect evening for breaking and entering. Any roaming constables wouldn’t spot us in the recessed doorway of the lane.
Once Harry inserted the lock picks, he was able to do the rest by sound. The satisfyingclickof the lock signaled his success. He rose, catching me yawning. “Long day?”
“Yes, and even longer evening.”
I could just make out his chiseled cheekbones and jawline as he studied me in the darkness. “What happened?”
“Not now, Harry.” I gave his arm a little shove. “We have work to do.”
Once inside, I struck a match and lit the lantern I’d brought with me. It hissed to life and cast enough light so that I could lead the way along the corridor without knocking over props.
Clement Beecroft’s office door wasn’t locked. The desk surface was tidy, with no sign of the script there or in the drawers. There were bills and receipts, contracts to be signed and correspondence about future projects. Nothing out of the ordinary. In the closet with the long mirror on the door, we found two woolen coats, a cape, three hats and a spare pair of shoes. A selection of ties hung from a rack on the inside of the door. Like the desk, it was neat and tidy.
My hopes of finding a journal belonging to Ruth were dashed. If she had made notes on Beecroft’s movements while in Brighton, and he’d taken them before pushing her out of the window, they weren’t in his office. There was no evidence that he’d gone anywhere near her at any time.
We left and headed back along the corridor. I paused at Geraldine Lacroix’s door. I had a hunch and hoped it might be confirmed if I searched her dressing room. I tried the handle. Unlocked, just like Beecroft’s office door. Either they both had trusting natures, or they had nothing to hide.
Harry followed me inside. With the lantern held high, we took in our surroundings. Unlike Beecroft’s office, Geraldine’s dressing room was untidy. A petticoat and skirt hung over the privacy screen, and an annotated script was strewn across the dressing table, the pages out of order. There seemed to be no organization to her pots of stage makeup and the odd hairpin appeared here and there on the floor where she’d dropped them.
But what struck me was the fashionably large hat decorated with wine-red flowers and feathers.
I plucked if off the corner of the privacy screen. “This is the same hat the woman in compartment two wore. I think we can safely assume that was Geraldine, consideringThe London Tattlerreported she was in Brighton.”
“And she and Beecroft are most likely having an affair.”
Harry rifled through the dressing table drawers while I checked the closet. Neither of us discovered a journal or any other incriminating evidence.
We left the dressing room and exited the theater. Outside, we clung to the shadows near the shops along St. Martin’s Lane as we hurried back to the hotel. Most of the city was asleep, but London was never completely silent, even at three AM. A hansom cab sped past, and somewhere in the distance, the motor of an automobile spluttered to life. Two drunken youths stumbled arm in arm down the other side of the road, talking loudly about their female conquests. They didn’t see us.
While their crude discussion of a particular woman’s attributes made me giggle, Harry must have been embarrassed. He tried talking over the top of them. “Why didn’t Geraldine remove the hat? She must know it made her easily identifiable, not just by us, but by gossip columnists who might be out to learn more about her affair with Beecroft in Brighton.”
“I don’t think she particularly cares who knows,” I said. “I don’t think he does, either. It seems to be common knowledge that he takes his current leading lady as his lover. The secret is well and truly out, and there’s no point attempting to hide it now, either from the public or his wife. Either Mrs. Beecroft doesn’t mind or suffers in silence.”
Harry agreed with me, but pointed out one thing I’d overlooked. “If Beecroft isn’t overly concerned about keeping his affair with Geraldine Lacroix a secret, why did he hurry to his office when you introduced yourself as a private detective? What did he have to hide, if it wasn’t evidence of his extramarital relations?”
That was a very good question. “Evidence of Ruth’s murder?” But that didn’t make sense either. “Why would he murder her, though, if he’s not concerned about his relationship with Geraldine being discovered?”
“It seems he doesn’t have much of a motive for murder, after all.”
“He rushed back to his office for a reason, Harry. Unless we believe his excuse that he thought I worked for a private debt collector, heishiding something.”
Harry escorted me down the lane beside the Mayfair to the servants’ entrance. He caught me yawning. “Get some rest, Cleo. Meet me at my office mid-morning and we’ll question Geraldine together. With opening night so close, she should be at the theater by then for rehearsal.”
He seemed to assume I’d involve him in the investigation from here on. I didn’t refuse, since his assumption was correct. The ruse had to be convincing to make Uncle Ronald think I was helping him with Mrs. Hessing’s gossip problem.
That was absolutely, positively, the only reason I was involving him.
The hotel wasn’ta place I wanted to linger the following morning. Everyone from my uncle down to the maids were busy as a stream of deliveries arrived. With the wedding only days away, there were many things still to be done, some of them small, others large. Yet not a single guest would have realized. The foyer was calm. The front-of-house staff smiled as they carried out their duties with professional pleasantness. The engine of the hotel, however, hummed with activity.
