Family Plot Read online

  “There now,” she said brightly, coming up beside him and taking his arm. “Didn’t I say I wouldn’t be long?”

  “Every moment without you was an agony,” he declared. No lover had ever spoken more sincerely.

  “Of course, you think we should all be as careless of our appearance as you are,” she scolded, straightening his cravat with a proprietary air before addressing the rest of the company. “As you can see, Mr. Pickett cares nothing for fashion.”

  Pickett might have been wounded by her seeming mockery, had he not realized that she had just given the group an explanation for the obvious differences in the quality of their respective wardrobes.

  He gave her a grateful smile. “You would do well to follow my example, my l—dear. Surely a beautiful lady decking herself out in silks and satins is a case of gilding the lily.”

  “Very prettily said, Mr. Pickett,” applauded Lady Malcolm. “I believe we can see how you contrived to win your fair lady without the trappings of fashion.”

  Fortunately, Pickett’s blushes were spared at this juncture by Angus Kirkbride, who chose that moment to command the notice of all his guests.

  “If I may have your attention, please,” he called in a surprisingly strong voice.

  The fiddler ground to a halt, and the dancers crowded nearer to hear their host’s words. Lady Fieldhurst noted that the prospective bride and bridegroom stood nowhere near each other: Miss McFarland had been dancing with Harold, while Duncan was now positioned against the wall near the French window beyond which he had only moments earlier been kissing another woman. No, thought the viscountess, she could not be optimistic about the match.

  Seeing that all eyes were now fixed upon him, Angus Kirkbride extended his hand to Mrs. Church, who stepped forward to clasp it.

  “It has long been my dearest wish to ensure that my estate will remain the home of the Kirkbride family,” he said. Angus extended his other hand to his nephew and Gavin stepped up to take it. The trio stood together, a living chain with the frail old man as its central link. “Tonight my daughter has made my happiness complete. I am pleased to announce the betrothal of my dear Elspeth to my nephew, Gavin Kirkbride.”

  The silence that followed this pronouncement seemed to fill the room. Lady Fieldhurst could only suppose that the other guests, like herself, had expected Mr. Kirkbride’s announcement to concern the nuptials of Duncan, not his cousin. Her gaze darted to that surly gentleman. Duncan stood as if turned to stone, his face drained of all color. Without warning, he turned on his heel and flung himself from the room, shutting the French window behind him with enough force to rattle the panes. The sound seemed to break the spell. The assembled guests politely applauded the betrothed couple, and the moment of tension passed.

  “But there is more,” added old Mr. Kirkbride. “As most of you know, many years ago I cast off my daughter in a fit of foolish pride. I then rewrote my will, dividing everything between my two nephews. Tonight, as a wedding gift to the bridal pair, I intend to rectify my error. I have sent for my solicitor, Mr. Ferguson—” He nodded at the little man from Edinburgh. “And in the morning he and I will draw up a new will, one in which everything I own will pass at my death to my daughter, Elspeth.”

  With a growing sense of dread, Lady Fieldhurst glanced at Mr. Pickett. The furrow puckering his brow was sufficient to inform her that they were thinking the same thing.

  The purpose of Mrs. Church’s charade had just become abundantly clear.

  CHAPTER 12

  IN WHICH A VIOLENT DEATH

  IS REVEALED

  * * *

  “She doesn’t love him!” Harold insisted, not for the first time, as the trap rattled along the short stretch of road between the Kirkbride house and the inn. “I know she doesn’t!”

  “Mrs.—Miss Kirkbride is a grown woman,” Lady Fieldhurst reminded him. “No one can force her to marry against her will.” In fact, she was rapidly losing patience with Harold’s adolescent histrionics. There were far more significant, and sinister, implications to be taken into account, had she only the luxury of discussing them with Mr. Pickett in private. Instead, he now made up a fourth in the borrowed conveyance. She was glad he was spared the necessity of navigating the cliff path again in the dark, but there was no denying the fact that they were uncomfortably squeezed as a result.

  “But when she danced with me, I thought—I thought she liked me,” Harold confessed forlornly.

  “I daresay she likes you very well,” said Lady Fieldhurst, readily conceding the point. “But a lady may enjoy a young man’s company, even flirt with him a little, without having serious intentions toward him.”

  “Listen to your aunt,” recommended Mr. Colquhoun from his seat on the opposite side of the carriage. “She knows whereof she speaks,” he added cryptically, drawing a sharp glance from the viscountess.

  “I confess, I had supposed the ‘interesting announcement’ would concern Mr. Duncan Kirkbride, rather than his cousin,” her ladyship continued, hoping to give Harold’s thoughts another direction. She noticed Mr. Pickett did not volunteer the information that “Miss Kirkbride” was not whom she appeared to be, and she was quick to follow his lead; aside from the possibility that divulging too much information at this juncture might hinder Mr. Pickett in his investigation, she suspected Harold would not take kindly to any slur against his beloved. She only wondered what Gavin’s reaction would be when he learned the truth about his betrothed.

  At last the trap drew to a stop before the inn, and the four disembarked. Harold flung himself off to his room at once, no doubt to mope over the loss of his ladylove. Mr. Colquhoun lowered himself ponderously to the ground, then turned to offer his assistance to Lady Fieldhurst. Pickett, for his part, suspected this show of chivalry on the magistrate’s part to be motivated by no nobler instinct than depriving himself of the opportunity to clasp her ladyship’s hand. In any case, there was no chance to speak privately with the viscountess, for Lady Fieldhurst bade both men goodnight and then followed her recalcitrant nephew into the inn.

  Alone in the stable yard with Mr. Colquhoun, Pickett found himself on the receiving end of an all too keen stare.

  “Yes, sir?” he asked the magistrate.

  The wily Scot merely shrugged. “I didn’t say a word.”

  Pickett sighed. “You didn’t have to. You are wondering how I came to be discovered, when I assured you of my discretion. I can offer no explanation, sir, except to say that I was—distracted.”

  “Yes, and a very fetching distraction she is, I’ll grant you that.”

  Pickett neither confirmed nor denied it, but hurried to give the magistrate’s thoughts a happier direction. “I think you will be pleased to know that my efforts were not wasted. I contrived to get a good look at Miss Kirkbride. It seems Mr. Kirkbride’s long-lost daughter is in fact Mrs. Elizabeth Church, the Drury Lane actress.”

  Mr. Colquhoun’s scowl lightened at once. “Is that a fact? Well done, John, well done indeed!”

  “It does seem a pity to have to tell the old man, though. He was so happy to have his daughter back.”

  “Aye, but this business of ours is not all sweetness and light. You should know that by now.” Mr. Colquhoun yawned. “Well, there’s nothing to be done about it until morning, in any case. Might as well turn in. Are you coming up?”

  Pickett shook his head. “I’ll be up later. Right now I should like some time alone to think.”

  “Try not to dwell on it,” advised the magistrate. “Mr. Kirk-bride knew when he sent to Bow Street that there was a chance his daughter was not on the up and up.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Pickett saw no reason to inform his mentor that it was not Miss Kirkbride, much less her father, who filled his thoughts to such a degree. Long after Mr. Colquhoun had trudged up the stairs to their chamber, Pickett paced back and forth before the dying fire in the taproom, reliving those moments when he had held his goddess in his arms and tasted paradise. He knew he must ap
ologize in the morning for his behavior; he still could not quite believe he had taken such liberties, but he could not find it in his heart to regret them. How did one apologize for the most magical experience in a decidedly mundane existence? He sat down on the settle before the fire and stretched out his long legs. If he closed his eyes, he could almost feel her in his arms again, almost . . .

  He must have dozed off, for he awoke with a start to find a grey light filtering through the windows and a lad no older than Robert Bertram shaking him by the shoulder.

  “Bow Street?” the boy asked urgently. “Be you the Bow Street Runner what’s staying here at the inn?”

  Still groggy with sleep, Pickett forgot to defer to Mr. Colquhoun. “Yes, I am. What’s wrong?”

  The boy jerked his thumb in the direction of Ravenscroft Manor. “They want you at the big house. It’s the old man, Mr. Kirkbride. He’s dead.”

  “Dead?” echoed Pickett, now fully awake.

  “Aye, I just come from there. Doc’s still with him. Says he’ll nae leave until you get there.”

  Pickett shot to his feet. “I’m on my way.” Seeing the lad was undecided whether to go or stay, Pickett shooed him toward the door. “You need not wait for me. Go back to the house, and tell them I’m coming.”

  “Aye, sir.” The boy tugged his forelock and quitted the room.

  Pickett took the stairs two at a time and burst into his own chamber, where the sleeping magistrate lay snoring with relish.

  “Mr. Colquhoun!” He shook the magistrate by the shoulder in much the same way the boy from the big house had shaken him. “Mr. Colquhoun, sir, wake up!”

  Mr. Colquhoun’s snores ended abruptly. “Eh, what the devil—?”

  “There’s been a messenger from the Kirkbride house, sir. We’re needed there. Angus Kirkbride is dead.”

  “Bless my soul!” Mr. Colquhoun flung back the covers and sat up in bed. “You don’t say! Well, don’t just stand there, lad—hand me my boots!”

  Pickett was quick to oblige, and as soon as the magistrate had flung on his clothes, they were on their way. The doctor, as promised, was still there, as was an elderly gentleman in an old-fashioned frock coat and bagwig, whom Pickett had no difficulty in recognizing from Mr. Colquhoun’s description as Sir Henry MacDougall, the local justice of the peace. Also in attendance at the patriarch’s deathbed were Gavin Kirkbride and his supposed fiancée; of Duncan Kirkbride there was no sign. Gavin stood beside the bed and looked down at his uncle, his face white and strained, while Elspeth sat in a chair drawn up to the head of the bed and wept silently, her tears running down her face and falling on the frail, still hand clasped in hers. Pickett, knowing what he now knew about her, felt a cynical urge to applaud a moving performance.

  Hard on the heels of this thought came another, far less welcome one. The messenger who had awakened him at the inn had asked for the Bow Street Runner. Not the magistrate from Bow Street, but the Bow Street Runner. Either the boy had misunderstood his instructions, or someone at the house knew who he was.

  But there would be time to consider this possibility later. For now, the doctor was shooing the family from the room, the better to speak to the Bow Street contingent alone.

  “Thank you for coming so promptly,” said the doctor, closing the door behind the pair as Gavin led Mrs. Church from the room. He turned to the magistrate and offered his hand. “Mr. Colquhoun, is it? Mr. Wallace Reid. I’m sorry to disturb you at such an hour.”

  “Not at all, not at all.” Mr. Colquhoun waved the doctor’s scruples aside.

  “I believe you are acquainted with Sir Henry MacDougall, justice of the peace?”

  “Aye, we’ve met.” The two dispensers of justice shook hands.

  “I’ve just been pointing out to the good doctor that Angus Kirkbride was old, and his health not the best,” said Sir Henry. “Tempest in a teacup, if you ask me. Can’t be murder; we don’t hold with that sort of thing in these parts.”

  The magistrate turned to address Mr. Reid. “By your summons, I assume you have reason to believe his death was not of natural causes?”

  The doctor glanced uncertainly at Pickett. Mr. Colquhoun, correctly interpreting his concerns, hastened to reassure him. “My colleague, Mr. John Pickett.”

  The doctor scowled at the young Runner. “I’ve got boots older than you.”

  Seeing Pickett bristle, Mr. Colquhoun stepped in to pour oil on troubled waters. “Mr. Pickett may be young, but I trust him implicitly. Pray do not hesitate to speak freely in front of him.”

  The doctor gave Pickett a doubtful look, but addressed the magistrate. “Mr. Kirkbride’s heart was not strong, but there was no reason to suppose that, with proper care, he mightn’t have had several more years out of it.”

  “His life has undergone quite an upheaval in the past fortnight,” observed Pickett. “Might not the strain have hastened his death?”

  “Aye, it might have,” the doctor concurred. “And it’s my belief that is what our murderer is counting on.”

  Mr. Colquhoun’s bushy white brows drew together over the bridge of his nose. “ ‘Murder’ is a harsh word, doctor.”

  “Aye, I’m aware of that. But look here.”

  He crossed the room to the bed and, bending over the old man’s body, drew back one eyelid with his forefinger. The lifeless eye was almost entirely black, with only the slenderest ring of blue along the outer edge to indicate the color.

  “Dilation of the pupils is an indicator of digitalis overdose,” the doctor explained.

  “Digitalis?” Pickett echoed, scribbling in his notebook.

  “A plant derivative often used for the treatment of heart ailments.” The doctor picked up one of two black bottles on the small table beside the bed. “Mr. Kirkbride takes this to regulate his heartbeat. It is an infusion of dried plant matter mixed with sherry to make the bitter taste more palatable. Observe, if you will, the level of liquid in the bottle.”

  He handed the bottle to Pickett, who held it up to the window, through which the dawn light was beginning to penetrate. Pickett shook it slightly and saw that the bottle was about one-third full.

  “I brought him this bottle only last week,” the doctor continued. “It should still be at least half full, and very likely more.”

  “Plain as a pikestaff what happened,” Sir Henry put in. “Angus knocked over the bottle and spilt the stuff. Done it myself a time or two.”

  Of that, at least, Pickett had no doubt. He had suspected Mr. Colquhoun’s blistering assessment of Sir Henry’s mental acuity to be an exaggeration; after meeting the man, however, he could see that his magistrate had in fact understated the case.

  “If any of the medicine has been spilled, Mr. Kirkbride’s valet will know of it, or the maid who cleans his room,” Pickett noted.

  “I don’t need you to tell me my business, boy,” said Sir Henry, very much on his dignity. “I shall speak to the chambermaid myself.”

  With a gleam in his eye that suggested this interview would very likely take place in a dark corner of the butler’s pantry, he took himself from the room, leaving the doctor to let out a sigh of relief as the door closed behind him.

  “Sir Henry’s position requires that I summon him,” the physician told Mr. Colquhoun, “but I fear he has long since outlived any aptitude he may once have had for the work. I would feel better knowing the case is in your hands.”

  “Yes, but even if the cause of death is overdose, it doesn’t necessarily follow that the lethal dose was deliberately administered,” Pickett pointed out. “Is it possible that Mr. Kirkbride accidentally took too large a dose himself? With all he has been through over the past week, he might have felt his heart needed all the help it could get.”

  The doctor shook his head, unconvinced. “Tell me, are you gentlemen familiar with an English wildflower called foxglove?”

  “Aye.” Mr. Colquhoun nodded.

  Pickett, whose knowledge of botany extended no further than the flowers sold by
girls in Covent Garden, looked from one man to the other, all at sea.

  “Mr. Kirkbride’s medicine is made from the dried leaves of the foxglove plant,” said the doctor. “The plant is also indigenous to Scotland, where it is more commonly known as—”

  “Dead man’s bells,” Mr. Colquhoun put in. “In other words, Mr. Kirkbride would not have risked giving himself an overdose, being fully cognizant of the plant’s lethal qualities.”

  “If what you are telling me is correct,” Pickett said slowly, “it means that every schoolchild in Scotland would know of the plant’s potential as a poison.”

  The doctor nodded. “Precisely. No special medical knowledge would have been needed to bring about Mr. Kirkbride’s death. Anyone with motive and opportunity might have done the deed.” He looked from Mr. Colquhoun to Mr. Pickett and back again. “Can either one of you think of anyone who might want the old man dead?”

  Pickett and the magistrate exchanged a loaded glance, but Pickett answered the doctor’s question with one of his own. “What about the other bottle? What is in it?”

  Mr. Reid glanced at the other bottle beside the bed and shook his head in dismissal. “A paregoric draught I gave Mr. Kirk-bride for those occasions when he had trouble sleeping.”

  “Is it poisonous, too?”

  The doctor frowned, considering the question. “Almost any medicinal concoction is dangerous if given in large enough doses. But the symptoms of paregoric overdose would be very different—the pupils of the eyes, for instance, would contract rather than dilate—and would take much longer to appear, possibly as much as two hours or more.”

  “Tell me, doctor, when were you called in? Was Mr. Kirk-bride still alive?”

  “He was alive, but barely conscious. When I realized what had happened, I attempted to flush the digitalis from his system by giving him water to drink, but my efforts were in vain. He was beyond reason at that point, and I could not compel him to swallow the water that might have diluted the poison. He died shortly afterwards.”