Harriett (41 page)

“
They are already off the streets. They were arrested last
night.” Mark leaned forward and braced his elbows on his knees. He
could just about forgive her for trying to scare Harriett,
especially if it was to try to drive Harriett to turn to him. “Did
you push the glass and give any messages at any of the
séances?”

“
No, I didn’t. I kept telling people to stop and that it was
stuff and nonsense, but nobody listened to me. They were all
carried along with the madness.” Jane sighed and threw her thick
woollen shawl onto the chair beside her. “Unfortunately, gentlemen,
my aunt doesn’t have too much longer on this mortal coil. She has a
condition in her lungs that is making her very frail. I should like
to start to spread the news that my aunt has gone away to the
country to recover from an illness. She is going to die while she
is away.”

“
Sounds reasonable to me. We won’t discuss matters like this
with anyone other than yourself. Now tell me, is there anything
else you think we should know about either the deaths, or the
thefts?”

“
Tell me, Jane, did you have any cause to share tea with Hugo
in his shop?”

Jane
shook her head and gave him and Isaac a rueful look. “Miss
Smethwick wouldn’t stoop so low as to sit with Hugo Montague and
share tea with that inveterate gossip,” she replied in the waspish
tone she had used to convince everyone that she was the original
Miss Smethwick. She sighed and, in her normal voice, continued. “I
am sorry, but I have wracked my brains and cannot think of
anything. I do consider that you should be looking at protecting
Harriett, because if those threats didn’t come from me, or you, or
Hepplethwaite and Humphries, then someone else at that table means
her harm.”

Mark had
to agree with that. “Harriett’s safety is of paramount importance
to me. If you do hear of anything, or remember something that may
be of use to us, it is important that you let us know as soon as
possible.”

“
Of course.”

“
What do you plan to do about this place now?”

Jane
sighed and looked around the kitchen. “I am the main beneficiary of
my aunt’s estate. When she passes, I will remain here but as
myself.” She smiled wryly. “This place needs a lot of work, you
know, so I can arrange for the renovations while I am here. I am a
keen artist and might try my hand at seeing if I can create
something I can sell.”

“
Are you going to Hugo Montague’s funeral this afternoon?”
Mark glanced at the clock. If he was lucky he should just be able
to get back to the station and interview the ladies, and be free in
time to escort Harriett to the church at four o’clock.

“
I think it would be expected of Miss Smethwick, don’t you?”
Jane’s lips twisted wryly. “Although I think Hugo Montague’s
funeral has to be her swan song.”

Mark
snorted. “It is an ingenious plot.” He glanced at Isaac. “I think
you need to take a statement and add it to the file. Jane, I should
like you to provide Isaac with drawings of all of the items that
you know have been stolen from the house that you are able to prove
belonged to your aunt.”

“
I have already bought most of them back. They are family
heirlooms and I couldn’t risk that they would disappear before I
could get back to them, so I bought them as soon as I saw them.”
She stood and hurried into the back room. Moments later, she placed
a crate on the table between them and lifted the lid. Inside were
various items, all of which would have earned a fair amount at a
pawn shop.

Mark
took his leave with a sigh of relief and left Isaac and Jane
carefully cataloguing everything. For the first time in two very
frustrating weeks, he now had more answers than questions.
Unfortunately though, the biggest questions of them all were
proving to be the biggest challenge yet.

Just why
was Mr Bentwhistle threatening Harriett? Had he killed Minerva
Bobbington and Hugo Montague?

CHAPTER
TWENTY
ONE

Harriett shivered as she opened the front door to the church.
The metallic clank of the key as it hit the ironwork echoed around
the cavernous entrance. Her breath fogged out before her and she
drew her coat tighter around her shoulders in an attempt to ward
off the chill. She had taken no more than four or five steps inside
the church before she began to shiver, and hurried her strides so
she could finish the flowers and get back outside where it was
considerably warmer.

The
heady scent of the flowers in her basket teased her nostrils, and
she scurried toward the room at the side of the altar to fetch the
vases. Everyone in the village was doing their bit to prepare for
Hugo’s burial. At four o’clock this afternoon, the funeral
procession would leave the funeral parlour and everyone would
slowly walk through the village to the church for the service. The
village already had a sombre atmosphere and that was emphasised by
the lack of customers in the tea shop this morning. There were very
few who ventured out for tea and cakes with such a morbid occasion
before them.

Harriett
wished she was at home. She sniffed and sliced open the newspaper
wrapped around the chrysanthemums and hollyhocks that had been
donated by Mr Bolstridge. The soft sound of footsteps on the
flagstones in the aisle made her freeze. She wasn’t ordinarily a
nervous person, and had no fear of being alone in the church. After
all it was a place of worship where people went to pray but, for
some reason, she couldn’t shake off the strange disquiet that had
settled over her. Instead of moving to the door to see who it was,
she stood perfectly still and waited.

“
Ah, there you are,” Mr Bentwhistle smiled as he appeared in
the doorway. “I came to check that the church was being prepared.
If you want to come and see, I will show you where we intend to
place the coffin during the service.”

Harriett
frowned at this. Still, manners dictated that she not object, so
she remained quiet and dutifully followed Mr Bentwhistle out of the
room to the front of the church.

“
What on earth?” She frowned at the coffin that sat in the
middle of the aisle. “Shouldn’t he be at the parlour, ready for the
precession?” A shiver of unease swept through her at the strange
way Mr Bentwhistle studied her.

“
What is it, what’s wrong?” Her heart began to hammer in her
throat. She glanced behind him but couldn’t see any of his
staff.

“
I am afraid that I have to put a stop to you, my dear,” Mr
Bentwhistle murmured in a voice that was low and matter of
fact.

“
Put a stop to me?” Harriett frowned and wondered if he meant
the flowers. Her mind struggled to comprehend what was happening,
but her nerves were frayed and she began to shake with
fear.

“
Everyone in town knows that the tea room is the place to
gossip. You are in the thick of it practically all day, every day.”
Mr Bentwhistle sighed and leaned his hips against the coffin in a
casual pose that belied the tension in his eyes as he
dispassionately scoured her from head to toe.

“
I am working though. I don’t have the time to exchange
gossip,” Harriett protested. She felt slightly outraged that he
thought that she had nothing better to do with her day than trade
tit-bits of snide remarks about anyone’s private life. She had
heard enough of just how spiteful women could be. She had no
intention of ever becoming one of them, or allowing life to become
so mundane and boring that she would consider herself with nothing
better to do than sit and trade scandal.

“
You know so much about every one of us. I am sure that most
of the harridans in your tea rooms would be horrified if they knew
what was being said about them. But, you know, don’t you, Harriett,
bits of gossip about everyone?”

Harriett
went cold inside. “So you thought that you could threaten me into
silence during the séance?”

“
It wasn’t a threat, my dear.” Mr Bentwhistle’s voice was
deadly. “I had to warn you that you were in danger because I wanted
to see what you would do. I know you gossip and have no doubt
pieced together the scandal you have heard. Unfortunately, if you
haven’t already, you will soon, and I am not prepared to sit back
and allow you to spread your gossip to others. I have spent far too
long building up my trade to allow you to ruin it.”

“
Why? What would I be likely to hear?” Her eyes locked with
Alan’s for a moment. The soulless depths of his dark eyes horrified
her. She shook her head and waited. His ramblings made not even the
slightest bit of sense to her and she wondered if he was slightly
unhinged.

Her
thoughts immediately turned to Mark, and she frantically tried to
think of a way to send word to him. She knew that it was a good
couple of hours yet before he was due to collect her from the tea
shop. She cursed herself for her own stupidity. Although Babette
had left her at the gate to the churchyard, Harriett knew now that
her aunt should have stayed inside with her. Mark had warned her
several times not to go anywhere alone. Now, she was by herself,
there was nobody who would be able to hear her scream.
Unfortunately, Alan was standing directly next to the coffin and
blocking the only exit. She briefly contemplated hefting her skirts
high so she could race over the pews, but knew that he would easily
catch her. He had direct access to the pews, and longer legs than
hers. She wouldn’t even get to the second pew before her caught up
with her.

That
left only one available escape route: the doorway behind her. The
room didn’t have a door and access to the outside, but it did have
a window she could smash and escape through. Hopefully, by the time
Alan got out of the church and around to the window, she would be
long gone, or at least out onto the main road where she could
scream at the top of her lungs for help. The church was located
just at the end of the main street, set back off the road a little
to provide for a churchyard, yet close enough to the village to
have a reasonable amount of passing traffic. There would be someone
who would be able to come to her aid. If only she could get there.
Screaming now, surrounded by thick stone walls, would get her
nowhere.

“
I have no idea what you are talking about. I don’t gossip,
never have and never will do. I see what the gossips do and the
damage that it does to others. What on earth makes you think that I
would stoop so low as to join them?”

“
Oh, I am not saying that you would join them, but you do
listen, don’t you Harriett? You are in that tea shop, day after
day, from early morning until late evening. You hear everything
that everyone says. You have heard about the recent spate of
thefts. You no doubt have my disgruntled customers moaning about my
service.”

Harriett
shook her head. She kept her expression blank, but immediately
thought about Minerva Bobbington’s death, and Hugo Montague’s
sudden collapse. Had Hugo had tea with Alan? The two men were
friends. Alan’s funeral parlour was directly across the road. He
could have easily scurried across the road to have tea with his
friend, and nobody would think anything of it.

“
You killed Hugo.”

Alan
nodded slowly.

“
What had Hugo ever done to you? He considered you a friend.
Hugo was a helpless soul.”

Alan
snorted derisively and curled his lip in arrogant contempt. “He was
a relentless gossip, child. You know that. Everyone went round to
his haberdashery to take tea and gossip. The only difference
between him and you is that you give people cakes with their tea,
he gave them gossip. He had been speaking to Minerva. She had been
telling everyone and anyone who would listen about her aunt’s
missing jewels that disappeared from the corpse the day before she
was buried. The number of times that stupid woman came back to my
parlour demanding that I check again to see if I had
them.”

“
You stole them and sold them on.” Harriett shook her head
slowly while her mind raced in a hundred different directions. In
spite of the fear, and the cold, she had stopped trembling and was
now beyond being able to do anything except function on a most
basic level. She was sucked into a desperate need to stay alive
now, and couldn’t focus on anything apart from the horrifying
details he relayed to her.

“
Of course I did. My business has been struggling for years. I
got dragged into the funeral business by my ridiculous father. I
told him that we would not make much in the way of trade in Tipton
Hollow, but he refused to relocate to Great Tipton. By the time he
died we were damned near destitute. I got by and did the best I
could, but that damned place has been gradually sucking me under
for years. The banks are threatening to foreclose and I couldn’t
charge customers any more. There is very little in the way of spare
money around these days, you know that. I had to make extras where
I could.”

“
So you have been stealing from the dead, trading goods they
cannot report as missing and making yourself profits far beyond
your business.” Harriett was horrified. Stealing from the dead was
about the most debased thing she had ever heard of. The depths to
which he had sunk filled her with a new understanding of just how
far this man would go to protect his means, including
murder.