Farewell Blues: A Lady Adelaide Mystery

by Maggie Robinson

Genres: Mystery

Synopsis

Lady Adelaide Compton had prepared herself to say good-bye forever to Detective Inspector Devenand Hunter. It would be a welcome relief not to get mixed up in any more murders, even if it meant never working alongside the handsome detective again...wouldn't it? 

But then Addie's prim and proper mother, Constance, the Dowager Marchioness of Broughton, is accused of murdering her secret lover, and there can't be enough gentlemen detectives on hand to find the truth. The dead Duke of Rufford appeared to lead a blameless life, but appearances can be deceiving. And unless Addie and Dev work together, Constance will hang - which is no one's idea of a happy ending.

Release date: September 14, 2021

Publisher: Dreamscape Media, LLC

Sample

Chapter One

Mount Street, London

A Monday morning towards the end of June 1925

Mama was in gaol. Four words Lady Adelaide Compton never expected to string together. In fact, at the moment she could barely think or speak at all.

But the ghost of her dead husband, Rupert, was making up for Addie’s baffled brain and syllabic silence. He stormed about the bedroom of her London pied-à-terre, tying and untying his maroon foulard tie in frustration.

Addie had buried him in that tie in just short of a year and a half ago, and she had agonized over which one to choose—her late husband had been something of a clotheshorse, and she was spoilt for choice. She never expected to see the tie again (or Rupert, for that matter) once his coffin was ensconced in the Compton family crypt in Gloucestershire, and she was rather bored with it now. It was taking Rupert a veritable eternity to winkle his way into Heaven, even after performing several good deeds as reparation for his wicked ways on Earth.

“I ask you, Addie, what have I done to deserve this?” he said, not waiting for an answer, for he probably knew exactly what she’d tell him, and at great length, too. “It’s not my fault things ended the way they did on Saturday. I was so close to Heaven, sooo close. I could hear the trumpets and practically taste the clouds. Apricot custard with a dash of almond extract, by the way, in case you’re interested. Though I imagine yours might taste different. I understand Heaven is an individualized experience, but at this rate I’ll never find out! It’s so unfair! I solved your last case, didn’t I? Well, most of it. You would have been rid of me forever if your bloo—uh, blessed mother did not go and shoot the Duke of Rufford.”

This stirred Addie to speech. “She didn’t. She couldn’t have.”

Rupert collapsed on her bed. “Well, I suppose not, if I’ve been summoned to your side again. Damn it, Addie! I know I was a cad when I was alive, but you must give me some credit for improving! Can’t you put in a good word somehow?”

“To whom would I speak?” asked Addie, genuinely curious. She said her bedtime prayers just like anybody else. Someone should have picked up the fact by now that she wished to be rid of her husband for good.

“I only wish I knew. The hierarchy is still a bit of a puzzle to me.” He tucked all her pillows under his head, and Addie worried about hair oil residue on her silk pillowcases. How could she explain that to her maid, Beckett? Addie had lived like a nun for years now, and her one attempt to change that status had ended in humiliation.

“I’ll never be perfect,” Rupert continued. Addie knew an egregious understatement when she heard one. “Do you know what those rugmaker chappies do in Arabia? They deliberately make a mistake in the patterns because only Allah is without flaw.”

Addie filed that nugget away. Despite the best efforts of her teachers at Cheltenham Ladies’ College, she had resisted becoming a bluestocking upon graduation at seventeen—and after—as her mother had always told her men didn’t like women who were smarter than they were.

And now look where Mama was!

Addie hoped Mr. Hunter could get her out as soon as possible. Imagining Mama behind bars was completely beyond her. Lady Broughton had been the properest of people for fifty-two years. Addie thought even as a child her mother knew precisely what to do under all circumstances. Instead of a primer, she’d probably learned to read with a Debrett’s. As a toddler, she might have known the order of precedence at a dinner party. Which fork to use. How to address a duke, which must have come in handy now that Mama was all grown up and having an affair with one.

Addie picked up her own Debrett’s and searched the Rs. Rufford. There were inches of titles, political appointments, and clubs for the man. Along with several far-flung properties, the principal family seat was so far up in Northumberland it was practically in Scotland, and he lived in Maddox Street when in Town.

She had never met him, had never even heard of him until her sister, Cecilia, arrived in her pin curls and pajamas at Compton Chase yesterday morning to tell her their mother had been arrested. It was true that Mama was a fair shot, even though she was so nearsighted, but then the duke must have been quite close at hand.

It was galling to think her mother was having more success with a man than she was. But then, success was moot if the object of her mother’s affection was dead.

“Tell me what you know about the crime,” Addie said to Rupert. According to Cee, Mama was found—wearing only a bloodstained peignoir—in a suite at the Ritz, standing over the body of the dead duke. To make matters worse, she held a pistol. Her very own, with the Broughton coat of arms engraved on the handle. Addie’s father gifted it to her mother on their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, which showed great confidence that he didn’t expect her to shoot him. One thing led to another, and Lady Broughton and her gun were carted away by the police.

Rupert sat up and sniffed. “Why do you presume I have any of the pertinent facts? It’s not as if I had much preparation. I’ve gone straight from the frying pan into the fire.”

“Do you know anything at all about Rufford, then?” If Rupert was here, he must make himself useful somehow.

“I did meet him a few times. He was a good thirty years older than I, so that would make him somewhere in his sixties. He is—was—a widower twice over, with a child from each union. I knew his daughter, Penny, better than his son, Alistair, and no, before you ask, I did not know her in the Biblical sense. She’s got a face like—well, I won’t insult her; she’s a good egg. The poor thing must be mourning—she was very fond of her papa. Not so fond of her older brother, or his wife, Elaine, who’s an established beauty, and rather a bitch, if I may say so without getting struck by lightning.”

Addie found Penny on the page. “‘Daughters living—Penelope Ariadne. m. Graf Franz von Mayr.’ A German?” she asked. That must have made the family’s Christmas dinners interesting during the war years.

“Austrian. You mustn’t mix the two countries up—they may speak the same language, but that’s as far as it goes. National pride on both sides, too much of it, to be frank. Penny and Franz are separated, and the children are here with her. They’re hardly children anymore, though—they must be eighteen at least.”

“‘Sons living—Alistair James Moreton, Marquess of Vere.’ He’s the sixth duke now, I suppose.” She didn’t know him, either, or his wife. “Was Rufford, uh, nice?”

“Who, Alistair? Wangled out of the war like a treasonous weasel. He’s a complete prat.”

“No, no. His father.” The man must have attracted Addie’s mother in some significant way—she’d been true to the memory of her late husband for five years. Addie was convinced that before this secret affair, her mother had never even kissed another man except for Herbert Merrill, Marquess of Broughton. She’d married at eighteen, and Addie arrived soon after, her sister, Cee, six years after that. Alas, there was no son to carry on the marquessate, and Addie’s distant cousin, Ian, succeeded to the title.

Rupert shrugged. “He was all right. He was a duke. You know the type. Dictatorial. Dismissive of the hoi polloi. Thought his own sh—uh, excrement was not odoriferous. I’m surprised he gave me the time of day.”

That sounded nothing like Addie’s father. He’d been a genial sportsman who got along with just about every living creature, especially his dogs and horses.

“I wonder how long they’d been seeing each other,” Addie ruminated. “She never breathed a word.”

“Well, she wouldn’t, would she? This is your mother we’re talking about. Her standards are impossibly high, and you’ve been terrified of her all your life. She wasn’t about to admit she was off on a dirty weekend.”

More like a dirty week. Addie’s mother left the Dower House last Monday and had not been heard from since.

“I wonder what’s keeping Mr. Hunter.” He, Mama’s solicitor, Mr. Stockwell, and a criminal defense barrister engaged for the purpose were negotiating her freedom right this very minute.

“Red tape. Forms in quadruplicate. Perhaps he’ll have to leave a kidney behind for collateral.”

“Don’t joke, Rupert.”

“Who says I’m joking? The Metropolitan Police Force will not want to look as though they’re playing favorites. If your mother was not a marchioness, there’d be no hope of getting her out of the pokey. As it is—” Rupert shrugged.

“As it is what?”

“Don’t bite my head off, but I don’t believe you can count on your favorite detective for her release. There might be sinister forces at work.”

This was not at all what Addie wanted to hear, especially the “favorite detective” part. “What do you mean? She’s already been there a whole day and night!”

“Vere—Rufford now—is an ugly customer. But he knows everyone, and is a particular friend of the Prince of Wales. Don’t get your hopes up.”

“Why haven’t I heard of these people?” Addie asked, beyond frustrated. “It’s not as if dukes grow on trees as they do in romance novels.”

“You’ve been out of the country, buried in the country, and before that, there was a war on. Before that, you were a virginal innocent, a veritable child. Penny’s a bit older than you are, and she went off to Vienna as a very young bride—she didn’t even have a debut. It was quite a scandal at the time; Franz basically kidnapped her, though she went quite willingly. He’s a handsome devil, quite tall, piercing blue eyes, blond curls, just the sort who looks good in a uniform and even better out of it. You were probably still at school when he lured her away.”

Addie had no recollection of such an event, and Debrett’s would certainly not be forthcoming about it. “Weren’t her parents upset? I thought you said she was close to her father.” Addie would never have dared to defy the Marquess and Marchioness of Broughton in that fashion.

“Her mother was dead. And you know what they say—lust conquers all,” Rupert said. If anyone knew that, he would.

Though sometimes it didn’t last, which was apparently the case with Penelope Ariadne.

“I take it her marriage is troubled.”

“Isn’t everyone’s?” sighed Rupert. “I believe Franz is in Town trying to patch things up. But that’s really all I can tell you of the Moreton family. I’ve been out of the social set lately, as you well know.”

Bah. What was the point of a spiritual guide when the spirit couldn’t guide? Addie didn’t see how Rupert could help them at all. But he washere. And he’d been proven to be obliging in the past, sneaking around undetected, eavesdropping, gathering information, and stopping murderers in their tracks. If he could find the duke’s real killer, she might even kiss him again before she sent him on his way to redemption.

Chapter Two

Monday afternoon, Scotland Yard

The commissioner had been adamant. Constance Merrill, Lady Broughton, was going nowhere until she arrived shackled before a judge in a courtroom for her trial, and no matter how many fancy solicitors and barristers turned up banging on her bars, that was that.

She’d been caught red-handed at the Ritz holding the murder weapon, her exalted family’s monogrammed device engraved onto the butt. There was the victim’s blood on the hem of her nightgown, to boot. What more could a jury ask for?

True, she’d said immediately that she didn’t shoot the duke but was trying to empty the chamber of bullets to prevent further catastrophe, but that’s what they all said. What was a bit of perjury compared to murder? Dev didn’t relish explaining all this to Lady Adelaide Compton, so he sent the lawyers on ahead to Mount Street while he hid in his office at the Yard and pored over the report.

Everything was straightforward.

And grim.

Sunday morning, a room service waiter had stumbled onto the scene—literally, as he’d tipped the cart and spilled its contents when he saw the dowager marchioness armed, and possibly still dangerous, standing by the body in the sitting room. The poor fellow had instructions to deliver breakfast at eight o’clock. When there was no reply to his discreet knock, he used a passkey to enter. His panicked shouts alerted two chambermaids gossiping in the hall, who called the house detective, who called the Metropolitan Police Force.

When Dev’s colleagues arrived, they met a soggy sea of coffee and cream, crushed strawberries, croissants, and embossed butter pats to step over. Lady Broughton was seated on a sofa, the house detective training his own pistol on her. The hotel doctor and the assistant manager were also present, presumably representing the interests of the Ritz and its late guest.

Apart from her original claim of innocence to the waiter, Lady Broughton refused to comment further. It was too bad this excellent self-preservation instinct had not prevented her from picking up the gun. Her gun.

It looked very bad for her.

Her lawyers were unsuccessful in quashing the story. Today’s morning papers were already having the time of their lives competing for lurid headlines. DUKE DEAD, MARCHIONESS MURDERESS? RITZ RENDEZVOUS ENDS RUFFORD. TOFF TOPPED, MISTRESS STOPPED. The mildest was: SOCIETY SCANDAL OF THE SEASON. More like the decade, maybe the century, Dev thought. It wasn’t every day a duke got gunned down in his Italian paisley pajamas.

When he had spoken with Lady Broughton last night in her cell, she’d been pale but composed. Even in an ugly gray prison-issued dress, with her fair curly hair scraped back, she exuded elegance. Dev had found her extremely formidable in their previous encounter last summer, and he continued to do so despite the current circumstances.

Shocking him to his socks, she told him she entrusted him with her life and was willing to engage him privately to find the proof of her innocence, sparing no expense. If he was agreeable, she had instructed her solicitor to advance him an absolutely outrageous sum to assist him with his inquiries. Dev had swallowed hard, and she took his silence as consent.

According to her, she was awakened by what must have been the shot. Thinking it was a car’s engine backfiring outside in the street, she drifted back to sleep, untroubled by the fact that Rufford was no longer beside her. He liked to rise early and read The Times from cover to cover. The newspaper was placed outside their door every morning around six, and had been strewn across the suite’s dining table when she awoke. She noticed the disordered paper before she saw the dead duke, who had been lying facedown on the fitted carpet. It was unlike him to be so cavalier with the finance section.

Lady Broughton turned him over immediately and just stopped herself from fainting. The gun was near his left hand. Her gun.

She’d looked at Dev with some defiance at these words. Why shouldn’t she have one? One never knew nowadays. Look at all the troublesome people her older daughter had encountered lately.

Dev rather thought she might be including him in this mangy lot.

One needed to be prepared for any twentieth-century eventuality, she continued. And it was a sentimental gift from her late husband, who always sought to protect her. She usually carried it in her purse, although she could not recollect the exact time she’d seen it nestled between her monogrammed handkerchief and her reading spectacles, which she never wore on principle unless she was signing a legal document.

Her vanity was probably her only fault.

She presumed the gun had been in her bag—why would it not be? Lady Broughton had not left the suite except to get her hair done at the hotel’s hairdresser every morning, and usually did not bring her handbag down with her. The duke kept several engagements during their stay, business meetings and such, but mostly they’d been alone in the privacy of their rooms.

Dev noted she blushed at this confession.

Her first thought was that Edmund had killed himself, although it seemed highly out of character. In her experience during their “friendship”—Dev heard the quotation marks—the man was not one to feel melancholy. He was straightforward and rather old-school, with standards that might be a trifle severe for the decadent decade they were living through but were a welcome relief to her. As far as she knew, he had unexceptional relations with his family, all of them living under one roof most of the year in a Northumberland castle.

However, one of his grandsons troubled him to a degree. The boy was seeing an unsuitable woman, but that’s as much as Lady Broughton knew—the duke never explained or complained except when it came to politics, and then he became a bit of a bore, though she disliked speaking ill of the dead. She had no interest in government, although she did exercise her recently acquired right to vote, for all the good it did.

Dev explained it was impossible for him to quit his job, but he would do everything in his power to see that her case was handled fairly. The trouble was, it wasn’t his case. He’d been allowed to borrow the file from Detective Inspector Phillip Barnes’s desk only as a courtesy.

In Phil’s opinion, Constance, Lady Broughton, was as guilty as sin, and he’d investigated at least thrice as many murders as Dev in his long career. He was close to retirement age, and now could expect to go out with a bang with the Society Scandal of the Season. He warned Dev not to interfere, and it would be tricky indeed to get at the kind of information he needed to clear Lady Adelaide’s mother without stepping on departmental toes.

Dev copied the limited information into his notebook. The only fingerprints on the gun belonged to the dowager marchioness. The bullet retrieved during the autopsy matched those Lady Broughton had removed. The duke was definitely dead and couldn’t assist with the inquiries.

Dev had no alternative. He’d have to send Lady Adelaide into harm’s way again to get to the truth. She could gain entry into to the duke’s circle, where he could not. It would be beyond awkward ingratiating herself with his family and friends, but if anyone could do it, she could. They could work out a line of questioning which wouldn’t appear too obvious.

He hoped.

In his spare time, he’d discreetly explore other possibilities. Trouble was, he had no spare time.

Perhaps he should ask for a leave of absence. Lord knows, he’d taken no vacation in years, not even after he was shot in March.

Well, shot wasn’t quite accurate—there had been very little blood, just a massive bruise on his chest that took a month to heal. But this weekend had taken a physical—as well as mental—toll on him. Apart from what he suspected was a dislocated shoulder, he wondered if he broke a rib when he fell off his horse on Saturday.

Fell wasn’t quite accurate, either—he’d been shot at again in pursuit of a murderer and tumbled like a trick rider in an American rodeo show.

Keeping company with Lady Adelaide was proving to be injurious to his health.

Dev wasn’t one to complain, either; his father was a shining example as to how one should conduct oneself at Scotland Yard. His work ethic had been ferocious, and was hard to live up to. But perhaps Dev should ask for time off to mend properly.

Who could imagine he’d be grateful to dodge bullets?

He would turn in the report on the Fernald case to his superiors today and apply for some respite. Let them think he was going away for a little while. As long as he kept his head down, there was every chance no one in the Yard would notice his interference, although he was hard to miss in the city’s sea of white faces. His Indian heritage would always announce him.

Two hours later, after a quick visit to the department quack, he had a taped-up torso, an arm in a sling, and his request for medical leave approved. Dev now had an entire two weeks to discover what happened between the Duke of Rufford and the Dowager Marchioness of Broughton, ...