The Marsh Madness

“But he’s not here to back up your story, is he?”


“I don’t understand what needs backing up.”

“How about your reason to be in an exclusive neighborhood where a body is found?”

I paused and calmed myself. “But I’m telling you. The butler saw us leave. Miss Troy said good-bye. They know we left.”

She leaned forward and flicked an invisible mote of dust from her cognac boots. Behind her Bad Cat watched and planned.

“Would it surprise you, Miss Bingham, to learn that there is no butler at Summerlea?”

She got me there.

“What?”

She shook her head, amused at the game. “No butler.”

“But there was a butler. We all saw him.”

“We have only your word for that.”

“Well, you have Vera’s.”

“She didn’t mention a butler.”

Of course she hadn’t. It was Vera. All she cared about was the books. “There was one. His name was Thomas. Miss Van Alst, as you may have observed, is not really a people person. She probably didn’t notice him. He’d be part of the background to her. But she must have mentioned Miss Troy.”

The dark eyes gleamed. “Miss Troy also didn’t rate a mention.”

“Vera probably didn’t mention the laws of gravity, but I’m pretty sure those still exist.”

“Good one,” she said with a throaty chuckle. “But obviously not good enough.”

“Vera must have told you about Chadwick Kauffman.”

“She did.”

“At least. That’s good.”

“Is it? It puts you and Miss Van Alst and the mysteriously absent Mr. Kelly in the presence of the victim without a single witness. Do you really think that’s good?”

“What do you mean ‘victim’? Wasn’t it an accident?”

“It appears not.”

“Well, there were witnesses. Two of them. Maybe Thomas didn’t bill himself as a butler. Maybe he was a valet or . . . some kind of personal assistant, but he was definitely there. Please get in touch with Miss Troy. She’ll confirm what I’m saying.”

She watched me with pleasant anticipation, her beautifully groomed eyebrows raised just a touch.

I sputtered, “All you need to do is ask her.”

“Well, I would, of course, but there’s only one problem with that.”

I slumped in my seat. Why was this so unsettling? “What problem?”

“There is no Miss Troy.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course there is. We saw her. We spoke to her. We shook her hand. She was nice, kind. Well organized.” I heard my voice trail off.

“The housekeeper and the staff of Mr. Kauffman’s business all confirm: no butler, no one named Thomas. No Miss Troy.”

I stared at her.

“They were there,” I said in a small voice. “She was very pretty.”

“Instead,” she went on, as if I’d said nothing, “you three were seen fleeing the property where Mr. Chadwick Kauffman was, apparently alone, right before his death.”

“Fleeing from what? We were not fleeing. That’s just the way, um, Mr. Kelly drives.”

“How about this: You were fleeing because Mr. Kauffman did not die from a fall. It appears he was killed by a blow to the head before he went down the stairs.”

“A blow to the head? Did he hit his head on something and then—?”

“Not much chance of that, is there?”

“I don’t know. But otherwise it means . . .”

“That’s right, Miss Bingham.”

I hadn’t finished. I couldn’t quite bring myself to say he’d been murdered.

She added, “And that means someone killed him.”

I shivered. “There must be a mistake.”

“No mistake.”

“Maybe he hit his head on a post and—”

“He didn’t.”

“But—”

“We have the weapon, and it wasn’t the staircase.”

I held up my hand. My stomach lurched. Murder? Murder and the people we believed were entertaining us turned out to be not real. Except they had been real. They’d been flesh and blood. They’d talked; they’d shaken hands. They had definitely been there.

“Murder?”

“Yes. Someone hit him hard enough to crack his skull.”

“His skull was cracked?”