Midnight in Austenland
Page 26

Yes! She was! They’d been playing Bloody Murder in a dark and creepy old house and she’d fallen into a secret room and naturally there’d been a dead body. Well, she’d only seen the hand. Now that she thought about it, the hand had felt odd. Not that she’d ever encountered a real corpse before, but did they all feel so … so rubbery? It had seemed to be attached to something, and she’d assumed it had been a body, and again had assumed that the deceased person had been murdered and hidden away. Wow, she had assumed quite a bit. But if it hadn’t been real, then why was it gone? Why would someone put a prop corpse on a couch in a secret room and then move it between midnight and morning?
“I … think so.”
“Mrs. Wattlesbrook is sensitive. If you call the police, and they come search the house and find nothing, well, it will be disruptive and very hard on her. I just want you to be certain.”
“I’ll think about it,” she said. “Maybe I should just talk to her first.”
He nodded and, seeing she intended to go about her business immediately, went to the dining room alone.
Charlotte found Mrs. Wattlesbrook working at a desk in the morning room.
“Mrs. Wattlesbrook, do you have a moment?” she asked.
The woman gestured to a seat and put on a patient face. An impatient sort of patient face, like an impatient face dressing up as a patient one for Halloween. Charlotte decided to speak quickly.
“Last night while we were … um, playing … Bloody Murder …” Charlotte almost whispered the last two words. For some reason, they filled her with shame. “Well, I was alone and I stumbled into a room without a real door on the second floor, and I just wanted to make sure you were aware of its existence.”
“Of course I am aware. This house has been a part of my husband’s family for generations. The Wattlesbrooks have always been eccentric. Some ancestor probably had the room’s door disguised as a good joke. I use it for storage.” She sniffed. “I assure you that the rest of the house is kept properly and am sorry you were exposed to our less-than-regal side.”
“No, it’s fine, really. I mean, I’m not a stickler for well-ordered drawers.” She tried to smile companionably, but the woman didn’t return it. “Oh, I meant ‘drawers’ as in the things you open, not, like, underwear, because clean and tidy underwear is a passion of mine!” Really, Charlotte? she thought. Is it really? Is that a statement you want defining you? Charlotte cleared her throat and looked down, begging herself to shut up. This ghost-hand business really had her flustered. “Have you been there recently?”
“Not in a month at least, I should think. Why?”
“It’s just, when Mr. Grey and I went in this morning—”
“You should not be alone with any gentleman in a closed room.”
“But he’s my brother.”
Mrs. Wattlesbrook sniffed. “Quite.”
“So … so when we were there, I realized that something wasn’t there anymore.” What could she say? I wonder, Mrs. Wattlesbrook, if you find yourself missing a corpse this morning? Do you perhaps know if someone was recently murdered and stashed in your storage room? Perhaps you could count heads and take pulses amongst your staff and see if anyone happens to be dead?
She met Mrs. Wattlesbrook’s eyes and said boldly, “I can’t be sure, but I might have seen a dead body in there last night.”
Mrs. Wattlesbrook’s look turned white hot. Charlotte cringed. Then, even worse, Mrs. Wattlesbrook tried to smile through her rage. It was like watching an alligator make a kissy face.
“I let Colonel Andrews indulge in his games because my guests seem to find them amusing,” she said slowly. “But let me be frank: I prefer not to take part.”
No concern over the implication of a murder in her house? The woman was often severe, but this morning she seemed beyond. As Beckett would say, Who peed in her Cheerios?
“Mrs. Wattlesbrook, are you all right?”
Mrs. Wattlesbrook’s forehead creased, but she looked back at her papers. “Quite so.” She began to write.
Charlotte felt invisible. She whispered something that might have been “thank you” or “I’ll just go now,” or possibly “Moses supposes his toeses are roses.” She curtsied as she left, though no one saw.
The gentlemen and ladies were in the dining room, chatting over breakfast. Mr. Mallery watched her enter, his expression unreadable. Charlotte smiled and hurried to the sideboard, looking for something without grease. Her stomach couldn’t take it today.
“You gave us all a fright last night, Mrs. Cordial,” said Colonel Andrews. “With your dead body and screams fit to wake it. I say, you put a twist on old Bloody Murder. Well done.”
Charlotte smiled politely. He glanced around, as if to check that no one was observing him, and then winked at Charlotte. Winked as if they were in on the same joke, and gave her a little conspiratorial nod to boot.
Charlotte sat as realization descended on her like an alien’s tractor beam. Of course. How could she be such a doofus? It had been part of the mystery of Mary Francis! Mrs. Wattlesbrook said it was the colonel’s game and she didn’t want to take part. Colonel Andrews had hinted about clues on the second floor. She had discovered the room. There would be clues inside. The rubbery hand had been part of a fake corpse, and he’d carried it off before she could examine it by light of day and see just how phony it was.
But it’d been a fleshy dead body, not a skeleton, so Colonel Andrews hadn’t intended for her to believe it was the corpse of Mary Francis centuries later. This was an entirely new mystery perhaps.
Whose body was it supposed to be?
None of the players, of course. Mallery, Andrews, Eddie, Miss Charming, and Miss Gardenside had all been in the drawing room when she went upstairs. And Mrs. Wattlesbrook was accounted for this morning.
“Is Mr. Wattlesbrook still around?” Charlotte asked.
Someone at the other end of the table clattered a dish. Charlotte looked up but couldn’t tell if it had been Mr. Mallery, Mr. Grey, or Miss Gardenside.
“No,” Colonel Andrews said, frowning. “I have not seen him. Have you, Grey?”
“Not since yesterday,” Eddie said a little stiffly. “Perhaps he went to town.”
“Nothing to keep him here.” Mr. Mallery was busy with his bread and butter. “He was as useless for society in the drawing room as he was for fetching game in the hunting field.”