Page 110 of Disturbing the Dead
His eyes warm at that. “It is good to have you back, Mallory.”
“Good to be back, even if it now means I’ll almost certainly pay the price by dying of something easily curable in my own time. Also, since I’m apparently staying, I really need to teach Mrs. Wallace how to make a cappuccino.” I peer into my cup. “At least a decent café au lait.”
“Coffee and milk?”
“Can’t be too hard, right? Speaking of Mrs. Wallace…” I sober. “Is she okay?”
“She suffered a blow to her head and… she has not been herself. For a few moments, I almost wondered if it was like you, that she was literally not herself. She is. She’s just… distracted. When I told her you were awake, she went very quiet. She only asked if I was certain you were not Catriona. I said yes, beyond any doubt.”
“I told her the truth in the tunnels. We had an… altercation.”
He stiffens. “Did she threaten you?”
“No, no,” I lie. “Her concern was for you and Isla and Alice. In the end, I didn’t confess to save my life. I just got frustrated and said screw it. I told her the truth.”
He blinks.
“Yep,” I say. “Pretty sure I’ll end up regretting that. I need to be more careful.” Especially since I’ve now told someone with reason to use it against me. “It was a spur-of-the-moment bad decision.”
“We will handle it,” he says firmly. “I will ensure she knows that if she misuses that information, she is betraying my trust. Mine and Isla’s.”
“Anyway, that’s when Muir knocked her out. She’d trapped me halfway backed out of a hole, so when Muir grabbed me, I figured it was her. Then I saw him. Also, for the record, he did the same thing to me that Sir Alastair’s killer did. Put his foot on my back for leverage.”
Gray’s eyes narrow. “Making him a suspect for Sir Alastair’s murder as well.”
“Except Muir has confirmed alibis for the entire time the murder could have taken place. Also, framing Selim means he likely copied the murder on purpose. Would he have known how exactly Sir Alastair died?”
“I believe so, as our supposition about the method made its way into the papers.”
“Damn. Okay, so he copied it to frame Selim further. Back to my attempted murder then. It seems Muir went down there to retrieve the stowed antiquities, saw Mrs. Wallace facing the other direction, knocked her out, and then…”
Gray takes a quick belt from his whisky glass. “Saw an opportunity.”
“Me with my butt sticking out of a hole, easy to grab, strangle in the same manner as Sir Alastair, and then blame Selim for both deaths.”
“Yes.”
“Has anything else been uncovered while I was unconscious?”
“Hugh has been focused on Selim Awad, naturally, both locating him and seeking a motive for him to murder Sir Alastair. The obvious one is the stolen antiquities, yet Hugh would need to prove Selim stole them, which seems increasingly unlikely. While I was tending to you, I turned my attention to the objects found under Florence King’s mattress. I do not see how they are connected but…” He shrugs as he cuts off a piece of cold ham. “I needed something to occupy my mind.”
“Did you solve the cipher?”
“I did. It would, however, be more satisfying if the letter turned out to be anything of importance. It was study notes.”
“Study notes? Like for Florence’s exams?”
“It seems so. It was nothing more than a list of questions for self-study.”
“So why write it out in a cipher?”
“That is the question. I fear, however, that the answer is simple—someone was practicing a cipher and used the study notes. As for the key, Lady Christie was kind enough to allow me to send Simon to the house, where he tested it in every lock. I fear we have stolen a key that has no use to anyone except Florence King.”
“And if it turns out to be her only key to something, we’re going to feel really shitty. We’ll need to get it back to her once this is over. So the key and the cipher—along with Mrs. King herself—are red herrings.”
His brows rise.
I take a bite of cheese before explaining, “Clues that aren’t related to the case and distract us from it. If I recall correctly, the phrase comes from the strong smell of herring, which could be used to hide another scent. In this case, on the positive side, they weren’t completely useless clues. Lord Muir probably intended to send us on a wild-goose chase when he accused Florence King of the murder, but without following up there, we might never have known that Lord Muir was using his leverage with Sir Alastair against the young women.”
