A Match Made for Murder Iona Whishaw (pride and prejudice read .TXT) 📖

“Let me ask you something,” Ivy Renwick said. The coffee and breakfast had arrived, and Consuela had organized them at a table by the window, where a small pot of geraniums set an incongruously cheerful tone. Ivy had attempted only a nibble of toast. “Who was that woman he was talking to?”

“Her name is Meg Holden. She and her husband are in the villa right beside us.”

“I see.” Ivy lit up another cigarette and then stubbed it out almost immediately, pushing the clay ashtray away. “I read recently these might not be good for me. I suppose I have to think of the baby.”

“Ivy . . .”

“I know. What did I mean? But it’s ridiculous, impossible. It’s just that his brother, well, Jack didn’t know the extent of it. I know that sounds crazy to say, but Ned confided in me . . . not that I wanted it, at all.” She shuddered theatrically and drew her peignoir close around her.

“Can you bear to talk about it?” asked Lane. If Ivy had information about her husband’s brother, she was going to have to tell the police. Lane would have to bring her to the idea.

“I was very sympathetic when Ned got home. He’d been wounded, though I never got the full extent of what happened. Jack wasn’t home yet. Ned used to come around sometimes to where I worked. Of course, they wouldn’t let him in because he behaved so erratically, and that made him angry. I had to ask him to come in the evening instead. It all started going sideways pretty quickly. He . . . he told me he was in love with me and got, well, maudlin, and then quite aggressive. I never had the heart to tell Jack about that part of it. Ned was falling apart on all fronts, drinking and so on, and Jane, that’s his wife, had left him. And then their father left the company in Jack’s charge.”

“Do you think it’s possible, Ned . . .” Lane didn’t finish the sentence.

“Killed him?” Ivy’s face crumpled again. She put down her coffee and reached for the napkin Consuela had brought with the eggs. “No, that’s ridiculous. I don’t see how. Anyway,” she hesitated, “he’s in Wisconsin.”

Lane noted Ivy’s denial of the possibility that her brother-in-law was responsible when he could, for example, have had him killed by someone else. She said, “You’re going to have to tell that detective what you’ve told me.”

“I know. I will. But what if it’s nothing to do with him? It will only make everything worse.”

“But if it’s not him, you’ll be happy to know that,” Lane said, “and the police can get on with the job of finding who really killed your husband.”

“What have you been up to?” Darling asked from his vantage point on the bed, where he had been reading, fully dressed, with his stocking feet crossed.

“Just making sure poor Ivy is all right. I feel sorry for her. She’s pregnant, poor thing, and she’s desperately unhappy because she hadn’t told Jack yet.”

“She told you that?” Darling marvelled at the way Lane seemed to manage to get people to confide in her.

“Well, she told me the other night at dinner.”

“I bet she did,” Darling said, with a touch of irony. “And, how is she coping?”

“Not well, and she’s afraid her brother-in-law may have something to do with it, though she denies it. But she did talk about him a bit more. He does sound unbalanced. Angry about his brother taking over the business, professing to be hopelessly in love with her. But before you say anything, I told her she had to tell the detective in charge,” Lane said. “Have you had breakfast?”

“No. I was waiting for you. And we’ll have to be quick about it. We’ve had a call from Galloway. He’s offered to have Priscilla drive us out to a famous mission church and she’s coming in just under an hour.”

“Oh,” she said. “Do you think it’s all right for us to go off? Will the police want to ask us anything else?”

“They need nothing more from you, and the sooner I get you away from here, the less likely you are to learn anything that will require us to be part of the police inquiry. This is in danger of fast becoming a busman’s honeymoon, to quote your favourite author.” Darling hopped off the bed, tucked in his shirt, and opened the door for Lane with exaggerated gallantry.

At their usual table under the ramada, Lane was delighted to see Consuela come around with the menus. “Darling, this is Miss Ruiz. You remember our cab driver? This is his sister. My husband, Inspector Darling.”

Consuela bobbed slightly. “You can call me Chela. Everyone does.”

Darling smiled at her. “Very nice to meet you, Chela. I thought your brother said you were on the cleaning staff?”

“Yes, but one of the girls is off sick so they asked me to step in. I think she was upset about . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she looked in the direction of the previous day’s drama.

“It was a terrible thing,” Lane said. “But thank you again for this morning.”

When Chela went off to collect their breakfasts, Darling said, “Galloway isn’t the only person I heard from. Ames put a call through as well. I thought it was too much to hope he was just going to see how we were getting on, though that would have been extremely impertinent. He’s got a peculiar death on his hands. He and the new man, Terrell, are investigating.”

“This holiday is becoming more busman-y by the minute. What’s it about?”

“Oh, no you don’t, you’re not getting your hooks into this one. He sends his best, by the way.”

Sergeant Martinez gazed at the notes he’d taken from the people at the inn, but his mind was elsewhere. Before the shooting, he’d been sitting in the interview room across from James A. Griffin