The Moonlit Murders: A historical mystery page-turner (A Fen Churche Mystery Book 3) Fliss Chester (most read book in the world txt) 📖

as the dinner gong sounded. ‘Shall we take these in? Don’t know about you, but I’m famished and have been dreaming of some roast beef since Genie and I glanced at the day’s menu card when we searched the kitchens earlier.’

‘Right you are.’ James took his drink and followed her into the dining room, where the seating plan displayed on an easel at the entrance informed them that they would be dining with Mrs Archer, Eloise and a couple called the Nettletons.

‘Oh dear,’ Fen sighed and hoped she wouldn’t chill further under the glare of Mrs Archer.

‘Chin up, Fen.’ James placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘Could be worse. At least she can’t accuse you of stealing her gems to bolster your crumbling estate.’

The sombreness of the saloon had carried on into the dining room and Fen struggled to keep the conversation around the table jolly and upbeat. The Nettletons, it turned out, were an older couple. Mrs Nettleton was exceptionally smartly dressed and she glistened in a shimmering golden gown; a pearl choker adorned her neck and smart diamond barrettes held her thinning grey hair in a loose chignon. Her husband sported a rather striking sapphire tiepin and Fen noticed several times during the meal that Mrs Archer eyed up these treasures, as well as Fen’s own pearls and brooch. She had resisted the urge to say out loud that they weren’t stolen, but there was something in Mrs Archer’s gaze that told her, although she seemed jealous of Fen’s and the Nettletons’ accessories, she wouldn’t have given them houseroom on any normal day.

If jolly and upbeat had been Fen’s mission in the conversation stakes, she found herself hijacked as the chatter almost inevitably kept returning to the body in the lifeboat.

‘If he hasn’t become fish food already,’ declared Mr Nettleton, his knife jabbing the air as he spoke, ‘then I say he gets jettisoned into the Hudson as soon as we arrive. And good riddance to bad muck.’

‘Please, Mr Nettleton. It’s really not our place to decide what the fate of that poor man is now,’ Fen argued.

‘Poor man? Playing the victim is he now?’ The old man set his cutlery down and glared at Fen. ‘I didn’t lose two sons, two sons, to start paying my respects to some German sod.’

‘I don’t think a dead man can play a victim, sir,’ Eloise piped up, hoping, Fen thought, to help her out. But she was interrupted by none other than Mrs Archer, who unsurprisingly turned the conversation back to her stolen jewels.

‘If the police are called as soon as we touch land in New York, then I should hope they’d prioritise my case over the death of that man.’ Her suggestion was met with grunts of approval from Mr Nettleton.

‘Apparently the lifeboats were due to be removed once the ship docks in New York,’ Eloise spoke over the mutterings, and Fen was pleased by the change in tack of the conversation. ‘It seems there wasn’t enough varnish and paint in France after the war to give them a proper going-over, so the Americans are doing it.’

‘Good thing you found him now then, Fen,’ James said matter-of-factly, before forking a piece of roast beef, dripping with gravy, into his mouth.

‘I wish you’d never found him at all.’ Mrs Archer raised her voice across the table. ‘It’s been an unnecessary distraction from the hunt for my precious tiara. Aside from the financial value’ – she turned to the Nettletons, who seemed incredibly impressed by her – ‘there’s the fact that dear William gave it to me…’

‘She’ll bore them all to death now about Uncle William and his frequent trips to Cartier in her honour,’ Eloise whispered to Fen. ‘Let me guess, though, you’re more interested in finding out who killed that German guy than helping Aunt Mariella, aren’t you?’ She looked mischievous as she spoke.

‘I’m sure your aunt would rather I left it to the professionals, but—’

‘What she means,’ interrupted James, who leaned across Fen so that the chattering Nettletons and Mrs Archer couldn’t hear, ‘is that she’ll be like a bloodhound on a trail.’

Fen laughed. Neither of them were wrong. But her mind was elsewhere as James and Eloise chatted about New York society and various pros and cons of going to the Hamptons in the winter. Something Eloise had said earlier had rung a bell in her mind.

Though she managed to smile and nod and add a few words here and there to the discussions of those around her, her brain was mulling it over the whole time. Eloise mentioning the lifeboats had sparked a thought. Why would whoever killed Albert leave his body in one of the lifeboats? Why not throw him overboard and be done with it, as Mr Nettleton would wish? She’d not thought about the lifeboats as anything other than the scene of the murder, but perhaps there was more to it than that?

Fen smiled at James, who raised an eyebrow in query.

‘Five down,’ she whispered, not that anyone else around the table would understand her. ‘Five down.’

25

‘Go on then, Fen,’ James nudged her as they walked through to the saloon bar after dinner. Despite the rather macabre conversation, Fen had enjoyed the meal, the food part of it at any rate, immensely – a concentrated tomato consommé had been followed by the promised roast beef, complete with all the essential trimmings, including Yorkshire puddings and good, nose-clearing horseradish.

Pudding had been an Eton mess, which had tickled James’s fancy, as he’d admitted to the others around the table that never once when he was a boy at that famous school had they been treated to anything as indulgent as the concoction of whipped cream, crushed meringue and berries. Now he was gently cupping Fen’s elbow with his hand and obviously wanting an explanation for her cryptic words earlier.

‘Those lifeboats are being removed at New York,’ Fen said as a matter of fact. ‘That’s not usual though, is it?’

‘Not as far as I know.’