Chapter Eight

The guests have left. There really wasn't any way for McCreadie to detain them. More officers have only just now shown up, and we don't yet live in a world where a detective can say "There's been a murder. No one leaves until I say they leave" and expect any member of the upper crust to listen.

Instead, McCreadie has focused on the staff. The butler and the housekeeper have gathered everyone into a room for questioning. It's easy to tell them to stay. And if the guests are outraged that no one is around to find their coat or hold the door or call their coach? Well, they're welcome to talk to the police while they wait. No one takes McCreadie up on that offer.

I've conveyed Lady Christie's statements to McCreadie, and he's sent a groom to check whether the ship arrived. That's fifty percent courtesy to Lady Christie and fifty percent acknowledgment that if Sir Alastair is dead and his brother-in-law is missing, the answer for that might not be "coincidence."

I itch to help Gray with Sir Alastair's body. I did pop in to see whether he needs me. He didn't say no, but he does say that McCreadie needs me more, and he's right there. Again, my former career supersedes my new one.

McCreadie needs to question the staff quickly, and Gray is in no hurry, with Addington having already told him to convey the body to the funerary parlor, where he'll conduct the autopsy in the morning. The first time Addington did this, I was appalled. The second time, I was only annoyed on behalf of the deceased, whose death didn't even warrant a sleepless night for the police surgeon. Now, I must admit it works in Gray's favor, allowing him to do all but the internal examination before Addington gets his paws on the victim. In fact, if every murder victim died at night, I'd see it as a blessing for Edinburgh law enforcement.

I leave Gray to his work and help McCreadie with putting together a timeline.

We know the body wasn't moved until after the party began. The footmen who carried it in confirmed that it was eight thirty before they did so. The mummy had been stored in the "artifact room"—a windowless chamber that acts as storage for anything Sir Alastair brings home from his excavations.

Are the artifacts on display tonight usually stored in there?

Yes, but the staff says they were moved out this morning, which was the last time anyone saw Sir Alastair, as he supervised the removal. Afterward the room was closed until the footmen entered to remove the mummy.

Closed? Or locked?

It'd been locked that morning. Sir Alastair needed to unlock it for the footmen, as he had the only key. Once they were done removing the artifacts, he relocked it, and one of them witnessed this. Yet when they went to retrieve the mummy, the artifact room was unlocked, which led them to believe Sir Alastair was at home. They presumed he'd opened it for them, knowing they would need access to the mummy.

So the artifacts on display had been removed while Sir Alastair was still at home. Then the door was locked and the only key returned to his pocket.

That happened shortly after nine in the morning. The door was not touched again until eight thirty at night, no one on the staff having any reason to check it in the interim.

It would take a long time to unwrap a mummy and rewrap a body with the bandages. How long? That might require some scientific experimentation. It would likely be hours, though, meaning the nearly twelve hours between that door being locked and reopened should be more than sufficient if you knew you'd be undisturbed. All you had to do was lock the door while you were in there and leave it unlocked when you left.

And who could rewrap the mummy? Did that require special skills? Or could anyone manage it well enough? We'd noted the mummy had seemed in rough shape, which might be a result of amateur rewrapping. We'll need to speak more to someone who'd seen it while it still contained the mummified remains.

Sir Alastair was with the footmen after his wife and the children left for their walk. Then he locked the artifact room. So who saw him last? No one's sure, and I'm not surprised by that. The staff would be intent on their work. They aren't exactly checking their nonexistent wristwatches for the time.

They know Sir Alastair was here when his wife left. They know she was still gone when he was last seen. Breakfast was served at seven. Lady Christie and the children left at about eight thirty and returned "late morning." I need to ask her when they returned from their walk, though she might not know the exact time either.

None of the staff report anything unusual in Sir Alastair's behavior.

"He actually seemed in good spirits, miss," one of the maids says. "Which surprised us because we all knew he did not care to host the party."

"Were there arguments over it?"

"Arguments?" Her eyes round as if I'd said something vulgar. "Lady Christie does not argue. She is far too sweet-tempered. Now the first Lady Christie—"

When she stops herself, I say, "Anything you can tell me is helpful information for catching His Lordship's killer. It is not rumor or tittle-tattle."

"I mean no offense to the first Lady Christie. I liked her a great deal. I have been blessed to have two fine mistresses. But the first Lady Christie was like her daughter." The maid's eyes sparkle. "She's a right firecracker, that one. Ran Sir Alastair to distraction, but Lady Christie knows how to handle Miss Phoebe, just as her mother did. I have heard Lady Christie tell Sir Alastair that spirited fillies should be cherished, not broken, and I thought how proud the first Lady Christie would be to hear that. But what I was saying was that the first Lady Christie had a temper, but she was not ill-tempered, if you take my meaning."

"A spirited mare who had not been broken."

The maid smiles. "Yes, that is it. Sir Alastair did not always seem to know what to do with her, much like their daughter."

"He didn't argue back?"

"He is not that sort of man. When she became angry, he would leave."

"Leave or flee?"

"He made it seem like leaving, but he was fleeing, miss. Not that he feared her tongue, but he liked a quiet household. I always thought that with the second Lady Christie, he would stay at home more, as she kept things quiet for him. But he did not."

Because what he wanted wasn't a quiet household. It was a solitary life where he could focus all his attention on his passions. People were an interruption, even if they were family.

"So when you say you knew he didn't want tonight's demonstration…"

"Just because Sir Alastair did not like to argue does not mean he held his tongue, miss. Not when he was feeling peevish. He did not wish to host tonight's party, but Lord Muir insisted, and Lady Christie was left to smooth the waters, lest it cost him his patron. Sir Alastair could never seem to understand that he needed Lord Muir if he wished to continue his work. The master was a brilliant man, miss, but in some things, people like him…" She shrugs. "Well, they are not terribly sensible."

Because it is frustrating—and insulting—for a scientist to be expected to entertain like a circus dog. In this, I have sympathy for Sir Alastair. But I have more sympathy for Lady Christie, who was "sensible" and understood that just because her husband shouldn't need to pander to his sponsor didn't mean he didn't need to do it.

"I think he may have also been seeking a new patron because of it," the maid says. "I heard him mutter to Lady Christie that he might not need to put up with Lord Muir's obligations for much longer. She asked why, and he would only say that he'd had enough of this nonsense."

I ask the maid more questions, mostly because she's answering them. If you find a chatty witness, you get everything you can out of them, because others won't be so talkative.

It helps that there don't seem to be any household problems the maid might be reluctant to discuss. Sir Alastair was too caught up in his work to be much bother to the staff. Lady Christie was exacting but also considerate and kind enough to compensate for it. The children were children. Phoebe was a handful, but a good-hearted girl who did as she was told… eventually. Michael got up to just as much mischief, but he also kept Phoebe in check.

Sir Alastair treated his wife and children well. Lady Christie was devoted to the children, and they to her. For a recently blended family, there was surprisingly little friction, probably because they had all known one another for years.

I talk to a few other members of the staff after that, but the only piece of tittle-tattle I get is that two of the staff were released when the Christies returned from Egypt last year, with the former governess and her son elevated to family. One maid and the underbutler did not treat the new arrivals with the proper respect, and they were let go, as much for their behavior, I suspect, as a warning to the others.

Sir Alastair expected his new wife and son to be treated as well as his first wife and daughter, and anyone who had a problem with that would be let go with a month's wages. It was handled firmly but fairly, and while I do take the names of the two staff members, I'm assured that they already had new positions and left without a fuss.

McCreadie and I are in the small sitting room where Isla had sat with Lady Christie, it being the only room where we can speak in private. We compare information. Nothing from his interviews contradicts mine. No one saw Sir Alastair since before Lady Christie and the children returned, and no one went into the artifact room again until after the party was underway.

"So the killer had time to make a mummy," I say. "Strangle Sir Alastair. Get his body into the artifact room."

"If he wasn't already there."

"Good point. That'd make it easier. Get him in there or come in while he's there."

"Which would not be difficult." McCreadie pauses as footsteps pass the closed door. Then he continues, "Sir Alastair could have gone in to check something for tonight's event or he could have been taken in to check something. And if the murder was not premeditated, then the killer decided to use what was at hand to hide the body."

"The staff said Sir Alastair locked the door after they removed the artifacts, but that it was unlocked when the footmen went to get the mummy. So Sir Alastair locks it, and either is surprised in there by his killer or taken there by his killer. You haven't seen the artifact room yet, have you?"

"I was waiting for you before we searched the house. We should start there, though."

We rise from our chairs and head into the hall.

"We will need a guide for the house," McCreadie says as we walk. "Did any of the staff strike you as particularly suitable for such a task? Excellent knowledge of the house and unlikely to break down emotionally?"

"I can help you," a voice says before I can answer. It's a small voice, hesitant, and we turn to see Michael hovering in a doorway.

"I know the house better than most of the servants," Michael says. "And I… I have not broken down yet. Phoebe is very upset, understandably, and I thought it best if I leave her with my mother. I liked Sir Alastair a great deal, but he is not my father." He meets our eyes, one after the other, with a look that is almost challenging, as if expecting to see something there.

"All right," I say carefully.

"He is not," he says as he moves closer. "You may hear that he is, and that is a lie. People think that because my mother and Lady Christie were schoolmates, and I look as if I have English blood, and we all lived together… They draw conclusions."

His jaw sets, and I realize he isn't disavowing Sir Alastair as his dad, but as his biological father.

"My father was in the British diplomatic service," Michael says. "He was English. He died when I was three, and then my mother went to work for Lady Christie."

"Understood," I say. "If we hear anything to the contrary, we will ignore it as rumor."

That's not entirely true. If it's mentioned in any credible way that affects the investigation, we'd need to confirm it, but I also understand how lurid minds would concoct such a story. Two female friends have children around the same age? One is a brown-skinned governess with a son who seems half white? Clearly the children share a father, and then they're all living together, and what a deliciously naughty bit of speculation is that?

"I can show you about the house, if you would like," Michael says. "Or I can tell you which of the servants would know it best, though even they do not know all the hidey-holes."

I smile. "Grown-ups never know all the hidey-holes. If you feel quite up to it, we would appreciate your services. Could we begin in the artifact room?"