“Yes, well . . .” Chief Inspector Fairbotham coughed at this un-British display of emotion.

“That will be all, Marcel,” Edwina said sharply. As he left the room she said, “The sooner that young man is out of this house, the better. If you want my advice, Jack, you will find yourself a reliable English valet, not some flighty foreigner.”

“Ah, but Mama, my French maid is wonderful,” Irene said. “She has a way with clothes that no English girl ever had.”

She was silenced by Edwina’s withering look.

“Is that all, Chief Inspector?” Edwina asked.

“For now, Your Grace. My men will test anything the duke might have drunk from. When we know exactly what poison killed him, then we’ll be able to take the next step.”

“Maybe now somebody will take the attempt on my life seriously,” Irene said. “It’s obvious that the same person who poisoned Cedric tried to kill me.”

“I don’t see what more we can do in your case, Countess,” Fairbotham said, “since you didn’t remember how many packets of sleeping draft you had in the first place. Of course, someone could have acquired an extra packet or two, from a doctor in London, maybe . . . but my men came up with no unidentifiable fingerprints on your glass or in your bathroom.”

“Just as there were no fingerprints on that knife!” Irene said, wagging a finger at him. “You see, we’re dealing with a clever killer, Chief Inspector.”

“Certainly with a thorough killer,” Fairbotham said. “He hasn’t made any slips yet, but he will. They always do.”

“I presume that this now rules out my former footman, who you are holding,” Edwina said. “I see no way that anyone outside this house could have poisoned my son.”

“We’ve already let him go,” Fairbotham said.

I had a question that had suddenly occurred to me. I hesitated to ask it in front of all these people, but it had to be asked. “Chief Inspector,” I said. He was about to leave but turned back to me. “Did your men manage to find the letter the duke posted that morning?”

“They did not. There was no letter from the duke in that postbox.”

“That must mean that the person who found him dead on the path took the letter from him.”

“It would certainly seem that way,” he said. “So we must presume that the letter has been destroyed, and we’ll never know what it contained. Unless anyone was foolish enough to hang on to it. But that was smart thinking of you, Lady Georgiana. I’ll have my men go through the rubbish.”

With that, he left.

Chapter 31

Chapter 31

“Well, that’s a turn-up for the books,” Darcy muttered to me as Fairbotham left the room. “You were spot on with your observation that something wasn’t right.”

“I wonder who stabbed Cedric’s body with Jack’s knife,” I said. “Such a horrid, spiteful thing to do.”