Chapter Seventeen

‘But is that really enough of a motive to kill?’ Johnnie asked, looking up from the list he’d been making in his neat script in his small policeman’s notebook.

Dahlia smiled. ‘Oh, Johnnie. It’s not for us to say what is motive enough for another person. What might be a minor annoyance to us could mean murder to someone else – and vice versa. A person’s motives – and their emotions – are always unfathomable to those of us on the outside.’

Dahlia Lively in Flowers and Feuds

By Lettice Davenport, 1965

Caro burst into the room hoping to surprise the intruder, but the bedroom door stood open. She was too late.

The China Room was dark, the curtains drawn. Whoever had broken into Posy’s room had been there longer than they’d realised; the bathroom between them must have insulated the sounds next door.

Hurrying to the second open door, Caro scanned the hallway only to find the landing full of people. The VIP delegates were heading towards the stairs, a gang of four bound together by obsession and their own investigations. Hugh was descending the stairs from Lettice’s study, and she spotted Isobel’s pale hair disappearing around the corner towards her own rooms.

Any one of them could have been in Posy’s room, then got lost in the crowd.

Caro shut the door behind her and turned to find Posy and Rosalind standing at the dressing table, staring at the small glass bottle in Posy’s hand. It was opaque, the glass misty and dark, concealing the contents. But the skull and crossbones label with the word POISON printed on it solved that problem.

‘Is that …’ she trailed off as Rosalind nodded.

‘The poison bottle from Letty’s study.’

Posy looked up, her eyes wide with panic. ‘Is someone trying to frame me for Marcus’s death too? Is that really what’s happening here?’

‘It certainly looks like it.’ Rosalind pulled a handkerchief from her pocket – and really, who still had hankies to hand these days? – and took the poison bottle from Posy and studied it.

‘Oh God! Fingerprints!’ Posy wiped her hands frantically against her skirt, as if that could vanish the prints from her fingertips, or her prints from the bottle in Rosalind’s hand. ‘Why didn’t I think of that?!’

Because you haven’t been Dahlia long enough, Caro thought, but didn’t say. Tact, twice in one day. That might actually be a record, now she thought about it.

‘Was there another note?’ Caro searched the dressing table and turned up the expected piece of paper. Not on a script page, and not on the same creamy stationery that Marcus had used for his blackmail letters. It was a plain page of notebook paper, covered in block print writing.

USE THIS