The Riverboat Mystery (Jenny Starling #3)(46)

Gabriel.

Into the profound silence that followed, there came a half laugh, half sob, shocking in its abruptness and lack of self-control.

Jasmine Olney quickly put a hand to her mouth as everyone turned to look at her, Rycroft, at least, looking a shade guilty at his lack of tact. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Olney. That was stupid of me,’ he apologized at once.

But Jasmine shook her head. ‘It’s not that,’ she found her voice at last. ‘It was just that . . . well, it sounded so like him. It had his . . . flavour. I could almost imagine him saying it out loud. It, well, it just took me by surprise a little, that’s all.’

Rycroft nodded, but quickly sorted through all the flotsam to find the real nugget. ‘In your opinion then, you think your husband probably wrote this?’

Jasmine nodded, then asked tentatively, ‘May I see it? I know his writing well, of course.’

Rycroft hesitated for a scant second, then slipped it into a clear plastic evidence ‘envelope’ and handed it over.

Jasmine read it, her face perfectly still. ‘It looks like his writing to me,’ she said at last.

‘Do you have a sample of his writing with you?’ Rycroft asked, but Jasmine quickly shook her head. ‘Never mind. We’ll send a constable over to your house to pick up a sample, and then send that, together with this note, to our experts at the Yard. We’ll soon know whether this document is a forgery or the genuine article.’

Jenny hid a smile. So the policeman doubted the veracity of it. It was hardly surprising, in the circumstances. She herself had no doubts at all that it was a forgery. Nor did she have any real doubts as to who had written it. Of them all — a ship’s captain, an engineer, a cockney businessman, a housewife, an unfaithful spouse, and a solicitor — it was obvious to her, at least, that only one of them had the professional know-how to create a reasonable forgery.

She wondered, idly, how many clients David Leigh had defended on such charges.

Rycroft handed the note to his sergeant, who quickly left to hotfoot it back to the village with the evidence. No doubt at Carswell Marsh they already had a small contingent of police awaiting more orders.

‘Right, carry on.’ He nodded to the forensics expert. ‘I want a list of all the equipment on board, and I want anything in any way out of the ordinary reported to me immediately.’

‘Jenkins is already doing the inventory, sir,’ the man replied smartly, and began promptly taking samples out of every toiletry item on the table. Not that they seriously suspected poison, the cook knew, but still, it paid to be thorough. And there was always the possibility, of course, that Olney had been drugged first. A woozy or unconscious man was more easily disposed of, after all. Still, a Mickey Finn applied through his aftershave lotion was just too James Bond for her to take seriously.

Rycroft turned and raised his eyebrow at the crowd, who had no trouble interpreting this silent but graphic gesture, and Tobias Lester led the exodus back out of the bedroom and downstairs to the salon.

There everyone hung about looking a trifle lost.

Jenny glanced at her watch and frowned. She approached Rycroft tentatively.

Rycroft looked up at her. Jenny looked down at him.

‘Well,’ Rycroft barked, ‘are you now going to tell me whodunnit, where, why and how?’

Jenny blinked. ‘Actually, I was going to ask you if you still wanted me to cook dinner. I assume the sergeant will be returning, and that you will be staying the night on board, and I thought you might be hungry. And the others, of course . . .’ She glanced across at them. ‘Although they’re in shock now, when it wears off, as a man of your experience probably knows, it can often leave people feeling ravenous.’

Rycroft wilted. ‘Oh. Right. Er . . . the body’s still in the galley. I’ll just go and take a look before the sergeant gets back with the others. They’ll have made arrangements by now and will be waiting for permission to remove it. If everything’s been seen to, I can’t see any reason why you can’t resume your duties.’

Jenny nodded and followed him to the galley. Rycroft looked displeased, but again made no move to shoo her back. Which was probably just as well, really. When he moved through the opened door, the cook made sure to shut it firmly behind her. She didn’t want any of the others — especially Jasmine — to catch a glimpse of her husband’s corpse.

It was only good manners to give the widow the benefit of the doubt in a case of murder, she always thought.

‘And it is murder, of course,’ she murmured out loud, and then could have kicked herself. About to kneel down beside Olney’s body, Rycroft suddenly looked up in mid-crouch, his eyes narrowing.

Then at last he smiled and straightened up.

‘I agree. I’ve never known anybody yet tie a rope around their ankle, throw him or her self into a river, drown, and then get up and tidily stow themselves away into a cupboard.’

Jenny sighed.

‘Any idea about the note?’ Rycroft asked, hating himself, and having to force out every syllable.

But Jenny surprised him. First of all, by having an answer, and second of all, by divulging it so quickly.

‘Hmm. I rather think you’ll find that’s the result of David Leigh’s handiwork. As Olney’s solicitor it would have been an easy matter for him to get Olney’s fingerprints on a piece of paper. Slipped underneath or on top of other papers that needed Olney’s signature, for example. Or maybe he just filched a bit from the Olneys’ bureau on some social occasion — I suppose they would have entertained the Leighs in their home at some point. And of all of us, he’s the most likely person to have specialist knowledge — or have access to specialist knowledge — on the subject of forgery. How to do it, and how to avoid detection.’ She waved a long and rather elegant hand in the air in a vague gesture. ‘You know, that sort of thing.’