The Riverboat Mystery (Jenny Starling #3)(54)

*

Perhaps not surprisingly, the rest of the dinner was a quiet affair, and quickly over. Lucas had lost his appetite for his fruit tart, though the parrot had been a gentleman about it, and had helped him to clear his plate, much to Graves’ amusement and Rycroft’s finicky disgust.

Jasmine suggested a game of cards, and cast a look of silent appeal across the table at Dorothy, who, with typical feminine intuition, picked up on it at once and plucked at her husband’s sleeve in gentle persuasion.

All three disappeared into the games room. Lucas said, somewhat grimly, that he wanted a word with O’Keefe, and quickly left. No doubt over dinner he’d been figuring out who had removed the papers from Olney’s room, and why. He must have been both astonished and relieved when the police search had failed to turn them up in Olney’s room.

Jenny wouldn’t want to be in the engineer’s shoes at that moment. Not that Lucas could fire him, of course. Not with what O’Keefe now knew. And that led her onto another line of thought.

Had Olney been killed because of what he knew? Lucas was now, in anybody’s book, looking to be the prime suspect. And a man with such a ruthless nature had to be top of Rycroft’s list.

She cleared away the dishes, with the help of the silent, heavily disapproving Francis. Jenny was glad when the silent servant did his usual disappearing act. There was something very nerve-wracking about him. Perhaps it was because she was never sure just what he was thinking.

She even went so far as to watch him leave the Stillwater Swan and enter his neat little tent on the riverbank. The thought of him sleeping the afternoon away on her bed gave her the shivers.

If he had slept the afternoon away at all, that is.

She had seen for herself how oddly devoted Francis Grey was to his employer. She’d also noticed, during the revelation about Lucas’s ugly past, that Francis had never so much as winced. That he already knew about Lucas’s evil deeds during the seventies and eighties was, to her mind at least, beyond doubt. And yet still Francis was happy to carry on working for Finch. Finch, a lowly cockney. Finch, the very antithesis of a gentleman.

And yet Francis was so very much a gentleman’s gentleman. What was going on there?

No, Jenny didn’t appreciate having Francis around, but that didn’t necessarily mean he would commit murder, just on his employer’s say-so. When all was said and done, Francis had no real motive for killing Gabriel. His position as valet was safe, whether the Swan was sold or not.

Besides, Jenny couldn’t help thinking that now she knew how the murder had been committed, she should know who had committed it.

In the back of her mind, she knew that she had seen something important that afternoon. Something very important. And somebody, much earlier on, had said something that kept haunting the fringes of her memory, but refused to surface. And, like a bad sense of déjà vu, there was something else that somebody had said later on that kept niggling at her. Something Jasmine Olney had said.

But what?

Jenny sighed and checked her food supplies for possible breakfast dishes. She made up a short mental menu for tomorrow morning then decided to take a slow stroll around the decks to clear her head.

She, like Rycroft, was beginning to get overtired. A good night’s rest and who knew what the morning might bring?

She stepped through the French doors onto the starboard deck.

The night was beautiful. There was a full moon and the first few twinklings of evening stars. The sky was just turning that lovely soft sapphire shade before full darkness descended.

She folded up her favourite chair and put it back against the deck wall, and did the same with a second one, frowning a little as she did so. Two chairs? Then her puzzlement cleared. Of course — the Leighs had been sitting out here earlier. She must be even more tired than she thought to have forgotten that.

She continued on to the end of the side deck, glanced at the equipment box and the round red and white inflated life ring that was hung above it, then turned down the corridor to the rear deck.

She glanced at the boiler room, her ears pricked. It was quiet, however, so presumably Lucas Finch had given the engineer his rollicking and left. Nevertheless, she didn’t go in. She’d seen all she needed to see in there.

She took her time strolling along the port deck but when she got to the front of the boat, the decking was now dry. The rope and boot were gone — obviously with the forensics team.

That boot had been clever. Very clever. She sighed and stepped into the games room.

Jasmine had apparently just lost her game of gin rummy, for she tossed down her cards with a softly muttered ‘damn’ and stood up. ‘I need a drink,’ she added, and walked over to the drinks cabinet.

Lucas, sat on a sofa and ostensibly reading a book, glanced up when Jenny entered, but said nothing.

Even to Jasmine, he could see that he was a persona non grata. Jenny wondered how long it would take for fresh rumours to start circulating about Lucas around the village of Buscot, and supposed it wouldn’t take long. This time, however, the rumours would have rather more substance to them.

She found it hard to feel sorry for him. But at least he had his faithful bird for company.

The parrot, as if in agreement, proceeded to preen itself and cast tiny scarlet feathers all over his master’s shirt.

Dorothy stood up slowly but shooed her husband back into his seat as he rose to join her. ‘Miss Starling, do you think I might have a milky drink to take to bed with me?’ she asked, and Jenny instantly beamed approval.