Lady Alkmene Collection: Four fabulous 1920s murder mysteries you won’t want to miss!

Alkmene shrugged. ‘Casually. What is she doing here this morning? Art perhaps?’

Dubois glanced at her again, sharper this time. ‘What has she told you about the art?’

Alkmene didn’t think it prudent to admit Evelyn hadn’t told her a thing, about any subject. Apparently her knowledge of Evelyn Steinbeck made her interesting to Dubois, and on her part she wanted to know what he knew about the actress and her dead uncle. She said casually, ‘Just that it is one of the best collections in the country. Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Rodin.’

She was just repeating what she had read in the paper an hour ago, but Dubois nodded seriously. ‘I wanted to interview him about his collection. He managed to get his hands on some very wanted pieces. It was hard getting through to him though. Lived like a hermit, hardly showing his face anywhere. And when he did appear, he shied away from strangers like they were rabid dogs.’

‘Strangers, or just reporters?’ Alkmene asked, holding Dubois’s gaze. ‘The press doesn’t always have a good name.’

‘I don’t see what harm there is in a nice piece about someone’s art collection,’ Dubois countered with a tight expression.

The countess interrupted, saying in a thoughtful tone, ‘It looks like she is taking up residence there. So many suitcases.’

Quickly Alkmene slipped into an empty seat to catch a view of the street. On the other side the Hotel Metropolitan’s uniformed porters carried a dozen suitcases through the open double doors. A familiar statuesque figure with blonde hair catching the sunshine stood watching everything with a critical intensity. Evelyn Steinbeck, fleeing the murder scene…

The countess said, ‘I have heard the Metropolitan’s mattresses are quite good, but their bread is bad. All English bread is, by the way. You cannot bake bread like the Russians can.’

‘But does it relate to the murder?’ Alkmene wondered out loud as she scooted back into her old place.

At the word murder the countess’s companion knocked over her teacup.

Chapter Three (#ulink_c9b505a7-ecc5-5199-880b-d6195610a955)

Although almost empty, a stream of brown liquid flowed over the table’s crisp white damask cover.

The woman raised her hands and whimpered in what could be Russian curses or supplications to the saints from the gold-rimmed icons.

Dubois pulled out his handkerchief and pushed it on the wet spot.

The countess clicked her tongue and said, ‘You shouldn’t be so clumsy, Oksana Matejevna. The whole room is looking at you.’

The woman continued to make high-pitched sounds of regret and frustration while tugging the handkerchief from Dubois’s hand and dabbing herself.

That hand, with a small scar on the thumb and the deep tan matching his face, didn’t seem that of someone chained to a typewriter in an office, but of an adventurous sailor who had travelled the seven seas.

A bit of jealousy stabbed Alkmene as she imagined Dubois undercover for some story in an exciting foreign city like Venice, hiding in a dark alley and watching the front of an antique palazzo where stolen art would be delivered after nightfall. She bet Dubois had an interest in the dead man’s art collection because he was investigating some big case. Perhaps theft of art from some museum by thieves who worked for a private collector? Not everybody got the objects of their desire by honest means.

Ah. Men got to do all the fun things while women were supposed to stay at home because their lungs were weak, or something.

‘Murder, you said?’ Dubois asked with a probing look at her. ‘I thought the untimely death of Evelyn Steinbeck’s uncle was an accident.’

‘That is what the paper said. A fall on the rim of the hearth. But as nobody was home at the time it happened, we can’t be sure he really fell, can we?’

Dubois held her gaze. ‘Meaning?’

Alkmene hitched a brow. ‘Isn’t it a coincidence he slips and falls and dies on the very night when all the servants have their night off? I don’t suppose it is hard to figure out what night that is, if you just keep an eye on the household for a while.’

She added almost as an afterthought, ‘Or know the routine from the inside, to begin with.’

Dubois leaned back in his chair. ‘You are suspecting a member of the household of involvement?’

Alkmene wasn’t about to make wild accusations. Stories could go and live a life of their own and an innocent person could get in trouble. Sipping her tea, she took a moment to compose her thoughts, then said with a nod at the window, ‘Now that Mr Norwhich is dead and you can’t interview him any more, I suppose you are interested in writing up Ms Steinbeck’s life story? It has to be tragic. I bet her parents died when she was young, she had to fend for herself and now that she has found some fame on the stage and wants to find family, her uncle, her only living relative, has died too. Maybe the newspapers can even turn it into some curse story that the masses will gobble up?’

She gestured in the air in front of her, like unrolling a banner text. ‘Family curse strikes again.’

The Russian companion dropped the damp handkerchief and slumped in her seat, saying something to the countess in an angry tone.

The countess said something in return, first soothing, then scolding.

She smiled apologetically at Alkmene. ‘Russian country people are terribly superstitious, dushka. They believe that the mere mention of death brings bad luck. She doesn’t want to sit with us while we discuss murder.’

Oksana Matejevna pushed her knitting into a large embroidered bag and stood, her chin up, her eyes staring into the distance.

The countess gave her a short instruction, and the woman padded off.

‘I have sent her ahead to the dressmaker’s,’ the countess explained. ‘She is far too nervous to endure this.’

Alkmene smiled at her, then returned her attention to Dubois. ‘You were saying…’

‘No, you were saying something. Something interesting. The house was empty that night, and the killer, if there was one, might have known that.’

Alkmene nodded. ‘The newspaper article was very low on facts. I’d like to know for instance whether the library door was locked on the inside or not when the manservant tried to enter in the morning. If any visitors called that night, if there were traces of a struggle in the room…’

Dubois nodded appreciatively, but his voice was level when he said, ‘I assume the police have full details, but are not eager to divulge those to the public.’

‘And there is no way to find out what they know?’

His silence said it all. He had such ways. He did know things about the circumstances surrounding the death.

Already!

Again she was jealous of him because he had sources, access to people who would tell him things they’d never tell to her. She was a woman, a lady at that. She was supposed to worry about ostrich feathers, not about murder.

Or stolen art?

Dubois was looking out of the window again, probably at the hotel’s front. She could hardly change seats again to see what distracted him now, so she remained on her chair, upright. She put her next question in a somewhat demanding tone, to pull his attention back to her. ‘You have access to police information?’

He kept staring into the street. ‘I do, but I don’t need them. Street informers are much more reliable.’

‘Doesn’t it sound exciting?’ the countess gushed. Her cheeks reddened, an obvious sign she wasn’t in the least bothered by any superstition about death. Indeed, she scooted to the edge of her seat and sat with her hands on the table, watching Dubois with her sharp little eyes like a robin’s. ‘Tell me, have you ever been in danger, for your life?’

‘It is not a game,’ Dubois said. He was not looking at the countess, but at Alkmene, almost as if he was trying to warn her.

She pretended not to notice and took a large bite of her pie that had mainly gone unnoticed so far.

Dubois said, ‘I hope the coroner can figure out how a healthy man takes a tumble in his own library and is suddenly dead.’

‘Well, some people do seem to suffer from egg-shell skull,’ Alkmene said round another large bite of chocolate cake with whipped cream and kirsch filling. ‘They are born with a skull that is thin and breakable, but nobody knows it until some fatal day when they either fall or are hit by something… There are several recorded cases of it where just a slight contact could lead to severe damage and even death.’