Hudson watched these exchanges with great interest. For a moment, he almost forgot the reason for this impromptu assemblage. He had lost both his parents and all his siblings, and he found himself suddenly fascinated by the closeness of Elysande’s family. It was a side of them he had not seen prior to their wedding, and he had to admit that their easy camaraderie and undeniable love for each other warmed his heart and made a pang of envy pierce through him.
“We are meant to be helping my husband,” Elysande reminded her brother and sister. “Your games can wait for later.”
“This is a very serious matter,” Lady Leydon agreed, pinning her daughter and son with a glare. “There can be no time for fun until we are assured of the outcome of this very unfortunate business in which Wycombe has found himself embroiled.”
“I want to know more about the escaped criminal,” Lady Corliss said. “What can you tell us of him?”
“Oh yes, do tell,” agreed Lady Cressida, clapping her hands in excitement.
Or was it Lady Corliss clapping and Lady Cressida who had asked about Reginald Croydon? Hudson was damned if he could tell the difference between them. They were both fair-haired and brown eyed, and with the same upturned nose covered in freckles and the same dimple in their chins.
Where was a glass of brandy when he needed it?
“Croydon was one of three ringleaders in an elaborate network of people who were paid vast sums of money to commit all manner of crimes,” he explained, doing his utmost to tamp down the old resentment, never far from the surface, whenever he thought of that bastard. “Art forgeries, thefts, murder, and all manner of things. He became greedy and decided he wanted more money for himself, so he killed the other two men involved. He escaped from prison a little over a month ago, and I have been doing my damnedest to find him.”
“But you are no longer a Scotland Yard inspector,” Leydon said without looking up from the photographs he continued to study. “Cannot the detectives themselves find him?”
“None of them have, my lord.”
“Nor have you,” Elysande’s father countered, and rightly so.
He remained eternally disappointed in himself for his failures in that regard. And now, he had more blood and guilt on his soul in the form of Maude Ainsley.
Hudson inclined his head. “That is correct. The villain has proven quite elusive. But that is a matter separate from Mrs. Ainsley’s murder.”
“What if it is not?” Elysande asked, eyes wide.
He could see her mind spinning.
An eerie sensation settled over him. Not the same feeling of premonition which had descended upon the arrival of Chief Inspector O’Rourke. But something different. Stronger. Fiercer.
He studied his wife’s lovely face, realization dawning. “You think Croydon murdered Mrs. Ainsley?”
He was already turning the possibility over in his mind, examining it from every angle. Why had he not considered the connection sooner? But then, he knew the answer to that. His investigation into Croydon’s escape suggested he was in hiding in either London or Manchester, two disparate cities that represented just how little evidence there existed connecting Reginald Croydon to anything or anyone. The man had disappeared into the ether like a ghost. Every step that had taken him closer had led to a dead end.
“Perhaps,” Elysande was saying. “Or perhaps not.”
Her ambiguous response had him frowning. “Which do you propose, Ellie?”
“Oh,” Lady Isolde exclaimed, her eyes bright. Her hair was dark as a raven’s wing, and Hudson found himself puzzled over the vast differences between Elysande and her siblings. “What Ellie is suggesting, I believe, is that the person who killed your Mrs. Ainsley may be somehow tied to Mr. Croydon. Perhaps he is even using the murder as a distraction.”
“Or an opportunity to blame the murder upon you,” Royston added, “thereby removing yourself as an opponent.”
Ingenious.
The Collingwood family was eccentric, to be sure. But they were also incredibly intuitive. Every last one of them.
How had Hudson himself, having been a member of Scotland Yard for half his life, neglected to consider such a possibility? Had it been the shock of finding Maude murdered in his own bed? The fear of being blamed for her killing himself? Or was it merely that he had grown soft and vulnerable in his time away from being a detective? Perhaps becoming the next Duke of Wycombe had doused his ability to solve crimes, much like a bucket of water over a lone flame.
“I do believe,” he said slowly, “you may be right. There could indeed be a connection between Reginald Croydon’s escape and his subsequent hiding and Mrs. Ainsley’s murder.”
But if that were all true, then there was another, far more shocking and troubling conclusion which he had to arrive at next. If someone was trying to paint him as the killer responsible for Maude’s slaying, one man more than any other rose to the forefront of his mind.
Chief Inspector O’Rourke.
And if O’Rourke was truly intent upon seeing him charged with murder, as long as Elysande and her family’s suspicions were correct, that meant…
Elysande gasped at his side. “Hudson! Do you suppose that Chief Inspector O’Rourke could somehow be involved with Croydon?”
