“Why?”
She gave me an odd look. “She was his mistress. Didn’t you know?”
I stared at her, aware that my mouth had dropped open. “Lord Rumford, the guest currently staying here at the hotel?ThatLord Rumford?”
“The very one.” Harmony sat on the other chair and poured coffee into the two cups. She handed one to me, a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “If only MissBainbridge could see you now. She’d call you provincial for not realizing gentlemen keep mistresses.”
I closed my mouth and tucked into my breakfast of a boiled egg and toast. “I’m merely a little surprised. I met Lord Rumford. He seems nice. He even told me how his wife was currently in the country as she no longer liked London’s fast pace.” Lord Rumford must have been in his sixties, while the newspaper article claimed Miss Westwood was only twenty-six.
“How convenient that Lady Rumford prefers the country manor,” Harmony said with a wry twist of her mouth. “Gives his lordship freedom to see his mistress while he’s in London. Which he is a lot.”
“She didn’t come here to the hotel, surely?”
“She did sometimes.”
I didn’t know why it shocked me. I knew gentlemen guests kept mistresses, and I knew they sometimes brought them here. A foreign count even had his mistress stay with him in his suite as if she were his wife, while his actual wife was at home in Russia. But he’d been from the continent, and they did things differently there. I hadn’t expected an English lord to parade his mistress openly at the hotel where he stayed while in the city.
Harmony scanned the newspaper article again. “I wonder why she ended it like that? She seemed to have everything she could want. Fame, money, adoring fans and an equally adoring lover.”
“Those are hardly things that make one fulfilled and happy,” I said. “And how do you know Lord Rumford adored her? Perhaps he was about to end their relationship and she threw herself over the balcony in despair.”
Harmony shook her head, loosening one of the dark coils of hair she’d tucked behind her ear. It fell in front of her face and she tucked it away again, although I knew it wouldn’t stay. The errant spring never obeyed for long. “I heard from Peter that he’s very upset.”
“How does Peter know?”
“He saw Mr. Hobart hurrying back and forth with a very serious face this morning. He was organizing flowers, notices for the paper, and sending little things up to Lord Rumford’sroom to show him the hotel cares.”
“That’s very kind of him.” It was typical of Mr. Hobart to be so considerate of one of his guests. The manager always put them first, and always seemed to know what they needed, even before they asked. It was the sign of an excellent hotel manager, so Floyd told me.
“I think you should investigate,” Harmony suddenly announced.
I choked on my final bite of toast. I coughed into my napkin, my eyes watering. When I finally recovered, I lifted my gaze to Harmony’s. She was serious. “What are you talking about? What is there to investigate?”
“Perhaps it’s not suicide.” She shrugged. “The newspaper doesn’t say why Miss Westwood threw herself from the dress circle.”
“Probably because they either don’t know what drove her to such a desperate act, or they chose to protect her privacy.”
Harmony snorted. “No journalist is going to worry about her privacy. She’s a star. The public want to know everything they can about her life, and particularly about her death. The first newspaper to find out and report it will sell thousands more copies than their rivals.”
“So you think she was murdered?” At Harmony’s nod, I shook my head. “If it is, the police will find the killer.”
“Perhaps.” She sipped her coffee with such an air of expectation that I knew she was going to say more on the subject. I was proved correct when she said, “But they didn’t prove themselves to be very competent in the investigation into Mrs. Warrick’s murder, right here at the hotel.”
I opened my mouth to defend Detective Inspector Hobart but shut it again. She was right; the inspector had been rather slow at finding the killer. His determination to be thorough had been something of a hindrance, but on the other hand, it meant he hadn’t accused the wrong man—like I had.
“Harmony, I’m not investigating Miss Westwood’s death.”
“But don’t you want to be an investigator?”
I chewed the inside of my lower lip, regretting that I’d told her I was thinking about entering the private detective business. “I do,” I said carefully. “But this is not the right case to take on. For starters, there is no client, and no clientmeans no payment. And secondly, if it is murder, the police will investigate. I’ll just get in their way, and Detective Inspector Hobart won’t like it. He’s only just forgiven me for getting involved in Mrs. Warrick’s murder investigation.”
Her eyes gleamed like polished jet as she watched me over the rim of her cup. “Or are you just worried about offending the father of the man you’re sweet on?”
“I am not sweet on Mr. Armitage! What gave you that idea?”
“The way you look at him.”
I sliced the top off my egg with such vehemence it missed the plate altogether and landed on the table. “Every woman looks at him like that. He’s very pleasing to look at. Unfortunately, he has the personality of a man who knows he’s pleasing to look at. He’s arrogant and somewhat rude.”
