“Eugenia, Georgette,” Aunt Hazel exclaimed, bustling across the room to join them. She pulled Eunice into an unanticipated hug. “How wonderful to find both of you alive and well, although I have to admit it’s quite the shock to discover you’ve somehowrisen from the ranks of the dead. Frankly, I feel a distinct need to repair to my room and fetch my smelling salts. I’ve had to make use of those salts often of late, ever since Raymond showed me your death certificates earlier in the week.”
Eunice took hold of Aunt Hazel’s hand. “How lovely to discover that at least one of my relatives is delighted to see Mother and me alive, but what was that about death certificates?”
Aunt Hazel nodded to Raymond. “Through a hired investigator, Raymond recently learned that you and your mother had departed to the hereafter. From what that investigator found, both of you died while exploring the wonders of India.”
Eunice shot a look to Georgette. “We died together.”
“And in India no less,” Georgette said. “I imagine that made for a very nice and tidy story.”
Aunt Hazel darted a look to Georgette. “Is there reason to believe you wouldn’t have been together? According to the report Raymond showed me, the investigator learned that you joined Eugenia in England years ago.”
“How exactly did I go about finding her in England?” Georgette asked.
Aunt Hazel blinked. “On account of that telegram you sent to Raymond from New York. He sent you a return telegram telling you Eugenia was off on a European tour, beginning with London.”
“Ah,” Georgette began. “I must have then hied myself across the Atlantic and joined her.”
Aunt Hazel nodded. “According to the report, after you reunited with your daughter, the two of you spent the remaining years traveling the world together—until your deaths, of course.”
Eunice cleared her throat. “What a fascinating story, except that I never reunited with Mother in England.”
Aunt Hazel’s eyes clouded with confusion. “Did you reunite in India, then, where you both unfortunately suffered a dreadful accident that was responsible for your deaths?”
The urge to laugh was almost impossible to resist. “Aunt Hazel, Mother and I aren’t dead, which means ...?”
“The carriage you were riding in that tumbled off a cliff and tossed both of you from it didn’t actually kill you?”
“There was no carriage accident.”
“Then why are you supposed to be dead?”
Eunice glanced around the room. “That is the question of the hour, as is why an investigator would create a story about my death that’s a complete fabrication. That man would have had to have been paid handsomely by someone to invent a report detailing my death and a whopper of a tale without a shred of truth to it.”
“But who would have paid him to do that?”
“I would think the obvious suspect is in this room, someone who would benefit financially from my death.”
Murmurs immediately broke out, although Doris and Alice continued gawking at Eunice from their spot on the piano bench.
Eunice returned her attention to Aunt Hazel, knowing out of anyone in the room, Aunt Hazel was the most likely to talk. “Were you aware that the telegram Mother sent years ago was actually supposed to go to you, not Uncle Raymond? She sent it to your former address, not knowing you’d moved into Mason Manor. Evidently it was redirected here, but instead of getting into your hands, Uncle Raymond got it.”
Aunt Hazel shot a look to her brother. “Is that true?”
“That was a long time ago, Hazel,” Uncle Raymond said. “I fear I don’t recall the details of that telegram, but I’m sure I would have mentioned it was addressed to you if that were the case.”
Eunice narrowed her eyes on him. “Do you recall that you neglected to mention in your return telegram that you sent Mother that Grandfather had died and that she’d been reinstated in his will?”
Uncle Raymond didn’t so much as flinch. “I’m sure I cited James’s death, but it was a telegram, so I’m not certain I mentioned anything about her being reinstated in James’s will.”
“You could have sent a follow-up telegram.”
“I assumed she wasn’t interested in her inheritance since she never bothered to return to Montana.”
“You truly believe Mother wouldn’t have been interested in claiming her share of an estate that amounts to millions of dollars?”
“I thought James set up a large trust for her before she left, which was why it was so easy for her to abandon all of us, yourself included, after she and James had that tiff,” Uncle Raymond said.
Georgette crossed her arms over her chest. “Father never set up a trust for me, given how he didn’t think I was capable of spending my funds wisely. But to return to your neglecting to disclose my inheritance, I wonder if you deliberately withheld that information because you were, even back then, devising a plan to claim my inheritance as your own.”
