“I don’t think we should question him further. I say we simply tell him we consulted our caseload and we currently have too many cases on the books.”
Daphne rolled her eyes. “But then we won’t know if he thinks you’re a murderess, or if he’s a murderer. However, because you’re obviously far too close to this case, I’ll take over the responsibility of asking him the majority of questions. You may simply sit at your desk, looking intimidating.” She consulted her notepad and frowned. “Before we fetch Arthur, though, why might he think you murdered your grandfather, or better yet, if he did the deed, how would he be able to frame you for it?”
“He overheard a fiery argument my grandfather and I had the night before Grandfather died.”
Daphne’s hand flew across the page of her notepad as she scribbled away. “An argument I’m going to assume you had because you were trying to get your grandfather to change his mind about your grand tour?”
“It wasn’t that I was trying to get him to change his mind—because Grandfather never changed his mind. I was merely trying to get him to tell mewhyhe was sending me away. He refused to do so, which left me furious with him and not stingy with telling him exactly how furious I was. Arthur overheard part of our argument. I felt guilty the next morning over our contentious exchange, which is why I, of course, decided to seek Grandfather out and bid him a proper good-bye before I set off on my grand tour.
“Grandfather always began his day on the target field, where weoften repaired together to practice our shooting skills. The field was located about a mile from the main house, and knowing I’d be stuck on a train for days, I decided to walk to the field, telling Ivan to meet me with the carriage in thirty minutes so I’d have plenty of time to make my scheduled train departure.”
Eunice settled into the chair. “I knew something was wrong when I reached the field. I didn’t see Grandfather at first, but then I caught sight of him on the ground. When I reached him, I found him lying in a pool of blood, a pistol lying two feet away from him. At first, I thought he was dead, but then he stirred and opened his eyes when I leaned over him.” She took a second to get her thoughts in order. “He then, if I’m remembering correctly, reached out and took hold of my hand when I told him I was going for help, telling me there was no time for that nonsense because he knew he was not long for this world. He then said that someone shot him, but he didn’t see who.
“Grandfather, even suffering from a bullet, was an astute man, and after he caught sight of a pistol that hadn’t been on the ground when he’d gone to reset his targets, realized someone was trying to involve me in the shooting.”
Daphne frowned. “He realized that because of a pistol?”
“The pistol was mine. It’s a very distinctive pistol, silver with an inlaid handle of mother-of-pearl and my initials carved into it, but a pistol I hadn’t packed for the trip, preferring to take a smaller derringer pistol that fit nicely in my reticule. Grandfather knew as soon as he saw it that someone was trying to, at the very least, frame me for his murder. That’s why he did the one thing I never imagined him doing—he urged me to flee from Mason Manor and continue on with my grand tour, believing that tour would keep me safe as well as foil the attempt to frame me for his murder since I wasn’t supposed to be on the estate that day.”
Daphne tilted her head. “But since youweresupposed to be on your way to the train station at the time of your grandfather’s death, it seems odd that someone would try and frame you.”
“No one except Grandfather, Ivan, and Alma—who is more tome than simply the Holbrooke boardinghouse cook—knew I was going off on that tour. We’d not had any visitors that week, not even family members, although I believe Grandfather had something to do with that. He was notorious for letting our relatives know he wasn’t receptive to guests in any given week, and when not a single relative came to visit after Grandfather disclosed my grand tour plans to me, I thought he might have wanted to keep them away from the house in case I prevailed upon them to intervene on my behalf, not that I would have expected my relatives to do that. We were not what anyone would call close.”
Daphne bent over her notes again. “Perhaps your grandfather knew danger was stalking him, hence the reason for your spur-of-the-moment trip. And perhaps he also had concerns that the danger might be coming at the hands of one of your relatives, hence the reason for not being receptive to their visits over the days before he died.”
“I’ve thought the same thing during the past seven years. And when you take into account the rather cryptic last words Grandfather said to me, there’s little doubt that he was aware he was in danger.”
“What did he say to you?”
“After he told me to flee from Mason Manor, he asked me to not think poorly of him if some truths of the past were ever revealed to me. He said something about chickens coming home to roost and then added a bit about trying to atone for the sins of his past by finally doing right by me. Before he could expand on that, though, he took his last breath.”
“It must have been difficult to watch your grandfather die,” Daphne said quietly. “I’m sure it was also difficult for you to not get concrete answers from him, although it sounds to me as if there could be a strong possibility that if Arthur didn’t kill him, one of your relatives is to blame. Is there any particular relative who stands out as a more likely suspect than another?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Which means a suspect list is going to be lengthy. But sincewe can’t question your relatives yet, tell me how Arthur fits into all of this.”
“He appeared on the target field not long after Grandfather died. My first thought, of course, was that he’d shot Grandfather. My second thought was that he was coming for me next. That’s why I grabbed the pistol someone had left by my grandfather, leveled it on Arthur, and when he didn’t so much as slow his advance toward me—I shot him.”
“You shot Arthur Livingston?”
“I’m sure you would have done the same.”
“No, I would have fainted on the spot. What happened next?”
“Arthur fell to the ground, but I didn’t shoot to kill, merely to slow him down, and my shooting him definitely did that. I then raced back toward the house, Ivan intercepting me when I was about halfway there. I jumped into the carriage that was to take me to the train station, telling Ivan and Alma, who was going with me on the tour to lend me companionship, everything that had happened. We decided I should heed Grandfather’s last words and continue on with my tour, and that’s what we did—although I didn’t actually end up on that tour, deciding to stay in New York instead.”
Daphne looked up from her notepad. “You didn’t mention your mother being in the carriage to go on tour with you.”
“Because she wasn’t, but now is not the time to get into that sorry story. I mentioned to you a few months back that my mother left me without a word, and she did that when I was only seventeen, so clearly she wasn’t around at the time of my grandfather’s death.”
“Unless she was on bad terms with your grandfather and came back to settle with him on that target field.”
“My mother is a challenging woman to be sure, but I doubt she would have tried to frame her only daughter for her father’s murder.”
“An excellent point.” Daphne wrote something down and frowned. “So, you, Ivan, and Alma got on the train, went to New York, and ...?”
“We decided to stay, thinking it would be easy to lose ourselves in the vast number of people who live in the city. I bought the boardinghouse because it was an unassuming building, and we needed a place to live. We also decided to take in boarders to hide behind a cloak of authenticity. Alma took on the role of boardinghouse cook, and Ivan continued as my bodyguard, although everyone living in the boardinghouse simply thought he was there to look after all the ladies, which he was to a certain extent. It’s been his mission the past seven years to keep me safe and out of sight, hence the reason behind his disapproval at times with my running an inquiry agency.”
