Free A Death in the Pavilion by Caroline Dunford

previously shown no interest in the flower gardens or the magnificent floral arrangements in the house. The truth was that being raised as a country girl I loved the bright wildness of the hedgerows and found more formal arrangements stuffy and confining. I was careful not to say this to Bennie.
    So I returned to the house cold, irritable and with my mission unaccomplished. I was thinking only of gaining my room and hoping that someone had already lit my fire as I strode across the hall. And so it was I walked into the back of a man standing stock still in the middle of the hall where I simply had not expected to find him, nor had he any business to be.. He turned and caught me by the elbows as we both stumbled about a bit.
    ‘Euphemia!’ cried Bertram, for it was he. ‘What the hell sort of place is this?’
    ‘Bertram, what are you doing here?’ I asked astonished.
    ‘Never mind what I’m doing here!’ he said loudly. ‘There’s a dead parlour maid in the drive.’

Chapter Ten

Unsuitable Scenes
    ‘Oh no! Have you run over Lucy? How many times have I told you you don’t pay enough attention when you are driving?’
    ‘I haven’t run over anyone!’ snapped Bertram.
    I pressed a hand to my face. ‘Never tell me it was Merrit!’
    ‘Merrit isn’t with me,’ said Bertram. ‘And nobody has run anyone over.’
    ‘But you said there was a dead parlour maid in the drive.’
    ‘There is!’ cried Bertram, clutching his hair in frustration. ‘Why is she there?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ I cried, my voice rising with his. ‘If she’s dead I shouldn’t think she has much say in the matter!’
    ‘Come with me!’ demanded Bertram. He snatched me by the wrist and pulled me back out the front door.
    ‘Shouldn’t we call the police?’ I said, pulling against him, but Bertram would not be stopped. He dragged me round the side where the drive began to unwind towards the house and there, as if some giant hand had pushed her off a bench, lay Lucy, sprawled on the grass. Her limbs were both curled and at the same time at an odd angle, rather like a spider that has gone too near a fire. Her pretty face had contorted into a grimace and well – I am afraid at that point I looked away. Bertram still held my wrist, so I couldn’t flee. ‘We need to go back to the house,’ I said urgently. However, Bertram didn’t move. ‘My God, she is real. I thought I must have imagined the entire thing. How is it everywhere you go, Euphemia, people die?’
    ‘You found her,’ I said hotly. ‘The last time I saw her she was very much alive and blackmailing me!’
    ‘Blackmailing you!’ said Bertram. ‘About what?’
    ‘I was going to pay her for information about the death of Muller’s late wife.’
    ‘That’s not blackmail,’ said Bertram and I heard a certain relief in his voice.
    ‘Did you think I’d killed her?’ I asked indignantly.
    ‘Well, you thought I’d killed her,’ he responded.
    ‘By accident!’ I exclaimed.
    We regarded each other angrily. Both of us were breathing fast and our faces were red – at least it felt like I was blushing. ‘What are you doing here, anyway?’ I demanded. ‘Did Richard send you?’
    ‘No,’ spat Bertram, ‘Muller asked me to come to help protect Richenda’s reputation. You think, after everything, I’d do Richard a favour? After he turned you out?’
    ‘And Richenda took me in.’
    ‘Dammit, Euphemia, you know I couldn’t. You refused to marry me,’ he stumbled over his words. ‘If Richenda hadn’t taken you I’d have done something. I wouldn’t have left you to starve. You know that.’
    ‘Excuse me for interrupting, Miss, Sir,’ said the head gardener’s voice from behind us, ‘but is Lucy quite well?’
    ‘If you mean the girl lying on the ground,’ said Bertram, swinging to face him, ‘she’s dead.’
    ‘Only I thought I heard an argument,’ said Bennie. His blue eyes studied us both closely.
    My blush deepened to the heat of a fiery