Free Death of a Cozy Writer: A St. Just Mystery by G.M. Malliet Page A

regimen.
    With the perception born of long years in marital harness, Lillian read the significance of Ruthven’s nod in Albert’s direction.
    Stifling further protest, she set off in search of the kitchen, rather like Magellan seeking a new passage to the Spice Islands.
    She could be gone for days, thought Ruthven, not without a frisson of pleasure. He took the precaution of shutting the double-paneled doors after her. He knew Sir Adrian always took a breakfast tray in bed, but God knew if his inamorata was with him or if she might appear downstairs at any moment. He’d seen George leave with the delectable Natasha. Sarah, Lillian had told him, had rushed from the room without explanation shortly before his own appearance.
    Albert, meanwhile, had laid his head on the table, displaying to full effect the tonsure that had started to form in the center of his hair. He was emitting periodic mewling noises.
    “Buck up, old sport. This is important,” said Ruthven.
    This was greeted with a weak moan. “Not so loud,” Albert whispered.
    “Here, drink mine, I haven’t touched it yet. Come on, man, pull yourself together.”
    Albert accepted the proffered coffee with trembling hands. He doubted it would help his heaving stomach but his pounding head was winning, for the moment, the pain war.
    “My office came through this morning with everything you could want to know, and more, about the Winthrop murder. Here—” he removed several folded sheets from his inner jacket pocket—“is just a sample. It’s Violet, all right. And the story’s even more sensational than I recalled.”
    Albert took the pages and unfolded them, fumbling for his glasses. The fax machine had rendered the small newsprint almost unintelligible. The top sheet was dominated by a photo of a woman sitting sidesaddle in full hunting regalia atop a horse awash in a sea of beagles. Even allowing for the bleary quality of the reproduction, he could see she was strikingly beautiful, with the widely spaced eyes, high cheekbones, and chiseled jawline bestowed by the gods on only a blessed few. She even seemed to have a tiny cleft in her chin, which was rather gilding the lily, thought Albert. The only thing marring the impression of exquisite porcelain fragility were the hands holding the reins, Violet’s hands—not as pronouncedly veined and bony as they were today but still unmistakably large and out of proportion.
    “How old was she then?” asked Albert.
    “Early twenties. Twenty-one, I think one of the papers said.”
    “‘Was this the face that launch’d a thousand ships?’” The headline over the photo was at complete odds with this image of heavenly near-perfection. The headline asked, simply, “Lady Murderess?”
    Albert squinted at the page, holding it up to the light from the mullioned windows behind him, able to make out only the words in bold in the caption and the dateline: November 15—Edinburgh. The caption read, unhelpfully: “Lady Winthrop last fall, on Dundee Prince near the Winthrop estate in Gloucester.”
    “There’s more, loads more,” Ruthven was saying, “photos and the lot, but on the next page is a summary from shortly after the inquest adjourned.”
    “I can’t make it out,” said Albert.
    “Here.” Ruthven took back the pages. Adjusting his glasses lower on his nose, he scanned the type until he found the section he wanted.
    “It begins by announcing the verdict of ‘Murder by person or persons unknown,’ and the adjournment of the hearing. There never was an official finding beyond that, apparently. The coroner concluded that the police were stumped—reading between the lines, you understand. There was the usual jargon about pursuing various lines of enquiry—and pretty much it was left at that. Lady Winthrop herself was never called to give testimony; she got her physician to stipulate she was prostrate with grief. All nonsense, of course. If she’d been a charwoman they’d have brought her to the