Blackmail in the Ballroom Read online

  Blackmail in the Ballroom

  copyright (c) 2021 L. A. Nisula

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  ~ * ~ * ~

  When Cassie Pengear’s cousin Milly asks her to help a friend leave a blackmail payment at a party, Cassie’s first impulse is to say no. That is until she realizes Milly will help no matter what she says, and when, not if, Milly gets in trouble, it will be up to her to get Milly out of it. But the payment doesn’t quite go as planned, being interrupted by a dead body. And as Milly was involved in the payment, Cassie finds herself dragged into investigating the murder and the blackmail in the ballroom.

  ~ * ~ * ~

  Other books in the series

  Killing at the Carnival

  Death at Dinner

  Stabbing Set with Sapphires

  A Spartan Murder

  The Body in the Boxroom

  A Drowning in Bath

  The Death Downstairs

  Mugs, Murder, and Mayfair

  Murder Near Slaughter

  Three Bodies in London

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 1

  I WAS NICELY SETTLED IN MY CHAIR by the window of my apartment at 334 Paddington Street with the latest Lady Susanna Investigates open in front of me, just getting to the bit where the jewel robbery had been discovered, when there was a pounding on my door. I was quite certain it wasn’t Mrs. Albright—my landlady wouldn’t bang on the door like that—and the new tenant downstairs hadn’t moved in yet. And as the message tube between the front door and my rooms hadn’t chimed, whoever it was hadn’t sent up a card, which narrowed the list considerably to people Mrs. Albright would let in without questioning them. It certainly wasn’t the polite sort of knock I’d expect from Inspector Burrows or the impatient, efficient rapping of Inspector Wainwright. And it hadn’t stopped despite the length of time I’d been trying to ignore it. Which meant I suspected I knew who it was, and ignoring her wouldn’t make her go away. I stuck a bit of paper into my book and went to answer the door.

  My cousin Milly Prynne swept in almost before I had the door fully open. “Cassie, didn’t you hear me knocking? Good thing Mrs. Albright was going out as we were coming, or we’d still be standing out on the street.”

  “I was reading.” That didn’t really answer her question, but then I didn’t think she was really interested in an answer.

  “Well, good, I wasn’t interrupting anything you can’t get back to later. This is Beth.”

  For the first time I realized Milly had left a second person standing in the hallway. A woman slightly younger than Milly and me, in a new dark wool coat and recently re-done brown felt hat with grey velvet ribbons. I held the door so she could pass by me and come in.

  “Miss Elizabeth Wilson,” she said as she came through.

  Milly was taking off her overcoat and a blue hat with quite a few quail feathers I hadn’t seen her wear before. “She has a bit of a problem she needs some help with, and I knew you were just the person to ask.”

  I was already starting to regret opening the door. “I’ll put the kettle on.” Maybe, by the time the tea was ready, Miss Wilson would have decided I wasn’t at all the person she wanted to have help her.

  While Milly made herself at home and got Miss Wilson settled in one of the chairs by the fire, I got the kettle on and observed my guest. She was slightly taller than Milly, with dark hair pinned up in a sort of simplified version of what was popular in fashion plates. What little I had heard of her accent had been educated. She had removed her overcoat so I could see she was wearing a walking suit of good grey wool with velvet trim that matched the ribbons of her hat and enough understated jewelry to show she could afford it. She was taking absolutely no interest in my books or anything else in the sitting room. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing—I certainly didn’t like nosy guests—or a bad thing—she clearly had no interest in my very interesting books. Then the kettle interrupted me, and I got the rest of the tea tray set out.

  Once we were sorted and settled with tea and some shortbread I’d forgotten I had, I thought I would have to start fishing for the real purpose of the visit. I was quite surprised when Milly got straight to the point.

  “Cassie, you would not believe what has happened to Beth. She’s being blackmailed!”

  I’d known I shouldn’t have opened the door. I turned to Miss Wilson. “Have you considered going to the police?”

  Miss Wilson shook her head vigorously. “Oh, I couldn’t. I mean, if it was something I could tell them...” She finished the sentence with a gesture that nearly spilled her tea and did send her shortbread biscuit crashing into her lap.

  Of course it wouldn’t be that simple. “I know some very discreet policemen.” I wasn’t sure which to send her to, although at the moment I was tending toward Inspector Wainwright. Serve both of them right. Of course, if I knew the secret, I might have taken pity on her and suggested Inspector Burrows. I considered how best to hint at that.

  Milly interrupted me before I could come up with anything. “No, Cassie, this is not the sort of thing to involve the police in. You know how they are. All they’ll be interested in is catching someone, and then it will all come out at the trial and everything will be for nothing.”

  I poured myself another cup of tea and tried to decide if Milly knew what the secret was or if she was simply caught up in the drama of it all. “It can’t be that exciting of a secret if she wants us involved.” I wondered if that was a bit harsh with Miss Wilson sitting right there, then decided if she didn’t want her business discussed, she shouldn’t have involved me in it.

  “We’re not really involved, not in the interesting bits,” Milly said, as if I were failing to grasp some fundamental point. I was more interested in figuring out what she considered the interesting bits, but Milly didn’t give me the chance to think. “She’s gotten instructions for delivering the payment, and she needs our help to get it done.”

  Miss Wilson must have seen my thoughts on my face, as she quickly said, “I can raise the funds myself. And the party I’m supposed to leave it at is perfectly respectable. But the payment itself... I would feel so much better if there was someone there to support me.”

  I was tempted to ask why that person couldn’t be Milly alone.

  Milly answered that question without my needing to ask it. “And if she had someone there, someone the blackmailer wouldn’t know was a friend of hers...”

  What Milly meant was someone like me.

  “Then that person could watch the door and see who it picks up the money.”

  I turned back to Miss Wilson. “So you don’t know who’s threatening you? How do you know they can actually do something to harm you?”

  Miss Wilson pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at her decidedly dry eyes. I knew that trick and kept staring at her. “They know things...” She looked up at me then brought the handkerchief back to her eyes.

  I could see how
she and Milly ended up friends. They used the same ploys to avoid answering questions. “You realize this will be the first payment but not the last.”

  “Oh, I’m not worried about that at all. Once this is over...”

  “And we’ll have seen who it is,” Milly added, “so she can deal with them directly.”

  I was beginning to think involving me had been all Milly’s idea, and Miss Wilson would have been perfectly content with only Milly there to help her, a circumstance I was quite happy to facilitate.

  Miss Wilson confirmed my theory by putting down her teacup and dabbing at her eyes again. “I knew it was too much to ask of someone I didn’t know. But it sounded like such a good plan. But now I see it was far too much to ask. I am sorry to have troubled you.” Miss Wilson collected up her things and hurried from the flat. Or she made a show of it, at least. From the many pauses to adjust her gloves and see that she hadn’t forgotten anything, I suspected she wanted me to try and stop her or to insist it wasn’t any trouble. I did neither, and she eventually made it to the door.

  Once Miss Wilson was gone, I turned to Milly, who hadn’t made any move to leave with her friend. I wondered if she’d stayed to try and convince me to go along with it, or to finish her tea. Most likely a combination of both. I refilled her cup and asked, “How serious are her problems?”

  Milly helped herself to another biscuit. “I don’t think they’re that bad. She said she’ll have no trouble getting the money together, and she’s not the least bit worried about going to this party, so there’s really no danger at all.”

  “So you suggested getting me involved.”

  “Well, you’re so good at these criminal things.”

  Every time someone tried to get me to do something I didn’t want to by saying I was so good at it, I was tempted to show them just how good I was at poisons. “How well do you know her?”

  “Oh, we’ve known each other a few weeks, it must be.”

  “And you know her well enough in that amount of time that she told you about being blackmailed?”

  “Well, you can know a person quite well in a few weeks.”

  And if Miss Wilson had known Milly longer, she probably wouldn’t have trusted her with any of it.

  “I’m helping her no matter what, Cassie. I thought you would want to, too. She’s all alone in London and needs some friends right now. And you’re not really going to be involved, just watch and see who goes into a room. Nothing at all. The police wouldn’t even consider you a lookout.”

  A lookout implied that we were committing a crime, but I didn’t bother to say that either. “Are you certain it isn’t a secret that’s going to get us in trouble?”

  “Of course not, Cassie. She’s a perfectly respectable person. Do you remember Randall?”

  “Randall Featherton?” That was one of Milly’s more unfortunate gentlemen, and as she counted among them one who had arrested her and one who had a wife in Islington, that was saying something. I still got a little shudder thinking about Randall Featherton.

  “That’s him. Well, we met because of him, so I’m quite certain she wouldn’t do anything terribly illegal or anything. I mean, she didn’t strangle Randall or knock him over the head, and she knew him for ages.”

  “I suppose that does show admirable self-control.” I had been tempted to do both, and I’d known him less than a month. “But it’s really a matter for the police. What makes her so certain that this will be the only payment?”

  “Oh, she thinks she knows who it is.”

  And after I’d more or less asked her directly. “And she couldn’t tell us that?”

  “Now, Cassie, you know you can’t go around accusing people without proof. Besides, if she tells you who to look out for, you’ll look out for them.”

  I sighed. The only time Milly seemed to come up with properly logical points was when she was trying to get me to act against my better judgment. But she had made a good point. And she seemed determined to go through with it, meaning my choices were to go along as well and try to keep them both out of trouble, or let Milly handle it and have to get her out of whatever trouble she managed to stumble into afterward, because I was so good at it. The former seemed less trouble for me. “Fine, but I will only watch. No participating.”

  “Of course not. I’ll handle the rest.”

  I was already starting to regret agreeing to it. “Tell me about this party I’m being dragged to.”

  Milly settled in with the look of someone who was about to tell a most exciting story. “It’s a perfectly respectable sort of party. Miss Wilson had already been invited to it when she got the note, so she doesn’t think they’re involved. The Drummonds in Chelsea. They own the West London Steam Lock and Lighting Company. I’m sure you’ve heard of it.”

  I hadn’t, and I doubted Milly had either, so the information must have come from Miss Wilson. But Chelsea was certainly a respectable part of London, so that was something. “And what are we supposed to do when we get there?”

  “It’s very easy. Really, there’s no way for us to get into any sort of trouble at all. The short version is that Beth is supposed to put the payment in a handbag and leave it in one of the rooms upstairs; then, after the blackmailer’s had a chance to collect the money, I go up there and pretend to find her bag and return it to her.”

  I knew I was going to regret asking, but I did anyway. “And the long version?”

  The plan wasn’t a bad one, if you ignored the fact that we were helping someone pay off a blackmailer. Milly and I were to arrive together at the party. Miss Wilson had assured Milly that we would be on the guest list, so we simply had to say that we had forgotten our invitation and, when they checked the names, they would find us. We would need to arrive early enough to be able to have a look around and see where Miss Wilson was supposed to leave the handbag. Miss Wilson had promised to tell Milly everything she would need to know to find the place as soon as she received the information herself. Miss Wilson would arrive separately so as not to make more of a connection between us than necessary, although there didn’t seem to be any reason to pretend we didn’t know each other. It was perfectly normal to run into people you knew at those kinds of parties. Once Milly and I knew the set-up of the house, we were to go back to the ballroom and watch for Miss Wilson to arrive and go to the location. Once she had left the handbag, I was to find a spot from which to watch the room and note who went in after her.

  The whole affair was supposed to be finished by midnight, which was when Milly could go upstairs and collect the handbag. Ten minutes after, to be specific. Right on the hour would have been too obvious. I would have said something like seven minutes after, or twelve, but it was better than one of the quarter hours. And even if things went wrong, neither Milly nor I could be connected to much of anything, which was really the best we could hope for in a ridiculous mess like the one Milly had gotten us into. I asked quite a few questions, all designed to see if I could get Milly to drop some sort of clue about Miss Wilson’s secret, but either Milly’s ability to keep a secret had improved dramatically or she really didn’t know what the blackmail was about.

  Once Milly had secured my commitment and made certain there were no interesting teacakes on offer, she left, and I went directly downstairs and telephoned Scotland Yard, only to find that my friend Inspector Burrows had the day off. I felt a twinge of guilt bothering him at home and another twinge at being happy he was there so I wouldn’t have to come up with an excuse not to discuss the case inside Scotland Yard. But only twinges. Not enough to stop me from writing a note asking if we could meet for tea and finding a messenger boy to bring it to his rooms with instructions to wait for an answer if he was in, and to leave the note and try to find out when he’d be back if he wasn’t.

  While I waited for a response, I went up to my storage space in the attic and had a look at the dresses I kept up there. The key seemed to be to not draw attention to myself, which meant I couldn’t wear anything conspicuously
inconspicuous either. Something that would blend in with everyone else at the party. It would have been easier to determine if I’d known what sort of people would be there, and asking Milly was as likely to end up with her borrowing my best choice as it was to get me a reliable answer. So I poked through the trunk I kept clothes I wasn’t wearing in, with no real notion of what I was looking for, and came away with my dark blue velvet. It was dark enough to blend into a shadow without looking like I was in mourning.

  With that sorted, I brought the dress back to my flat and settled in to pretend to read my book while I waited for a reply. Inspector Burrows sent a note back promptly, suggesting I meet him at three o’ clock at a tea shop part way between his building and my flat. I promised myself for the hundredth time that I would, at least once, visit him when I wasn’t mixed up in some sort of crime, and filled the time before leaving to meet him by going through my desk to make certain there wasn’t any typing that needed to be completed, as I was quite certain whatever Milly was dragging me into would make enough things for me to do that getting any actual work done would be impossible.

  Chapter 2

  INSPECTOR BURROWS WAS WAITING for me on the corner just outside the tea shop, doing a not particularly good job of trying not to look like a policeman. He seemed quite relieved to see me. “I think they’re all wondering which of these places I’m watching.”

  I grinned. “It’s the hat. It screams policeman trying not to look like one.”

  He laughed at that. “Then I shall put it aside to be worn only when I want to be known as a policeman without being obvious. Shall we go in?”

  Inspector Burrows did a very good job of not asking why we were there until we had been seated and ordered a pot of tea and cake, Battenberg for him and walnut for me. Then he couldn’t wait any longer. “One of these days, you will send a note to say we should meet simply because you’re in the mood for my company. Somehow I have the feeling today isn’t that day.”