Death at Bishop's Keep Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  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 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  The Victorian Mystery Series by Robin Paige

  Death at Bishop’s Keep

  ... in which our detectives Kate Ardleigh and Sir Charles Sheridan meet for the first time as they are drawn into a lurid conspiracy ...

  Death at Gallows Green

  ... in which two mysterious deaths bring Kate and Sir Charles together once more to solve the secrets of Gallows Green ...

  Death at Daisy’s Folly

  ... in which Charles and Kate discover that even the highest levels of society are no refuge from the lowest of deeds—such as murder . . .

  Death at Devil’s Bridge

  ... in which newlyweds Charles and Kate Sheridan begin their lives at Bishop’s Keep—only to find a new mystery right in their own backyard ...

  More praise for Robin Paige’s

  Victorian Mysteries ...

  “I read it with enjoyment ... I found myself burning for the injustices of it, and caring what happened to the people.”

  —Anne Perry

  “I couldn’t put it down.” —Murder & Mayhem

  “An intriguing mystery ... skillfully unraveled.”

  —Jean Hager, author of Blooming Murder

  “Absolutely riveting ... An extremely articulate, genuine mystery, with well-drawn, compelling characters.”

  —Meritorious Mysteries

  “An absolutely charming book... An adventure worth reading ... You’re sure to enjoy it.”—Romantic Times

  The Victorian and Edwardian Mysteries by Robin Paige

  DEATH AT BISHOP’S KEEP

  DEATH AT GALLOWS GREEN

  DEATH AT DAISY’S FOLLY

  DEATH AT DEVIL’S BRIDGE

  DEATH AT ROTTINGDEAN

  DEATH AT WHITECHAPEL

  DEATH AT EPSOM DOWNS

  DEATH AT DARTMOOR

  DEATH AT GLAMIS CASTLE

  DEATH IN HYDE PARK

  DEATH AT BLENHEIM PALACE

  DEATH ON THE LIZARD

  China Bayles Mysteries by Susan Wittig Albert

  THYME OF DEATH

  WITCHES’ BANE

  HANGMAN’S ROOT

  ROSEMARY REMEMBERED

  RUEFUL DEATH

  LOVE LIES BLEEDING

  CHILE DEATH

  LAVENDER LIES

  MISTLETOE MAN

  BLOODROOT

  INDIGO DYING

  AN UNTHYMELY DEATH

  A DILLY OF A DEATH

  DEAD MAN’S BONES

  BLEEDING HEARTS

  SPANISH DAGGER

  CHINA BAYLES’ BOOK OF DAYS

  Beatrix Potter Mysteries by Susan Wittig Albert

  THE TALE OF HILL TOP FARM

  THE TALE OF HOLLY HOW

  THE TALE OF CUCKOO BROW WOOD

  THE TALE OF HAWTHORN HOUSE

  Nonfiction books by Susan Wittig Albert

  WRITING FROM LIFE

  WORK OF HER OWN

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England

  Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

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  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

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  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196,

  South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  DEATH AT BISHOP’S KEEP

  A Berkley Prime Crime Book I published by arrangement with the authors

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Avon Books edition / October 1994

  Berldey Prime Crime mass-market edition / July 1998

  Copyright © 1994 by Susan Wittig Albert and William J. Albert.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form

  without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in

  violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eISBN : 978-1-440-67291-0

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME

  Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  The name BERKLEY PRIME CRIME and the BERKLEY PRIME CRIME design

  are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  Version_2

  Our deep appreciation goes to Ruby Hild and her late husband, Ron, without whose introduction to East Anglia and to things British this book would never have been written. We are also grateful to our longtime friend Reginald Wright Barker for allowing us to use his collection of photography books.

  I intend to illuminate the Ledger with a blood & thunder tale as they are easy to “compoze” & are better paid than moral & elaborate works of Shakespeare so dont be shocked if I send you a paper containing a picture of Indians, pirates, wolves, bea
rs & distressed damsels in a grand tableau over a title like this “The Maniac Bride” or “The Bath of Blood A Thrilling Tale of Passion. ”

  —LOUISA MAY ALCOTT,

  to her friend Alf Whitman

  1

  “I am in just the mood for a ghostly tale, a scene of mystery, a startling revelation, and where shall I look for an obliging magician to gratify me?”

  “Here!”

  —LOUISA MAY ALCOTT “The Fate of the Forrests”

  Kate Ardleigh glanced warily over her shoulder. The late-summer night was black as the pit and stormy, lighted by the intermittent blue-white glare of lightning flashes. The wind skittered like a mad thing through Manhattan’s nearly empty streets, twisting Kate’s sensible skirt about her ankles and flapping the chestnut vendor’s sign. It was precisely the sort of wild night on which Felix Farmore had kidnapped Pearl St. John, in Kate’s second story, “Missing Pearl, Or The Lost Heiress.” And it was in just such a shadowy street that Felix had apprehended Pearl and borne her off to her fate.

  But the figure that Kate saw behind the passing two-horse omnibus was nothing like the fictitious Farmore. It was quite real, and familiar, too, for she had seen it yesterday as well. She quickened her pace, lifting her skirt to avoid a pile of horse droppings and ducking behind a brewery wagon piled with wooden kegs. He (for Kate was quite certain that it was a man, stout and bowler-hatted) had followed her yesterday. And this evening, he had followed her ever since she had left the Fifth Avenue offices of the Frank Leslie Publishing House, where she had finally procured payment for “Missing Pearl.” She fisted her gloved hands in the pockets of her trim-fitting jacket and drew her brows together, her apprehension mixed with more than a little annoyance.

  In point of fact, Kate would not have been abroad on the streets on a Tuesday evening, a good hour after the closing of the shops, if Mr. Bothwell Coxford, a haughty, self-important assistant editor of Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly, had not kept her waiting for the greater part of the afternoon. It was only as the electric lamps were being lighted that a clerk had brought her a bank draft for $225, an amount that would permit her to pay Mrs. Murchison the rent and see her comfortably situated until she had finished her next serial story, which she had tentatively titled “Amber’s Amulet, Or The Conspiracy of Death.” The money was worth walking a total of forty blocks to fetch, even if the wild night threatened rain.

  Kate gave another furtive glance over her shoulder and quickened her step. The shadow had gained ground and was closing fast. Most women would have been frightened to death in such a circumstance, but Kate, independent and self-sufficient, was not given to fright. She stepped decisively around the corner and into the pale halo that encircled the street lamp in front of the Ninth Street Police Station.

  The station’s stone staircase descended solidly to the pavement and a reassuring light glowed behind the frosted glass door. It was here that her uncle, Sean O‘Malley, served as detective sergeant. Uncle Sean was probably at home, presiding over pot roast and potatoes with Aunt Maureen and the two youngest O’Malleys. But inside the station Kate could hear the thunderous voice of Inspector Duggan, the night sergeant, bawling into the recently installed telephone in a voice loud enough to be heard in Brooklyn. If she were to confront the shadowy figure, she had best do it here, where a loud scream would summon reinforcements.

  Kate slipped into the shadow of the stairs and waited, holding her breath, until Bowler-Hat turned the corner. He hesitated, stroking his handlebar mustache as he searched the empty street. Then she stepped out and accosted him with greater boldness than she felt, speaking in a firm, unfaltering voice.

  “Please be good enough, sir,” she said, lifting her chin, “to tell me why you are following me.”

  Bowler-Hat’s mustache twitched and his beefy face registered surprise, alarm, and chagrin, in that order. He hunched his shoulders and shifted his feet uncomfortably, his garments exuding the smoky seasoning of cigars and garlic. Then he collected himself, straightened his shoulders, and cleared his throat.

  “You mistake me, madam,” he said with great dignity. “I am not following—”

  “Stuff and nonsense,” Kate snapped. She stamped her foot. “Do you take me for a fool? You, sir, have been trailing a half block behind me ever since I left Fifth Avenue. What is more, you were following me yesterday—and rather clumsily, I must say. Now, do you wish to tell me why you are being such an annoyance, or do you prefer to yield that information to”—she pointed at the brightly lighted door—“Inspector Duggan?”

  At that moment, Inspector Duggan was heard to shout into the phone, “Well, then, and a good night to you, too, sir,” and to bellow for Corporal Peters, “on the double, dammit!”

  His jaw tightening, Bowler-Hat’s glance darted from Kate to the lighted door and back again. He hesitated, clearly perceiving that he was in a tight place.

  “As you wish,” he said sourly. Reaching into the pocket of his tweed coat, he produced a leather card case and handed her a card. “If you will appear at this address on Friday morning at ten, you will be told what you wish to know.”

  Kate turned the thin gray card to the light. On it was printed, in bold letters, the name Rodney P. Kellerman, and beneath that, Pinkerton’s Detective Agency, New York Office, with an address on Second Avenue.

  Kate’s eyes widened. A private detective! What amazing good fortune! But she did not allow her delight to creep into her voice.

  “Pinkerton’s?” she asked with cold formality. “And what, pray tell, does Pinkerton’s require of me?”

  But Rodney P. Kellerman did not appear inclined to answer. He touched his fingers to the brim of his bowler. “Friday at ten, madam,” he said, and marched stiffly around the corner.

  It began to rain.

  2

  “In the late nineteenth century the most popular form of narrative was the penny-dreadful (or shilling shocker, as it was called in England). Some of the tales were written, pseudonymously, by resourceful women who insisted on making a living for themselves.”

  —SUSAN BLAKE “With Her Own Pen”

  Clutching Rodney P. Kellerman’s card in a cold fist, Kate Ardleigh returned to her bleak third-floor room in Mrs. Murchison’s boarding house on Mayberry Street, It was a lodging she had taken only four months before, after the sudden death of her employer, Mrs. Winifred P. Schreiber, whose secretary-companion she had been since leaving Mrs. Dawson’s employ in 1889, five years before. Kate could have (and probably should have, she told herself) sought immediate reemployment. Mrs. Schreiber’s lawyer would have been glad to give her the highest recommendation, as would Mrs. Dawson, whose three children—dreadful brats!—she had tutored. As she was now a skilled typist (an art she had learned at Mrs. Schreiber’s request), she might have sought clerical employment, as well as work as a governess or a companion.

  Or she could have returned to her childhood home with her Aunt and Uncle O‘Malley, where she would have been greatly welcome. Kate’s British father, Thomas Ardleigh, had died before her birth and her Irish mother, Aileen, had similarly succumbed when she was five. The O’Malleys, warmly capacious in their Irish affections, had been mother and father to her, and their six children had been her brothers and sisters. She was deeply attached to them. But while she visited often, returning to live with them would have seemed an admission that she was not capable of making her own way in the world.

  Or finally (in Kate’s view, it really was a last resort) she could have married. While she was not a conventionally pretty woman, a few men—those not afraid of a strong woman—had been attracted by the intensity of her personality and the depth of her self-composure. She had rejected the attentions of several men, of whom she might have been decently fond if she had made the effort. But she had not. “Decently fond” was not fond enough. Spinsterhood, whatever fear it might strike in the hearts of ordinary women, held no terrors for Kate. She had something else to do, and she intended to do it as long as she could affor
d private lodgings, lamp oil, paper, and ink—and perhaps, on some glorious day, a typewriter. She intended to be a writer.

  Her efforts, under the pseudonym of Beryl Bardwell, had already met with a modest success. “The Rosicrucian’s Ruby” and “Missing Pearl” had caught the fancy of Frank Leslie, whose Popular Monthly was hawked by every train boy on every railway in the country. Although he had required her upon revision to spice up her tales with a few more sensational passages than she thought altogether tasteful, the stories had been quickly accepted, and almost as quickly paid for—almost, for she had had to fetch the second payment herself, and wait for it, to boot.

  But what was nearly as gratifying as the money was the fact that readers were inundating the publisher with a flood tide of requests for more Beryl Bardwell stories, a tide that lifted Kate’s spirits as well as raising the Monthly’s revenues. Kate felt on the way to supporting herself by her pen, as long as she could manage to scribble for five or six hours daily without interruption. This was why she had not sought immediate reemployment upon the death of Mrs. Winifred P. Schreiber. If she continued to be successful, she might soon be able to afford the $3.50 per month that was required for the rental of a Remington Standard at The Typewriter Exchange at 10 Barclay Street.

  But Beryl Bardwell’s literary triumphs were not without their complications. The chief difficulty, Kate reflected as she propped Mr. Kellerman’s card against the oil lamp and unbuttoned her wet jacket, was the public’s unquenchable thirst for ever more lurid sensation.

  Kate’s original design had been to write tidy domestic dramas to which she could append her own name, like those of Louisa May Alcott. She had even offered three or four of that sort to publishers, but to no avail. One had sniffed, “Morals, my dear Miss Ardleigh, do not sell. The public wants sensation. Exotic murder and its detection make an excellent story. Try your hand at something like that, and we should be glad to look at it.”