Susie by M.C. Beaton

that would lead you to suspect she had murder in mind?”
    Giles vividly remembered the scene at the embrasure but found he could not bring himself to say anything.
    But Inspector Disher noticed the slight hesitation and tucked it away in the back of his mind, which was already working furiously. Giles said, “No, nothing,” and the inspector thought,
He’s a handsome lad, this new lord, and the old one was a brute by all accounts. Maybe the bride and this lad put their heads together
.
    Aloud, he said, “That will be all for the present, my lord. Before I see her ladyship I would like to question the butler. I will need to question the servants, you know.”
    “I’ll send him to you,” said Giles. “His name is Thomson.”
    After Giles had departed, Mr. Thomson made a slow and stately entrance.
If he weren’t wearing butler’s uniform
, thought the inspector,
I would take him for one of the lords
.
    Mr. Thomson was a portly gentleman with a bland, superior face, silver hair, and a haughty manner.
    His lordship’s death was most unfortunate, he said, but he believed in getting to the bottom of things.
    He had not been present immediately after the mur—er—accident. Two of his footmen and a housemaid called Betsy had been immediately on the scene. He confirmed most of what Giles had said but managed to convey from his manner that he did not approve of her ladyship and suspected the worst.
    Lady Felicity was next. Yes, she had said some harsh things to Susie, but the girl simply had to pull herself together. Girls of that class had such vulgar emotions.
    “What class?” asked the inspector, wondering how he had the courage to ask this formidable lady one question.
    Felicity always listened to servants’ gossip, and so she related the tale of the blackmail and the stage door of The Follies.
    With a sinking heart, Inspector Blackhall asked Felicity to send Lady Blackhall to him and, after the door had closed behind her, he turned to Mr. Jones, the village constable.
    “Things are beginning to look black, Mr. Jones,” he said gloomily. “I thought these letters would turn out to be just a lot of spite. But now all this about blackmail and forcing the earl to wed! I suppose this Lady Blackhall’s one of them hard, painted floozies. You could tell from that butler that the servants don’t think much of her.”
    “She sounds like a Scarlet Woman,” said Mr. Jones with satisfaction. This was the most exciting moment of his life, and he was relishing it to the full. In his years as a village policeman he had hardly arrested anyone, except for an occasional tramp caught stealing or a drunk on Saturday night. He gazed around the library with great calflike eyes, storing up every detail to tell his wife.
    There was a timid little knock on the door and Susie entered. Both men rose to their feet and stared at her in amazement. She had found a woman in the village to make her a black dress in time for the funeral. Its simple lines hugged her slight, immature figure. Her eyes were enormous in her white face, and her brown hair was pulled up into a demure little coronet on top of her head.
    She’s a child!
thought the dazed inspector.
Only a child
.
    “Sit down, my lady,” he said, “and don’t be afraid of me. No one suspects you of anything now. We simply want to get this matter straight. Now, first of all, give me your maiden name and the names of your mother and father.”
    “My name is Susie Burke,” said Susie in an emotionless voice. “My parents are Dr. and Mrs. Burke of Ten Jubilee Crescent, Camberwell, London. My father is a general practitioner.”
    The inspector blinked. “No connection with the stage, my lady?”
    Susie looked at him in surprise, and then the faint ghost of a smile crossed her mouth. “Oh, no, Inspector. My parents do not approve of the theater.”
    “How did you meet your late husband?”
    “He had an accident; his carriage overturned. His servants brought him to our house, and