before I could pursue this, she moved on to the wayward bough of a deodar. “That will completely block this path if I do not lop it off. I must have the saw for that. You will excuse me,” she said, striding away to retrieve her tools and leaving me to stare after her.
I found Portia in the drawing room, wrapped in a fur robe and attempting to read. It was dank and chill, with neither fire to warm it nor sunshine to light it.
“Why are you not sitting in the morning room? It faces east and the shutters are open and a fire has been lit,” I pointed out. “I almost didn’t find you mouldering away in here.”
“That is the point,” she told me. “I am hiding from Morag.”
“What did you do now? You didn’t muddy the hem of your riding habit again?” I asked, shuddering at the memory of Portia’s last infraction.
“No, worse. I caught the clasp of my bracelet on the lace of my gown last night. There is a tear,” she said, scarcely daring to speak the word aloud. “I distracted her with the state of my shoes last night and managed to get the gown out of sight before she noticed. I daren’t tell her.”
I suppressed a sigh. Portia’s own maid had fallen ill between Port Said and Aden, and it was decided she should return at once to England and that Portia would share my Morag for an extortionate rate of pay and an extra day off per week.
“She is particularly difficult at present,” I admitted. “She’s being fey and Scottish and keeping herself to our rooms so as to avoid seeing or speaking to any of the natives. She’s afraid if she talks to them, she’ll be infected with devils.”
Portia tipped her head to the side. “That could prove useful.”
“Not as useful as this,” I said, quickly relating to her all I had discovered. Granted, it was not much, but at least I had confirmed that the charming Harry Cavendish might have a very excellent motive for murder and that Camellia Cavendish herself might have an eye to keeping the estate.
Portia listened thoughtfully. “Well done, Julia. That is quite a bit of information to gather in a single morning.”
I preened a little until she pierced my satisfaction with her next words. “Of course, I have done a bit of sleuthing myself and have discovered a tasty titbit that has eluded you.”
She paused for dramatic effect, and I resisted the urge to yank her hair.
“Jane and I were discussing the neighbours this morning.”
“Yes, I know,” I said impatiently. “The Reverend Pennyfeather. Miss Cavendish told me of him.”
“Did Miss Cavendish also tell you about the inebriate doctor who suffered a great tragedy when his wife was attacked and killed by a tiger a few months ago?”
I blinked at her. “She mentioned a tiger in the area, but nothing more. How dreadful!”
“Yes, it is,” she agreed. “Apparently the poor woman was carried home still alive, but without a face.”
I made a noise of revulsion, but Portia went on. “It took her hours to die, hours. And she was conscious the whole time, screaming.”
“Enough!” I put up a hand. “What a frightful way to die.”
“She is not the only one,” Portia advised me. “A fortnight ago it snatched a child, and apparently everyone is in rather a state because the picking will commence soon and everyone must be out in the fields instead of huddling close to their bungalows. The local folk believe it is some sort of magical tiger on account of the colour of its coat.”
I furrowed my brow. “I thought all tigers were orange with black stripey bits.”
“Not all of them,” Portia said. “This one is black as coal. They say at night, you cannot see anything of it at all save for its eyes which sparkle like jewels in the moonlight.”
If Portia had meant to frighten me out of my wits she could have scarcely made a better job of it, and I prayed fervently that Brisbane was not engaged in a tiger hunt. The danger quite took my breath away. “I have heard all I care to hear upon the matter of tigers. Another subject please.”
Portia gave me a smile pointed with mischief. “Very well, dearest. Did Miss Cavendish tell you about the kindly pair of English sisters who have taken the lease on Pine Cottage, the pretty house down the lane? Oh, they are delightful girls, Julia, and you will remember them well.”
“Remember them? I cannot think of any of our acquaintance who have gone to India—” I broke off in horror, my mind whipping back to the conclusion of our second investigation, when our cousins had quite literally got away with murder.
Portia gave me a triumphant smile. “Yes, pet. Our near neighbours are none other than Miss Emma Phipps and Lucy, Lady Eastley.”
This news took a bit of digesting. I had never expected to see Emma and Lucy again, and to encounter them in so remote a corner of the world was little less than astounding.
“Are you certain?” I asked Portia, knowing the question to be a stupid one.
“Perfectly. Some time ago, Camellia Cavendish undertook a journey to England to bring the wayward Freddie home to do his duty. On the return journey, she formed an acquaintance—”
“With Emma and Lucy,” I finished. “It must have been Lucy’s wedding trip, just after they left us at Bellmont Abbey.” Emma and Lucy had played significant roles in our second investigation, a case that had shaken the very foundations of our father’s ancestral home. Lucy I believed to be innocent, but I was firmly convinced of Emma’s moral culpability, even if no legal guilt could be attached to her. They had left in the company of Sir Cedric Eastley, Lucy’s fiancé, who had managed to marry and subsequently widow her during the course of their journey to India.
“I have always thought Emma somehow induced his apoplexy,” I confessed to Portia. “They were so desperately poor all their lives, and with all that lovely Eastley money as an inducement, it would have been difficult to resist the temptation. And Sir Cedric himself so upright, so controlling. Emma would never tolerate watching her beloved younger sister abasing herself for such a man.”
“Of course we have no proof that she is a murderess,” Portia reminded me thoughtfully. “But it does make one wonder.”
“It seems entirely too coincidental that we have a suspicious death and a suspected murderess in the same vicinity.” The more I meditated upon the idea of Emma as villainess, the more I liked the notion. It was tidy.
“But what possible motive could she have for killing Freddie Cavendish? She would not inherit his estate, and we have not yet established that it is even an estate worth killing for. It may be burdened with debts and mortgages for all we know.”
“Perhaps it has nothing to do with the estate at all,” I mused. “Perhaps Freddie slighted her somehow.”
“I wonder. Of course, I suppose it is a tremendous coincidence that two sets of our relations should have met on the same boat. What must the odds be?”
“Rather good, I should think. Consider, Portia, it is not Australia. Criminals and poor men do not venture to India to make their fortunes. One must have connections or wealth in order to establish oneself in India—either good birth or money, and preferably both. What is more natural than ladies, of whom there would have been a limited number anyway, striking up conversation and comparing their acquaintance only to find they have distant cousins in common? It would have made a bond between them. Remember, dearest, we are a prodigiously large family with a very good name. I should think there are hundreds of people who could claim connection with us and who would not hesitate to do so in order to gain a social advantage.”
“True enough,” she agreed. “I once had a dressmaker tell me she was bosom friends with Lady Bettiscombe and dressed her exclusively. It was tremendous fun revealing to her that I was Lady Bettiscombe. The poor dear had to go and lie down with a vinaigrette from