The Vaudeville Star

“Christ!”

“It wasn’t until the inspector and the sergeant were leaving that I asked them what it was all about. That was when I heard that a woman had been strangled,” she shivered, “and that it was Lourdes.”

“Oh, Ruby.” He held her to him again. “I should have been here to protect you.”

“No. It’s as you said. What I’ve done can be righted. What did you find out?”

Ford sighed and took the seat next to her. “A motive and the means.”

“What motive

could he have had? He told me himself that he broke with her before he left New York. He gave her a town house. She would be able to live comfortably,” Ruby argued.

Ford looked over at Ruby and then away. “I spoke with the coroner. Lourdes was pregnant.”

Ruby leaned her head back against the sofa. She felt the tears in her eyes and wiped them away with her hand. “He would not want a child by his mistress in the world. He cares about appearances too much. He doesn’t even want me onstage. He told me so. It wouldn’t be appropriate for his wife.”

“Yes, he mentioned that to me once as well.”

“And the means would be easy. He has more money than the real king of England. He can do what he likes,” Ruby reasoned.

Ford nodded. “But that isn’t all.”

“No?”

Ford shook his head. “I knew King employed a man at his Mayfair house who had been his butler for several years, but I discovered he had suddenly been fired. I wondered why, so I tracked him down to Devon. He had a story to tell about the night Lourdes disappeared.”

“Did he?” Ruby asked apprehensively.

Ford nodded. “Apparently, the night Lourdes died, he heard a large fight. Now King told the police there was a fight and that afterward Lourdes left. Later, she sent a note asking him to come to the hotel to meet her, but King did not. I could not find anyone who had delivered such a note, and in the middle of the night, that would have been unusual.”

“Why did he lie about the note?” Ruby asked, confused.

“Because it was his way of making it seem as if Lourdes had left his house alive.” His eyes met hers. “Of course, I think she never left.”

Ruby shivered as his words sank in. “What else did the butler say?”

“His hearing is not so good, but he heard raised voices and then dishes being broken. He said there wasn’t much else but that King definitely left the flat sometime after two in the morning.”

“Why?”

“To dump the body.”

Ruby put her hands to her face. “And that was all he could tell you?”

“He also told me the next morning he was pouring warm water into King’s basin for his morning toilet, and he saw marks on his forearms that had not been there the day before. Shortly after that, he was fired.”

“Is that significant?” Ruby asked, her throat closing up.

“When I spoke to the coroner, he said the killer was most certainly a man and that the man would have marks on his arms, as Lourdes had managed to claw him before she died.”

Ruby stood up abruptly and walked to the window. Flinging it open, she gulped in several deep breaths.

“I can’t breathe,” she said, gasping for air.

She pressed a hand to her stomach as she tried to calm her breathing.

“Ruby!” Ford followed her immediately. “What is it?”