Sasha tried a few more times then dropped back onto four paws and gingerly padded over pens and papers to stand beside him. “But you smell it, too, right? I mean, how can you not? It’s almost sickly sweet, the odor.”
Arun just stared at her. “Yes, I smell it, Sasha. But what good does our keen sense of smell do when she won’t even glance over here?” He stood up and stretched. “Maybe if I knock off the lamp…”
“The what? Arun, no! Don’t you dare!”
He crouched as if bunching his muscles for the jump, and Sasha pounced, rolling them both off the credenza and into the air for a second before they both hit the floor, paws first.
Glaring menacingly at Sasha, Arun shook out his fur. “Have you completely lost what’s left of your mind? You knew I wasn’t actually going to shove the thing off!”
But Sasha wasn’t paying attention to him. She sat frozen, her large ears pointed toward the door. “Listen,” she said quietly.
Arun did then quickly sidled up to sit beside her before the commotion got started. “Uh-oh. Trouble is coming.”
Just then, the doorbell pealed. At Archibald’s desk, Daisy looked up and sighed before getting up and hurrying to the office door. After pulling it open, she leaned out into the hallway and waved her hand to get the butler’s attention. “Harold? Harold, isn’t that the doorbell, dear? I believe someone is at the door.”
Chapter Eighteen
The peal of the doorbell jolted Araminta out of her semi-daze. She’d been reading columns of numbers over Daisy’s shoulder, deep in thought and trying to figure out who in the company would be stealing from the family. Neither of them was expecting visitors today—at least, not that she knew of.
Daisy pushed back her chair and walked to the hall to discreetly alert Harold to the fact that someone was at the door.
Araminta waited for the announcement of the identity of the visitor, but it never came. Instead, through the still-open study door, she heard, “Harold Murray, you are under arrest for the murder of Archibald Moorecliff.”
Harold! Oh no! The police had come to arrest him. But why? Yes, there were certain things that pointed at him—the fact that he’d served the dinner and the wine; he’d told Trinity about the phone call; and he’d inherited money from Archie’s will, but what proof had they found? Araminta had been searching the house and found nothing, and the police hadn’t even been here.
She had to see this evidence for herself, and although Harold was one of her suspects, she was still skeptical that he was the killer. Araminta didn’t like to jump to conclusions. She needed hard evidence.
Araminta rounded the desk on her way to the hall, but Arun jumped out in front of her.
“Not now, Arun! Didn’t you hear?” she asked as she reached down to pick up the cat. “They’ve come to arrest poor Harold!”
Sasha jumped up as if trying to get to Arun. Araminta, who’d barely moved two steps since she started, sat him down again then stopped. When the cats started acting outside their normal behavior, there was usually a reason. Were her fur babies trying to keep her in the room?
Sasha jumped onto the desk and walked over to the phone, which she nudged with her head.
“What’s that, girl? You think I should make a phone call?”
If cats could talk, the absent, blinking look the cat gave her would probably be accompanied by something she didn’t want to hear, Araminta thought. Then, as if lightning had been hurled down from a clear blue sky, she got it. “That’s it! The phone call! Harold couldn’t have known because—”
Arun jumped up onto the credenza and began to paw at the door of the cupboard. Suddenly another idea struck. Of course! She’d seen someone in this cupboard who shouldn’t have been in there.
She pulled open the cupboard door to the sound of the cat’s meows of approval.
Inside, tucked toward the back between two rows of books, sat an antique rose bowl. Araminta recognized it immediately. She’d gotten it several years ago as a birthday gift from her lovely aunt Martha, but it was out of place in here. They usually kept the vases in the dining room, and its presence here could mean only one thing.
She plucked the bowl from the space then quickly wrapped it in a piece of blank paper that she snatched from the printer on the credenza. Then she shot out of the room and headed for the parlor.
The whole family had rushed out to see what was happening, it seemed, because Daisy was wringing her hands in the middle of the room, while one of the cops put handcuffs on a stunned and confused Harold. Reginald stood with one arm around Stephanie, barely inside the parlor door. Bernard had dropped down onto the sofa.
Araminta swept into the room, the wrapped bowl cuddled in the crook of her arm, and demanded to know what had happened.
Ivan Hershey looked at her with pained eyes and began to explain. “We have the phone records from the night of Archibald’s death, Araminta. It was a fake. There was no call.”
“Someone wanted to lure Trinity away?” Daisy asked.
Ivan gestured at Harold. “We know Harold served the wine the night of the murder. He wouldn’t have been able to do that if Trinity wasn’t otherwise occupied. We also have a copy of the will. Sedgewick had it brought over by courier immediately after the reading. We know the servants were all awarded a large sum of money in addition to the trust Archibald set up to insure their retirement.”
“But you have no physical evidence tying any of this to Harold,” Araminta pointed out.
Hershey shook his head and gave Araminta a saddened look. “We have opportunity, method, and motive. I’m sorry, Ms. Moorecliff. We have to do our job.”
“Harold is not the killer, Detective, and I can prove it!”
Ivan’s eyes grew wide, but she cut him off before he could speak.
“I highly doubt Harold would go to such lengths, and besides, someone else had a much more compelling motive.”
“And what about the serving of the wine?” Hershey asked. “Who else would have benefitted from substituting Harold for Tiffany if not Harold himself?”
Araminta smiled. “Uncuff him, gentlemen, if you please, because Harold is not Archibald’s killer. But I finally figured out who is.” She turned to the family and pinned each of them with a look then said, “Allow me to explain what really happened.”
Chapter Nineteen
The two cops who had arrived with Hershey to make the arrest looked uncomfortable about allowing their proceedings to be interrupted, but Ivan held up his hand, signaling for them to hold on. Though he made no move to release Harold from the cuffs, he would give Araminta a chance to explain.
Turning to her family, she said, “The poison that killed Archie is called convallatoxin. After the police left on the day Ivan told us how Archie was murdered, I looked it up.” Looking at Harold now, Araminta almost winced. He appeared quite miserable, standing there in handcuffs. “Did you know convallatoxin can be found in lily of the valley? How many vases of flowers have we had in Moorecliff Manor?”
Turning to Hershey, she said, “At first, I thought perhaps someone had ground the plants up, but since there were no leaves or flowers found in Archibald’s system during the autopsy, I determined that the poison must have been administered as a liquid. And since it’s more difficult to put liquid in a specific person’s food or drink if you’re not the cook, the killer must have gotten Archie to ingest it in some other way.”