Fatal as a Fallen Woman (30 page)

Body tensed as if for a fight, Diana spat it out. "Yesterday."

"Then you know that neither of us could have killed your father."

She blinked at him in confusion and cut her eyes to Ben, silently asking if he knew what Hastings was talking about.

Ben was equally puzzled, and didn't trust Hastings as far as he could throw him, but if the lawyer had information, Ben was willing to hear it. He could thrash the fellow later.

"Why don't we take this somewhere private," he suggested.

* * * *

At the Grand Hotel they claimed what the proprietor called the salesman's room. Thick blue and gold carpeting muffled their footsteps as they entered but nothing could dispel the tension in the air. Diana and Matt settled into two deep leather armchairs arranged catercorner to each other near the unlit woodstove. Ben remained standing.

"All right, Hastings," he said. "Out with it. We have Miranda's side of the story. Let's see how well yours agrees with it."

Diana started at Ben's outright lie, but Matt didn't notice. He leapt to the conclusion that Miranda had told them more than she actually had.

"I hardly know where to start."

Unsympathetic, Ben made an impatient gesture. "At the beginning?"

Matt cleared his throat. "It began five years ago. I met a young woman named Miranda Chambers and fell in love with her. We were going to be married. Then she met your father, Diana, and decided that being very very rich was a better deal."

"It must have been difficult living right next door." To her own surprise, Diana felt a twinge of sympathy for him.

"No more so than after your father cheated me, then dissolved our partnership. And very convenient when Miranda found out he had a mistress. She decided taking up with me again would be the perfect revenge."

"Is that
all
she wanted? An affair? Or did she want you to kill her  husband?"

"She may have wished he were dead, but you know perfectly well that neither of us killed him. We were together the night he died. In his house. In Miranda's bed. The servants—even the redheaded maid—will verify the truth of that if Miranda tells them it's okay to answer your questions. The redhead is in service with a family on Lawrence Street now."

"There are still some details I'm unclear on," Diana said, hiding her surprise at his revelations. "If you and Miranda were so . . . close, why did you help me when I turned up on your doorstep?"

He gave a wry laugh. "Didn't you think it odd that I waylaid you at the exact moment you were standing on the sidewalk in front of my place, wondering where to go next? Miranda telephoned me the instant you ran out of her house. She was hysterical. When she shouted, 'Why didn't you warn me his daughter might show up?' I realized you must have returned. I looked out the window and there you were."

She'd obligingly told him what was going on and how much she knew, Diana recalled, and she'd never had a suspicion then that he wasn't acting out of the goodness of his heart.

Matt dragged agitated fingers through his dull brown hair, leaving it standing on end. "I'm not proud of the way I deceived you, Diana. But I loved her. I never stopped loving her. Not until
after
you arrived in Denver."

"Oh, please! You aren't going to swear you switched your undying devotion to me, I hope?"

"Nothing so noble. I planned on making Miranda my wife as soon as a suitable period of mourning for Torrence had passed. But shortly after you entered the picture, we quarreled. She told me she'd decided years ago that I wasn't good enough to marry and that she hadn't changed her mind since. And she told me she had a new lover." By the look on his face, she'd made a few comparisons that had not flattered Matt.

His bitterness was justified, Diana thought, but it did not explain why he'd tried to force
her
into marriage.

Ben must have been thinking the same thing. "What happened with Miranda is no excuse for what you tried to do to Diana," he snapped.

"I meant her no harm." He kept his gaze on Diana. "Remember? When you first arrived, I tried to convince you not to go to the Elmira Hotel." Matt leaned forward to take her hand. "I admired you when you were younger. I wanted to protect you. You were a complication, but I had only your best interests at heart."

"But you
did
take me to the Elmira." She tugged free of his grip. "And once I was settled there, you reported to Miranda."

His hands closed into fists on the arms of the chair, and he cleared his throat several times before speaking. "I won't lie to you any more. At that point I'd have done almost anything for her. She was afraid you'd take her to court over the inheritance, no matter what you'd said. I went back to her house that first night you were in town, prepared to hold her hand and tell her not to fret. I assured her that if you did sue, I'd represent her in court, and that we'd win. Then we'd be free to marry, I said. When I left her, I thought our future together was a certainty, but the very next time I saw her—" His voice broke and it was a moment before he could continue.

"Her new lover had convinced her you were no threat to the inheritance, so she gave me my walking papers. I think I went a bit mad when I realized how she'd used me." He made a sound that was half bitter laugh, half sob. "That's what drove me over the edge, Diana. I wanted to hurt her and the only way to make a woman like her suffer is to take away what she values most—her fortune. That's when I decided to marry you. Together we could challenge Torrence's will. She'd pay for using me by losing everything."

"You were greedy, not deranged." Ben's voice was a low growl of suppressed rage.

Matt clenched the arms of his chair so tightly that his knuckles went white. Once again he avoided looking at Ben and kept his focus on Diana. "I wronged you. I am sorry. But you must believe me. I never meant you any harm."

 Ben came up behind Diana's chair and placed his hands on her shoulders. He said nothing, but she could imagine the look he was giving Matt.

Diana regarded her former neighbor with less outrage, but she did not entirely believe his protestations, either. She could forgive him some of his deceptions. Thwarted love
could
drive someone to desperate measures. Indeed, Diana now suspected that at least part of his motivation had been to make the other woman jealous. But there had been more than mere deception in Matt's actions. Even setting aside that he'd tried to drug her, there had been the threats he'd made against her mother and Ben. Remembering, she hardened her heart.

"I told you from the first that I was going to marry Ben. You had no business trying to force me into marrying you." 

Ben spoke before Matt could respond. "You tried to drug her. You meant to rape her."

"No!" Matt's face flushed.

Ben took a threatening step around Diana's chair. "We know you intended to make Diana pliant with opiates, Hastings. Jane didn't administer the drug. Instead she told Diana everything."

"I would never have taken advantage of her, not even when she was drugged. I did mean to let her
think
I had, but—"

He shrank back in the chair, eyes wide, when he saw Ben's clenched fists. Beads of sweat popped out on his forehead and the smell of fear permeated the small space between them. "I wasn't in my right mind, I tell you!"

"You knew exactly what you were doing."

"Damn it, man, you can't hang a man for poor judgment!"

"No, only for murder. Seems to me you had plenty of reason to kill William Torrence."

Taken aback, Matt just stared at them.

Diana looked up at Ben, then back at Matt. "If Miranda verifies his story, they both have an alibi for the night of Father's murder. I expect she will. It fits in with what she hinted at."

"Hinted?" Matt looked appalled. "You mean you didn't already know that—" He'd scrambled halfway out of his chair before a threatening gesture from Ben caused him to subside.

"They could both be lying. They would, if they were in it together."

But she shook her head. Much as she'd like to accept Ben's interpretation, Diana found she believed Matt. He was dishonest and conniving, and clearly lacked a conscience, but she did not think he had murdered her father.

"We'll talk to her again," she said, "but first I have another question for our
friend
here." She fixed Matt with a withering glare. "You made a threat against my mother. You said you had proof she killed my father, proof you'd take to the police if I didn't cooperate. What proof?"

He squirmed and wouldn't meet her eyes. "Not proof, precisely. A theory. I know the murder weapon was a knife. The police would have a stronger case if they could link the knife to your mother."

Diana exchanged a look with Ben. Plainly Matt did not know that her father had been stabbed with a hotel letter opener.

"Your parents owned a pair of decorative knives," Matt continued. "Do you remember them, Diana? They were a gift from that English nabob they entertained on his visit to Denver. After the divorce, one of the knives disappeared. Torrence always said Elmira stole it, but he never charged her with theft. Miranda showed me the case once, with the empty place. She said that she'd heard Elmira had offered to give it back to him anytime he wanted it—blade first."

"That doesn't mean she used it to stab him," Diana objected.

"Is it at the Elmira Hotel?"

"I haven't seen it."

"Then it's possible the police will be interested in my information."

Ben glowered at him. "The killer didn't use a knife on Torrence. According to the hotel bartender, the murder weapon was one of the brass letter openers the hotel puts in every suite."

Matt cleared his throat. "That doesn't alter the fact that neither Miranda or I went anywhere near the Windsor that night."

Diana sighed and glanced at Ben. "I believe him."

"I am inclined to myself." He didn't sound pleased.

"Let's go and see if we can find Miranda at home," Diana suggested.

This time they walked. Nothing was very far from anything else in Torrence, although most of the going was rough and uphill.

Martha answered the door. "You can't come in," she said.

"Yes, we can." Diana gently pushed past her.

Ben took her arm to usher her into the parlor while Matt trailed behind. The reason for Martha's reluctance was immediately obvious. Miranda already had company. Alan Kent was with her. In fact, he was on one knee on the tiger skin in front of the hearth, clearly about to propose.

"Sorry to interrupt this touching moment," Diana said, "but unless you want to find yourself charged with my father's murder, Miranda, I suggest you take a moment to confirm Matt's story."

Alan Kent scrambled to his feet, irate, but Miranda seemed unruffled by their sudden appearance. "What story?" she asked.

"Oh, no. You tell us. It's obvious there's bad blood between the two of you now. You need to agree if I'm to believe you."

"What is she talking about?" Kent demanded.

Miranda ignored him. She toyed with the Turkish designs embroidered on the thick satin mantel scarf, a faint sneer on her face. "I couldn't have killed William, Diana. I never left the house that night. I never even left my bed."

"Can you prove it?"

"You know I can or you wouldn't be here with him." The look she turned on Matt was venomous. He glared back. "All he wanted was the money, not me."

"That's not true. I loved you. I . . . I still do!"

"Too late," Kent snarled. "She's mine now."

"Has she given you an answer?" Diana inquired.

"She will." He went back down on one knee. "Marry me, Miranda. Send this boor away."

The glance she spared Alan Kent was full of disdain. "Why should I marry anyone? I have money now. I don't need a husband."

"She never had any intention of sharing," Matt said.

Kent surged to his feet, fists raised. "Damn you, Hastings. This is all your fault."

Matt looked equally ready to fight. "I don't see it that way, Kent."

Ben got a firm grip on Diana's arm and tugged her out of the parlor. Leaving Miranda and her two erstwhile suitors to sort out their own affairs, they returned to the street.

Diana exhaled slowly. "How strange. Aside from a mild curiosity, I find I don't much care what happens to any of them."

"It occurs to me," Ben said thoughtfully, "that only two of them have been cleared of suspicion."

Her stride didn't falter but his suggestion surprised her. "You think Alan Kent might have murdered my father? Why?"

"In order to marry a rich widow."

"But he didn't take up with her until after Father's death."

"Are you sure of that?"

"No, I suppose I'm not. In fact, now that I think about it, I know nothing about Alan Kent beyond his name and the fact that he worked for my father."

"Perhaps," Ben suggested, "we should endeavor to discover a bit more."

Chapter Fifteen

By noon the following day, Ben and Diana had talked to numerous employees of the Timberline Mine and the Torrence Mining Company and paid a second visit to Mr. Morris. No one had been able to supply answers to questions about Alan Kent, William Torrence, or Evan Spaulding. The old man didn't even remember who Diana was and he fell asleep twice while they were with him. The second time, he lay so quiet and still that she was sure he'd stopped breathing and was glad Ben was with her to listen for his heart.

"What now?" Ben asked after they left Miranda's house without ever catching a glimpse of Torrence's widow.

Diana let the cool mountain air ruffle her hair and feather across her face, enjoying both sensations while she thought about that question. "I suppose we could try to talk to Alan Kent again."

He hadn't been in his office when they'd called there earlier. Martha had told them he'd been in a rage when he'd left Miranda's house the previous evening, and that Miranda had locked herself in her bedroom after their quarrel. No one seemed to know what had become of Matt Hastings. Diana assumed he'd spent the night at his deserted dance hall.