518. Chapter 518

After Secret's Safe with Me

Episode 5.03

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: As Tony Montana said, "Say hello to my little friend, who doesn't own Castle". Rating: K Time: See above.

She stopped in front of the large country house and got out of her car. She gave the house the once over. She knew exactly what the owner would be like. Sir Richard Castle would be an obnoxious, pompous bore, who would consider her well beneath his station and would let her know it at every opportunity. It wasn't like she hadn't met the type before.

She strode to the front door and knocked loudly. In seconds, the butler opened the door.

"Yes?" He said, at first looking down his nose at her. But then his eyes got a predatory gleam that she'd seen too many times before.

She showed him her warrant card. "Detective Inspector Kate Beckett, Scotland Yard. I'm here about the murders."

The butler stepped back. "Come in." As she walked in, she felt his hand on her shoulder. "Help you off with your coat, Miss?" Unsaid was, And everything else?

"That's all right, Demming. I'll take it from here." The speaker was a tall man, well built, and very good looking with dark hair and the bluest eyes she'd ever seen. He wore a jacket with no tie and was holding a cocktail. She decided he must be one of Sir Richard's employees, the estate manager, perhaps. She thought that this trip might not be so bad after all.

"I'm Detective Inspector Kate Beckett, Scotland Yard." She held out her hand and the man took it, shaking her hand firmly. "I suppose I should see Sir Richard first."

He smiled. "You are seeing Sir Richard."

She blushed. "I'm sorry, sir. You're not what I expected."

He laughed. "And you're not what I expected when they said a detective from Scotland Yard was coming down from London."

She decided she needed to cut this short. "It's late, Sir Richard and I should get on into the village and find a place to stay."

Surprisingly, he shook his head. "I'm afraid you can't. There's no room. Yesterday was the first day of trout fishing season. Every spare room for miles around has been booked solid for weeks. But you can stay here. We have plenty of room."

"I couldn't possibly impose." She said quickly.

"You were told why I especially want these murders solved, Detective Inspector? We can't solve the case if you have to stay miles and miles from the village. You'll have to stay here."

Kate nodded. She had been told that Sir Richard was a highly successful writer of murder mysteries under the pen name Richard Rodgers. The two murders committed in the tiny village of Faeces-Under-the-Midden were copies of fictional murders from Sir Richard's books. Kate realized that Sir Richard was right. She'd have to stay at Snood Manor, the ancestral home of the Castles. "Thank you, Sir Richard."

"Oh, please call me Rick. Now, let's see about getting your things in from your car."

Surprisingly, he didn't call the butler to get her suitcases, but carried them both in himself to a large, spacious room on the second floor. "Bathroom's through there, Detective Inspector Beckett, and if you're feeling a bit peckish, there'll be something in the kitchen. I just bought a new electrical refrigerator. It's a vast improvement over the old ice box." Sir Richard smiled and bowed slightly to her, then left.

After washing, Kate changed into her nightdress and prepared for bed. Years of training, since she was nineteen, alerted her to the fact that someone was outside her door trying to be very quiet. I should have known. She thought. Sir Richard is like all the rest of them. All he wants is a bit of slap and tickle. She walked to the bedroom door and yanked it opened. To her surprise, Demming the butler stood there.

"Do you need anything, Miss?" He said with a leer.

"Nothing from you." She said coldly.

It wasn't until she was in bed that she realized that Sir Richard had said "We can't solve the case…" What did he mean by that, she wondered as she drifted off to sleep?

The next morning, Kate came down for breakfast dressed in tweeds and high boots. Although a Londoner born and bred, born within the sound of Bow Bells, she knew enough about the country to dress appropriately. She was surprised to find two women already at the table with Sir Richard.

"Ah, Detective Inspector Beckett, just in time for breakfast. Allow me to introduce my mother, Martha Rodgers and my daughter, Alexis."

Kate knew that Sir Richard's mother had been an actress and a famous beauty many years ago when she had met and married Sir Richard's father. She still used her maiden name professionally. The father had disappeared on a trip into Central Asia shortly after the wedding. There had always been something of a mystery about the man, she had been told. The Honorable Alexis Castle was reading medicine at The Queen's College, Oxford, Kate remembered.

"Please sit down and join us, dear." Lady Martha said, smiling.

"Thank you, Lady Martha."

Martha laughed. "Please, dear, call me Martha. I'm surprised Richard hasn't asked you to call him by his given name by now."

"And please call me Alexis." The young girl said.

"And I did tell her to call me Rick, Mother."

"Then please call me Kate." She said, smiling. The Castle family was turning out to be nothing like she had imagined. Kate was even more surprised when Alexis started questioning her closely on forensic medicine. She had expected the girl to have her heart set on setting up a practice in smart area of London, catering to the wealthy, but the girl had many other interests.

They were just about done with breakfast when Demming led a blue clad constable in. "Constable Ryan to see you and the lady, sir." Demming announced self-importantly.

"Good morning to you, sir. And you're Detective Inspector Beckett, from London?" Ryan asked.

Kate nodded.

"I'm afraid there's been a third murder, sir. Poor old Janet Mallory, the town librarian. Found stabbed through the heart, sir."

Sir Richard grimaced. "Found wearing a kilt, no doubt and with her lips painted a bright scarlet. And there was a book, of course. What was it, Ryan?"

"A first edition of Alice in Wonderland, sir."

Sir Richard rose at once. Kate and Ryan followed him to the library. Sir Richard went to a shelf where there was obviously a book missing. "Aha! My first edition of the Reverend Dodgson's classic, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, is gone. Of course, it is."

Kate was confused. "Why of course, Sir…Rick?"

"Henry Summerfield, the local barrister, was strangled with a purple silk scarf, the kind that my mother wears as her signature. She has tons of them. Carol Kingsley, the barmaid at the Toad and Sprocket, was beaten to death with a three iron given to me by my regiment when we won the All Egypt Cup in 1919. It had my name and rank engraved on it. Someone is trying to fame me."

Sir Richard stood still and thought for a long moment. "Come you two. We need to go see the latest corpse. And I'll need Alexis as well. We shan't be able to take your car, Kate, it's too small for all of us. We'll take my Rolls. I'll drive." And with that they were off.

They entered the village library to find poor Miss Mallory quite dead. Sir Richard spoke. "Someone is trying to make this look like the work of a deranged killer. A killer who obsessively copies the murders in my books. In A Woman Scorned the deceased was strangled with a silk scarf. A red one, to be exact. In The Forever Orchid, a woman was beaten to death with a putter at Saint Andrew's Links, in Scotland. And in You'll Do Your Work On Water, the killer stabbed his victim while she was reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The deceased was wearing a kilt, to be exact, a Black Watch tartan, or Government Sett as it's also known. But this kilt is…?"

Kate caught on at once. "But that's the tartan of the MacDonalds of the Isles."

Rick smiled at her. "And what does that mean, Kate?"

She smiled back. "A truly deranged killer would be incapable of not staging the murders exactly as they were written in your books. The scarf used to strangle the first victim would have to be red, and the golf club would have to have been a putter and the kilt the Black Watch tartan. Someone is trying to frame you."

"Who could it be?" Wondered Constable Ryan.

Rick and Kate looked at each other and said together. "I know who the killer is."

Rick nodded. Detective Inspector Kate Beckett is extraordinary. He thought. "But first we'll need further proof. That's where you can assist us, dear Alexis. Come along."

They arrived back at Snood Manor. Demming served lunch.

"I'm afraid you won't be with us any longer, Demming." Sir Richard said.

"Have I given offence, sir?" He asked calmly.

"You killed three people, Demming. You'll be going to prison if you don't hang."

"Sir, that's absurd." He replied calmly.

Sir Richard shook his head. "We examined Carol Kingsley's corpse. She was with child. When we searched her rooms at the Toad and Sprocket, we found love letters from you, including your reply when she told you she'd fallen pregnant. You killed her to keep from having to marry her because you already have two wives in Wales and London. We can thank Detective Inspector Beckett for that bit of detective work. You killed the other two to throw suspicion on me and away from yourself."

Demming made a break for it, but never saw the lady's boot that struck him in a most painful place. As he writhed in agony, Detective Inspector Beckett handcuffed him.

"I've never used the butler as the killer in my mysteries, as I thought it was a bit of the old cliché, but I may have to change that." Sir Richard said.

Once Demming had been lodged in the local jail and all of the paperwork done, which Sir Richard was happy to help with, he turned to Kate. "It's far too late for you to drive back to London. Will you have dinner with me and stay the night?"

Kate knew that she should say no, but didn't do so even though she was positive she was making a mistake. However, it was no mistake. Within a year she was Detective Inspector Lady Katherine Beckett-Castle. But, that is another story.