Murder Most Malicious by Alyssa Maxwell

him on as his valet. Mr. Hensley is family, and so is Vernon. So please, Mr. Phelps, Miss Shea, if you know something of consequence, do not leave the rest of us in the dark.”
    â€œThe imagination is always more detrimental than the truth,” Mrs. Sanders added.
    Mr. Giles turned to her as if she had just imparted the greatest wisdom. “Indeed.”
    â€œAll right.” Mr. Phelps dragged a chair from against the wall over to the table. “Make room for us.” Loud scraping filled the room as the others scooted aside. Mr. Phelps held the chair as Miss Shea primly sat, then brought another one over. Once situated, he leaned over the table in a conspiratorial hunch. “The cleaver was found.”
    Gasps were followed by exclamations of “I knew it” and demands as to where the item had surfaced. With all the drama of stage actors, the valet and lady’s maid once again traded knowing looks and nods. In fact, Eva believed they might have missed their calling. Her patience was wearing thin when Mr. Phelps gestured to Miss Shea, and said, “I’ll allow you to do the honors.”
    The woman moistened her thin lips, dragging out the moment until Eva wanted to scream. Then she said, “Beneath a floorboard in the room shared by Vernon and Mr. Hensley.”
    Another barrage of gasps followed. Eva remained silent, her mind reeling. What did this mean? That one of them had attacked—perhaps killed—Lord Allerton? Vernon or Nick?
    She rejected the notion. It simply wasn’t possible. Someone else must have planted that cleaver in their room. When or how, she didn’t know, although the servants’ bedrooms were never locked, so anyone in this house might have found the opportunity to sneak in.
    â€œWhy was Mr. Hensley sharing with Vernon anyway,” Douglas asked, and several others nodded their concurrence with the question.
    â€œWell, certainly I shouldn’t have been expected to share my room with him,” Mr. Phelps replied, “even if Hensley does technically outrank me as the valet of a marquess. I am, after all, valet to the master of this house. As such I have always enjoyed a room to myself. I saw no reason to change that now, even temporarily.”
    Mr. Phelps’s arrogance and the smugness of his tone penetrated the veneer of gentility Eva had cultivated over the years, and she wished nothing so much as to throw something—for instance, the kerosene lantern in the middle of the table—against the wall for the simple satisfaction of watching it shatter. “How can you go on so?” she demanded. “Have you no compassion at all?”
    Even as she confronted the valet, she knew her anger wasn’t truly directed at him, but at the situation, the awful revelation that her childhood friend—they had been friends of a sort—might be implicated in a horrific crime.
    â€œI am merely explaining the situation to Douglas, who did ask, Miss Huntford.”
    Eva clamped her lips around the point she longed to make, that if Mr. Phelps had observed proper etiquette by allowing the marquess’s valet to room with him, Nick might not be undergoing questioning at this moment. Might not be a . . . She could barely bring herself to think the word: suspect.
    An argument wouldn’t have done anyone any good. But she did have a question. “Mr. Phelps, you are among those of us who received the Christmas boxes in question. Can you think of any reason why you or any of us should have been singled out?”
    His upper lip curled in disgust at the reference, and for this she could not blame him. “Indeed I cannot, Miss Huntford. I believe perhaps it was random. That whoever performed the dreadful deed disposed of . . . of the . . .” His lip curled again, baring his teeth. “The you know what . . . in the first boxes available.”
    â€œBut were they the first available?” she persisted. “Does anyone