SPOILERS!!!
In 1930 Louisa travels with her employers to Venice. Kate Mulloney has hired a whole floor of a hotel on Lido to celebrate Diana and Bryan’s first wedding anniversary. Now Diana is pregnant. Apart from the Guinesses, the guests are Luke, Nancy, Tom and Clara among others.
When the party are visiting St Mark’s Square, Clara gets upset when she finds her handbag missing. When the others suggest she report the theft to the police, she says that it is not important anyway. Then she goes and Diana instructs Louisa to go with her. Then Clara reveals that she had her stash of opium in her bag, and without getting some, she will get sick. Louisa suggests they go back to the hotel, and when they get there, Clara is already showing symptoms, so Louisa takes her to her own room so that she can keep an eye on her. When Luke calls on her, Louisa tells her what has happened. Nancy also guesses what is the problem with Clara, and when Louisa has to go and help Diana, Nancy and Kate stay with Clara.
That night Louisa sleeps in the armchair in her room, and when she wakes up and goes to check Clara, to her horror she discovers that she is dead. So she raises the alarm. A doctor is called and concludes that Clara died of a heart attack because of her withdrawal symptoms. Louisa thinks that is strange. There are also some things that make suspicious. When Louisa was keeping her company, Clara kept calling a name which Louisa thought it was Rose. Luke also tells her that Kate called Clara a husband snatcher, which means that Clara had an affair with Shaun. Kate is also adamant that no autopsy be performed on her. When Louisa brings up her suspicions, Nancy becomes very angry, saying that she is of a very suspicious nature and she should join the police.
After they return to London, Diana gets a letter, which tells her that Clara’s parents requested a postmortem and it seems that Clara died of an opium overdose. Luke also told Louisa a few days before that she overheard Nancy and Kate talk, and Kate was telling her that she shouldn’t say that she had been with Clara alone when they were staying with her in Louisa’s hotel room in Venice.
Before going to stay with her mother in Suffolk, Louisa writes a note to Guy. When she returns, Guy is waiting for her outside the house. Even though she doesn’t want to talk to him because of their kiss, she can’t avoid him. Guy tells him that thanks to her note an investigation into Clara’s death is being carried out and Nancy has been arrested.
I don’t know if Louisa’s suspicions are right and Kate is guilty of murdering her husband and Clara. I think the mystery is more complex than that. The fact that Clara called Rose’s name in her delirium is odd, and I am curious about the significance of Rose in this mystery.
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