A Soupçon of Poison

by Jennifer Ashley

Daniel lifted his dark brows. “Are you saying a cook should be tried and condemned for a murder she did not commit, because she is only a cook?”

  I was too tired to argue with him, or even to understand what he was saying. “How do you know I didn’t murder Sir Lionel? It was my knife in his back.”

  “Which someone other than you took from this kitchen and used. Someone evil enough to push the blame onto to you.” Daniel sat down, comfortably pouring himself a cup of tea. He pulled a flask from his pocket, tipped a drop of whiskey into it, then a drop into mine, if you please.

  He went on. “If you had killed Sir Lionel, why would you leave the knife in him instead of cleaning it up or getting rid of it? Why would you go happily back to bed to wait for the constables to arrive instead of running away? It was you who raised the alarm and sent for the police, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes.” I had done all that. It seemed so long ago now.

  Daniel sipped his tea, and I took another drink of mine. Whatever spirits he’d poured into the tea danced on my tongue and warmed my gullet.

  Daniel watched me over his cup. “Tell me about these people who came to dinner with Sir Lionel last evening.”

  I could barely remember. “Mrs. Watkins would know better than I about his guests. She served at table, because Copley was a mess.”

  “Mrs. Watkins doesn’t seem to be here. In fact, the staff have deserted the house. Does Mrs. Watkins have another address?”

  I clattered my teacup to its saucer, my hands shaking. “Mrs. Watkins has a sister in Pimlico—Sally, the scullery maid, told me she’d gone there, if I remember aright. However, if you imagine I can give you the particulars of all the people who worked here and where they might be, along with the names and address of the friends who visited Sir Lionel last night ...” I broke off, no longer certain where the sentence had been taking me. “You clearly have never been up before a magistrate and thrown into a common cell at Newgate for a night. It clouds the memory.”

  “Oh, haven’t I?” Daniel’s dark eyes twinkled. “But that’s a tale for another day. Come along, Kat. You have a good rest, and we’ll talk when you wake.”

  I found myself on my feet, again supported by Daniel. “I’m wretched dirty. I need a wash.”

  “I have plenty of hot water going on the stove. Off we go.”

  He steered me to my little bedroom and then went back out to carry in steaming water and pour it into my basin. Daniel left me to it, saying a cheerful good-night.

  I was so exhausted I simply stripped off every layer of clothing I wore and dumped them on the floor. I washed the best I could, then crawled into bed, still damp, in my skin.

  Some believe it is very wicked to sleep without clothes, but I’d already been a sinner, and I couldn’t see that God would care very much whether or not I pulled on a nightgown. I was asleep as soon as my head touched my pillow, in any case.

  ***

  When I woke, it was bright daylight. I spent some time trying to convince myself that everything that had happened to me had been a bad dream, and that I’d rise as usual and go out into my kitchen to cook. I had an idea for tea cakes with caraway and rosemary that I wanted to try.

  I threw back the covers to find myself unclothed, which reminded me of my quick bath, after which I’d been too tired to don a nightdress. This told me my adventures had been real enough—I was usually quite modest and would never risk being caught without any sort of clothing on my body.

  The events of the night before notwithstanding, I rose and did my toilette, put on a clean frock and apron, pinned up my unruly hair, and set my cook’s cap on my head. The familiar routine comforted me, and besides, I had no idea what else to do.

  When I opened the door, the sharp smell of frying bacon came to me. I moved out to the kitchen to find Daniel at the stove, cooking. The urchin, James, a bit cleaner than he usually was, sat at the kitchen table.

  When I looked at James this morning, I noticed something I had been too distracted to note in the past—he and Daniel had the same eyes. But then, I hadn’t seen the two together when James’s face hadn’t been covered with dirt. Now I saw that the shape of James’s jaw, the jut of chin, the manner in which he sat sipping a mug of tea, mirrored Daniel’s almost exactly.

  “You’re his son,” I exclaimed to James. I had no idea whether this fact was a secret, but I was too bewildered and tired to guard my tongue.

  James gave me his good-natured look, and Daniel glanced over his shoulder at me. “Ah, Kat,” Daniel said. “Awake at last. You slept the day away, and a night.”

  I rocked on my feet, disoriented. “Did I?”

  “Indeed. I didn’t have the heart to wake you yesterday, but I knew you’d be hungry this morning. Sit down—these eggs are almost finished.”

  “You have changed the subject,” I said. “As usual when you don’t wish to answer. Why did you not tell me James was your son? Why did you not tell me?” I shot at James.

  James shrugged. “Embarrassing, innit? For me, I mean. T’ have to admit he sired me?”

  “I don’t see why,” I said. “You could do much worse than Mr. McAdam.”

  James grinned. “Suppose.”

  Daniel shot him a weary look, which made James more amused. I realized they must banter like this all the time. It reminded me of the jokes I shared with my daughter, and my heart squeezed.

  By habit, I brought out my bin of flour and the sponge starter I kept on a shelf beside the icebox. I stopped after lugging the flour bin to the middle of the table. Who was I baking for? Did I still even have employment? And why were Daniel and James here, when no one else seemed to be?

  “Where is everyone?” I asked. “Did Mrs. Watkins return? Copley? Sally?”

  James answered, Daniel still at the stove. “The house be empty. Dangerous, that. Anyone could come in and make off with the silver.”

  “Have they?” I asked. “Was Sir Lionel robbed? And that’s why he was killed?”

  My hands measured the flour and bubbly starter into a bowl, and I took up a wooden spoon to mix it all together. The familiar feel of my muscles working as the dough grew stiffer calmed me somewhat. If there’d only be three of us today, I wouldn’t need more than one loaf.

  I stirred in the flour along with a dash of water and a smidgen of salt, then scraped the dough onto my table and began to knead. Neither Daniel nor James admonished me to stop. I’d refuse anyway—the vigorous kneading helped my agitation. I dumped the ball of dough into a clean bowl, covered it with a plate, and set it aside to rise.

  As I wiped my floury hands, Daniel shoved a large helping of bacon and eggs at me. “Eat all that. Then we’ll talk.”

  “Talk.” I picked up the fork he’d laid beside the plate, suddenly hungry. James, likewise, was digging into the repast. “I think I never want to talk again. Perhaps I’ll retire to the country. Grow runner beans and pumpkins, and bake pies the rest of my life.”

  “I’d eat ’em,” James said. “She’s a bloody fine cook, Dad.”

  “Watch your language around a lady, lad.” Daniel scraped back a chair, sat down, and watched us both eat. He wasn’t partaking and didn’t say why, but I was beyond curiosity at this point.

  Once I was scraping my plate and finishing off my second cup of tea, Daniel said, “Kat, I want you to tell me about the meal you served to Sir Lionel. Every detail. Leave nothing out.”

  “Why?” I came alert, able to now that I had a bit more inside me.

  Daniel laid his hands on the table, giving me a kindly look, but I saw something watchful behind the compassion. “Just tell me.”

  It was the same gaze I often found myself giving him. Wanting to trust him, but knowing so little about him I was not certain I could.

  “There was nothing wrong with my meal,” I said firmly. “Was there?”

  James frowned across at his father. “What are you getting at, Dad? You’re upsetting her.”

  “Sir Lionel didn’t die from the knife thrust,” Daniel said,
far too calm for the dire words he spoke. “That wound was inflicted post mortem. Sir Lionel had already been dead, though not for long, of arsenical poisoning. His guests, Mr. and Mrs. Fuller, also suffered from poisoning. Mr. Fuller died in the night. Mrs. Fuller, her doctor says, has a chance at recovery, but he can’t say for certain whether she will live.”

  Chapter Six

  I sat staring for a full minute, perhaps two, my mouth hanging open. James looked no less astonished than I did. James had helped me with that meal, not only cleaning the fish and fowl but laying out ingredients for me, learning to chop mushrooms, and stirring up dough.

  “No arsenic could have been in my supper,” I said, when my tongue worked again. “They must have come by the poison elsewhere.”

  Daniel shook his head. “The coroner who examined the body said that the poison had entered the stomach at the same time as your meal. I’m sorry, Kat. You must take me through every dish. Please.”

  “Well, it could not have been in my food, could it?” I said in rising worry. “You brought me most of the ingredients that night, and I taste everything. If arsenic had been slipped into the sauces in my kitchen, it would have killed me too. And all the staff. I always hold a portion back to serve with our supper.”

  “Tell me,” Daniel said gently.

  I heaved a sigh. I could barely remember my name let alone everything I’d made that fatal evening, but I closed my eyes in recall.

  “A cream of leek soup. Whitefish with a velouté—a thickened broth and wine sauce. A salad of greens with a lime dressing and tart apples, asparagus with boiled eggs, roasted squab stuffed with peppercorns with a red wine sauce. A fricassee of mushrooms. There wasn’t time for rolls with all this, so I made savory scones instead. For pudding, a thin chocolate soup to start, then custard tart with whatever berries I could find and a burnt sugar sauce. Copley chose the wine for me—perhaps he put poison in the wine, for whatever twisted reason he had. He’s a villain; I’ve always said so.”

  Daniel shook his head. “There was nothing in the glasses, or the bottles. The coroner worked all night, testing everything he could.”

  “How do you know all this? Was there an inquest?”

  Daniel shrugged. “He told me. He’s a friend of mine.”

  Daniel McAdam, friends with a coroner. Why was I not surprised? “But how did he find the wine glasses?” I asked. “And the wine? Sally scrubbed everything and put it away.”

  “Not the wine glasses. She’d left them. The wine was still open in the butler’s pantry. The police took all this away while you were ... detained.”

  The prison came back to me with a rush. I pinched my fingers to my nose, willing it away. When I opened my eyes, I found Daniel looking at me with such sympathy mixed with self-chastisement that it made me a bit dizzy.

  I drew a breath, continuing the argument to stop the wild thoughts in my head. “The poison could not have been in the food,” I said. “I told you, I taste everything before I allow it to go up, and every person downstairs had a helping of what every person upstairs ate. And we’re all hale—well, I am, and James here appears to be.”

  “We’re looking for the other staff,” Daniel said. “We’ll know soon enough.”

  I fixed him with a stern look. “If the coroner believes the cook poisoned the entire dinner party then why am I not still in Newgate?”

  “Because of James,” Daniel said, unworried. “If you had poured a box of arsenic into any of your dishes, James would have seen. You could, I suppose, have built yourself an immunity to arsenic so it wouldn’t hurt you, but I know James did not. And he’s not sick at all.”

  No, James was very healthy indeed, and listening with interest. He asked the question that was next in my mouth. “Why do you want to know all about the food, then, Dad? If you already know she didn’t do it?”

  Daniel opened his hands on the table. “To decide which dish might best conceal it, and how it was served. The wine and peppercorn sauce, the mushrooms, and the burned sugar on the pudding interest me most. They could have disguised the taste.”

  I only watched him, bewildered. “But who would have introduced this poison? I place the dishes in the lift myself. Are you saying you believe someone very small was hiding in the dumbwaiter with a vial of poison? Or something as nonsensical? Or do you believe Mrs. Watkins did it, or John, as they served the meal? Sally went nowhere near the food at all—she was busy washing up all my pots and pans.”

  “I can rule out none of them,” Daniel said.

  I blew out my breath. “I cannot imagine why on earth Mrs. Watkins, John, or Sally would do such a thing. None of them are mad, I don’t think.”

  “They are not here either,” Daniel pointed out. “Once you were taken away, John disappeared, as did your scullery maid, as well as your butler and several choice bottles of wine.”

  “Of course,” I said in exasperation. “Copley took the wine to sell, no doubt—he refuses to drink the stuff himself. I imagine the others didn’t return because they thought they had no place here anymore. Sally was terrified and fled before I was even arrested.”

  “Perhaps,” was all Daniel would say. “Would it be too much for you, Kat, to cook the same meal, as you did that night? So I can see exactly how it was prepared?”

  At the moment, I never wanted to cook anything again. But I heaved a sigh, climbed to my feet, and went through the larder to see what foodstuffs I’d need.

  I had everything but the mushrooms, berries, fresh fish, and birds. James was dispatched to procure those. The leftover greens were a bit wilted, but edible, apples drying, but again, usable.

  I set everything out as I remembered. A bit difficult because I never cooked to an exact recipe—I knew what went into each dish from experience, then I threw in a bit of this or that I had on hand or left out things I did not, so each meal was unique. A long time ago, when I’d first been a cook’s assistant, I’d doggedly learned every step of a recipe and followed it religiously, until a famous chef I met told me to trust my own instincts. After that, my skills rose quickly.

  I tried to remember what I’d done as I worked. I set Daniel to helping me chop leeks and greens, core the apples, stir the roux for the velouté, and cream the butter for the scones.

  Daniel proved to be quite skilled at cookery, though it was clear he’d never handled a chef’s knife before. I had to show him, with my hand over his, how to chop the leeks. His skin was warm, his breath on my cheek, warmer.

  I might have stayed in the circle of his arm for a while longer had not James come banging back in. I nearly cut myself scrambling away from Daniel, who moved the knife safely aside, his eyes alight with amusement.

  I set Daniel to washing and chopping the mushrooms, and James competently cleaned the fish in the scullery.

  We created the meal again, which took the rest of the day, and then partook of it, enjoying the lightness of leek soup, the savory fish, the tenderness of the game birds with peppercorns, the sweet and tart tastes in the salad. The scones came out light and crumbly, the custard creamy with the bright bite of berries to finish.

  When we ended the meal, Daniel pushed back his plate, clattered his fork to it, and let out a sigh. “You are an artist, Kat.”

  “It’s only a bit of cookery,” I said modestly, but I was pleased.

  James wiped his mouth with the napkin I’d given him. “’Tis bloody hard work. All that, and you eat it in ten minutes.”

  “You eat it in ten minutes,” Daniel said with fatherly fondness. He took a sip of the wine I’d brought out of the butler’s pantry for the peppercorn sauce.

  Daniel seemed to know about wine—he didn’t quaff it but savored it, pronouncing the vintage excellent. He was a paradox, was Daniel, though I had long since discarded the belief that he was a simple delivery man.

  “You do well in the kitchen,” I told James. “You learn quickly and have a feel for the food. Perhaps you could study a bit and become a chef.”

  “A chef?�
�� James snorted. “Cooking for pampered gentlemen who complain when their dinner hasn’t been boiled long enough? No, thank you.”

  “Well.” Daniel leaned back in his chair. “There was nothing wrong with that meal. Plenty of opportunities for you to slip in the poison, and you too, James—and me—but if everyone in the kitchen ate of the dishes, and you and James are well, I cannot see how the poison came from the meal as you cooked it.”

  “Thank you very much,” I said. “You might have taken my word for it before we did all that work.” Not that I’d eaten so well in a long time. I suspected part of Daniel’s motive had been to partake in an expertly cooked elegant meal, which I doubted came along for him very often. I’d rather liked cooking with Daniel—and James, of course.

  Daniel and James obligingly helped me clean up. I expected them, as men often did, to abandon me once the enjoyment was over, but James scrubbed plates and Daniel dried them with good cheer.

  I told them to leave me after that. I had nowhere to go and would make do with my bed here tonight, but tomorrow, I’d look for other digs and a new place.

  James departed, his pockets full of leftover scones. Daniel lingered on the doorstep. “Are you certain you’ll be all right, Kat?”

  “Not entirely.” The kitchen was echoing without Daniel and James in it, the rooms above me, too silent. However, the street was busy and noisy, and the neighbors and their servants were near to hand. “I don’t have much choice do I? But I am made of strong stuff, do not worry.”

  “Hmm.” Daniel glanced at the ceiling, as though he could see the entire house above us. “Lock this door behind me then. I’ve already bolted the front door but keep the door at the top of the back stairs locked. And don’t go out until morning.”

  His caution unnerved me. I felt the weight of the house above us, empty and waiting. I drew a breath and repeated that I’d be all right, and at last, Daniel departed.

  I locked the kitchen door then scurried up the back stairs to the door at the top, its green baize tight and unblemished, as though nothing untoward had occurred beyond it. I opened the door and peered out into the cold darkness of the house.