The Dr Benjamin Bones Omnibus

by Emma Jameson

  “Fire away.” Mrs. Grundy looked straight at him, head high. She no longer hunched her shoulders or stared at the floor to lessen the impact of her face.

  “Was Lady Maggart having an affair with Bobby?”

  He expected a crisp assent. Instead, Mrs. Grundy didn’t answer.

  “I suppose it’s possible you wouldn’t have absolute proof,” he said. “I’m not asking you to give evidence against her. I only want your opinion.”

  “I think they must have been having an affair,” she said slowly. “If you’ve eliminated Kitty and Betsy and the other maids, who else could it have been?”

  Ben thought perhaps he’d offended her by asking about sex. Peggy, the volunteer at St. Barnabas, had said something about the housekeeper’s distaste for gossip magazines and cosmetics. How much more distasteful had it been for her, working for Lord Maggart while his wife brought a lover into the house?

  “And how is his lordship?” he asked.

  “His days and nights are muddled. Night terrors again,” Mrs. Grundy said. “And no, they weren’t brought on by the loss of Mr. Collins. Lord Maggart has suffered violent delusions since the war. They’re the reason he was sent to Craiglockhart.”

  “I thought he injured his hand,” Ben said, remembering the baron’s missing finger.

  “No. It was the dreams.”

  “And he still has them?”

  “They’re never spoken of beyond these walls, but they started when he was a soldier. He sleepwalks. Roams the house searching for Germans, trying to prove his battle-courage.”

  “That could be dangerous.”

  “It is. The last time we permitted him to sleepwalk, he seemed to think his cane was a bayonet. Used it to frighten Mrs. Tippett. That frayed her loyalty, as you can imagine. It seems her brother’s arrest smashed it completely.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “After the police took Mr. Collins into custody, Mrs. Tippett went off to pray, or some such, and never returned. Abandoned her post entirely. But there’s a silver lining,” Mrs. Grundy said, smiling again. “As it happens, I have another friend. Those who knew me in childhood still think of me as human, instead of a monster. She’s in the kitchen now, trying her hand at dinner. If it’s deemed acceptable, I will have replaced Kitty and Mrs. Tippett in less than forty-eight hours. Proof of my ability to look after Fitchley Park.”

  “Would it be possible for me to see Lord Maggart? I’ll do my best not to overexcite him.”

  “I suppose,” Mrs. Grundy said. “He’s confined to quarters, as I like to call it.”

  “What?”

  “I told you, Dr. Bones. We can’t allow his lordship to roam the house, not when he’s revisiting the war in his mind, or someone may be seriously hurt.”

  “That dog you told me about. The Pomeranian found dead in the kitchen,” Ben said. “He killed it, didn’t he?”

  “Of course.”

  “You sound quite certain. Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  “Because my loyalty is to Fitchley Park,” Mrs. Grundy said serenely. “I could never divulge such a thing to an outsider. Not when it might have been used against us. We’ve been maligned enough as it is.” As Ben digested this, she continued, “Now. Follow me, if you please, and I’ll escort you to Lord Maggart.”

  * * *

  The door to Lord Maggart’s ground floor bedroom was locked. Mrs. Grundy located the correct key, fitting it to the lock with her left hand.

  “I didn’t realize you were left-handed.”

  “I’m not. Not as such,” Mrs. Grundy said, switching the key to her right hand before slipping it back in her pocket. “I tried to write with my left as a girl, but the governess answered with the rod. I’ve used my right hand ever since. Except when I’m particularly engrossed in thought, or performing an important task.” Seeming poised to enter the room alongside Ben, she added, “Remember. You promised not to upset him.”

  “Of course. Do you think I might speak with Lord Maggart alone?” Ben asked. “If you’re present, he may deny his symptoms. Out of a desire to appear strong, you see.”

  Mrs. Grundy’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll accompany you to make sure he’s lucid. If he is, I’ll absent myself.”

  Unlocking the door, she led him into a converted parlor without windows. Poorly ventilated, it stank of disinfectant, mentholated rub, and old urine. Apparently, when confined to quarters, the baron wasn’t allowed to exit for any reason, including the W.C.

  “There’s an overflowing chamber pot nearby,” Ben said.

  “Is there? When confronted with such matters, I don’t miss the ability to smell,” Mrs. Grundy said. “Good afternoon, Dudley.”

  “Lord Maggart, if you please.” He was in bed but not asleep. Rather, he sat on top of the covers, back against the headboard and arms folded across his chest. He had on striped pajamas, carpet slippers, a great coat, and a fur-trimmed hat.

  “Lord Maggart. Forgive the lapse.” To Ben, she stage-whispered, “I use his Christian name when we’re alone.”

  “Alone?” the baron snapped. “What do you call the undertaker standing beside you? Another so-called delusion?”

  “Do forgive me,” she repeated, using that sing-song tone generally reserved for fussy children and the mentally infirm. “You must be overheated in your hat and coat. Are you going somewhere, my lord?”

  “Yes. I’m getting out. You’re all mad.” He shot Ben a look of naked appeal. “Get me out, lad. Say I’m dead, stash me in a coffin, just get me out. Jasper never killed anyone. Ask lemon sherbet there. Maybe she’ll tell the truth if you beat it out of her.”

  “Lemon sherbet?” Ben repeated.

  “A pet name,” Mrs. Grundy said.

  “The hell it is!” Lord Maggart leapt out of bed. Much as he had with the non-ghost in the attic, Ben reacted automatically, interposing himself between the baron and his housekeeper. This time he didn’t fall over, thanks to his cane.

  “Mrs. Grundy, I really must insist. His lordship and I will do better without you.”

  “The whole world would do better without you.” Lord Maggart trembled from head to toe. “Fetch my swordstick, lad. I’ll do what I should have done years ago!”

  “Are you quite sure you want me to leave you alone with him?” Mrs. Grundy asked.

  “Yes,” Ben said in near-unison with Lord Maggart, who threw in a few curses.

  “Very well. Good luck, Dr. Bones. Perhaps he’ll allow you to treat him for his delusions. A month in hospital would do him good.” She shut the door, and the key scraped in the lock.

  “Bloody monster,” Lord Maggart muttered. “Didn’t think she’d lock you in. Or slander you that way. She thinks I’ll turn on you if she calls you a white coat.”

  “Yes, well… what was that about a swordstick?” Ben looked around. Whether he came clean to the baron or not, if there was a deadly weapon at hand, he wanted some idea of its location.

  “An heirloom. Relic from my grandfather’s day,” Lord Maggart said, slipping out of his great coat and beating the pockets as if it might be inside. “Back when men wore horsehair wigs and high heels to court, they carried poncy canes, too. A swordstick was a clandestine weapon. Pretty enough to look at, but if a man got into a tight spot in a pub or back alley, he removed the handle and hey, presto—a blade.”

  He tossed the coat over the back of a chair and started pulling open drawers on the writing desk. “Anyhow, it’s not in this room. I’ve checked. Doesn’t matter how she tries to confuse me. Waking me up at three o’clock in the morning and telling me it’s dinner time. Coming in at midnight to ask if I wanted breakfast. When I complain, she says I’ve had my time muddled since the war. A lie,” he declared, looking up from the drawer he was rifling. The whites of his eyes were yellower than Ben remembered. “My confession will be the death of me.”

  “What confession?”

  “About why I was sent to Craiglockhart,” Lord Maggart said, pulling a drawer all the way out and dumping i
ts contents atop the desk. His actions seemed quite mad, and Ben was keenly aware of the locked door, but he wasn’t afraid, only fascinated.

  “I was in the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry,” Lord Maggart said. “Father saw to that. I wasn’t born a coward, but I was a sensitive boy, and he knew it. The DCLI was good for me. But my battalion was retrained as Pioneers before going to France. Our job was to dig and mend the trenches. We made them watertight as could be, then strung barbed wire barricades. It doesn’t sound flash, but it was important. Our careless work could kill dozens of Tommies. Our good work could save them. Ah! Here we are.” From the heap of desk-detritus, he plucked a hairpin, twisted out of shape.

  “This will do for a rake, but I need something flat for a torque-key. What do you have in that case?” Lord Maggart asked, frowning at Ben’s doctor’s bag as if truly seeing it for the first time.

  “Do you mean to pick the lock?” Ben wondered if the poor man were completely delusional.

  “Only if you can find me a small, flat bit of metal.”

  Ben opened the bag and looked over his tools of the trade, all of which seemed enormous beside the twisted hairpin. “Tongue depressor?” he asked doubtfully, holding up the metal item.

  “Just how big do you reckon the lock is, lad?”

  “Right.” Ben opened a little case with his precious fine instruments, paid for out of his own pocket, and intended to collect crime scene samples. He hadn’t told anyone about the purchase; Lady Juliet and Gaston had their silly correspondence course, and he had his ludicrous instruments for chemical analysis.

  “Sorry. I don’t see how any of this could—”

  “Well done. That little bugger should do the trick.” Lord Maggart plucked the most expensive item, a collection spatula, from the kit. “But what was I saying? Ah, yes, the war. It turned ever more grim.”

  He went to the door and knelt awkwardly, bending one knee slowly, then the other. “Then came the biggest attack of the war, along the Somme. The loss of life was so great, my battalion was tapped for other work. Sent in with stretchers onto battlefields where the fighting was done. Finding the wounded, loading them up, and bearing them back to the aid stations. Can’t see worth a toss, but this is all about listening for clicks,” he added, working his makeshift tools into the keyhole.

  “But the battlefields, lad. They made Hieronymus Bosch look like Brighton Beach Pavilion. The dead were bad enough. But the grown men calling for their mothers. Praying aloud, and dying all the same, dying just as we got them in sight of the white tents….” He broke off. “There’s the first pin. Hah! She doesn’t reckon I can still do this. Arrogant cow. Learned when I was eight, and the beastly governess used to lock us in the school room. I got us out, and Nan applauded. Now she’s the governess, isn’t she?

  “The point is,” Lord Maggart went on, straining to get his ear closer to the lock, “the battlefields took their toll on me. Then my unit was charged with repairing trenches instead of digging them. This couldn’t be managed in daylight. We had to catch forty winks while the sun was up and work under cover of darkness. Think of it. As our fellow soldiers went over the top, we lay huddled in our funk-holes, trying to sleep within earshot of hell. I lay there, listening to men screaming as they were bayonetted. At night, we rose like ghosts from a barrow, doing our work in dead silence. Ah! There’s the second pin.

  “It was during the repair detail that I cut my hand,” he continued. “I didn’t dare show my face in the white tents over such a little thing. That was a mistake. Before long, I was feverish. We kept on, laboring by night and sleeping by day, and I fell into nightmares. It was as if I never slept or I never woke. I don’t remember what happened, only what they told me. There now!” Triumphantly, he turned the knob, and the door opened. “Saves you trying to break it down. A half-crippled man with a cane… I didn’t like your chances.”

  Ben was too grateful to the baron, and too transfixed by his story, to take offense. “What happened?”

  “Hm? Oh. I was in the funk-hole, wrapped in a blanket. They say I started to shake. To mutter about Germans. Then to shout and finally to scream.” Lord Maggart’s voice trembled, even after twenty years. “What could they do with a lunatic endangering so many lives but gag and bind me, and carry me out on a stretcher. Next thing I knew, I was at Craiglockhart, under MacHardy’s thumb. When I came home, no one wanted to hear anything about it. Certainly not Odette. So in a moment of weakness, I unburdened myself to her. Nan. As kiddies, we were pals. I never realized how much she hated me for our difference in status. Not till she tricked me into putting on my evening dress and walking about like a madman. Then I knew it was all deliberate.”

  Ben gave Lord Maggart a hand up, straining to get the man back on his feet.

  “Well done. But there’s more. Now I begin to think I’m not really sick.” Lord Maggart’s eyes bulged, making him look mad as a hatter. “My food tastes of chemicals. I complained, and she told Odette I thought mustard gas was in my dinner. But I know I detected something bitter. Like ground-up pills.”

  It could be true, Ben realized. There was a host of common medicines, including sulfa, that were poisonous if misused. Many would cause severe pancreas or liver dysfunction, as signaled by jaundice.

  “Lord Maggart, is there a secret passage in Fitchley Park? A secret room?”

  “What?” The baron looked startled. “Yes, yes, of course. Two concealed passages. They each lead to a cell called the Cavalier Room. Talk about a funk-hole! Of course, as kiddies, Nan and I thought it was brilliant. We hid inside and eavesdropped on the adults, and made knocking sounds. Nearly had dear Mummy believing in the woman in black, until we were caught and soundly thrashed for our sins.”

  “Show me how to get inside.”

  * * *

  “If you’re going in, perhaps I should come along. There’s been talk of murders in Barking,” Lord Maggart said. The uncertainty in his tone suggested he wasn’t fully informed about Bobby’s death, or if he was, he’d forgotten the details.

  Ben hesitated. Was he actually putting his trust in a man who didn’t know what transpired in his own house? Then again, the baron had picked that door lock quite ably, hadn’t he? Perhaps Mrs. Grundy really had been poisoning him. If so, maybe she hadn’t dosed him lately, or maybe Lord Maggart had regained some lucidity by eating as little of his poisoned food as possible.

  “In the old days, it was hidden by something less obvious, I shouldn’t wonder,” Lord Maggart said, guiding Ben into a parlor that contained a floor-length portrait of a Cavalier. Ben recognized him by his regalia: cape, extravagant lace collar, and big black hat.

  “The painting’s on hinges. Go on, lad.”

  Ben swung back the portrait to reveal a wooden door. It opened onto what looked like a glorified hole in the wall.

  “I tried showing it off to Odette when we were newlyweds. She thought it was cramped and dark, and likely to have spiders. Now she’s probably forgotten it exists.”

  “Does it connect to the servant’s quarters below stairs?”

  “Not this one. This is the original, to hide the Royalists. It goes straight from here to the Cavalier Room. The second passage was added during one of the park’s renovations. It goes from the Cavalier Room to the master bedroom and down below stairs. As you can guess, it was created for less patriotic and more, er, earthy uses.”

  “And the master bedroom is now Lady Maggart’s bedroom,” Ben murmured. “I think Mrs. Grundy has been playing the woman in black. There was a ruckus with her ladyship’s vanity in the middle of the night, wasn’t there? Cosmetics pitched about and smashed. Did Lady Maggart have a bottle of Sous le Vent?”

  “What the devil is that?”

  “Never mind. I’m going in for a look around,” Ben said. “I’d prefer it if you’d wait for me on this end. Shout down the passage, should anything go amiss. I don’t suppose the corridor was fitted for electric light?”

  Lord Maggart shook his head. “As kiddie
s, we brought lanterns.”

  Ben stuck his head into the passage as far as he dared. Faintly, he could make out a bend in the distance, which meant there was a source of light somewhere along the line.

  “Mind this for me, would you?” Ben held out his cane to Lord Maggart.

  “Carry it with you. The floor is anything but even.”

  “Right. Here goes.” Taking a deep breath, Ben ducked his head and stepped into the secret passage.

  * * *

  As his eyes adjusted, Ben used his cane to probe the floor. It was smooth but not level, continually rising with ramps and sudden shallow steps. At first, the low ceiling forced him to hunch, but after he turned the second corner, it soared from five feet to at least eight, allowing him to lift his head. Faint light emanated from somewhere in the distance, possibly the Cavalier Room. He couldn’t see well enough to thoroughly check for blood, but between his dark-adapted vision and his cane, he managed to move forward with confidence.

  All I need is one shred of proof. Something that will force the police to come to Fitchley Park this afternoon or first thing in the morning. Once I find it, I’ll take Lord Maggart with me back to Fenton House. Lady Maggart, too. Bugger the order of house arrest. Both their lives are in danger.

  Up he went, tripping on a loose floorboard in spite of his cane. The walls smelled of rising damp. Somewhere near the heart of the original dwelling, mold was spreading, black and stinking, like cancer.

  The light grew stronger. Now Ben could see the walls, gray with neglect and riddled with holes. Then the passage opened into the room where Royalists had hidden, sometimes for days on end, while the Parliamentarians conducted their house-to-house searches. Two lanterns hung on opposing pegs, bathing the room in yellow light.

  Ben had expected something like a prison cell. Instead, he found a lady’s boudoir, or a rough approximation of one. There was a brass bed made up with a pink coverlet. A nightstand. An antique vanity, its mirror missing but otherwise very fine. Two Turkish rugs, both heirlooms, if Ben were any judge. And on another peg hung a heavy mantle with a full hood, the sort every respectable Victorian woman put on before she left the house. Even from several feet away, Ben could smell the French perfume emanating from its thick black velvet.