Death Below Stairs

by Jennifer Ashley

  “Where is this house?” Daniel asked me. His eyes were motionless, but I decided that the quiet fury in his voice was far more frightening than any shouting my husband had ever done.

  “The end of the lane on the waterfront. As far as you can go before the road peters out.”

  Daniel moved his gaze to the window, through which was the train platform, the tops of trees, and the land sloping to the level ground by the river. I watched him withdraw, his thoughts turning inward, the affable Daniel vanishing. “Thank you, Kat,” he said absently and started for the door.

  “Daniel.”

  He turned back, but like an automaton—he wasn’t seeing me anymore.

  “They may simply be a woman’s nephews visiting from America.”

  “I know.” He gave me a nod but turned away, the shell of Daniel walking out of the room to become the commanding man who gave orders to half a police force.

  I followed, but no one paid me any mind. As Daniel led the constables out of the station, I collected my empty basket, the cakes gone. They’d eaten every crumb.

  I left the office at the same time a train came puffing across the bridge, slowing as it reached this side of the river and drew onto the station’s platform. The wheels squealed mightily against the steel tracks as the brakeman worked to stop the train. The locomotive let out a bellow of steam followed by a long hiss as it settled in to take a rest—engines always seemed live things to me.

  Idly, I watched the passengers disembark, not many on this rainy morning. Most on the train would be heading deeper into Cornwall and for the coast. It was my ambition one day to take my daughter all the way to Land’s End. We’d stand at the very edge of England and imagine what was beyond it, out in the wide world.

  Those who stepped off the train were locals, it appeared—women in plain gowns gathering children before scurrying off into the lanes, a man in a dark worsted suit who lifted his hand to the signalman and walked away, and a young man in brown wool who glanced furtively about.

  The young man was the only one who looked out of place. He was very dirty, for one thing, his face grimy under his pulled-down cap. I walked across the platform and placed myself directly in front of him, holding my empty basket in front of me.

  The lad didn’t see me—he was so busy looking about—then he turned to take a step and let out a yelp as he nearly ran me down.

  “James,” I said severely as he scrambled to right himself. “Whatever are you doing here?”

  • • •

  As much as I wanted to follow Daniel and the constables to the cottage at the end of the lane, I had no intention of leading James into danger. Instead I latched my fingers around his wrist and pulled him from the station, intending to take him with me to the inn.

  “I see you managed to escape from Daniel’s rooms,” I remarked as we walked.

  “Oh aye, that was simple,” James said without modesty. “I picked the lock, and his landlady has a good heart. She was shocked at his bad treatment of me. No, the hardest thing was finding out where he’d slunk off to.”

  “How did you find out?” I asked in curiosity. I couldn’t imagine Daniel leaving a note with directions.

  “Housekeeper at the posh digs where you work,” James said, Daniel’s sparkle in his eyes. “She’s worried about her ladyship what dresses like a gent and told me she’d gone off to Cornwall with you. Stands to reason Dad was with you too. I’ve been out at every station in between looking for him. Had quite the journey.”

  Tenacious, that was James. I patted his arm. “Your diligence is commendable, but your father was right that it was very dangerous for you to come here. Anyway, this sounds like an expensive endeavor. Where did you get the money for the fare? Or did you stow away? Oh, James, tell me you have not been stowing away on every train from here to London.”

  James laughed, his exuberance undimmed. “Naw.” Then he flushed. “Dad had some coins in his room, didn’t he? I’ll pay him back. I ain’t no tea leaf.”

  Tea leaf. Thief. I remembered rhyming slang from my childhood. My mother had been very good at it.

  “I doubt your father will begrudge you the money. However, I can’t say he’ll be kind to you for disobeying. He is only trying to keep you safe.”

  James’s good humor fled. “Well, he never tries to keep himself safe, does he? I came to look after him. He’ll get himself blown to bits or shot or stabbed, or some daft thing. We have to help him, Mrs. H.”

  I quite agreed. I also agreed with Daniel that the danger was too great for a boy, but I softened. “Truth to tell, I am glad to see you, James. I will indeed welcome your assistance to watch over Daniel. But I’m afraid what he’s into is perilous in the extreme.”

  The wind slackened once more, the rain becoming a thin mist, which was damp but not as cold as it had been. Spring was trying to push its way in.

  As we walked, I explained as much as I dared to James, emphasizing that Daniel was surrounded by policemen who would look out for him. The best thing we could do for Daniel at the moment, I told him, was to keep out of the way.

  It was not easy for me to stay to this course, however. To distract myself, I showed James the bridge and said we were keeping an eye out for incendiary devices.

  The lane from the railway station led down a sharp hill, curving through a narrow cut in a steep bank. The railroad tracks continued on the same level as the station above us, passing over the street on which we walked on a simple viaduct. As the lane went ever downward, the bridge rose higher, until finally it ran out over the river in the lofty structure that had caught the eye of the public.

  A narrow road off to the left took us directly under the main part of the bridge, where we could admire the double pillars of gray stone that held up the tracks high above us. The timbers of the tracks looked alarmingly far overhead and, at the same time, so vulnerable.

  “It’s too big,” James said. “No one will pull that lot down.”

  “They won’t have to destroy the entire thing to cause damage,” I said, my hand at my lips as I stared upward. “Even a small explosion could rip through the train cars, or derail the train coming into the station, or block up the tracks while anarchists attack. We must prepare for all events.”

  James sent me a narrow look. “Dad would never let you go up against anarchists. He’s too fond of you. If you try, he’ll lock you in somewhere like he did to me.”

  My face grew warm, but I held on to the words. He’s too fond of you.

  “Well, if an anarchist rushes past me, I won’t sit idly by,” I said. “I will find a stout stick and have at him while I shout for the police. Would your father expect me to simply move out of the way and let such a person flee? I’d trip him up if nothing else.”

  James burst out laughing. “That’s the spirit, Mrs. H.”

  “I suppose I’ve lost all the other letters of my surname for good,” I said in a mild tone. “Let us retreat to the inn for the moment and get some tea and bread inside you, my lad. And have you washed. You are absolutely filthy.”

  • • •

  The sky was dark when Daniel finally returned to the inn. I knew he’d try to come in and go out again without bothering to speak to me, so I left my room, where I’d been watching out the window, and put myself in front of his chamber door. His tread on the stairs was heavy, and when he came into sight, he looked exhausted. Shadows traced his eyes, mud and grime smeared his clothes, and his hair was slick with the rain that had begun to come down again.

  I knew Daniel was spent when, instead of dodging past me or turning around to avoid me, he only gave me a tired smile and said, “Ah, Kat.”

  “James has come,” I said, getting the news over with quickly. “He’s in there—asleep.” I pointed to Daniel’s chamber door. Whether James was asleep was speculation, but I’d ordered him to rest himself.

  Daniel’s sm
ile fled. “Damnation.”

  “You ought to have known he would follow you. But never mind about that now. What did you find? Please tell me before I burst.”

  Daniel looked me up and down, some of his composure returning. “You look well enough. Come here.” He took my hand and guided me into my own chamber and shut the door.

  It said much for my agitated state that I said nothing about the impropriety of this—I barely noticed. Guarding my reputation was not my most pressing concern at the moment.

  “We found the house as you said, and I was welcomed inside,” Daniel began. “The strapping nephews had been there all right, but they’ve gone. Back to America, said their aunt, smiling at us as though she’d pulled a great trick. The sergeant fetched the magistrate, and we searched the house. They’d cleared out almost everything, but too hastily. We found pieces of fuse and bits of the protective casing that wraps dynamite. But that was all. This was in a box that would have held a hundred sticks of the stuff.”

  Daniel sighed, the light of my single kerosene lamp glinting on his sodden hair. “That means they’ve already set the charges and scarpered. A hundred sticks, Kat. Waiting to go off, and we don’t have any bloody idea where they are.”

  22

  I’d never seen Daniel defeated. Always he’d look at the mess around him, see things others didn’t, and happily rush off to solve the problem or conquer a villain.

  Now he regarded me morosely, a deadness in his eyes I didn’t like.

  “We’ll find it,” I said, taking a step closer to him. Outside, the wind slapped a shutter against the house’s wall, the storm rushing along the river to drench the town. “We’ll keep looking until we do. This might be the wrong bridge, the wrong town.”

  Daniel didn’t look any happier. “Constables and anyone the police can recruit are searching every bridge on Elgin’s list and others along the line. So far, nothing. I’ve been at the railway station sending telegrams until I’m struggling to speak in complete sentences. There is no news, the Queen has already departed, and I can’t find the culprits or prevent their crime.”

  I stepped closer to him and took his hands. They were trembling.

  Alarmed, I looked up into his face. It was drained of color behind almost as much grime as had been on James’s cheeks, and Daniel was swaying on his feet.

  I realized he’d slept little and probably eaten next to nothing. I firmed my grip and tugged him toward the chair at my window. “Come and sit down. You need a rest.”

  Daniel shook his head like the stubborn man he was. “I’ll rest when it’s done, when we stop it.”

  “You can do nothing if you collapse in the middle of the river,” I pointed out. “Take a rest and eat something. I learned long ago that I was no good to anyone if I didn’t look after myself first.”

  Daniel gave me a dark glance, but he did at last sit down in the chair. I brought out a plate of scones I’d held back for him and poured another cup of tea from the pot Mrs. Rigby had given me before I’d settled in.

  Daniel caught up a scone and downed it so hungrily I knew my speculation that he’d eaten very little today had been spot on. He took a long drink of tea then peered at me over the cup’s rim with a bit of his old sparkle.

  “You are good to me, Kat.”

  I shrugged. “Tea and scones are the best things for easing one’s troubles, I’ve always believed. Have some lemon curd with the next one. I mixed it myself.” Lemon, eggs, sugar, and butter came together magically to make the sweet sauce I loved. Mrs. Rigby bought her lemons from a grocer who obtained them from an estate near Truro that had an extensive hothouse.

  “Not what I meant,” Daniel said, his voice quiet.

  His look made me uncomfortable, but fortunately, he said no more and drank his tea.

  I pulled a straight-backed chair from the writing table to sit next to him at the window. “Now, then.” I put my feet on a footstool to keep them from the cold floor and laid my hands in my lap. “Let us see if we can think about where to search next rather than blundering about in the dark. A bit of planning beforehand can be of much help.”

  I heard a noise, which I realized was Daniel snorting behind his teacup, but he lowered the cup and looked at me with a straight face. “I ought to have thought of that.”

  “Do not laugh at me, if you please.” I scanned the slice of river I could see and then the lane that led up the hill to the station. The bridge was dark, though lanterns hung at its ends, and lights twinkled on the strand on both sides of the river, presumably the searching constables.

  My gaze became riveted to the bridge. I remembered standing under one of its pillars with James, looking up to the underside of it high above.

  “What if they put all those sticks of dynamite between the ties?” I asked. “We’ve been concentrating on how someone would make a bridge fall, but what if they simply destroyed the train? The bridge falling or not would be irrelevant then.”

  Daniel nodded slowly. “I would agree with you, except the constables have been all over the bridge, walking its length and looking for just such things. They’ve found no explosives on or under the bridge.”

  “Inside, then?” I mused. “Men could drill holes in the pillars, put the sticks into them, and seal them up again.”

  “No evidence of that either,” Daniel said, sounding discouraged. “Would be difficult to detonate as well, without getting caught in the blast oneself. We’d find any long fuses they laid, and we haven’t.”

  I twined my fingers together. “I have a feeling some of these fanatics wouldn’t mind going up with their devices. Martyrs for their cause. Hmm. Let me think.”

  I saw Daniel’s look of near despair as he lifted his teacup once more. The poor man truly was at his wits’ end and on the edge of collapse, terrified he’d missed something that might mean the death of our Queen. Not only would it be tragic because a poor woman was dead, but it could mean the destruction of the nation.

  Though Parliament and the cabinet did far more ruling than the monarch these days, the loss of our Queen would be a huge blow for her subjects and also signal that we couldn’t keep even the highest in the land safe. Not only would the Fenian revolutionaries rejoice, but it would spark uprisings all over the empire, encouraging others to strike a blow against imperial Britain. There was no telling where that could end, including the downfall of the British Isles themselves.

  Daniel broke open a scone, dribbling lemon curd on it, and took a bite. I wished again I’d had time to pack food from London, but I hadn’t known we’d stay so long. Mrs. Rigby meant well, but she was an indifferent cook—her food was edible, but hardly the stuff of poetry. The potted meat I’d made a few days before we’d left would come in handy now, I decided, nice to spread on a bit of bread or roll.

  That thought tapped another in my brain, and I sat up straight, drawing a quick breath.

  Daniel glanced at me. He swallowed his scone, licking crumbs and lemon curd from his fingers. “What is it?”

  “Could a person explode dynamite underwater?” I asked, trying to work through the idea in my head.

  “If he found a way to keep it perfectly dry,” Daniel answered. “Which would be difficult. We have been looking for things that could float explosives close to the bridge and have found nothing.”

  “But what if it were wrapped in oilskin and sealed with something—when I want to keep meat dry in a jar and vermin out, I pour drippings on top of it, then let it harden somewhere cool, like a cellar or larder. When the drippings are solid, they form a cap. You can do the same thing with wax, as long as you protect the food below. I suppose you could seal a stick of dynamite into a bottle or jar, with the fuse protected with wax or some such. The fuse would take time to melt its way through the wax, so that the person who lit it could be well away, though perhaps it would have to burn quickly enough that it wouldn’t be put out by water or th
e melted wax itself.” I stopped, noticing Daniel staring at me hard in the gloom.

  I shrugged. “It is only an idea. I don’t know much about how explosives work.”

  Daniel sat up, his teacup in danger of falling from his hand. “If they buried them under the water, in the riverbed, at the pillars, they could simply blast through the stones, weakening the pillars themselves. Doesn’t matter how many iron trusses are at the top then.”

  “That could be done?” I asked.

  “It’s done all the time, in mines, and in tunneling for railroads. It’s why dynamite was invented—so men could lay charges in relative safety rather than messing about with black powder.” He sat forward on the chair, his gaze leaving me to focus out of the window.

  I rescued his teacup before tea could slosh to the floor. “Even so, I imagine you would have found the leavings of such things before now. And people in the village would have seen men going out in boats to bury the charges, or working under the pillars in the dry areas. As I say, it was only an idea.”

  Daniel sprang to his feet, his animation returning. “Fishermen run up and down this river all day, and a ferry boat still crosses it, in spite of the train. In the dark or mists, a larger boat could hide smaller ones—someone could build a fortress under the bridge like that and no one would notice until morning.”

  Indeed, the shadows beneath the bridge were thick and black, and the rain hid all but the lights above. Even those lights were beginning to smear to colored streaks on my windowpane. I set aside the teacup and rose to look out the window with him.