Father and son didn’t wake fully until we slowed to chug through the outskirts of London. They’d come alert from time to time when we stopped at stations along the way, but they’d take one look at the platform sign and sink back to oblivion. It was amusing to watch how they’d do it at almost exactly the same moment and in exactly the same fashion.
After Slough, they rubbed their eyes, stretched, blinked, and gradually regained their full senses.
It was late, the dark metropolis peppered with glows from gaslights on main roads, candles and kerosene lamps in windows, and fires here and there as men burned things outdoors to keep warm. Smoke crept over all, billowing from London’s myriad chimneys.
“I am happy to be home,” I said, peering out at the streets that rolled past us, the train sometimes lifting above them. “Why, when the country is quiet and green, the air much cleaner, does my heart beat with gladness when we rush through the mess that is London?”
“The Great Wen,” Daniel said. James shot him a confused look, and Daniel shook his head. “I’ve heard it so called.”
“Just means you’re a Londoner, Mrs. H.,” James said. “Like us. Country’s pretty,” he concluded. “But there ain’t much to do there.”
Whereas something new and different lurked around every corner of London, that was certain.
The train slowed mightily, the cars jerking against their couplings as we clanged our way into Paddington Station.
Daniel rose, obligingly lifting down my little bag and Mrs. Rigby’s basket. “Shall I see you home, Mrs. Holloway?” he asked.
“No, indeed.” I stood up and shook out my skirts. “I will be walking far down the corridor and exiting from a door at the end. If I’m seen climbing out of a compartment with you, Daniel McAdam, my reputation will surely be in tatters.”
• • •
The next morning I descended to the kitchen after a night of fitful slumber and terrible dreams, and tied on my apron, longing for a normal day. This was Monday, my half day out, but Lady Rankin apparently had told Mrs. Bowen that because I’d just returned from an absence, I would have to forgo it.
Mrs. Bowen had already been up when I reached the kitchen this morning, and gave me the news. I was longing to go to Grace, but I’d have to grit my teeth and wait until Thursday. That full day would not be denied me, I vowed.
Mrs. Bowen did not ask me about my journey and what had happened—presumably Cynthia had told her the tale. She’d only said, “Is all well, Mrs. Holloway?”
I’d given her a reassuring nod. “It is indeed, Mrs. Bowen.”
She’d nodded at me and gone above stairs, likely to marshal the forces to begin scouring every inch of the house, as they did every day.
I turned out dough Mary had left for me, tasting it before kneading in a bit more salt. She was doing well, was Mary, though she didn’t yet have my experience. However, she was learning quickly.
As I divided the dough between pans and put them on the warm shelf to rise, I heard Mr. Davis trundle down the stairs. He stepped into the servants’ hall to drop an armful of newspapers on the table, then came to the kitchen doorway, halted, and exclaimed in delight.
“Mrs. Holloway—I am so very, very happy to see you.” He advanced, holding out his hands, but I didn’t take them, mine being floury.
“Oh dear,” I said in alarm as I wiped my fingers on a towel. “I hope your joy doesn’t mean the temporary cook was so very awful.”
“She weren’t bad,” Mr. Davis conceded. “Mrs. Curtis. But she didn’t have your touch.”
“Mrs. Curtis,” I repeated. I called to mind a stern-faced, rather thin woman, who looked sour but was friendly in truth. “I know her a little. She is with my agency, but I’ve never sampled her cooking.”
“All I can say is, I’m glad you have returned. Mrs. Curtis won’t be here today—we received your telegram that you were on your way last night, and she went away after supper.”
I hadn’t sent a telegram. I assumed Daniel had when he’d purchased our tickets in the Saltash station.
Mr. Davis leaned against my table. “I was sorry to hear about your mum, Mrs. H. But I’m glad she’s better.”
My mum had passed away many years ago, but I nodded my thanks, going along with the story Daniel must have used to explain my absence.
I convinced Mr. Davis to cease leaning on my table, gave him a towel so he could wipe away the streak of flour he’d gotten on his trousers, and carried on with my cooking. I made a hearty breakfast for his lordship and Lady Cynthia of beefsteak, eggs, and a pork cheese—leftover roast pork and gravy that Mrs. Curtis had made, put into a mold with parsley, herbs, lemon peel, and nutmeg and served chilled. I saved a batch of this pork cheese for the staff, putting aside a lightly laden tray of bread and cold beef for Lady Rankin when she woke.
I saw nothing of Daniel, but I decided not to expect him to turn up. He might be with the police discussing what had happened in Saltash, or cleaning out stalls for Lord Rankin’s head groom—possibly both these things and everything in between. Or he might be gone from Lord Rankin’s house altogether, the trouble over. I wondered if he’d retain his rooms in Southampton Street near Covent Garden, or vanish from those as well.
Breakfast ended, and Mary and the scullery maid cleaned the pots and dishes. I scrubbed my wooden table, readying it for the meals I’d prepare during the rest of the day.
How restful it was to simply chop carrots, cut butter into flour for scones, muse upon which sauce I’d serve with the fish. None of these comestibles were liable to blow up, attack me with savage ferocity, or try to kill a man and boy I’d come to regard with fondness. We might have saved the monarch, even the empire, but I knew in my heart I’d send the empire to the devil as long as I never had to relive the moment I’d stood knee-deep in a cold river and believed I’d witnessed Daniel’s fiery death.
During the lull in the middle of the day, after Lady Rankin’s tray had gone up, the maids and footmen were upstairs cleaning, and Mr. Davis was in his pantry going over the wine, Lady Cynthia banged down the stairs and into the kitchen and threw herself into a chair at my table, just as she’d done the first day I’d worked here. She wore her gentleman’s tailored suit and looked as haunted today as she had then.
“Hell,” she growled.
“Everything all right, my lady?” I asked as I patted out dough to cut into scones.
“Don’t go all prudish on me, Mrs. H. I feel wretched. Rankin was in a snit this morning because those financiers bankrolling the Fenians are being closely questioned, as is Lord Chalminster and his wretched son, Minty—I hope they throw Minty into a cell and let him rot. Rankin is upset because he’s going to lose money. Money. That’s all the bloody man thinks about.”
I agreed with her, but I serenely cut scones and put them onto a flat baking pan. “You must admit, a bit of blunt is a good thing to have,” I said.
“Ha.” Lady Cynthia’s pretty face puckered with a grimace. “There’s a difference between being able to pay one’s tailor’s bill and becoming obsessed with numbers on a bank sheet. They don’t even look real, do they? Just figures.”
“And yet, those figures make the world go ’round,” I said as I turned to set the pan in the oven. Nearly dying on a railway bridge had made me philosophical.
“And the worst is, I missed all the excitement.” Lady Cynthia tilted the chair back on its legs so she could glance out the door into the servants’ hall, then thumped forward, leaning to me over the table. “No one is about. Do tell, Mrs. H.”
I wiped down my table then brought out my knife, carrots, and greens to prepare for the staff’s afternoon meal. As I chopped, I related in a low voice all that had happened after she’d left Cornwall.
Cynthia lost her sour expression as she listened, and by the time I finished, her look turned admiring. “Good on you,” she said with hearty approval. “That’s the s
pirit. Will the Queen give you and Mr. McAdam medals? Mr. Thanos deserves one too. He figured out exactly where the target would be.”
“I doubt it, somehow.” I set aside my chopped carrots and began tearing lettuce for a salad. I’d keep it cool in the larder while I prepared the rest of the meal. “She likely won’t know anything about us.”
“Well, that would be a crime.” Cynthia sat up straight and let out an unhappy breath. “Talking of crime, I cornered Bobby last night and asked her point-blank about Sinead.”
I expected Cynthia to go on, but she fell silent, studying her fingers, which rested against the table’s edge.
“Yes?” I prompted. I had my own ideas about Sinead’s death, but I wanted to mull all possibilities.
“Bobby says she didn’t do it.” Cynthia heaved another sigh. “She’s furious at me for believing she even could. I suppose she’s right. I ought to have trusted her.”
“Not at all,” I said. “Lady Roberta was on the spot, and she would have had a good motive if Sinead did try to blackmail her about being covertly in the house. Lady Roberta might not have meant to kill Sinead, but was only trying to make her be quiet.”
“Do you think Bobby’s lying, then?” Cynthia asked me, dejected. “I’d swear she was telling the truth.”
“I imagine she was. I was only thinking of possibilities.” I wiped my knife clean and picked up a sharpening steel to run the knife along it for a moment. This is a different tool from a whetstone—the sharpening steel takes little nicks off the edges of the knife between uses and prevents it from going dull too quickly.
If Sinead liked to blackmail, I wondered if she’d done so to Lord Rankin as well. He with his proclivities for dabbling with the maids—she might have found him a mine of pocket money. If she had threatened to tell Lady Rankin of anything her husband had done to Sinead or any other of the maids, Lord Rankin would certainly have reason for wanting to silence her.
I continued to run my knife over the steel, absently, as I pondered. When I’d brought in the coffee my first night, when Rankin had asked for Sinead, what must he have thought? That Sinead had brought me in on her blackmailing scheme? That I was warning him we might go to his wife? The next morning, after Sinead had been found, he’d tried to have me dismissed. Because he feared I’d take over Sinead’s blackmailing? Or because I’d realize he’d killed her?
“You’re a dab hand with those knives, Mrs. H.,” Cynthia said, sounding a bit envious.
I came to myself with a start. “Sharp knives do not slip and cut fingers,” I said, trying to shake off my thoughts, which were going in the wrong direction, I was certain. “The cook who apprenticed me taught me how to be very cautious.”
“Why didn’t the killer use them, then?” Cynthia asked. “Instead of striking out with the bowl?”
“I keep them locked up. Far too dangerous to leave knives where anyone can snatch them up. The crime must have been committed in the heat of the moment. The killer didn’t plan. Or didn’t plan well.”
“The Fenians?”
I laid my knife carefully on the table and sat down. “I have been thinking very hard about all this. If whoever killed Sinead was a Fenian—one, we assume, for whom she had been passing messages to and from her young man—why would he have left the paper with the times of the Queen’s train on it? Surely he would have taken that, knowing it would reveal their plans.”
“Hmm. Perhaps he didn’t realize she had it.”
“He would have searched Sinead to make sure she didn’t have any messages at all on her. Then he would have searched the kitchen. And, most likely, if he meant to kill her, he’d have lured Sinead away from the house altogether. Why do it here and leave her in the larder?”
Cynthia looked thoughtful. “As you say, it was a crime in the heat of the moment. That’s why Mrs. Bowen first thought that it was Sinead’s young man.”
“If her young man had been in London that night, I would have agreed with Mrs. Bowen most readily,” I said. “Men have been known to lose their tempers and bash their wives or lovers on the head—too many, unfortunately. But we already know that Sinead’s beau was in the north of England. Unless she had another lover?”
I sent Cynthia an inquiring look, but she shook her head.
“Sinead was devoted to the little tick,” Cynthia said. “She was a romantic. But I take your point, Mrs. H. Why should a Fenian come to the house at all? It would be too dangerous for him. Unless it was to make sure Sinead didn’t tell Lord Rankin some important detail. Or perhaps he was onto the fact that Rankin was watching their financiers for foul dealings. But then, why wouldn’t he try to off Rankin instead?” Cynthia sighed. “Pity he didn’t. Sinead was a much kinder person.”
“I thought you said she was a blackmailer,” I pointed out.
“She was. A bit. She wasn’t cruel or anything—she simply wanted to lessen her workload or put a few coins aside for her trousseau. As I said, the poor gel was a romantic.”
“Tell me about her,” I said, resting my elbows on the table. “She worked for your family before Lady Rankin married, you said.”
“Yes, she came to London with us—Em wanted her. Mrs. Bowen too. As I said, Mrs. Bowen was an under-housekeeper, but she also acted as Em’s lady’s maid, and Em didn’t want anyone looking after her house but good old Mrs. B. Then Rankin didn’t want the expense of finding Em another lady’s maid, so we make do with Sara. Sinead was a good worker but a bit too innocent, if you understand me. She thought God would protect her no matter what she did, because she wore a crucifix around her neck and lit candles in the church and said prayers to the Virgin.”
I remembered the mark on Sinead’s neck, which the coroner said meant she’d had a necklace there, wrenched away. I wondered why the killer had taken it.
“She was a scullery maid for your family?” I asked. “Why did your sister want to bring a scullery maid?”
Cynthia shrugged. “To look after her. Em grows fond of people. When she does, she feels responsible for them. Sinead rather adored Em, thought she looked like one of the Fair Folk or some such. Em wanted people around her who made her feel special. She certainly wasn’t going to get that from Rankin.” Cynthia barked a laugh then became subdued. “Or me. I’m rather hard on Em, the poor kid.”
It seemed to me that Cynthia had got the worst end of the bargain when Lady Rankin married, but I said nothing.
“I asked,” I began slowly, “because I was wondering if someone Sinead had been blackmailing at your family home—your mother, father, another of the servants—became alarmed that Sinead would tell their secrets, came to London, and killed her. She’d have let someone like that into the kitchen without suspicion, knowing them so well. Sinead never raised the alarm or tried to scream, or even fight, which means she probably knew her killer. Knew him well. Or her.” I had been fixated on a man having done this heinous thing, but the marble bowl had been heavy enough that a woman could have done much damage simply striking out.
“Oh.” A flush spread across Cynthia’s face. “I hadn’t thought of that. I suppose . . .”
She trailed off, the terrible guilt in her eyes catching me off guard. No, I thought in dismay. I have so come to like her . . .
Before I could answer, another voice cut through the silence.
“You may cease speculating, Mrs. Holloway. I know exactly who killed Sinead. I did.”
25
Mrs. Bowen stood on the threshold of the kitchen, her head up, so motionless that the keys on her belt were mute.
I remained seated as she stared back at me, her eyes glittering.
“Good Lord.” Cynthia twisted out of her chair and came to her feet, her eyes wide in shock. “Mrs. B., how could you? What the devil did Sinead have on you that you would do such a thing?”
Cynthia’s face was ashen, her equally pale hair and gray lips completing her colorlessnes
s.
Mrs. Bowen flicked her gaze to Cynthia. “That is my business,” she said stiffly. “My lady.”
“But to kill her.” Cynthia regarded her in horror. “If it was that bad, why not go to Em? Or come to me? Or Mrs. Holloway? We could have stepped in.”
Mrs. Bowen shook her head. “No, you couldn’t. I couldn’t take the chance she wouldn’t give away my secrets to Mrs. Holloway. Sinead admired her.”
I rose. I did not like that Mrs. Bowen tried to cast part of the guilt on me, if you please.
“But—” Cynthia began, but I held up my hand to silence her.
“She’s lying, my lady,” I said quietly. The defiance in Mrs. Bowen’s eyes told me I was correct. “She didn’t do anything to Sinead. She is shielding someone.”
“Who?” Cynthia looked bewildered. “The only person Mrs. B. would try to protect is—” Her words choked off and she moaned, a sound of pure grief. “No.” Her hand to her mouth to catch her sob, Cynthia bolted from the room.
I went after her. That is, I tried, but Mrs. Bowen reached out a strong hand and caught me by the wrist.
“Leave it,” she snapped.
“I will not.” I tried to jerk away, but Mrs. Bowen held me fast. “Sinead didn’t deserve to die,” I said, angry. “She was misguided, yes, but she was unworldly. An innocent. I could have brought her ’round.”
“No, you could not have.” Mrs. Bowen’s fingers bit down. “You believe you hold the answer to everything, don’t you? In this case, you do not.”
This had gone far enough. Mrs. Bowen’s grip was powerful, but I was quite fit myself. I yanked my wrist free and hastened out of the kitchen, past the servants’ hall, and up the back stairs.
Mrs. Bowen came after me. “Stop!” she commanded.
I halted at the top of the stairs, before the door with green baize nailed to it, the barrier that shielded the genteel inhabitants upstairs from the noises of the kitchen and servants’ hall below.
“What do you believe Cynthia will do?” I asked in a hard voice. “Do you not realize she will be in danger as well?”
Death Below Stairs Page 26
