by Kate Parker
“I look forward to it.” And if I were lucky enough to speak to the nurse first, we might finally get to the bottom of this problem.
And I could go on working on hats, unencumbered with the feeling I had failed to obtain justice for a young woman who’d been both murdered and misjudged.
Lady Kaldaire rose. I noticed she hadn’t offered us any tea. “If there’s nothing else?”
“No, my lady.” James was on his feet in an instant and I wasn’t far behind him.
As soon as we left, James took the paper from his pocket. “This village is just a few miles west of London. We can catch a train and be there in half an hour.”
Noah was surprisingly self-reliant for a man if he had to be. When Annie got hungry, he’d dish up her dinner and have her wash her plate. If he was also hungry, he’d dish up his dinner, too, and leave me all the plates. As well as complain loudly that I’d abandoned them. “All right,” I told James. “Let’s find this nurse.”
We went to Paddington Station and caught the next train carrying London’s workers home to their families in the countryside. Half a dozen men dressed like James in suits, vests, ties, and bowler hats left the train at the station for the nurse, Elizabeth North’s, village.
The address Lady Kaldaire gave us was one in a row of narrow stone two-story houses. As we approached the door, walking past a tiny strip of dirt with the green heads of plants poking out, I could hear raised voices inside. However, I couldn’t make out any of the words.
Either James was used to the sound of arguments or he couldn’t hear the voices, because he walked up to the door and loudly rapped on it three times with a studiously neutral expression.
The voices inside suddenly stopped. A moment later, a woman opened the door a few inches. “Yes?”
“Miss Elizabeth North?”
“I’m Mrs. North.”
“I’m Detective Inspector Russell, and this is Miss Gates. We’ve come to ask Miss North a few questions about her employment in the Duke of Wallingford’s nursery.”
“Oh. You want Betsy. I knew she’d bring trouble to our door.” The woman turned her head and bellowed, “Betsy.”
Another woman, a little younger, and both taller and thinner, appeared in the first woman’s place. “Yes?”
Behind her, we could hear the first woman shout, “Come on, you lot. Tea’s on.”
James went through his introduction again as if the inside of the house wasn’t full of running feet, crying, and loud voices.
Miss North paled and looked down. “I knew he wouldn’t let it go.”
“Who wouldn’t?”
“Lord Theo.”
Chapter Nineteen
I glanced at James, who seemed not to want to give anything away. “Why did you think Lord Theo wouldn’t let it go?” I asked the former nursery maid.
“Because he told me, before he smashed my head against the wall, that no one would believe me. That he’d see to it that I didn’t get a good reference from the family if I didn’t—submit.” She made a face as she glanced over her shoulder into the narrow house. I could see a cloth doll on the floor and the back of a wooden chair nearby. “Not that they believed me. And now he’s come to you to get me into more trouble.”
Betsy North twisted her hands in front of her, but she looked us in the eye when she spoke. She stepped out on the stoop and shut the door behind her. “Let’s walk down to the green.”
We fell into step next to her as I asked, “Did you get a good reference?”
“The duke came to my room and said I was to be gone by breakfast time. And there would be no reference. He shoved a quarter’s worth of wages into my hands and told me to get out.”
“Was this before or after the doctor checked your head wound?” I hoped they had at least done that much.
“The doctor was concerned about my head injury and told the duke I should rest for at least two days. As soon as the doctor was gone, the duke told me to leave.”
She shook her head. “It’s the little boy I worry about. Lord Alfred. I doubt they’re protecting him from that madman.”
“What madman?” I asked.
“Lord Theo.”
I stared hard at James until he relented. “Lord Theo Hughes died the night of the attack on Lord Alfred and you.”
“Oh, thank goodness.” Her posture relaxed.
“What do you mean, thank goodness?” James asked, giving her a hard stare.
“The child is safe. But why won’t they give me a reference? I’d never say anything bad about the family. I’d like to go back to work, and the only thing I’ve been trained to do is be a nursery maid.”
I gave her a smile. “It sounded like your sister-in-law can use your help.”
“And I give it to her, but she begrudges me every morsel that goes in my mouth. I sleep with my two older nieces, but she wants me gone so she can put the youngest girl in there too and get her out of my brother and sister-in-law’s bedroom.”
I winced. Betsy’s life sounded miserable. But I hoped she had more to say. “Tell me about Lady Theo.”
“You mean Lady Roxanne? I know we’re not supposed to call her that, but that’s what the servants called her. Just among ourselves, and to Lady Roxanne when the family wasn’t around.”
“She approved of you calling her something other than her courtesy title?”
“Yes. I don’t know how she put up with that family.” She took a few steps, looking at the street, before she spoke again. “They didn’t give me a reference, so I suppose I can speak out. They were rude to Lady Roxanne if it was just the family and servants around. And Lord Theo was brutal to her. Beating her and cursing her. And his mother saying it was all Roxanne’s fault. That she deserved the beatings.”
“Did the servants like Lady Roxanne?” I wondered how she treated people who weren’t in her class.
“Yes. She didn’t put on airs or make silly demands on us. Not like the rest of the family.”
I decided to find out what else Betsy North knew about Roxanne’s life. “Did she use the secret passage much to escape the house?”
“Lady Roxanne wasn’t a prisoner. She or Lord Theo used the tunnel once or twice a week. Of course, that cow Sally charged anyone who used that exit. It didn’t matter if you were servant or master. Sally considered that passageway her own little tollroad.”
“Who is Sally, and how would she know who used the tunnel?” Could she know what happened the night Roxanne died?
“Sally is the head housemaid. She’s in charge of the linen cupboard where the tunnel comes out into the house, and I’ve heard she’s always in sight of the entrance.”
I needed to talk to Sally, but later. Right then, I needed to find out everything Betsy North knew. “Where was Roxanne the night Lord Theo attacked you and Lord Alfred?”
“Did he attack Lord Alfred that night?” Betsy asked me.
“You didn’t see Lord Theo hurt the baby?” I asked with as much surprise in my voice as Betsy had in hers.
“No. Lord Alfred was in his cot when Lord Theo struck me down.”
Had I been assuming too much, that since Lord Theo had attacked Betsy and was accused by both Betsy and Lord George Whitaker of being a danger to Lord Alfred, he also attacked the baby immediately after? “Where was Lady Roxanne that night?”
“Her mother was taken ill. Her family came from the north around York. Lady Roxanne left to see her mother the day before Lord Theo attacked me. I have no idea when she returned, because it was after I left.”
“The family hasn’t been forthcoming about that,” I muttered.
“Has something happened to Roxanne?” She looked from me to James.
“Her throat was slit and she was found in the park across the street wearing only her corset,” he told her.
Betsy’s hand went over her mouth. I couldn’t blame her, not the way James had worded it.
She took a couple of deep breaths. “When?”
“A month after your attac
k.” James wasn’t making this easy for her.
“And she could have been so happy if she could have just gotten away from that family.” Her hand went over her mouth again once the words came out.
“How do you know she could have been happy?” I asked.
At first, I didn’t think she’d answer, but finally she said, “It’s nothing I could point to, but there were moments when she thought she was quite alone that I would see her smile to herself. As if she were in love. As if she had a secret no one else knew.”
“How did you, a nursery maid, see Lady Theo when she thought she was alone?” James asked.
“She’d come up to the nursery to play with Lord Alfred if none of the other family was about. I think she wanted one of her own.”
“Did you mention this to any of the other servants?”
“Only to the head nurse, Mrs. Coffey. We guarded her secret visits to the nursery. That’s how I learned…” Her hand went to her mouth again.
“That your work would double?” I said.
She shook her head. “We all knew Lord Alfred would get a sibling almost from the moment it happened. Lady Frethorton was sick from the start and it made her hysterical.”
We were circling the green. The tiny leaves on the trees were a light green fuzz when I looked at them across the expanse of grass and the garden beds were nothing but well-raked soil. With the sun going low in the sky, I knew if we didn’t soon find out everything Betsy knew, she’d go in for her tea and we’d never discover this secret. “Then what was it you learned from Mrs. Coffey?”
“I shouldn’t say.”
“Why not? You don’t owe them anything. They didn’t give you a reference after their son injured you.” James pushed her to speak again.
I didn’t think it was the right way to proceed. “Mrs. Coffey overheard something about Lord and Lady Theo, didn’t she? I know the duchess defended Lord Theo even when he didn’t deserve it and blamed Roxanne for everything, but surely the duke wasn’t so blind.”
“He wasn’t. There were rows in that house. I will tell you that.”
“You liked Roxanne, didn’t you? I never met her, but I’m determined to find out who killed her. Surely you can help me.” I wasn’t above begging for any information she had.
After a moment’s reflection, she nodded. “Mrs. Coffey heard a man, she didn’t know who, in the duke’s study threatening legal action against Lord Theo if the duke didn’t pay for the damage. He mentioned a huge sum, so it wasn’t just some broken china. And he mentioned a scandal.”
“Was the duke angry?” I asked, hoping to keep Betsy talking.
She nodded. “I heard him the whole way up in the nursery when the man left. Later, one of the other servants told Mrs. Coffey the duke had begun looking for a private asylum to put Lord Theo in. We were all warned not to tell the duchess.”
“An asylum for the insane?” Would the duke have gone so far as to put his son there?
“That’s what one of the footmen heard. I think it was all the drugs he was taking.”
“What was he taking?” James asked.
“Cocaine. All the servants knew it.”
If the duke was willing to have his son locked up, why did he throw the night nurse out of the house without a reference? Did he know he wouldn’t have to lock Theo away? But what story did he fear Miss North spreading? Cocaine was legal. Theo wasn’t the only young man from an aristocratic family who was wild and irresponsible. “What time did the duke tell you to leave? That your employment was terminated?”
“It was nearly daylight. I must have been carried to my room, unconscious, from the nursery. After I awoke in my bed, the doctor came in and looked at my head. He called for more lanterns, since there is no electric light in the servants’ area. When he left, he said there wasn’t any more need for the lanterns. I looked out the window and saw pink in the sky.”
“Up to that point, you hadn’t seen the duke or the duchess?”
She shook her head. “That was when the duke came in. The two men conferred for a moment in the doorway before the doctor left. The duke said since it was almost light, that he’d have a tray sent up, but as soon as I ate, I was to leave and never return. That was when he paid me, for all the good it did.”
I looked at the young woman, who glanced down the street at the narrow stone house where she lived. “Your sister-in-law, Mrs. North, took your money?”
“No. She made my brother take it. Said they needed the money to keep me.” Bitterness flowed out of her tone.
I turned to James. “What time did the doctor put on Lord Theo’s death certificate?”
“A quarter past two in the morning.” He glanced at Betsy. “The death certificate says he died from an accidental fall.”
Betsy looked puzzled. “If Lord Theo was already dead, why was the duke in such a hurry to throw me out without so much as a reference? Nothing I said could affect Lord Theo.”
“I don’t know. Maybe the duke was afraid if you were nearby at another house, you might let something slip and the duke’s plans for Lord Theo would get back to the duchess.” I stopped and studied the dirt path along the edge of the green. “It doesn’t make sense since Lord Theo was dead, and it doesn’t seem fair.”
I stared at James until he gazed back at me and said, “I don’t see what the police can do except continue to investigate Lady Theo’s murder.”
“So, nothing I said makes any difference.” Betsy started to hurry away.
“Betsy,” I called. “Wait.”
She turned and waited until I caught up. “If you tell the duchess what I said, you’ll ruin my chances of ever getting a reference. I need a reference. I need to get out of here.” Then she strode the rest of the way back to her brother’s house.
I was about to chase after her when James put out a hand to stop me. “We’ll get nothing else from her. I doubt she knows anything else.”
“And nothing that will help solve Roxanne’s murder.” We walked slowly back to the railway station while I thought about all the night nurse had said. James was silent, too. I’m sure he was thinking as hard as I was.
During our train ride back to London, I told James, “Lord Theo isn’t the only one. At Blackfords’ ball, Lady Ravenbrook’s purse fell open and a small case landed on the floor. My grandfather says it contains cocaine.”
“Do you have it now?”
I shook my head. “Not with me.”
“Give it to me the next time you see me and I’ll get rid of it for you,” he replied. “Cocaine is dangerous. I don’t want you anywhere near it.”
* * *
At two the next afternoon, Lady Kaldaire in her mourning black from head to toe and I in a green suit with a matching green toque decorated with a few feathers, presented ourselves at Blackford House. Once again, the butler showed us to the small drawing room just off the main hall as he took our damp umbrellas.
Lady Kaldaire sat in what I was beginning to think of as her chair in this room near the cheery fire and peeled off her short gloves. I took a seat a little distance away, expecting to wait for a while to see the duchess.
Not more than two minutes later, the Duchess of Blackford walked in and said, “I’ve asked for tea, if that is all right with you ladies.”
“That’s very kind, Your Grace,” I said, not expecting quite so warm a welcome. She must have learned from Lady Kaldaire that I had some hard questions to pose about the highest levels of the aristocracy.
The duchess sat down so that she faced me, forcing Lady Kaldaire to swivel around in her chair to see us. “What do you want to know?”
“First, to get it out of the way, has any complaint been lodged with Scotland Yard over Inspector Russell’s failure to protect your jewelry on the night of the ball?” I was ready to plead for James’s career if necessary.
The duchess smiled at me. “You needn’t worry about your friend, the inspector. The duke put in some very complimentary words about his professionalism and quick
thinking.”
I sagged in my chair in relief. “Thank you.”
“There is something you need to know,” the duchess told me. “It has nothing to do with your investigation. I first met my former assistant, Emma, when she was about thirteen and a second-story burglar for an East End gang. She helped burglarize a house where a murder had just taken place.”
I looked at Lady Kaldaire and probably turned bright red. I met her when I broke into her house and found Lord Kaldaire attacked and dying.
“The police caught the burglary ring and assumed they were the killers. Our detection group, the Archivist Society, was hired to find the real killer. That’s when I met Emma. Friends convinced the judge to release her into my custody, and we’ve been close ever since. The duke and I, and Emma, understand why you took Annie in. If you ever have need of legal assistance to keep nosy officials away, let me know. I can help.”
I gave her a big smile. “Thank you. I’ll definitely remember that,” I told the duchess.
“What did you want to know about the murder that brought you here?”
“The truth, Your Grace,” I replied, gazing into her eyes.
“How much do you know?”
“I’ve heard two different stories. One from the Hughes family and their aristocratic friends, and one from Lady Theo’s commoner lover. Since she was going to run away with him, I tend to believe him. Am I right? Was Roxanne, was Lady Theo, a decent person?” I asked.
Lady Kaldaire rose and turned her chair to face us, pulling it a little closer. I knew her well enough to know she didn’t want to miss a single word.
The duchess turned toward Lady Kaldaire. “I know you and Louisa have been friends for decades, but Louisa had a blind spot when it came to Theo and Roxanne. Theo was a beast. He didn’t deserve Louisa’s protection.”
“She knew he wasn’t perfect—”
The duchess eyed Lady Kaldaire coolly. “He was sadistic.”
“Oh, now…” The door opened and Lady Kaldaire fell silent.
The tea tray came in and we remained quiet as the duchess poured. Once we each had our cups and saucers in hand and the door was shut, Lady Kaldaire immediately began to argue. “Sadistic? I think not. Lulu always described him as high spirited.”
