Mystery Loves Company

by Sheri Cobb South

  “Gentlemen—and ladies,” he added as an afterthought, seeing Lady Washbourn and the dowager countess seated next to Lord Washbourn on the front row, “the purpose of this assembly is to conduct an inquiry into the death of Ann Barton, kitchen maid, on the twenty-first of April, 1809, at number twelve Grosvenor Square, the Town residence of Lord Washbourn. We will begin with his lordship’s testimony. Your lordship, if you would be so good—” Mr. Bagley gestured toward the single chair, and Lord Washbourn left his seat at his wife’s side and came forward with measured steps.

  “Thank you, my lord. The deceased, Ann Barton, was in your employ, was she not?”

  The earl tilted his handsome head as he considered the question. “As the hiring of female servants falls within my wife’s purview, it might be more accurate to say that she was in Lady Washbourn’s employ.”

  “Nevertheless, Miss Barton was on your payroll, and lived beneath your roof, is that correct?”

  “It is.”

  “Did she have any enemies that you were aware of?”

  Lord Washbourn’s eyebrows rose. “My good fellow, I doubt the girl was more than fifteen years old! What could she possibly have done to have made enemies at such a young age?”

  “I must remind your lordship that I am asking the questions,” Mr. Bagley said pointedly. “Again, did the girl have any enemies that you are aware of?”

  “No, not that I am aware of,” the earl said with the sigh of a man whose patience is being sorely tried.

  “Did she suffer from any illnesses?”

  “My good man, if she had shown any indication of poor health, I doubt very much that my wife would have engaged her! If you want more detail than that, I fear you must ask a physician.”

  “All in good time, your lordship, all in good time,” the coroner assured him. “Now, tell the gentlemen of the jury, as clearly as you can recall, what happened last night to Miss Barton.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t tell you much, because the girl was already dead when I arrived on the scene. I was dancing with one of our guests—Lady Barbara Brennan, if memory serves —when I heard a shriek and a sound of breaking glass. Needless to say, I considered it my duty as host to discover the cause of the disruption. A crowd had gathered at one corner of the ballroom, and when I pushed my way to the front of it, I found Annie—Miss Barton, that is—lying on the floor, with Mary Soames, another housemaid, standing over her sobbing, and Mr. John Pickett examining the body. It was Mr. Pickett who suggested—although ‘ordered’ would not be too strong a word—that you be sent for.”

  “Hmph,” was Mr. Bagley’s only response. He dismissed the earl and summoned the countess to take his place. He asked her the very same questions he had put to her husband, and received the same answers.

  “This Mr. John Pickett is a principal officer at Bow Street, is he not? A Runner, in other words?”

  Lady Washbourn confirmed that this was so.

  “You might say it was a very good thing Mr. Pickett was present,” Mr. Bagley observed smoothly.

  “Yes, it was,” she agreed.

  “Tell me, your ladyship, are you in the habit of entertaining Bow Street Runners, or was Mr. Pickett there in some official capacity?”

  Lady Washbourn’s eyes met Pickett’s for the briefest of moments before returning to the coroner. “In fact, Mr. Bagley, I have recently—lost—a valuable ruby necklace. If there should happen to be a thief in the house, my guests would very likely have offered the fellow more temptation, perhaps, than he could resist. Mr. Pickett was invited as a deterrent against theft.”

  “And not, you are quite certain, as a deterrent against any attempt on the life of one of your servants?”

  “Indeed not!” exclaimed her ladyship, bristling with indignation. Pickett could not help admiring her cool-headedness, for she had spoken no less than the truth: it was her own life, not that of one of her servants, that he had been engaged to protect.

  “Thank you, Lady Washbourn, you may return to your seat. We will hear next from Miss Mary Soames.”

  A brief silence reigned while the little maid shuffled forward, her face white and her whole demeanor fearful. Pickett could not help wondering if her fear was nothing more than a timid girl’s discomfort at finding herself the center of so much attention, or a very real dread that Annie’s death had indeed been murder and that, by testifying, she was somehow placing herself in danger.

  “Miss Soames,” the coroner spoke to the girl, “how long had you been acquainted with the deceased?”

  “Beg pardon, sir?”

  “The dead girl,” the coroner explained with poorly concealed impatience. “How long had you known her?”

  “I’d known Annie for almost three years, ever since she first come to work for Lord and Lady Washbourn. Her parents had just died, see, and so she had to find some way to support herself.”

  “And the two of you were working last night at the masquerade ball?”

  “Oh, aye, sir. That is, we was mostly working in the kitchen, but Mrs. Mitchum—she’s the housekeeper—she said as how we was going to run out of glasses soon, and so she sent us—Annie and me, that is—upstairs to collect the dirties and bring them downstairs for washing.”

  “And this was a regular part of your duties, yours and Miss Barton’s?”

  “I wouldn’t say as how it was regular, sir. In the usual way of things, it would be the footmen bringing the dirties downstairs. But they was all upstairs, passing around drinks on silver trays, so Mrs. Mitchum sent Annie and me instead.”

  “Thank you, Miss Soames. You will please tell these good men, to the best of your recollection, what happened when Miss Barton collapsed. No conjectures, if you please.”

  “No sir, of course not, only—what’s conjectures?”

  “Guesses,” he explained impatiently. “Don’t try to guess at anything, or make assumptions as to what Miss Barton might have done, or thought. Only tell what you saw.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said again. “As I said, we was gathering up the dirties to take downstairs, and Annie noticed as how some of the glasses was still almost full. She picked up one glass of rataffy that looked like it hadn’t even been touched, and said it was a right shame to let it go to waste.” She cast an apologetic glance at Lady Washbourn, sitting in the front row as if turned to stone. “Before I knowed what she was about, she turned up that glass and drunk it right down. Mind you, she never would have done such a thing if it wasn’t going to be poured out in any case,” she added hastily.

  “No conjectures, Miss Soames,” the coroner reminded her. “And what happened after she drank the ratafia?”

  “Well, she had just offered me a glass that had a bit left in the bottom, thinking as how I might want to do the same, when suddenly she started twitching like she was having some kind of a fit. She dropped the glass, and the tray of dirties in her hand, and a regular mess it made, what with the glasses breaking and what was left of the drinks spilling everywhere.” She sniffed loudly and wiped her nose on her sleeve. “And then she just fell down on the floor and laid there still, and I knowed then that she was dead.”

  “You did?” The coroner regarded her keenly. “Have you ever seen a dead body before, Miss Soames?”

  “No, sir, and I hope to God I never see another!”

  “How, then, did you know she was dead?”

  “She was so still, sir, and her face so red, and her eyes all rolled back in her head, like.”

  “I see. Miss Soames, were you aware of any health conditions from which Miss Barton might have suffered? Any illnesses, perhaps?”

  Mary Soames’s gaze dropped to her hands twisting together in her lap. “I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, sir.”

  “Of course not,” Mr. Bagley said soothingly. “We are not here to judge Miss Barton, who surely must have done nothing to deserve so gruesome a fate. But anything you can tell us may help us to determine the cause of her death.”

  “Well, sir, when you put it that
way—Annie, well, you might say as how she had one in the oven.”

  The coroner scowled at her. “A rather cryptic utterance, Miss Soames. I assume you do not mean to tell us that Miss Barton had been assisting Cook with the baking.”

  A bark of bawdy laughter from one of the jurors broke the silence, and was quickly stifled.

  “No, sir. I mean Annie was going to have a baby.”

  Pickett had taken no notes thus far, as the inquest had told him nothing that he had not already determined for himself, but at this revelation, he fumbled in the inside breast pocket of his coat for his occurrence book and pencil and began to scribble furiously. Of course, it proved nothing, and might have been no more than a tragic coincidence. Still, there was just a chance that Annie’s lover (one of the male servants? Lord Washbourn himself?) had been less than pleased to learn of his impending fatherhood, and had killed his mistress before her condition could become an embarrassment. In any case, it would certainly have to be looked into.

  “Thank you, Miss Soames, you may—”

  “One moment, Mr. Bagley, if you please.”

  All eyes turned toward Mr. Colquhoun as the magistrate heaved himself out of his chair.

  “What is the meaning of this?” demanded the coroner.

  “I’m sure you don’t dispute that witnesses may be questioned by persons other than the coroner, so long as they have a legitimate interest in the case. The manual describing the protocol to be observed even goes so far as to list several examples of such individuals: family of the deceased, companies underwriting insurance policies, beneficiaries of any such policies—”

  Mr. Bagley shook his head dismissively. “No, Mr. Colquhoun, of course I don’t dispute it. But it can hardly matter, given that Miss Barton had no family, and no such insurance policy—”

  “Oh, but that list of ‘properly interested persons’ leaves room for a certain amount of discretion on the part of the coroner. At the bottom of the list, you will find ‘any other person who, in the opinion of the coroner, is a properly interested person.’ Surely you will agree that if one of my men did indeed examine the body—and, in fact, examined it long before you or any of these men on the jury had the opportunity to do so—then it follows that I must be ‘properly interested’ in the case.”

  The coroner screwed up his face in what was no doubt intended to be a fierce scowl, but gave him instead the appearance of a sullen toddler. “Well, yes, I suppose so, but—”

  “Excellent!” Mr. Colquhoun squeezed past Pickett’s knees and joined Mr. Bagley at the front of the room. “I have a question I should like to put to Miss Soames.”

  “Very well, then,” conceded Mr. Bagley, glancing a bit desperately about the room as if seeking some way to be rid of his fellow magistrate. “Ask it.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Bagley. Miss Soames, did you watch as Mr. Pickett examined Miss Barton’s body?”

  Mary’s head bobbed up and down. “Aye, sir.”

  “Would you say he made a thorough job of it?”

  She hesitated, glancing uncertainly at the coroner. “Mr. Bagley said I wasn’t to go putting in my own opinion.”

  “Very true, Miss Soames, and right you are to remind me of it.” He turned to the coroner for confirmation, and received a rather cautious nod. “Let me rephrase the question. Tell me, as nearly as you can recollect, what were Mr. Pickett’s observations regarding the deceased?”

  “Mr. Colquhoun!” expostulated the coroner. “You must know as well as I do that secondhand testimony is not admissible!”

  The wily Scot heaved a sigh of regret and spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “In that case, Mr. Bagley, I suppose there’s nothing for it but to have Mr. Pickett up here and have his account from his own lips.”

  “As you wish, Mr. Colquhoun,” said the coroner, giving him a very ugly look. “But I’ll do the questioning. If there is anything I forget to ask, why, you may have your chance when I’ve done with him.”

  With this vaguely threatening promise, Mr. Bagley summoned Pickett to the witness’s chair. Pickett rose, gave a tug to the bottom of his new waistcoat, and took the chair Mary Soames had just vacated.

  “You will state your name and place of residence for the jury, if you please,” commanded Mr. Bagley.

  “John Pickett, of Drury—that is, of Curzon Street. Number twenty-two.”

  “And you have been with Bow Street for how long?”

  “Six years—almost four on the foot patrol, and the last two as a principal officer.”

  “A Runner, in other words?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The coroner gave him a long, appraising look that took in the bottle green tailcoat, the buff-colored breeches, and everything in between. Pickett had the feeling he was being weighed in the balance and found wanting.

  But no; in fact, the opposite appeared to be true. “You look very fine today, Mr. Pickett,” the coroner said.

  “Thank you, sir,” Pickett said warily, suspecting there was more behind the compliment than admiration of his appearance.

  And so it proved. “A bit too fine, if I may say so. What are they paying Bow Street Runners these days?”

  Pickett, assuming the question to be purely rhetorical, made no response.

  “Well, Mr. Pickett?” prompted the coroner.

  “Am I to understand, sir, that my answer to that question is required as part of my testimony?”

  “I would not have asked it otherwise.”

  Pickett glanced at his mentor. Smoke was all but coming out of the magistrate’s ears, but he gave an infinitesimal nod.

  “The current base salary for a principal officer is twenty-five shillings a week,” Pickett said tonelessly, fully conscious of how meager this amount must seem to the seven men sitting on the jury. “A Runner may also accept private commissions for a guinea a day plus expenses. Some further reward is usually paid upon the satisfactory conclusion of the case, with the amount being left to the discretion of the person or persons doing the commissioning.”

  “Hmm,” was the coroner’s noncommittal reply. “A guinea a day, eh? One wonders how many days it took you to purchase those togs on your back.”

  “I fail to see what bearing my clothes may have on this case,” Pickett said, bristling.

  “On the contrary, Mr. Pickett, I believe your finery may have a great deal of bearing. We have established, have we not, that you attended the Washbourn masquerade on just such a private commission from her ladyship?”

  “Yes, sir, what of it?” Pickett asked testily, heedless of the warning frown from his magistrate.

  “I suggest, Mr. Pickett, that your purpose in attending the masquerade has been misrepresented.”

  As this was quite true, Pickett could not deny it. Instead, he listened in mute horror, fully expecting the coroner to blast his cover—and, quite possibly, Lady Washbourn’s safety—to perdition. To his surprise, Mr. Bagley’s thinly veiled accusations took an entirely different turn.

  “We have heard that Lord Washbourn is being considered for an important government post. I submit that there are any number of persons—political adversaries, for instance, or rival candidates for this position—who would pay well for the opportunity to create the sort of scandal that might cost his lordship this appointment.”

  “Surely you do not mean to imply that Miss Barton’s death was politically motivated!”

  “Mr. Pickett, it is not my place, nor yours, to imply that Miss Barton’s death was anything but a natural, albeit unfortunate, occurrence. But a clever man, particularly one with much to gain financially, might seize upon the incident to create a tempest in a teacup. Masquerades have long had a reputation for the sort of immoral conduct that might wreck the political ambitions of an indiscreet man; I submit, Mr. Pickett, that a third party, upon learning that you were to be present on a private commission for Lady Washbourn, paid you handsomely”—again the coroner’s glance darted to Pickett’s well-tailored coat—“to keep an eye out for a
ny such behavior, or to invent it, if necessary, and to make sure that it became public knowledge. Miss Barton’s death, and the opportunity to create a murder case from whole cloth, must have appeared a godsend—if one can imagine the Almighty involved in such nefarious dealings.”

  “Begging your pardon, sir,” Pickett said with some asperity, “but the only one who appears to be creating anything from whole cloth would seem to be you.” He had not wanted to drag Julia’s name into a coroner’s inquest, but neither could he sit silently by while his integrity was ripped to shreds. He told himself that she would not expect him to do so. “In fact, the clothing you seem to find so objectionable did not come to me through the machinations of any third party, but through the generosity of my wife. I have recently wed, and my wife gave them to me as a birthday gift.”

  Mr. Bagley lifted one skeptical eyebrow. “Expensive birthday gift, wouldn’t you say?”

  He could hardly deny it, having thought the same thing himself. “Yes, sir,” he conceded with a sigh. “But Mrs. Pickett is a lady, and no doubt wants me to appear worthy of her.” Recalling certain words of Julia’s, he added, “It is not as if they came from the hand of Weston in Old Bond Street, you know.”

  Mr. Bagley conceded the point with a nod. “The court offers its felicitations on your marriage, Mr. Pickett, and congratulates you on attaining your majority.”

  A smattering of laughter greeted this announcement, and Pickett fumed. ‘The court offers,’ he thought bitterly, just as if Mr. Bagley, a lousy interim coroner, were presiding over a trial at the Old Bailey! As for his majority, he had reached it four years earlier, for the birthday he had celebrated was not his twenty-first, but his twenty-fifth.