by Myers, Amy
‘You thinking of telling His Grace that then, Hobbs? Telling him I make your life a misery, eh? Telling him you can’t remember how many bottles of Chateau Margaux you laid down? Telling him how your Rosie ran after me, deliberately got herself in the family way . . .?’
Yes, Ernest Hobbs was a happy man. Greeves was dead. He could sleep easy for the first time in five years knowing he didn’t have to stand those sneers and insults, the sudden shout as he was handling the Staffordshire, the jerk of the arm as he was decanting the port. Now he was acting steward and soon he’d be steward. His Grace was a notoriously lazy man, and would not be bothered to train someone new in the ways of the estate. Hobbs can manage, he’d say.
‘Well, Mr Chambers, so you had your eye on Miss Fawcett, eh? Think she’d look at you, did you? Know what she told me about you? About what it was like when you kissed her . . .’ And Greeves hadn’t even stopped there. ‘Still, you didn’t let it bother you, did you? One woman found you repulsive, so you try the next. Bill Sidder’s widow was an easy target, weren’t she? Don’t think His Grace would like it though. Molesting the maids, then the estate workers. Do you think he’d like it, Chambers?’
Frederick Chambers was asleep, a smile of satisfaction on his lips. May Fawcett might not want him, but at least Greeves wouldn’t have her . . .
‘Oh, that’s unfortunate, John. Very unfortunate, Mr Cricket. I quite thought you’d be able to get me what I wanted. What a pity. I don’t think His Grace likes failures around him, do you, Cricket . . .?’
John Cricket lay awake. He was even more twitchy than usual. Greeves was dead. The police were investigating. Suppose they found out about Greeves’ extra source of income and wondered where he got his information from? Wondered if he had an informant the other side of the baize door? How could he explain that Greeves had made him do it, that he had held the threat of dismissal over him? He had his invalid mother to think of. She depended on him. He couldn’t have risked it. And it wasn’t very serious after all, what he did – only gossip, they could never trace it back to him. Or could they?
Thirty yards from the servants’ quarters the house party was settling down for the night. Perhaps settling down was not the right phrase. A stone’s throw from the enforced virtuous beds of the servants, their betters set a different example, complimenting themselves on bestowing light and happiness upon this dull world. Prearranged signals were given and accepted, silken dresses rustled up the wide staircases, swished through chamber doors and, in due and rapid course, fell to the ground with the expert help of ladies’-maids, followed by the subsidence of billowing petticoats, corset covers, corsets, chemises, stockings and drawers to be replaced by the flattering softness of lace-trimmed silk night attire. Her Grace had informed the company that early morning tea was at seven, and that she hoped no one would be disturbed by the longcase moon clock, the mechanisms of which were arranged to chime at six o’clock only, thus providing an hour during which even the most somnolent or assiduous lover could return safely to his own room. In due course a number of doors tentatively opened and the long chain of love unwound down the corridors of Stockbery Towers, dispersing into their several rooms.
Only the Marquise, unworried by the chancy arrangements of others, already rested peacefully in the arms of her lover, having requested his room adjoin hers. There were some compensations in being deemed past the age for love.
Chapter Three
Sergeant Bladon arrived at nine on the Saturday morning, once more correctly interpreting his proper place to be the tradesmen’s entrance in the kitchen courtyard, and propped up his bicycle against the wall of Mrs Hankey’s room. Heavy rain the night before had conspired to bespatter his sturdy uniformed legs with mud from the narrow lane that led to Stockbery Towers and that, combined with a consciousness that his method of arrival did not befit a sergeant of the detective force of Kent County Police, did not put him in the best of humours.
His request for use of the force’s equipage had been met by a curt refusal from Naseby. On a good day Bladon would have conceded that the short distance from his Hollingham home to the Towers was easily bridgeable by bicycle or even by foot, but this was not a good day. It was a day clouded by Inspector Naseby. A weaselly-featured man of fifty who had come to the top of the detective branch by his fortunate fluke in trapping the infamous Rum Bubber Bill of the Ramsgate smuggling trade, Naseby would play his cards carefully. He’d be out for the glory of solving the Stockbery case, as it was already known, but it boded fair to be a difficult one and it would be on Bladon’s shoulders that the blame would be laid if the ducal temper were to be lost.
‘Find ’im, Bladon,’ was Naseby’s admonition to his subordinate. ‘You know these people. You’ll handle it best.’
It was true enough. He felt at home amongst the lower servants. He’d known most of them since the Rector had dipped them caterwauling into the ninth-century font. It wasn’t the lower servants he was going to face today however, it was the upper lot. They might have started off local, some of them, but they reckoned themselves a cut above that now.
Jackson’s face appeared round the door in answer to his summons and a shadow of wariness crept over it. Bladon knew that look well. It belonged to lads with something to hide.
‘Police, m’lad. Mrs Hankey’s expecting me.’
With his morale somewhat improved, Bladon marched into the corridor conscious of the whole weight of the Kent County Police behind him. His self-importance received a slight setback, however, as he collided with a scurrying housemaid carrying a breakfast tray, and a few moments had to be wasted in removing some of Mrs Hankey’s quince jelly from his trouser leg. This surmounted, he was shown into the housekeeper’s room where a silent circle of upper servants greeted him, much as a séance might its medium.
‘Hey you,’ he said to Jackson, sidling out of the door, ‘we need you, young feller me lad. Sit down.’
Mrs Hankey’s bosom swelled. A lower servant to sit in her room! But the law was the law, even if it was only Tommy Bladon, and she grudgingly made room for an equally reluctant Jackson.
Bladon sat down cautiously on the spindly Windsor chair, his bulk overflowing its sides. He was a conscientious man, and the task in front of him was daunting. He had taken great pains in planning this interview. His reading of the doings of one Sherlock Holmes in the Strand Magazine should not be in vain.
‘Well, now,’ he announced, clearing his throat self-consciously, ‘from our investigations it seems likely that Mr Archibald Greeves, steward of this establishment, died by the administration of poison.’ He was disappointed at the unsurprised reception of this news, and continued rapidly, ‘We have determined that in all likelihood it were a poison known as aconitia. One of the deadliest poisons known to man. As used by arch-fiend and murderer Dr George Lamson.’ This time he got his reaction. The Lamson case was still talked about, and the ripple that ran round his audience was satisfying.
‘Not arsenic, then?’ enquired Chambers, glancing at Cricket. ‘Not an arsenic eater?’
‘Our tests say aconitia. From the aconite plant,’ he added, determined that his hastily acquired erudition on the subject should be aired.
‘But it ain’t traceable in the body,’ said Cricket quickly. ‘So how do you know?’
‘The doctor thought it might be – there are signs, you see: swelling at the base of the throat; distinctive taste of pu— vomit, begging your pardon, Mrs Hankey. And he was right. The detective force has ways of finding out for sure. Not fit for the ladies’ ears,’ Bladon added swiftly, and somewhat inaccurately.
Ethel’s eyes grew round as saucers.
‘I knew it,’ said Mrs Hankey dolorously. ‘Didn’t I say so? It’s that nasty weed grows in the garden, ain’t it? Some must have got in his food by mistake. I told you, Mr Didier.’
Auguste gave a strangled gasp at this direct onslaught on his integrity.
She caught the look in his eyes and hastily amended her words: ‘I don’t
say as how it was you yourself, Mr Didier. More like one of those kitchen-maids of yours. That Gladys, never got her mind on her work. I don’t mean intentional. Must have been an accident. Isn’t that so, Officer?’
Gratified as he was by this public recognition of his status, Bladon was not to be deflected by Mrs Hankey’s majestic forcefulness.
‘Not unless the deceased was the only person to partake of the dish, mum.’
‘Then it was suicide,’ said Mrs Hankey firmly. She avoided the others’ astonished eyes, incredulous at this change of mood from yesterday. ‘Yes,’ she continued, ‘suicide it was. He realised he had, well, betrayed someone dear to ’im and this was his way of saying he was sorry.’ She swept on in a surge of self-revelation, unheeding of the ill-suppressed fury of May Fawcett.
‘Mr Greeves and I had an understanding, if you take my meaning. But others came between us, and poor Mr Greeves, who was only human, was Led Astray.’
‘Astray,’ muttered Bladon, recording diligently in his book.
‘Too late,’ intoned Mrs Hankey, ‘he realised the error of his ways.’ She fixed him with a sorrowful look. ‘Others had their eyes on him, Sergeant Bladon, and more than eyes.’
‘You wicked old queenie,’ shrieked May Fawcett. It was doubtful if Mrs Hankey knew the word save in relation to her monarch, but its intent was unmistakable. The battle began to rage. Sergeant Bladon, totally incapable of recording this interesting exchange, sat nonplussed in its midst.
‘Miss May Fawcett – er – lady’s-maid to Her Grace,’ supplied Auguste helpfully. The sergeant began to write this down; then decided old-fashioned methods might achieve more.
‘That’s enough,’ he bawled. ‘I won’t have a pack of women making a mockery of The Law.’
Hobbs, Chambers and Cricket perked up. It was a long time since anybody had classed Mrs Hankey as a member of a pack of women.
The battle stopped instantly, with a few indignant sniffs from Mrs Hankey, and an angry-faced May Fawcett twitching slightly.
‘Now then,’ said Bladon, adopting a tone of confidentiality, ‘there’s no denying Mr Greeves could have poisoned his own food. But generally we have a note saying To Whom It May Concern. Last letters to loved ones, that sort of thing. And there weren’t none. Then there’s the means. There weren’t no sign of a bottle, anything like that around. I have to inform you officially we are treating the death as murder.’
Again there was an anticlimactic silence.
‘Murder,’ repeated Bladon unnecessarily. ‘And that being the case, I need statements as to where you all were and what you were doing at the relevant time. That is, this poison being quick doing its job, in the hour before the deceased met his end.’
The upper servants looked at each other, puzzled.
‘Us, Inspector?’ queried Chambers doubtfully. ‘We were all together, of course. Us and the visitors.’
‘At dinner,’ supplied Ethel helpfully.
Mrs Hankey assumed control. ‘Mr Greeves was took bad at ten minutes past one, Sergeant. All of us, and the visitors’ valets and maids, even him—’ she cast a scathing look at the cowering Jackson – ‘had been together since five minutes to twelve for dinner. ’Cept when he went to the pantry to get dessert.’
‘And you had your dinner where?’
‘We – that is the upper servants – meet in Pug’s Parlour.’
‘Where?’ asked Bladon, puzzled.
‘The name given to the steward’s room,’ explained Hobbs, as the incumbent elect. ‘Whoever the most senior servant is, in this case the steward, his room is referred to as Pug’s Parlour, and there the Upper Ten – us top servants that is – foregather and eat part of their meals.’
‘At twelve o’clock sharp we walk together to the servants’ hall where we join the lower servants for our entrée – the roast, Sergeant Bladon,’ Mrs Hankey added helpfully, for one uninitiated in the ways of gentlefolk.
‘And this entry was what?’ asked the sergeant.
‘Roast lamb, purée of spinach and sorrel, roast potatoes with une garniture de champignons, mushrooms,’ recited Auguste automatically. He had an infallible memory for all menus, in particular those of his creation. He could recount even what had been served in those far-off days in Nice as an apprentice under the Maître Escoffier; what he had served in Paris, when Tatiana . . . The oeufs brouillés awe truffes for that special luncheon. Ah, she . . .
‘And then we left the servants’ hall at twelve-thirty to return to poor Mr Greeves’ room for our pudding – er – dessert.’ Mrs Hankey quickly resumed her starring role.
‘Blackberry fool,’ supplied Auguste.
‘And that’s waiting in – er – Pug’s Parlour while you’re all in the servants’ hall?’ asked Bladon, wishing that McNaughten of the Yard could hear this flawless questioning.
‘It is brought up from the kitchen before dinner begins and left in the adjoining pantry where Edward then serves it.’
‘So, it could have been poisoned before it got there,’ said Bladon.
‘Not unless we have a wholesale murderer, Sergeant. No one could guarantee it would reach Greeves,’ put in Chambers dolorously.
‘Only the person who serves it,’ Cricket pointed out.
Edward Jackson, tried to look as though he were not there, as all eyes turned to him.
‘I’ll bear that in mind, lad,’ said Bladon heavily. ‘What happens next?’
‘We come to my room, Sergeant, leaving Mr Greeves, as was, to his savoury and brandy, and we has our tea here.’
‘Seems a lot of walking about just for a meal,’ grunted Bladon, writing furiously.
‘It’s always been done this way,’ said Ethel simply and conclusively.
‘Now, who serves this roast up?’
‘One of the odd-jobmen,’ answered Auguste. ‘Whichever is around.’
‘And would you have noticed if he tipped a dose of something into Greeves’ food?’
‘I do not see how it could be arranged, Sergeant,’ said Auguste somewhat impatiently. ‘No one, least of all the man who served the meal, could add poison on purpose and be sure it reached its right destination. The plates are filled at one of the tables and passed down. The risk would be too great.’
The upper servants stirred uncomfortably. Auguste seemed to be bringing it unnecessarily near home.
‘Nor could any of us add anything to the steward’s food,’ Auguste continued. ‘One cannot take the risk of taking out a bottle, emptying something on to another’s dish without being seen.’ Auguste hesitated. Should he speak now? Or ask to see the sergeant later? It now seemed so obvious how it was done. He decided against, and continued: ‘Only Edward had the opportunity and—’
Edward was looking at him with eyes of alarm.
‘And,’ Auguste went on firmly, ‘it is not possible that a mere child would know about aconitia. He is too young to buy it, no druggist would sell it to a child, too young to know how to extract it from a plant. He is a Londoner, petit Edouard, not a country lad.’
‘That’s as maybe,’ said Bladon, shortly, fixing him with a suspicious look. These Frenchmen! A lot of hotheads running about with sabres and moustaches. Not in the Garden of England, or he’d have something to say about it.
‘Like Mr Greeves, did you, lad?’ he said, rounding on Jackson.
‘Weren’t bad,’ muttered the boy.
Mrs Hankey snorted. Greeves’ bullying of Jackson was common knowledge.
‘Now tell us, lad, what went on after you was alone with him.’
‘I gives him his savoury.’
‘His what?’
‘His little titbit he liked at the end of his meal,’ said Mrs Hankey.
What Sergeant Bladon liked at the end of his meal was a good plateful of Kentish cherry pudding, washed down with a glass of sweet ale, so talk of savouries did not impress him.
‘A nice Scotch woodcock,’ she went on fondly.
‘A bird?’ Bladon was puzzled.
&nbs
p; ‘A savoury of anchovy, toast and cream, to which His Grace is particularly partial,’ explained Auguste. ‘And what His Grace likes, one tended to find Mr Greeves also liked.’
The sergeant glared at him ungratefully. ‘And you cooked this—?’
‘I did,’ said Edward in a strangled voice.
‘I see,’ said Bladon meaningfully. ‘And then what?’
‘Then I gives him the coffee.’
‘And you was alone, lad, with him. All alone,’ said the sergeant lovingly.
Edward was too frightened to reply this time.
‘But, Sergeant—’ interrupted Auguste.
‘Quiet, Mr – er – Didier. I’ll get to you later.’
‘But—’
‘Anyone besides you, lad,’ said the sergeant, ignoring the further exasperated interruption, ‘go into this pantry?’
A miserable shake of the head. ‘Don’t fink so.’
The rest of the upper servants watched Edward’s ordeal with mixed feelings; while the spotlight was on Edward, it was not on them; on the other hand, as a lower servant, they felt it their duty to protect him. In public anyway. Noblesse oblige.
It was Ethel who spoke out. ‘I hardly think, Sergeant, that, as Mr Didier said, this boy would think of poisoning Mr Greeves. He – er – got on quite well with him, didn’t you, Edward?’ she said firmly. The other upper servants nodded their reluctant agreement.
‘Well now, Mr Edward Jackson, who else could have come into the pantry? They would have had to come through Greeves’ room into the pantry. There ain’t no door from the pantry to the corridor.’
Edward began to whimper softly. ‘Didn’t put nothing in it.’
‘We’ll see about that, lad.’
‘But, Sergeant—’ Auguste tried again. And the sergeant once again ignored him.
