A Pinch of Poison

by Alyssa Maxwell

  Lady Phoebe nodded. “Yes, she ate every last crumb, and so quickly, I remember wanting to warn her not to choke. Oh, good heavens. If only I had said something. Perhaps she wouldn’t have consumed the entire cake and might still be alive. Constable Brannock, what do you suppose could have gotten into it? Does the coroner know?”

  “No, that will take time. Now, Lady Phoebe, if you would please go on with your account, I would be grateful.”

  Apparently, the constable’s please satisfied Lady Phoebe, for she continued describing the events that led to Miss Finch’s demise. But Eva felt anything but satisfied with his reassurances. In fact, she entertained serious doubts as to the validity of his claim. If accidental poisoning were truly suspected, why would the police bother questioning the luncheon attendees, none of whom had a hand in preparing the food? Beyond that, there had been that look on his face as he’d admonished Lady Phoebe not to spread rumors about Miss Finch’s death. It was a look that reflected inner thoughts—dark ones. No, she was certain the police suspected someone.

  Another image of Zara Worthington, this time sliding her Madeira cake from the oven, flashed in Eva’s mind. Could the girl have had a reason for wanting Miss Finch out of the way?

  * * *

  Upon leaving Miss Finch’s office, Phoebe found Grams, Julia, and Amelia waiting for her in the main hall, their spring coats belted, their handbags hooked over their forearms, and their handcrafted Pietro Yantorny pumps pointed toward the door.

  Before they saw her, however, she let Eva slip quietly down the corridor to the rear of the house, where a set of back stairs led down to the kitchen and storerooms. Eva wished to have a look around, especially in the cupboards where the cleaning fluids and other such chemicals were kept, and to speak with Mrs. Honeychurch and her assistants. As soon as Eva disappeared around a corner, Phoebe approached her family members.

  “Oh, good, Phoebe, here you are. We’re all ready to leave.” With her free hand, Grams patted her brow with a balled-up handkerchief, edged in black lace to match her endlessly black wardrobe. “What an ordeal of a day.”

  “I for one was ready to leave before the day began,” Julia said with a sigh. “Quite before Miss Finch so rudely expired in front of everyone.”

  “Julia!” Grams’s whispered reprimand echoed through the hall like a hissing dart. Julia pretended to remain unaffected by it, but Phoebe caught her momentary flinch.

  “I don’t see why I have to go home,” Amelia complained with a sideways glance at Grams. “A lot of the other girls are staying. At home I’ll just be sent up to my room and no one will tell me anything.”

  Grams ignored her and spoke to Phoebe. “Where is your coat and handbag?”

  “I’m not leaving yet, Grams. And I hope you’ll stay another few minutes. I’d like to ask you about something.”

  “Can’t I stay behind with Phoebe?” Amelia eagerly put in, but was again ignored.

  “Really, Phoebe? Playing inspector again?” If a sneer could be considered pretty, Julia’s was, her perfect nose wrinkling and her Cupid’s bow lips turning down at the corners in what many people—most of them men—would consider a charming pout. “Didn’t you have enough of that game last Christmas?”

  “An innocent man might have hanged,” she reminded her sister, “were it not for my penchant for games, as you call them.”

  “Julia is right,” Grams interrupted before Phoebe could make her next point. “This obsession of yours is dangerous, not to mention unladylike. Now, please collect your things. The carriage is waiting.”

  Again, Julia sighed, but this time her impatience wasn’t aimed at Phoebe. Despite modern motorcars, Grams insisted on traveling short distances from home in her old but meticulously maintained brougham and matching pair of bays. Phoebe found it an endearing adherence to the old traditions—one of the more harmless ones. However, her elder sister saw it as a source of embarrassment to be seen clip-clopping through the village. She only endured it because experience had taught her that Maude Renshaw, Countess of Wroxly, always got her way.

  Would she get her way now? The thought of cutting short her purpose here today brought on a sinking disappointment, until Phoebe remembered she was no longer a child and could, with diplomacy, ease out of Grams’s clutches for an afternoon or so.

  “Constable Brannock has asked for my help, you see—”

  “To do what, exactly?” Grams interrupted again. “Didn’t Miss Finch die of an apoplexy or heart attack?”

  “Yes, Phoebe,” Julia urged with mock sweetness, “do tell us what you know.”

  She could see that Grams wouldn’t be budged unless she heard something that made sense to her maddeningly rational mind. Phoebe regarded her younger sister, who practically bounced on her toes, obviously keen to hear the news. “All right, but this must remain among us for now. It’s doubtful Miss Finch died of natural causes. The coroner isn’t certain yet, but the signs indicate some sort of poison. Accidental, of course,” she hastened to add.

  A little gasp slipped from Julia’s mouth. Amelia’s eyes widened as she pressed a hand to her mouth.

  Grams remained cool, her gaze assessing. “And the constable wishes you to look into this? Really, Phoebe, as if any self-respecting man would send a slip of a girl to do his work.”

  “It’s true, Grams. He wishes me to speak with the students, and perhaps a few of the mothers as well, not to mention the members of the governing body. The sight of the constable’s uniform tends to put people on the defensive, especially the girls, who are shaken up as it is. He thought a more gentle approach would help loosen tongues.”

  “Loosen tongues? As in confessing to one’s wrongdoings?” Grams pursed her lips. “If he believes this to be an accident, why would that be necessary?”

  Grams certainly wasn’t making this easy. “Because he still needs to trace the source of the poison, if that is indeed what killed Miss Finch. He needs to discover how it might have gotten into her food, where it came from, and where it is now. It must be taken away and disposed of. We don’t want this to accidentally happen again, do we?”

  Grams studied her a long moment, one in which Phoebe remembered Maude Renshaw’s fair but firm manner in raising her and her siblings after Mama died years ago. In Grams’s care, there had been no protesting bedtimes or study hours, no telling fibs, no shirking responsibility for one’s deeds. If only Grampapa were here. Grampapa would have taken Phoebe’s side. He almost always did.

  But her grandmother’s next words brought a wave of relief. “I suppose that does make sense. And of course the thought of genteel young ladies being questioned by the police makes one’s skin positively crawl. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if a good many parents called for the closing of the school were their daughters to be subjected to such an indignity.”

  “Exactly, Grams. And we must not let that happen. We are all of us Haverleigh women. The school must go on.”

  Grams heaved heavy sigh. “Yes, indeed it must.”

  Julia rolled her eyes while shaking her head, but Phoebe ignored her.

  “Mind you,” Grams said tersely, “you are not to overstep your bounds, young lady.”

  “I certainly won’t, Grams.”

  “Oh, very well, then. Let’s go.” At Grams’s clipped command, Julia set off walking toward the front door, but Grams called out her name to stop her. Julia turned around, looking puzzled and none too pleased. Grams pointed into the former receiving parlor, used now as a classroom. “This way, Julia. We will hear Phoebe’s questions and answer to the best of our ability.”

  Amelia started toward the classroom, but Grams stopped her. “You wait here.”

  “But Grams—”

  “Don’t argue. Julia, come.”

  As Julia sauntered by her, Phoebe couldn’t help flashing a triumphant smile. But she wished Amelia had been allowed to accompany them. As a student, her insight into the daily goings-on here could prove invaluable. Phoebe would have to speak with her at home later
—discreetly.

  “Unfortunately, Miss Finch was not universally well-liked,” Grams said a few minutes later. Phoebe went utterly still, waiting. She had merely asked Grams about Miss Finch’s policies when it came to overseeing her staff, but Grams seemed to want to discuss the woman’s shortcomings as a headmistress. “I am afraid she shall not be greatly missed. Oh, initially, she seemed the ideal candidate. She had taught some fifteen years at a girls’ school in York, and for another ten served as assistant headmistress and then chief administrator at a finishing school in Sheffield. But over the past year here at Haverleigh, she began introducing some rather radical ideas. It also came out that she had been an active member of the Women’s Social and Political Union before and during the war.” Grams frowned in disapproval. “She may even have had dealings with that troublemaker, Marion Wallace-Dunlop.”

  Julia shuddered. “Hunger strikes and forced feedings. What could they have been thinking of?”

  “They were thinking of political fairness for women,” Phoebe told her. “But from what I understand, Miss Finch admitted to being a suffragist, but stopped short of joining up with the suffragettes.”

  The difference had rested in the persuasive tactics used to win the vote for women. The suffragists were no less determined to achieve their goals, but believed in civilized, legal means. The suffragettes, on the other hand, had organized marches that more often than not led to riots, arrests, and those beastly degradations Julia mentioned.

  “Be that as it may,” Grams said, “had we known more about her background, she would not have been hired. And of course, with our former headmistress perishing from the influenza last spring, and now so many people abandoning the countryside in favor of the cities—well, headmistresses don’t exactly grow on trees, do they? Replacing Miss Finch was and will be trickier than one might expect.”

  “The suffragette movement aside,” Phoebe said, “you mentioned Miss Finch introducing radical ideas. What were these?”

  As a member of the school’s governing body, Grams would have witnessed the discord firsthand. Her sliver-thin eyebrows lifted as she considered. “Some believed she was teaching unnecessary subjects, filling the girls’ heads with useless information. The sciences, higher forms of mathematics such as a woman would never need in the running of a household. Subjects of that nature, while at the same time putting less emphasis on the social graces.”

  “I don’t understand. Julia and I had instruction in the fundamentals of biology and chemistry, algebra, even a bit of physics.” Yes, but not enough, she acknowledged, to allow her entry into one of England’s universities. Not that she would have considered leaving Grams and Grampapa during the war years, especially after Papa died.

  “As if any of that has ever come in handy,” Julia muttered. She absently fingered a flaxen curl beneath the chic little veil of her hat.

  “Be that as it may,” Phoebe said, “why the sudden opposition to a varied curriculum?”

  Grams glanced down the length of her nose at Phoebe. “Miss Finch took it too far. She encouraged the girls in her charge to aspire to unsuitable and unladylike occupations.”

  Something akin to an electrical charge ran up Phoebe’s spine, leaving her momentarily unable to reply. When she once more gained command of her tongue, she remembered to govern her tone rather than blurting the words grappling for release. “Grams, during the war women took on all kinds of occupations, and successfully, too.”

  “The war is over, Phoebe, as I keep reminding you.”

  “But not all women are content to scamper back home with their heads down.” She bit her lip. She hadn’t meant to speak so candidly to Grams, and she could see by the severe look leveled on her that Grams didn’t take it kindly.

  “That is all well and good for young women of a certain class,” she said sternly, “but as for the majority of the students at this school . . .” She didn’t bother to complete the thought, but she didn’t have to. Phoebe already knew Grams didn’t like the idea of her own granddaughters taking on any but traditional roles in society. She wanted Phoebe and her sisters to be great ladies in the old sense, and Phoebe didn’t have the heart to inform her such a thing didn’t exist anymore, not as Grams knew it. And with so many men having perished in the war, a good many women would never find husbands.

  But none of that had any bearing on the headmistress’s death. She changed the subject. “Can you tell me who protested Miss Finch’s curriculum the loudest?”

  “Other than me, you mean?” The web of fine lines surrounding Grams’s mouth deepened. “The head of the governing body, for one.”

  “You mean the Reverend Amstead?”

  Grams nodded. “The very same. He’s been quietly trying to raise support to have Miss Finch replaced.”

  “Replaced? That seems a bit extreme under the circumstances. It’s one thing to disapprove of her educational philosophies, quite another to imply the woman was incompetent.”

  “To many people, Miss Finch’s progressive ideas would be seen as incompetent—as a waste of time and money, since she had brought in new teachers the school wouldn’t otherwise have needed.”

  Phoebe studied her grandmother, sad and disappointed that Grams might agree with such an assessment. “All right, so Mr. Amstead wanted Miss Finch gone. Who else?”

  “Let’s see . . . Then there are the Worthingtons.”

  “Zara’s family.”

  “Yes. But they’re presently out of the country, so they can’t have done much complaining lately.”

  “Zara herself,” Julia said with a shrug.

  “How do you know that?” Phoebe asked.

  “Amelia told me. She said Zara didn’t appreciate being made to work so diligently, especially at subjects she never intends to think about again once she leaves school. Funny thing is, she still managed to receive some of the highest marks in the sixth form.”

  “Interesting . . .”

  Julia burst out with a harsh laugh. “Oh, so now you believe Zara Worthington murdered Miss Finch?”

  “Don’t be daft, Julia. No one has said anything about murder. I only find it interesting.”

  Julia leaned her shoulder against their grandmother’s and spoke in a stage whisper. “Are you fooled by this show of innocence, Grams? I think Phoebe is once again diving headfirst into the thick of it, just as she did last Christmas. Don’t you think you should nip it in the bud immediately?”

  Phoebe bristled. “Must you always make a joke of everything? Can you take nothing seriously? Not even a woman’s untimely death?”

  “That’s enough, you two.” Grams came to her feet with the briskness of a much younger woman. “Julia, come along. It’s getting late and I need a good lie-down before dinner. Phoebe, we will see you at dinner, yes?”

  It wasn’t a question.

  “Before that, I should hope,” Julia said before Phoebe could answer. She stood and gave the front of her coat a tug to straighten it. “You do realize you monopolize Eva beyond all reason, don’t you?”

  “I’ll be home long before dinner,” Phoebe promised while at the same time ignoring Julia’s observation. After they collected Amelia from her perch at the bottom of the staircase, Phoebe walked them to the front door. With a sigh of relief—one of many during the last quarter hour—she went in search of Eva, whom she found in the kitchen attempting to console a distraught Mrs. Honeychurch.

  CHAPTER 3

  “Mrs. Honeychurch, I need to ask you some questions. Would that be all right?” Eva regarded the stout woman who presided over Haverleigh’s kitchen. They sat at the long table in what had once been the servants’ hall of the manor house, back when Haverleigh was a private home. Not much had changed since then, as the hall was now used by the kitchen and cleaning staff for meals and as a gathering place during their unoccupied moments. The main difference was the lack of upper servants—butler, housekeeper, footmen, lady’s maids—that one would find in an estate like Foxwood Hall.

  Myra Honeyc
hurch had prepared the meals here since before Eva herself had attended on scholarship, yet the boundary between servant and student had prevented them from knowing each other well. Not so now, for Eva’s position as lady’s maid put them on a par.

  The woman’s hands worried the edges of her apron as she leaned forward in anticipation of Eva’s question. “Go ahead, Miss Huntford, ask.” She sniffled. “This day isn’t likely to turn any worse than it already is.”

  Eva wasn’t sure about that. She drew a breath. “How closely did Miss Finch supervise the comings and goings in the kitchen?”

  Mrs. Honeychurch’s red-rimmed eyes narrowed in puzzlement. “I didn’t expect that question.”

  “What did you expect?”

  The cook chewed her lip, considered, and ignored the question. “Miss Finch hardly supervised us belowstairs at all. She trusted me to run a tidy and efficient kitchen.”

  “And did you?” Eva asked bluntly.

  “Of course I did. I always have.”

  “So then you might say you know every item that passes through the delivery door?”

  “I catalog everything. You can take a look at my books if you like.” The woman’s tone took on a defensive note, not that Eva could blame her. Any self-respecting cook took a great deal of pride in her work. Yet, there was something Eva couldn’t quite put her finger on.

  “I’m quite sure the police will ask to see your books, Mrs. Honeychurch, as well as ask you a few questions of their own.”

  The woman’s eyes widened a fraction, and—Eva couldn’t be certain—seemed to shift to the doorway and back again.

  Eva decided on another tack. “Then you and Miss Finch got on well, would you say?”

  “I . . . What a question, Miss Huntford. Whatever do you mean?”

  “Exactly that. Did you get on well, or not?”

  Her lips jerked into a fleeting smile. “Yes, wondrously well. She was a good woman, the headmistress was. Better than most, I can tell you that.”