by Issy Brookw
Not like my old Maxwell, then, she thought. Oh, Ruby, don’t leave me with nothing but memories of him! Cordelia blinked rapidly. “Ruby, this is a conversation I should not be having with you, but I must, as I stand in lieu of your mother here. You have known many men. Do not tell me you are a maid for I do not believe it. Yet to my knowledge, you have not been with child. Is that not true? And please, tell me if I have got it wrong. Even if it might be the source of some shame to you. You can trust me.”
Ruby had picked up the long pins and was now jabbing them furiously into Cordelia’s head. Her earlier composure was all gone. She spoke quickly. “I know what you are trying to say, my lady, and you are not wrong, but in a way, I think you are wrong. Yes, yes, I have been a flighty one with the men, yes, and no, no, I have never been with child. Not yet. But I believe, I truly believe, that once I am wed, honestly wed, then I will be blessed, and the only reason that I have not been caught with a babe is because … because it was not right and not meant to be at that time.”
“Oh, Ruby…”
“No, my lady! I am sure of it. I might not be a churchgoer like that Stanley but God exists even for sinners like myself. They say, especially for sinners like myself. So He would not want me to be cast down in shame, would He? But when I am properly married, then it will happen. And I will be married as a maid, too. At least, a maid to the man that I marry. I will do it properly. In spite of what Stanley might think. There, your hair is done. Which bonnet will you want later?”
“The dark blue, please.”
Cordelia turned and watched her maid as she went about her business with jerky movements. She wanted to shake her, and hug her, and bundle her away in the dead of night.
But where? The future that Cordelia offered her was no better and no worse than one with a husband.
Except that the better future would be the one that Ruby chose freely.
***
Constable Evans came to call on her at the inn just as she finished her breakfast. She met with him downstairs in one of the private rooms, but he didn’t take a seat. “Will you come back to the house with me?” he asked. “The coroner is out of town today and I would like you to cast your eye over it. Properly, this time.”
She agreed immediately. She bid him wait while she dressed for walking out. He drank half a pint of stout, and was just talking to Mrs Jones about pies when she came back down into the saloon with her outdoor bonnet, gloves and handbag.
Deep in that handbag, she had placed the glove from yesterday, still containing the suspicious substance she had found in the warehouse.
They walked together in the bright sun, and she felt the knots in her shoulders relax as the warmth spread through her, inch by inch. She told the constable about her discoveries and passed him the glove. He unknotted it as he walked, and sniffed.
“It smells of … lilies,” he said, in confusion.
“My powder, alas,” she said. “I fear there may be some contamination.”
“I see.” He tipped the glove up and worked some of the substance from the fingers into the palm of his hand.
“Oh, do be careful! If it is poison…”
“If it is what we think it is, this alone will not kill me.” He examined the rough chalky stuff in his hand. Then, to her horror, just like when he was examining the remnants of the ladies’ meal, he tasted a little of it. “Ah, that is sweet, indeed,” he said. “I would wager that this is sugar of lead.”
“Might it be ordinary sugar?” she asked.
“It might. But a barrel full of the stuff, as you describe, would be unusual, especially all broken up like this is. I would expect to see large amounts of sugar as loaves. Still, I will have to find some way of having this checked,” he said.
They had reached the house and made their way inside. Cordelia saw that the neighbours were watching them. It felt good to be beside a policeman, she realised. She was here on official business and no one could attack her or berate her or tell her to go away.
She grew a little in confidence, and smiled to herself. Then she turned to the task in hand. She was here to observe, to examine and to detect.
“I want to know more about these women,” she said. “You have been a policeman here for some time, have you not? What do you know of their friends and enemies? You said before that you could not pinpoint any one enemy in particular, but have you had time to reflect since then? I have heard conflicting stories about the town’s opinion of these women.”
“You always will,” he said. “It is the same when anyone dies, and after all you are an outsider, so people won’t all be honest with you. And on the other hand, some people will be more honest with you than they will be to me.”
“I understand,” Cordelia said. “But the problem comes when we try to tell the difference between them.”
“Indeed. So some people will say these ladies were universally loved, and they say that because they did good works, and as one is dead, it would be wrong to say any different now.”
“Ah, I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him; the evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones…”
Constable Evans laughed. “Oh, there is that, but not in this case. The people want to think kindly of them.” They walked into the parlour. It was a comfortable room, with the same eclectic feeling as the rest of the house, with overstuffed armchairs and a myriad of tables and lamps and shelves and books.
“Except for Miss Scott’s brother, the pharmacist,” she pointed out.
“I can understand why they did not get on,” Constable Evans said. “She should have married, of course. But I cannot see that he would kill her. I’ve known him since he opened the dispensary here.”
“When was that?”
“Five years past.”
“And did the ladies arrive at the same time?”
“No. They stayed out in their village, not far from here, and then they moved here about a year ago.”
“I see.” Cordelia wandered the room. She picked up some intricately carved objects that were on a writing bureau. “What are these objects?” The lower half was dished, like a small ladle, but the upper part was a cunningly carved handle with twisting tendrils. The wood was so finely worked it was in the shape of stems and leaves and flowers.
“Oh, now they are love spoons,” Constable Evans said, coming to see them more closely. “Young men carve them for their sweethearts.”
She turned one of them over and noticed the initials immediately. “GM,” she said. “Are those the letters, to you?”
“Indeed, GM, as plain as day,” the policeman said. “Who…?”
“Gareth Mogg, of course,” Cordelia said. “Is he a spurned lover of one of them? That would account for his spite and his anger! And that is the missing piece. He has means and now he has a motive.”
Constable Evans beamed. “This is excellent work!”
They went through the rest of the house. She did not like to prowl through the bedrooms, but she steeled herself to it. She had thought the ladies might share a room, as was common for spinster women who wanted to conserve their fuel costs and share heat. It was usual for girls to share beds, but here she found that they had two rooms but with an adjoining door. Both rooms were tidy, and nothing seemed to suggest anything untoward. She had the impression of two people who lived quietly at home but who were committed to working in the community.
She wished, all over again, that she could have got to know them.
Constable Evans had not discovered anything else of import, either. He took the carved spoon, putting it in the same pocket as Cordelia’s glove of lead acetate, and they left the house by the front door. As soon as they stepped onto the path, they were accosted by one of the neighbours, a smartly-dressed woman with a feathered hat and purple gown, dressed almost for a show or a soiree. “I say,” she called over the hedge. “What news of Miss Scott?”
“She is ailing but she will recover,” Constable Evans said.
“And what happened?” the woman went on. “They are saying, now, that it was food poisoning! Really? What had caused it?”
Cordelia looked to the policeman. He sighed. “I have been told that it was the prawns.”
“We all had prawns!” she said in amazement. “I had too many and I gave them to Miss Walker, for we often share. None of us suffered any ill effects. What nonsense.”
“I can only tell you what the learned coroner has told me,” he said. “Why, would you suspect foul play?”
The woman in purple chewed her lip. “As to that, I do not know. The ladies were uncommon in the manner but nothing that would prompt a body to murder.”
Cordelia said, “Madam, if you will, can you tell me if one Gareth Mogg was ever a visitor here?”
“The merchant? Yes, he used to visit, when the ladies first moved in. He’s in trade, you know,” she added with a sniff. “However, he did seem pleasant. But then… ah, well, I shall not gossip.”
“Passing important and relevant information to the police is not gossip,” Constable Evans assured her.
“I am not comfortable in revealing the matters of another’s heart,” the woman said, struck by a sudden attack of prim morality. “However, yes, there was an understanding between them but it came to a misunderstanding, if you see what I mean. A party to celebrate it all was planned, by Mr Mogg, but of course, he’d got it wrong, you see, and there was nothing to celebrate in the end. Poor man.”
“Can you elaborate?” Constable Evans said, looking confused.
The woman looked around as if she thought people were listening from deep within the hedges. “You must ask Mr Mogg. I only knew what I saw. And that is all I saw.”
Neither Cordelia nor Constable Evans could persuade her to reveal anything else. They left, in the end, and the policeman was downcast as they walked back down the hill towards the town.
“What an infuriating woman,” Constable Evans complained. “That nonsense only deepens the mystery.”
“Not at all!” Cordelia said. “The only thing we don’t really know is which one of the ladies that Gareth Mogg was engaged to.”
“Engaged? The love spoon does not prove anything.”
“Oh, but it does, when you read it in context. That neighbour was as plain as day in what she told us. Mr Mogg thought he had an understanding with one of them. You see? An understanding to be wed. So he had arranged a party to celebrate the occasion. However, he had misunderstood entirely and the lady in question had no intention of marrying him. To discover that at the party laid on for the very event must have been awkward, to say the least.”
“And there really is a motive!” Constable Evans said in amazement. “Well, I must thank you. We should arrest him immediately.”
“Steady now,” she said. “Surely we must establish if he really does have the same poison, this sugar of lead, in his warehouse. You have tasted it, but that is not enough.”
Now Constable Evans became glum. “I have been thinking on that,” he said. “And I am not sure how I can do such a thing. The coroner is part of the council, of course, and they do not want me to investigate. So, who do I ask?”
She saw the problem. The pharmacist might have the means to test the chemical, but he was a suspect, albeit a minor one.
“There is another issue,” she reminded him. “If Mr Mogg is adulterating his wine, then surely the council needs to know about that? You do not need to mention the matter of the ladies. And perhaps that is a roundabout way of approaching the issue.”
“They will think I have overstepped my mark. Mr Mogg is also one of the burgesses of the town, you see. He is part of them. So he is protected.”
“Do you stand for justice or do you serve only the elite?” she said crossly. She was growing to dislike this town council more and more. It quite made her mad.
He mumbled a reply that she could not catch.
“Where does this Gareth Mogg live?” she asked him.
He was grateful for the slight change in subject, and told her where she might find the man.
“But do not go alone,” he warned her. “I have business to attend to, but let me accompany you later.”
“Fear not,” she said. “I have just the protection I need.”
In truth, she thought, the cowed policeman had more need of Geoffrey than she did.
Chapter Sixteen
Geoffrey was happy to accompany Cordelia to the house of Gareth Mogg. “I want to establish if he really did give this love spoon to one of the ladies, and if so, which one,” she told him.
“And he will tell you the truth, you think?”
“I am hopeful, yes. He will not know that we consider him a suspect, and he also won’t imagine that I could possibly be investigating him.”
“And if he is not at home?”
“I will try again at another time,” she said. She was not willing to go to the docks again, at least not soon.
They made their way through the town and out of interest, she took the side street which housed Caradog Lloyd’s barber shop.
“Ah,” said Geoffrey when he saw what she was about. “You asked me to look into the boy, did you not?”
“I did. He is called George, and he is the apprentice there. What else do you know?”
They got level with the shop and she peered through the window. They were frosted for most of the way, but by standing on her tip-toes she was able to peer through the clear glass at the top. The shop, however, was empty of customers.
“I hear that he is a good boy,” he said. “Steady, with a bit of gumption about him too. He would be a good match if he were free to marry. But maybe he can get out of his apprenticeship.”
“How would he?”
“Well, look at the shop,” Geoffrey said. “Empty. How long do you think he can survive, that barber?”
“I wonder why he is so unpopular,” she said. “Although he is new to the town I think…” Something tugged at her mind. He had spoken of the ladies. His words came back to her. He had spoken of how they used to be … in the past.
He’d known them as younger girls.
He’d grown up in the same village as them.
Could he be a suspect, she thought. Could some secret have followed them all from the village to the town? She stopped and backtracked to the shop and peered in through the glass again. “What are in the bottles and jars that range his shelves?” she asked.
“Hair dye and pomades and powders, I imagine,” Geoffrey said.
“Chemicals?” she asked.
“I wouldn’t know. Do I seem like a man who has his hair dyed?”
She didn’t think he seemed like a man who had his hair combed, let alone dyed. She left the image well alone. “Surely by now he would have more customers,” she said. “I understand that most of the businesses here are all tied together. Everyone is part of the … whatever it is called. The landlady spoke of it. Not the council, something else…”
“The crachach,” Geoffrey said. “I know of it. Not everyone is one, my lady. And not him. When I asked around about his apprentice, I also discovered a few things about Mr Lloyd.”
“Such as?”
“Well, that he is not on the council and he is not part of the elite, of the crachach. He is not a burgess and he is not popular. He’s a bitter man, is Mr Lloyd.”
“Bitter? And what about his family? Is he married?”
“I think he has been but they say she ran off with a tinker, lived like a gypsy for a few months, and then settled in Carmarthen with a haberdasher called Smith. He — Lloyd, not the haberdasher — has a reputation for liking the ladies, begging pardon, my lady.”
“No, I quite understand, and yes, I agree. He is rather forward in his manner.”
“You have met him?”
“I entered his shop.”
Geoffrey bristled and she began to walk away. “Come along, Geoffrey,” she said before he launched himself through the door to enact some kind of vengeance on the man. �
�We must find Mr Mogg’s house.”
He stamped along and looked back over his shoulder at the barber’s shop.
It was tempting to unleash him in there on her behalf, but she restrained herself.
After all, she might have need of his particular skills later.
Chapter Seventeen
It turned out to be a wasted trip. There was no sign of Gareth Mogg at his house, and out of desperation she persuaded Geoffrey to accompany her to the docks but he was not there either. She was almost relieved.
It was late in the day when she got back to the inn, and she was tired. She could feel another pressure headache brewing from the hot weather. She retired early to bed, but could not settle to reading her book.
She thought of the council, the crachach, the elite power players who controlled everything. Just like London, just like anywhere. It made her angry.
Leopold Scott and Gareth Mogg played in her mind, interwoven with images of the barber, Caradog Lloyd.
Of all the people she had met or heard of, those three seemed the most likely to have killed Miss Walker and tried to kill Miss Scott. That thought reminded her that Miss Scott was likely to be still in danger and she resolved to find out if she had left the sanatorium for a place of safety yet.
And what of that horrible Scavenger, Davies?
She could see no link between him and the ladies. She wanted there to be a link. She found herself wanting him to be the culprit, just so she could blame him for something and see him punished. He almost represented the crachach to her and he was the focus of her frustration because he would not even speak to her.
She was no better than people taking justice into their own hands and performing the Ceffyl Pren, she thought, and drifted into sleep.
***
The next day started hazy and pleasant. The sun was masked behind golden mist and she felt a little better. She decided to walk in the town to clear her head. It was always the best way, she had found, to bring to light new connections and ideas.
She discovered Stanley and Ruby together in the saloon downstairs, facing one another across a table. Both had fixed expressions, unsmiling, hard of eye and with gritted teeth.
