Murder Most Malicious

by Alyssa Maxwell

  “But were they the first available?” she persisted. “Does anyone know what order they were placed in?”

  “Why, I believe they were switched around multiple times,” Mrs. Sanders said, “as members of the family placed their gifts inside. There’s hardly any way of knowing which boxes sat where on the shelves at any particular time.”

  “There must be some way to figure out why some and not others.” Eva let her chin sink into her palm.

  “There is,” Mr. Phelps said flatly. “By allowing the inspector and his assistant to do their job and staying out of their way. And by not pestering the rest of us with silly questions.”

  Her mouth dropped open on a huff. Of all the rude, condescending . . . She counted to ten to regain her calm, and immediately noticed Connie trembling and breathing so rapidly Eva feared she would hyperventilate.

  “Connie, are you all right?” she whispered across the table.

  Connie stared back like a startled doe before abruptly pushing to her feet. The talking around the table ceased and all eyes turned to her.

  “Is something wrong?” Mrs. Sanders asked with a perplexed frown.

  “N-no, ma’am. I . . . I need to use the water closet.”

  “Go on, then.”

  Connie hurried off. Eva watched her go, wondering. Then she, too, vacated her chair. “She didn’t look well. I’m going to go see if she’s all right.”

  “I think that’s a good idea.” Mrs. Sanders’s mouth flattened a moment; then she added, “She’s a nervous sort, that one. I don’t wonder this has upset her.”

  Eva knocked on the door of the water closet. When no answer came, she knocked again. “Connie? It’s Eva. Are you all right, dear?” More silence. “Are you ill?”

  Not a sound came from within. Had the girl passed out? Both puzzled and mildly alarmed, Eva tried the latch. It moved easily beneath her thumb and the door opened into the tiny and quite vacant room.

  “That’s odd.” Listening, she heard the murmur of voices from the servants’ hall, and the continued banging and clanking from Dora in the scullery, but no sound of Connie’s voice. Down the narrow corridor, dusty shafts of light poked through the window in the courtyard door. She hesitated, doubting the day had gotten any warmer. Still, she didn’t stop to don one of the cloaks hanging on pegs near the door. The sooner she found Connie, the better.

  It didn’t take long. Connie stood beside the coal chute, although standing was something of an exaggeration since the girl had her arms wrapped around her middle as she leaned, half-bent at the waist, against the stones of the house.

  Eva wrapped her arms around herself, too, in an effort to stave off her shivering. “Connie, what on earth are you doing out here? Dear, what is it?”

  Connie lurched upright, seeming ready to bolt away. Merely a response to being caught unawares, Eva reasoned, but she stepped into her path anyway, ready to catch her if necessary.

  “It’s nothing, Miss Huntford. I . . . I just . . . needed some air.”

  Eva eyed her suspiciously. “Well, now you’ve had it. Let’s go back inside, shall we?”

  Connie made no move to go.

  “Surely you don’t intend holding up the wall all afternoon.”

  “I . . . no, miss. I . . .”

  “Connie, come now. Something is terribly wrong and . . .” She thought back to the moment Connie had transformed from merely nervous, to use Mrs. Sanders’s word, to out and out panicked. For surely it had been panic that made the girl lie about needing to use the water closet and instead brave the chilling temperatures.

  Vernon. And Nick. Yes, it had been the announcement that the missing cleaver had been found in their shared bedroom that drove Connie into the cold.

  “You’re worried about Vernon and Mr. Hensley, yes?”

  “I . . . well . . .” She fidgeted with her apron, her cap, a strand of hair that hung loose. “Who isn’t? Aren’t you worried?”

  Yes, she was, but at this point she hadn’t enough information to warrant panicking. Did Connie know something Eva didn’t?

  Of the two men, George Vernon was the one Connie knew best. In fact, the girl barely knew Nick at all, so surely the prospect of his being charged with a crime wouldn’t have such a drastic effect on her. One might even term her reaction. . . passionate.

  Ah, a budding romance, Eva guessed. But there was something more here. She glimpsed it in the wariness of Connie’s expression, rather like that of a fox who knows the hounds’ snapping teeth will soon be in its flesh.

  “Connie,” Eva said as gently as if the maid were a five-year-old child, “perhaps I can help you. Do you know something about all this, something you should tell me?”

  Connie’s eyes filled with tears. She raised a hand to wipe them away, and what Eva spied peeking out from the edge of the girl’s sleeve prompted her to seize her wrist.

  “Dear heavens, Connie, where did you get that bruise?”

  Phoebe listened silently while Eva filled her in on what had occurred below stairs. They stood at the end of the hallway that linked the morning room and solarium to one of the back staircases, where Phoebe had asked Eva to meet her to compare notes from above and below stairs.

  “And the bruises on her wrist, my lady. Connie tried telling me she got them cleaning out Lady Wroxly’s hearth, but I’d swear those marks were left by fingers. A vise grip, my lady.”

  Phoebe felt her eyes widen. Another set of bruises? Could it be a coincidence that both Julia and the chambermaid sported such marks at the same time? It seemed highly doubtful. “Did she mention Lord Allerton at all?”

  “No, my lady. Nor did she mention Vernon. But it was the news of the cleaver being found in Vernon’s room that sent her running scared.”

  “From what I understand, Mr. Hensley has been staying in that room as well.”

  “Yes, but Connie barely knows him.” Eva blushed faintly, just enough for Phoebe to perceive it.

  “True. Do you believe Vernon could have bruised Connie’s wrist like that?”

  Eva shook her head. “I don’t, my lady. I don’t believe he has an aggressive bone in his body. I would practically stake my life on it.”

  “Practically?”

  “We can never fully know someone, can we? Never know what they’re capable of until we’ve seen them in a dire situation.”

  “No, I suppose you’re right. I fear . . .”

  “Yes, my lady?”

  “Eva, do I have your word this will be kept in the utmost secrecy?”

  Her maid drew back with a hand to her breastbone, as if greatly offended. “Of course, my lady!”

  “I’m sorry. I should not have asked that.” Phoebe seized Eva’s hand and drew her into the recess of a nearby window. “Connie is not the only woman to have been recently seized in so ungentlemanly a manner.”

  Eva gasped and reached for Phoebe’s hands. Her shawl fell away, and Eva’s gaze dropped to her forearms, exposed by her three-quarter sleeves. “My lady! You mean to say someone dared lay his hands upon you—”

  “No, not me. I cannot say who, for that would be betraying a confidence. And please do not try to guess. But I will tell you the name of the brute in question.”

  At that moment the door to the morning room burst open and Miles Brannock strode into the corridor. He looked right and then left, and upon spotting Phoebe and Eva, started toward them.

  “My lady,” he said with a nod before turning his attention to Eva. “Miss Huntford, we’ll need to speak with the housemaid again. If you wouldn’t mind relaying the message downstairs.”

  “Connie? Why? What’s happened?” It was Phoebe who spoke, knowing the constable could not ignore her questions as easily as he might Eva’s.

  “I’m afraid I cannot discuss—”

  “The details. Yes, we know,” Eva said.

  “But you’ve already questioned Connie,” Phoebe persisted.

  “New questions have arisen, my lady.”

  Phoebe was about to inquire
—adamantly—as to the nature of those questions, when another figure stepped from the morning room. Eva’s color rose again, as it had done moments ago, and for the same reason, apparently.

  “Nick—er—Mr. Hensley.”

  Phoebe caught Eva’s slip. She had called the valet by his Christian name. But then, he once worked here as a footman. Except that had been before Eva was hired as a lady’s maid....

  Constable Brannock nodded again. “Miss Huntford, you’ll have Connie sent up?”

  “Yes, yes,” Eva agreed absently. She waited until the constable went back into the morning room before she said, “Ni—er—Mr. Hensley, what happened in there? Can you tell us anything?”

  He raked a hand through his hair. “It’s not looking good for Vernon, I’m afraid.”

  “What do you mean?” Eva asked.

  Phoebe felt the weight of the valet’s gaze on her, as well as his palpable hesitation. She said, “Mr. Hensley, I may be a daughter of this house, but I assure you I am no wilting flower. You may speak freely in front of me without fear of causing me any undo distress.”

  Eva frowned and looked about to protest, then evidently gave in to the idea that Phoebe was no longer a child. “Go ahead, Mr. Hensley. Please tell us what you’ve learned. And how Connie is involved, for I’ve already figured out for myself that she is.”

  “Quickly,” Phoebe added, “before Constable Brannock comes looking for Connie again.”

  Mr. Hensley’s reluctance was clear to see. He blinked in the frozen light coming through the window and sighed. “It wasn’t said outright as the footman will admit nothing, but it appears Connie and Vernon have been carrying on a”—he glanced at Phoebe again—“a courtship.”

  “I thought as much,” Eva said. “They’ll both be in trouble now. It’s against the rules.”

  “Is it?” Phoebe hadn’t known that. “Why? How are the servants supposed to get on with their lives?”

  “It’s Mrs. Sanders’s rule, my lady, though a common one on estates,” Eva explained. “In her view, the younger servants should stay focused on their duties and not much else. If they wish to court or be courted, they are to seek companionship elsewhere, on their own time.”

  “That hardly presents much opportunity.”

  “As Mrs. Sanders would say, that is not her concern.” Eva turned back to Mr. Hensley. “Now, then, about Vernon and Connie? How did this information come out?”

  The valet sighed again. “I’m afraid the truth came out as a result of something I said. And—if you’ll forgive me, my lady—I’m damnably sorry about it, too.”

  CHAPTER 5

  “If Miss Robson wishes you to stay, you may do so, Miss Huntford, but do be quiet. And by quiet, I mean silent.”

  Isaac Perkins didn’t appear at all pleased that Eva had followed Connie into the morning room, but Connie had latched on to the downstairs banister with both hands and refused to let go until Eva promised to stay with her during the questioning. The poor thing was beyond terrified. Anyone in her position would be. Connie hailed from faraway Manchester, from a family of seven siblings. Her mother lost her employment in a munitions factory when the war ended and now labored as a laundress, and her father had returned from the front with a severe case of shell shock and was unable to hold steady employment. On any particular day, they were mere shillings away from the workhouse. If Connie was sacked, she would have nowhere to go.

  Inspector Perkins reviewed a sheet of notes in front of him and cleared his throat. “Now, then, Miss Robson . . .”

  At the sight of Connie’s freely falling tears he trailed off and rolled his eyes at Miles Brannock, who was once more installed at the table with pencil and tablet. Despite the inspector’s edict that she remain silent, Eva leaned closer to Connie, and murmured, “It’s all right, dear. No one is accusing you of anything. If you’ll simply answer Inspector Perkins’s questions, this will all soon be over.”

  “Yes, perhaps,” the man said, most unhelpfully.

  Despite her reassurance, Eva’s own optimism faded as quickly as a winter’s twilight, especially after Nick’s earlier admission. When asked by the inspector—with no small amount of sarcasm, apparently—if he could attest to Vernon’s whereabouts all night long, Nick had felt honor bound to tell the truth, which was that he had awakened some time before dawn to discover Vernon’s bed empty. Nick’s agony over the disclosure had been palpable, even after Eva assured him the truth would always come out, and lies only ever turned a bad situation worse.

  “Here.” Eva handed Connie her own handkerchief—an older one, not one of the gifts from Phoebe and Amelia. “It’s clean.”

  Inspector Perkins waited patiently while Connie dabbed at her tears and made a visible effort to collect herself. Finally, only the occasional sniffle slipped out.

  “Miss Robson,” he began again, “how long have you been a member of the staff here?”

  “About two months, sir.”

  “And where did you work previously?”

  A tide of crimson engulfed her face. Odd, but before Eva could consider the reason, the inspector shot another question at the maid. “Does that question distress you, Miss Robson?”

  So he had noticed, too.

  “N-no, sir. It’s just that I suppose I’m a wee bit homesick still. My old situation was closer to home, you see.”

  “Was it? Then why did you leave?”

  “I . . . well . . . the cook’s daughter . . . she needed employment, sir. The cook’s worked there a long time, and her son died in the war, so you see . . .”

  “Yes, yes, fine.” He leaned toward Constable Brannock. “Make a note of that.”

  Brannock’s scratching pencil filled the silence while Inspector Perkins sat contemplating Connie over the table. A tear escaped Connie’s eye and rolled down her cheek. She let it, apparently having forgotten Eva’s handkerchief, twisted cruller-like between her hands. Eva realized Connie hadn’t answered the inspector’s question of where she had worked previously, nor did Inspector Perkins remember to inquire again.

  “What is the nature of your association with George Vernon?” he asked instead.

  “What?”

  “I believe you heard the question, Miss Robson.”

  “I . . . he . . . that is . . .” She shrugged one shoulder, but far from nonchalant, the shaky gesture only emphasized her state of agitation. Her foot tapped nervously against the floor. “We work together, sir.”

  “That much is glaringly apparent, young lady. I am speaking of your personal association. Mr. Vernon claims you can vouch for his whereabouts early this morning, before sunup, and before the other servants had risen from their beds. Is that true?”

  “Y-yes, sir.”

  “And why would that be?”

  Connie turned to Eva. “Must I answer that?”

  “Yes, dear, I’m afraid you must.”

  Eva feared for her handkerchief as Connie tugged with both hands, raising a staccato of tiny, ripping threads. “I’m up early each day, sir, earlier than the rest of the household, except for the hall boy. It’s my job to clean the hearths and lay the morning fires, turn the hot-water heaters on, collect the previous night’s laundry, and set out fresh linens for the servants, family, and guests.”

  The inspector drummed his fingertips on the table. “What has this got to do with George Vernon?”

  “Sometimes, sir, he rises early to . . . er . . . help me.”

  Brannock stopped writing, his gaze meeting Eva’s and becoming quizzical. She didn’t give him the satisfaction of a response. Instead, she tensed, well aware of what would soon be revealed. Pity for Connie made her heart thump.

  The inspector frowned deeply. “Why the blazes would the head footman deign to help the housemaid with her duties?”

  Miles Brannock’s mouth turned up at the corners. He had guessed the answer, no doubt.

  Connie continued tearing threads from Eva’s handkerchief. “W-what did he tell you, sir?”

  With an e
xasperated exhalation Inspector Perkins reached into his inner coat pocket and produced a hip flask cloaked in leather. He unscrewed the top and took a generous sip, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “He told me precious little, young lady, which is why you are here now. All he was willing to say is that you saw him in the predawn hours and can attest to his whereabouts. Now”—his free hand struck the tabletop, making Connie flinch—“do explain, Miss Robson, or would you prefer to continue this questioning at my office in the village? The one conveniently adjoining a jail cell.”

  “Inspector Perkins, please . . .”

  Eva’s caution was drowned out by Connie’s protest. “Oh, no, sir! I . . . I’ll answer. George often helps me with my morning chores because . . . well, you see, sir . . .”

  “No, I do not see, Miss Robson, and I have reached the limits of my patience.”

  “We’re sweethearts, sir.” She whispered so low the man leaned across the table with his hand cupped to his ear.

  “What was that?”

  Constable Brannock’s keen blue eyes twinkled. Obviously the younger man suffered from no such hearing impairments as Inspector Perkins. Once more, Eva held her features impassive, refusing to join in his apparent mirth over what was, for Connie, a dreadful ordeal.

  “We’re sweethearts,” the maid repeated, this time in nearly a shout. “There!” She collapsed against her chair. “There,” she said more quietly, “now Mrs. Sanders can sack me. And probably George, too.”

  Eva reached over to stroke the maid’s forearm. Hers was obviously a reserved and nervous constitution, and Eva doubted the poor girl could take much more of this line of questioning. “May Connie go now, Inspector Perkins?”

  His flask stashed away in his coat pocket, the inspector tented his fingers beneath his chin. “Indeed not. Events begin to make more sense to me. Tell me, young lady, are you acquainted with the Marquess of Allerton?”