A Case Most Peculiar

by Michael Moreau

  “He was extremely kind although somewhat peculiar.” the boy swallowed hard.

  “Peculiar? In what fashion?”

  “He...mostly liked to work alone, preferring me to do my chores in the stable before he arrived in the morning.”

  “Perhaps he was merely not a conversationalist. Is not Master Dunning of similar disposition?”

  “It’s not that.” he shook his head. I had foolishly sat facing the large window that overlooked the western lawn so the boy’s face was somewhat in shadow, making it more difficult to read his expressions. “He acted strangely around myself but also the young Master Cyril. It was as if he did not know how to speak to children.”

  “That is not quite as strange as it may seem.”

  “He also woke at strange hours of the night.”

  “Insomnia perhaps?”

  “Possibly. I’d hear him come in and out of the servants quarters. One night curiosity got the best of me and I followed him.”

  Then surely he knew of Mr. Wright’s visits to Miss Elizabeth’s chambers. “Where did he go?”

  “Out into the woods.”

  Not the answer I had expected.

  “Did you follow him?”

  “Once.”

  “And what was he doing in the woods?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What do you mean ‘nothing’?”

  “He was just sitting there on a fallen tree. He sat perfectly still for some ten minutes or so. Eventually I left and returned to my bed.”

  “Perhaps he merely enjoyed the quiet of the forest?”

  The boy’s eyes darted about. There was something more he would not say.

  “Surely there is more, yes?”

  “I heard strange noises that night as I walked back to the house. I turned back and saw strange lights in the forest but when I returned to where he had been sitting he was no longer there.”

  A most interesting detail. “Tell me about the sounds in detail...the lights as well.”

  “The sound was...” he seemed to be struggling to find an analogue, “something like a whistle but many of them and of a low pitch.”

  “Go on.”

  “The light was of an orange color and flashed on and off quickly in time with the whistles.”

  “Lanterns emanate an orange light dear boy. Perhaps he was merely sleepless and toying with the light of the one he’d brought along.”

  “No sir.” the boy insisted, “It was bright, brighter than any lamp I’d ever seen and when I’d found him sitting on the tree he’d not even had one with him.”

  “So he’d walked into the forest at night alone and with no lantern?” I queried.

  “Yes sir. That is exactly how I saw it.”

  “While I suppose there are any number of logical explanations I must admit that if what you say is true then it truly was an odd occurrence.”

  “It is truth sir, I swear it.”

  “There must be more, however, if you considered him a peculiar man.”

  He nodded quickly and in an anxious fashion. “Whenever he would hurt himself, while shoeing horses mostly, he would run away to his room and would let no one attend to his wounds.”

  “Why?” I felt it was time to press the boy.

  “I do not know.”

  “Of course you do. You found him that morning did you not? Dead upon the pitchfork.”

  Kwame became agitated and would not look me in the eye. He likely thought I did not notice his subtle rocking back and forth in his chair but it did not escape my attention.

  “Yes sir. What has that to do with it?”

  “Well, he was rather injured that morning. Were he keeping some secret that was relevant surely you would have seen it no?” I could only surmise some disease of the blood that he would wish to hide. Methemoglobinemia, perhaps, which results in a brownish colored blood which could be quite startling to onlookers unaware of the condition. Hemophilia was also a possibility, surely he would not wish the family who employs him to know of his frailty.

  “Sir I...” he began to sob, “He was just dead. It was terrible.”

  “Any strange appearance to the blood?”

  “No.” the language of his body betrayed him. His reaction to my query was unmistakable, it was a flat-out lie.

  “We shall step back for a moment my dear boy. Please relate to me in detail the events of the morning when you found Mr. Wright dead in the stable.”

  The boy took a moment to calm himself and then spoke, “It was very cold that morning. Mrs. Kyle served breakfast while complaining about how the chill was making her bones ache. We’d all sat down to eat but Mr. Wright was nowhere to be found. He was always at breakfast so she sent me to see if he was still in his room. He was not. I told her and she demanded that I check the stable, not even allowing me time to fetch my coat. I ran out there as quickly as I could and when I entered I found him upon the pitchfork. He was already dead and had been so for a while.”

  “Rigor mortis?”

  “Sir?”

  “Was he, upon finding him, already stiff?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “A pool of blood beneath him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was anything in the area disturbed? Tossed about?”

  “No sir. The stable looked to be in order save for that horror.”

  “I see.” I said as I bit into one of the scones. “So there was nothing unusual whatsoever about the state of the place nor of the body itself?”

  “No sir.”

  Even his lies provided me some amount of information. For instance, he claimed that he had been dispatched when Colin had failed to appear at breakfast yet only moments before he had attested that he typically tended to morning chores in the stable before Mr. Wright came in. Surely he would have seen the body then; his story, it was obvious, was a fabrication.

  “Was that the last time you saw the body?”

  “No sir.”

  “Tell me of the last time you saw him.”

  “Master Dunning, Master Adrian, and their agent asked me to help remove the pitchfork and load his body into a cart. I did and after that never saw him again.”

  “You had nothing to do with the burial?”

  “No sir.”

  “Do you know where the body was buried?”

  “No sir.”

  “Very well then young Kwame,” I said abruptly, “I am done with you for now. Should I have further questions I will have you summoned again.”

  The boy finished his tea with a gulp and behaved as though he could not vacate my presence quickly enough. There were details he was not revealing, that much was glaringly apparent. Once I had gleaned sufficient information from the other witnesses so as to catch him in a bald-faced lie I knew that I could wrestle them from him. In the meantime his testimony had left me with some interesting mysteries. Lights and sounds in the forest most clearly pointed to secret rendezvous. It was not with Miss Elizabeth, since their clandestine meetings had long-since been replaced with rather brazen visits to her bed-chamber.

  Were he in the employ of a noble family or one affiliated with the workings of government my mind would have instantly jumped to the conclusion that he was a spy for a foreign power. That seemed unlikely; perhaps meetings with yet another lover? Were I to find that the case then even Miss Dunning would become suspect. It was not beyond the realm of possibility that she herself, as a spurned lover, could have plotted his demise and then hired an inspector, hoping to implicate one of her siblings in the murder. A convenient way to rid herself of an unfaithful partner and an impediment to her inheritance in one fell stroke.

  Of course there was the issue of his odd behavior when being injured. It was not unreasonable, however, to assume that the two had nothing to do with one another. Any working man with an affliction of the blood would wish to hide such an malady. I could think of no other reason for the man to refuse treatment at the hands of others but to hide an ailment. I made quick work of my second scone as I c
ontemplated the facts that had thus-far been revealed. The mystery only seemed to deepen with each round of probing but it troubled me not. Discovering the answer to a profound riddle was one of the few things in life that tickled my fancy even more than narcotic ministrations. It was a grand game and one that I took much joy in proving to all involved that I was a player of the highest caliber.

  Nanny, Nurse, Educator

  Shortly after I’d completed my line of questioning with the boy Mrs. Kyle informed me that she was about to serve lunch and inquired as to whether I’d wish to eat with the servants. I declined but directed her to enlighten the family that I would be taking dinner with them in the evening. She scoffed at the notion but I held fast and eventually she begrudgingly agreed to do so.

  I departed the kitchen set upon the idea of a brief walk. The cool country air was refreshing and it also granted me an opportunity to observe the estate’s master from a discrete distance. After locating him I spent some fifteen or so minutes furtively surveilling his actions.

  He did little save for sit upon a large garden stone and stare into the brush of the nearby tree line. He appeared to be listening to the songs of the birds which inhabited it as several times I watched as he pursed his lips and seemed, though I could not quite hear him, to respond to their calls. His humor seemed of a most tranquil nature, periodically he would close his eyes as a breeze would stir and rustle the mane of grizzled grey and black hair that was brushed back and hung down well past his ears in a style that most gentlemen no longer wore.

  What was his poison? Laudanum would be the depravity of typical employment by men such as he yet I detected no odor of it upon him when we had met earlier on the walking path. Of course had he indeed managed to keep his addiction unknown to his family for many years, as my conversation with Mr. Peterson seemed to indicate, then he would surely have learned to disguise the scent in some manner.

  In short order my curiosity was satisfied as I saw him draw from his pocket a small brown bottle with an orange label and black writing and press it to his lips before taking a small nip. Immediately after returning it to the left-hand inside pocket of his coat he pulled forth a tobacco pipe, deposited it between his lips, struck a match and touched the flame to it’s top. He drew heavily on it in rapid succession then unexpectedly ceased and set it upon the large stone next to him. How queer, a man who was clearly not addicted to the powerful lure of tobacco yet who used it as a means to cover an even more sinister corruption.

  Despite my frequent patronage of the dens of Chinamen to engage in the consumption of their most wicked of delights while watching them participate in games of chance and speak in a tongue I could no more decipher than the hieroglyphs of Egypt I had always maintained the fortitude to withdraw periodically so as not to allow my physiology to become addicted to the substance. The desire, that mental thirst, was of course always with me but I refused to allow my body to require the drug to function. I treated my other vices similarly, often switching one for the other lest I become dependent like so many of the fiends I had come to be acquainted with over the course of recent years. My sins had made me nearly unfit for proper society, I would not, however, allow them finish the task.

  My curiosity of Michael Dunning temporarily abated I sat in the garden for a moment and gave the pipe that Mr. Peterson had gifted me another go. I was, after all, in no hurry to complete my investigation. The compensation, which was promised to be of a generous nature, I had foolishly forgotten to speak to Miss Elizabeth about. It was certainly a matter of some import but in the meantime I meant to take pleasure in my surroundings. The incessant noise of the city had done my nerves few favors over the years and despite my presence on the estate being a matter of business I still felt a calm settle upon me like none I’d felt in years, save for those induced by my narcotic remedies, of course.

  When I had finished smoking I made for the library through the side door that the young Mr. Kwame had come running through only a short time earlier. All of the servants, including those I had yet to formally greet, were seated at the dinner table and were engaged in lively and mildly inappropriate banter when I interrupted. I announced to Mrs. Kyle that I would be in the library and that she was to send the servants to speak with me in the order that I had scrawled upon a piece of paper which I handed her.

  She, as usual, looked none too pleased with me but agreed to do as she was instructed. I held hope that the servants had not seen my intrusion as disrespectful, nor my declining the offer to take lunch with them. It had not been in any way that I had felt above them, I was simply not hungry after the refreshment of tea and scones. Likewise I demanded to dine with the family not because I felt myself better than those in employ but because I would not allow the client to feel herself my better. Maintaining respect was essential to my profession, something I’d admittedly done little to help on frequent occasion with my questionable behavior.

  I was sitting in the library for only a short period of time, no more than ten minutes by my watch, when the nanny, Tripti, entered and with a small curtsy took a seat across from me. To say that her loveliness caught my eye would be an understatement. It was typical of me to fancy women with blonde hair and creamy-white skin but the woman had a smile that was absolutely enchanting. She also had eyes that seemed like nothing less than dark pools of mystery that a man could get lost in. Her dress was very conservative and she kept her black hair pulled back save for a few strands that were curled and hung neatly to frame her well-proportioned face.

  “From what I hear there seem to be few limits to the talents which your employers enjoy from your service with them Miss. I pray that you are rewarded handsomely for your efforts.”

  “I want for very little Mr. Carson. I have a lovely home and employers who are very kind to me.”

  “That is good to hear. Tell me, your accent is impeccable, how long have you been in England?”

  She pursed her lips in thought before replying, “I’m sure there are those who would disagree with you but I cherish the compliment. I came to work for the Dunnings some twenty-three years ago this spring.”

  I scoffed, “My good lady surely you are little older than twenty-five yourself.”

  She smiled and looked down at the floor for a moment then returned a playful gaze, “Dear Inspector I have just had my fortieth birthday this last week.”

  I paused to make sure my mouth was not hanging agape, “Miss Tripti then may I say that you have an incredibly youthful appearance. The years have treated you remarkably well.”

  “Oh sir you are too kind.”

  I sincerely hoped that my comments and mannerisms had not come across as flirtatious, that was not my intent. “How is it that you came to England and to be in the service of the Dunning family?”

  “My grandfather was English sir. Being the only child of my mother and father, as my mother was incapable of bearing more children, and being the only girl in the family my grandfather took a special interest in raising me like a proper English lady as he had done with my mother. As luck would have it he was an old business partner of Master Dunning and when he’d learned from his colleague that there was an opening for a governess on his estate he asked me if I would like to visit England. My grandfather and my mother traveled with me and we toured London as well as much of the countryside before they came with me here. They promised that should I ever desire to return to India that they would arrange passage for me without question. That was twenty-three years ago.”

  “You have never returned to visit?”

  “Oh of course,” she beamed, “but I’ve usually not stayed long. I enjoy England quite a bit and I have relatives in both London and Cornwall that I visit on regular occasion and for holidays.”

  “So by your length of service I will assume that you had a hand in rearing even the older of the Dunning children.”

  “Yes. Despite being mostly a child myself, aged only 17 when I arrived, my grandfather vouched for my diligence and I can only assume b
y my continued presence that the family is satisfied with me.”

  “Indeed. I have heard nothing but praise for you my dear.”

  “That is reassuring to hear.”

  “Being so young when you arrived here at Larchwood I can only assume that many of your talents are self-taught.”

  “You assume correctly Inspector. I am a voracious reader and enjoy learning anything that I can.”

  Unlike the servant boy who’d been very anxious when speaking with me Miss Tripti seemed peculiarly calm, no doubt in some fashion owing to the patience she had acquired from years of schooling petulant children. Her demeanor was a refreshing departure from most that I questioned yet I found it troubled me somewhat for if she was capable of maintaining such a stoic facade I faced difficulty in determining her true emotional state.

  I did, however, easily note her eyes darting toward the large windows at the other side of the room. They were not glances of nervousness, rather she seemed to be looking at something she wished not to draw my attention to. Thusly my mind connected the sounds it had until then dismissed with her subtly darting gaze and I looked over to see drops of rain hitting the glass. This was not, however, what the governess had been looking at. Across the yard, in a rather undignified run for a person of his stature, came the good master Dunning. He held his coat partially over his head and splashed through the soggy grass very ungracefully. Even from such a distance I could make out the bottoms of his trousers clearly covered in mud.

  “I am sorry sir. Master Dunning is at times a trifle unconventional.” Tripti apologized for something which gave me no offense.

  “He’s an opium addict.” I ejaculated. She turned to me in astonishment at the brazen statement about her long-time employer. “Laudanum to be more precise.”

  “Mr. Carson I have no clue what leads you to such a preposterous conclusion but you’ll remove it from your head this instance. Mr. Dunning is a good man, better than most.”

  “Perhaps, but one whom I spied sipping from a laudanum bottle not twenty minutes ago. Have none of you ever checked to see what it is that he does all day?”