An Untimely Death

by Blythe Baker

Searing pain shot through my legs and I stumbled onto the carpet, rolling over onto my side.

  The hot, stinging ache caused me to forget my pursuer for only a fraction of a second, but it was long enough to give him the chance to catch up with me.

  I looked up just in time to see him pull his arm back, high over his head, ready to bring the poker down upon me.

  But instead, he careened forward. Limbs and hands suddenly appeared around him. They snaked around his waist and arms. Shouts filled the air.

  I rolled over onto my other side, out of his reach, and stared up at the group gathering around.

  Three men, all of sizable strength, had finally caught up with us. Mr. Hose, along with the footman George, and to my great surprise, Mr. Jerome.

  Mr. Hose held back one of Mr. Hendrick’s arms, George had his own arms wrapped around the villain’s waist…and Mr. Jerome grabbed the wrist of the arm that the man had intended to strike me with.

  “Drop it,” Mr. Jerome spat, as he restrained the burly man.

  Mr. Hendrick, high spots of color in his cheeks, looked over his shoulder at the others gathering around. “Unhand me,” he hissed. “Or I will slaughter the lot of you.”

  I scooted away from him, my back bumping into the banister that wrapped around the top of the landing.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Mr. Hose exclaimed, wrenching Mr. Hendrick away from me.

  “That lunatic girl tried to kill me!” Mr. Hendrick howled. “With this poker!”

  I shook my head. “That’s a lie,” I said.

  “Do not listen to her!” Mr. Hendrick cried. “She is only trying to get out of what she has done!”

  Mr. Jerome did not loosen his grip on Mr. Hendrick. “Why did you chase after her, then?” he asked. “Surely you could have snatched the poker from her and simply taken her to Mrs. Carlisle? Why this gruesome retaliation?”

  Mr. Hendrick grunted. “Let go of me.”

  “He has the mole,” I said, as if it would explain the entire situation.

  My words did not seem to make any sense to either Mr. Hose or to George, but I saw the understanding at once in Mr. Jerome’s eyes. My description of the mole on the neck of the mysterious server at the garden party had gotten around to everyone by this point.

  Mr. Jerome reached up and pulled back the collar of Mr. Hendrick’s shirt, and his gaze sharpened to a razor’s edge.

  I watched as he twisted Mr. Hendrick’s arm behind his back so hard that I heard an audible crack. He swung Mr. Hendrick around, toppling him off his balance, and watched as he fell to the floor.

  The butler had no chance of rising again, as Mr. Jerome knelt over him, pressing his forearm against his throat.

  “You killed my uncle, didn’t you?” Mr. Jerome asked through his teeth.

  Mr. Hose and George could only stare in disbelief. The whole situation had shifted in the blink of an eye.

  Mr. Hendrick sputtered beneath the pressure of Mr. Jerome’s arm.

  “Tell me!” Mr. Jerome barked. “Did you, or did you not, kill my uncle?”

  Mr. Hendrick grimaced but allowed his head to fall back against the floor. Drawing in deep, gasping breaths, he said, “I did. I killed him.”

  The defeat in his voice was all the proof anyone needed.

  “Why?” Mr. Jerome asked, not relenting.

  Mr. Hendrick groaned, coughing, his face turning purple.

  “I will not ask you again,” Mr. Jerome said. “Why did you kill him?”

  “I stole from him!” Mr. Hendrick blurted out. He stared up at the ceiling, his eyes bulging. “I stole from him and he caught me in the act. I knew he would report the theft to the authorities after the party, so I had to act quickly before he had the chance. I found rat poison in the kitchen and…improvised a hasty plan.”

  “What did you steal?” Mr. Jerome asked.

  Mr. Hendrick took a few deep breaths and then let his eyelids fall closed. “His emerald ring.”

  “You tried to steal a family heirloom?” Mr. Jerome breathed, leaning closer to Mr. Hendrick.

  A cold chill swept over me. A flood of memories came rushing back, of the Colonel wearing a particular gold ring with a large emerald inlaid in the metal on the pointer finger of his right hand, glinting in the light as he reached for his cup of tea, reflecting the warm glow of the fireplace as he turned the page of his book.

  I realized the gravity of Mr. Hendrick’s action. No wonder the Colonel had been so furious.

  “It would have fetched a precious fortune,” Mr. Hendrick said with a growl.

  Mr. Jerome gave him a rough shove before getting to his feet and gesturing to the other two men with him. “Bring him down to the drawing room. I shall send for the authorities.”

  Mr. Hose and George did not flinch at his instructions, taking Mr. Hendrick under the arms and hoisting him to his feet.

  Mr. Jerome turned then and offered his hand to me.

  I laid my own inside his palm and he helped me to my feet.

  “You are not injured, are you?” he asked, looking me up and down.

  “No,” I said, sounding stronger than I felt. “I am all right, thank you.”

  I swiftly pulled my hand from his and reflexively smoothed the front of my apron.

  “Good,” he said. “And well done. You discerned the truth when I did not.”

  I shook my head. “It was a terrible thing, wasn’t it, to kill the Colonel over a ring?”

  “It was not the ring,” Mr. Jerome said with a frown. “It was likely Hendrick’s fear of being reported to the police. I imagine we will hear everything of it soon enough. Now, might I ask you to go and explain the situation to my aunt? She may take it better if the information were to come from you.”

  While I doubted that very much, I gave him a small nod. “Yes, sir,” I said, and darted around him, hurrying to find my mistress and tell her the news.

  16

  “Anna, are you all right?” Selina asked.

  It was almost eleven o’clock, several hours after the headache that the evening had become. She and I stood in the kitchen wiping down the last of the recently washed dishes. Most of the servants had long since gone to bed, but I had no desire to sleep. Selina recognized this, and we offered to take over the dish duty. It was her suggestion, and I had taken the offer. Anything that would help to pass the time was welcomed by me.

  I had been the one to tell Mrs. Montford about Mr. Hendrick. The room had been as still as death as I told her.

  She cried, as I had expected her to. All I could do was allow her the moment to do so, standing some distance away from her.

  When she had gathered herself, we made our way down to the drawing room where it seemed that every guest had been summoned. They huddled around the outside of the room, while Mr. Hendrick had been draped over a chair in the center of the room, his hands tied behind his back as he awaited the arrival of the Chief Constable and his men.

  It was a rather ominous sight, watching Mrs. Montford approach the butler, her chin held high as she questioned him. He had hung his head to avoid her gaze, whether out of shame or anger, I could not determine.

  I had tried to catch the eye of Mr. Jerome after the confrontation, but he seemed distracted and went up to his room immediately after. Disappointed, I had realized I probably would not get the chance to say goodbye to him, as he would be leaving early the next morning, along with his mother and all the rest of the guests.

  I shook my head, dispelling the memory.

  “I’m all right,” I said to Selina now, wiping down the back of the plate in my hand, setting it atop the stack of others beside me.

  “It would be perfectly understandable if you were not,” Selina said.

  I did not answer. She knew as well as I that I was not well. Mr. Hendrick’s attack played over and over in my mind. It became hard to breathe when I allowed it to replay for too long, so much so that I scrubbed the plates with renewed vigor, anxiety heightening as I noticed there were only half a
dozen plates left to clean.

  “What of Mrs. Montford’s decision?” Selina asked. “The announcement she made to the staff, after the Chief Constable left with Mr. Hendrick?”

  “You mean her plan to go to London?” I asked, a sharp spike of dread piercing through me. “I suppose we must support her in whatever decision she makes.”

  “Does it not seem a bit…rash?” Selina asked.

  “No,” I said. “I imagine she has been considering it since the Colonel passed away. I cannot blame her for not desiring to remain in the home where her husband was killed.”

  Selina frowned, reaching her hands into the soapy water that had long since grown cold. She swirled the plate around within and began to scrub with the piece of wool resting on the edge of the basin.

  “I suppose I cannot blame her, either,” she said. “If my husband was killed in my home, I would want to leave as soon as I possibly could, as well.”

  I did not think it my place to tell Selina anything that Mrs. Montford had confided in me.

  Although she had gathered the staff to inform them of her plans, she had spoken with me about it beforehand.

  “My husband was never one for travel, and I cannot think of a better time to partake in some myself. Of course, I do not wish to linger in a home where the Colonel met his end, but it is not only that. I have put a great deal of thought into this matter. I should like to return to my childhood home in London, spend perhaps the winter and the spring there. Perhaps when the summer has come around once more, I will have found peace in my heart and can return here.”

  It wouldn’t be only London, either. She declared that she would be making a short stop in Brighton along the way, while sending the majority of her staff ahead of her to London to prepare the town house. No one seemed surprised that she intended to take me along with her to the seaside.

  I, however, wondered. Was it only for her comfort and convenience that she kept me close? Or did she intend to keep an eye on me, for some reason?

  It drew the same questions to my mind that I had wondered since the reading of the will. What had her husband meant when he had referred to me in his will?

  For reasons known to her, I bequeath to my wife’s faithful servant Anna Fairweather…

  Why had he chosen me to receive an inheritance? What was I supposed to know?

  I had yet to have the bravery to ask Mrs. Montford, but realized that on our upcoming journey to Brighton and the seaside, I would very likely find the moment to bring it up.

  “London…” Selina said, shaking her head. “From what I have heard from the staff that have seen the house, it is much smaller than this one, though just as lavish.”

  I was not interested in discussing the town house. My attention had been captured by a fleeting thought. Was there any chance I might see Mr. Jerome while in London? I had heard that he spent a great deal of time there. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Did I want to see him again? What could we possibly have to say to one another, now that we no longer had the mystery of the Colonel’s death to give us a united purpose?

  Selina was still talking. “I suppose it will be interesting, anyway. I have never been to the city.” She turned and regarded me. “But that’s where you’re from, isn’t it? At least, that’s where the orphanage was, the one where Mrs. Montford found you?”

  I busied myself with wiping down the dish she passed me. “Yes, it is,” I said. “And I did grow up there. I spent many years of my life in that orphanage, and while I can remember little of it, the earlier years of my life were there, in that city.”

  Selina looked me over. “You do not sound at all pleased.”

  I frowned. “I suppose I am not. I have a past there that I would much rather forget.”

  Worry filled me as I considered the eventual destination. The memories that had been plaguing me for years, memories of a river and my father’s face, hovered around the periphery of my mind, threatening to make an appearance once again. Fear told me that making my way to the city once more would bring them all flooding back. That was something I did not want. Those memories haunted me, and I would much rather they remained blurry.

  “Well…perhaps we will find a better life there,” Selina said. “Who knows? We might be surprised.”

  “Yes,” I said, feeling a weight in my chest that was the start of another premonition. “I am afraid we will be.”

  Continue the mysterious adventures of Anna Fairweather with “An Unfortunate Demise: An Anna Fairweather Murder Mystery, Book 2.”

  Excerpt

  The sun had chased the clouds away, leaving nothing but a brilliant sky of mauves and lilacs. The evening arrived with a warmth that I had not expected, and the only remnant of the rain could be seen in the puddles that dotted the walkways and the droplets still dripping from the overhangs.

  I had managed to convince myself to step out of the hotel. A long covered porch stretched all along the back of the hotel where rocking chairs awaited guests. Some were occupied by men and women sitting together watching their children play. Others were filled by couples hand in hand, staring into one another’s eyes, oblivious to the ocean that sprawled out before them just on the other side of the pier that the hotel butted up against.

  I wondered if any of these happened to be the couple I had heard arguing behind me earlier. I had only caught sight of them for the briefest moment. All I had noticed had been the woman’s hair, which was a strawberry blonde. None of the women I saw now seemed to have the same shade, and so I passed by them all without another glance.

  I stopped on the steps, looking out over the pier. It seemed everyone in the hotel had been eager to move outdoors, as I imagined that most of Brighton had decided to enjoy the last hour or so of daylight before settling in for the evening.

  The sea itself was difficult to ignore. It touched every part of my vision, up and down the shore. The pier, set above the beach where the waves met the sand that was only accessed by brick staircases that lead down to them, seemed safe enough to me. I would not have to get near the water at all, if I did not want. I would be separated by some distance, a railing, and quite a bit of height.

  The warm, tantalizing spiciness of cinnamon gently greeted my senses, drawing my head toward a stall along the pier. A man tossed nuts in a large silver pan over a small open flame. The headiness of the aroma made my mouth water. There could not have been a better or more pleasing scent to me.

  I had no money to my name, but having left my apron up in the room at Mrs. Montford’s request, at least I was without my usual maid persona. In my simple black dress with a matching hat pulled over my blond bobbed hair, I might have been anybody at all, out for an evening stroll. Easy as it usually was to hide behind my apron and maid’s cap, this gave me a foreign sense of euphoria, being entirely without expectation as I was.

  I made my way down to the stalls that lined the walkway. People flocked to the stalls, each of which held a different attraction. Some offered food stuffs, others games for the children. One a bit further down seemed to be selling handmade hats and bags, all adorned with colorful feathers and ribbons.

  All in all, it seemed like a perfectly pleasant place to spend the evening…if it were not for the sound of the waves lapping up against the shore down below the break wall.

  I took a deep breath, doing my best to calm my shaky nerves.

  This was good for me. It would not do for me to go to pieces any time I was near water. From what Selina had told me before she and the rest of the staff had departed for London, the town home of the Colonel and Mrs. Montford sat not too far from the river Thames. Who knew how often I might encounter it, once my mistress and I eventually arrived there?

  The sea, as vast and open as it was…it was not my true fear.

  The river, however, that was where I must prevail. I must put those memories behind me if I was to have any hope for a normal life in London again.

  I turned from the grey waters, their depths unknown, and focused once ag
ain on the nut seller. The smell invigorated me, bringing me back to my senses a bit.

  I stepped up to the corner of the stall, peering down at the charming paper bags tied with string arranged all in a row on the table before me. The hiss of steam flew into the air as the man behind the table tossed some butter into the skillet in his hand, waving it about like a magician with a toy wand. With his free hand, he deftly snatched up a fresh bowl of almonds and tossed them into the hot pan. A few more deft flicks of his wrist coated them in the now melted browning butter.

  I watched as he reached for a small ceramic jar, which he lifted into the air, overturned above the skillet, and gave a few swift shakes. The cinnamon and sugar began to rain upon the nuts, clinging to them, their warm, spicy notes filling the air as they began to heat.

  The man looked up and gave me a toothy grin. “Well, hello there, Miss,” he said with a raise of his eyebrows. “Might I interest you in a sample?”

  I turned to look over my shoulder, expecting to see someone else standing there behind me. It took me a moment to realize that he was, in fact, asking me.

  I do not look so much like a maid right now, I thought.

  “Oh…” I said. “I have no money, sir.”

  “Well, that’s all right,” he said, picking up a large, deep spoon from behind him and scooping a healthy portion of the nuts from within the skillet. He turned to grab a paper cone and easily overturned the contents of the spoon within. I wondered how many hundreds of times he had done such a thing. He leaned forward, passing me the nuts. “There you are. Free of charge.”

  My cheeks turned scarlet. “Oh, well, thank you. That is very kind of you.”

  He beamed, returning the spoon to the skillet. With a few more deft tosses of the nuts, he began to spoon more into other cones he had ready at the waiting. “You will have to let me know what you think. I could see the way you were eyeing them. It’s awfully hard to resist these, I understand. The smell alone will draw anyone for miles around.”

  I gazed down at the small bounty in my grasp. The glistening nuts, still steaming, were warm like fresh bread hot from the oven in my hand. I wanted nothing more than to take a whole handful, but I refrained and chose a single sugary piece and placed it on my lips.