Murder on Charles Street (Lady Katherine Regency Mysteries Book 5)

by Leighann Dobbs

  Katherine grimaced and hobbled back to let the woman into the house. “Near enough, I’m afraid. Harriet has gone out, and I didn’t want to leave you freezing on the doorstep. Come this way.”

  Mrs. Campbell immediately threw her arm around Katherine’s waist and helped her into the parlor. The unasked-for aid chafed at Katherine. Although her ankle was not at its best, she could move around on her own. It wasn’t as though she would fall and break a hip.

  After she settled Katherine into the chair, Mrs. Campbell perched on the edge of the loveseat and set a wicker basket on the table. She drew off its lid to reveal the contents and a nauseating wave of stench. Katherine fought back her roiling stomach as Mrs. Campbell drew out a jar of speckled slime, several white gauze pads, and a roll of bandages.

  “Lift your skirt. Let’s have a look at that ankle.”

  As Katherine hitched her skirt above her ankle, her foot resting on the stool, Mrs. Campbell clucked under her breath. She reached into the wicker basket once more and pulled out a bottle. She uncorked, took a swig that stirred its contents, and handed it over to Katherine. “You poor dear. Here, drink this. It will make you feel better.” As Katherine accepted the bottle, the older woman kneeled next to her injured foot.

  Katherine didn’t care for the smell wafting from the bottle, either. She wrinkled her nose, trying to inhale through her mouth. “What is it?”

  “A hot caudle, dear. I mixed it up for you before I left the house.”

  Katherine pressed her lips together to keep from betraying her disgust. She’d never taken to the caudles her father’s cook had whisked up. That this syrupy gruel smelled vaguely like baking bread turned her stomach every bit as much as the caudles had.

  When Katherine lifted the bottle to her nose to give it a cautious sniff, Emma whined and danced around the stool. Katherine lowered the bottle to her lap once more. Her dog acted even more bizarrely, shaking her head back and forth as she growled like she did with a particularly vexing toy. Except today, she had no toy. The hair on her back stood up on end, and she jumped up, planting her feet on Katherine’s extended leg. Katherine gasped, tightening her hold on the bottle as pain shot up her leg.

  “Dear me, did she hurt you? Best to drink that quickly.” Mrs. Campbell wagged her finger at Emma, whom she had met previously. The dog continued to growl and jump around on the floor as if possessed.

  Katherine managed a thin smile. “It must be the smell of the herbs. She isn’t accustomed to them. Nor am I.”

  Katherine lifted the bottle to her lips to take a polite sip, not intending to drink more than that. Emma growled and launched herself onto Katherine’s lap. Her back paws missed, and she scrabbled in midair before falling to the ground with a clunk.

  “What a bizarre little dog. Should I remove her?”

  "No. I’m certain she’ll settle down in a moment when she acclimates to the smell. Could you…” Katherine winced. “Could you apply that quickly, please?”

  She braced herself as Mrs. Campbell opened the lid on the jar, letting more of that horrible stench escape into the air.

  The older woman clucked her tongue as she examined the injured appendage. “It’s still a little swollen, I see.”

  Katherine didn’t want to talk about her ankle. This might be her only chance to discover if Mrs. Campbell knew anything about Lord Westing and his untimely death. Since her niece worked in his household, she might know the name of a servant loyal enough to Lord Westing to kill his physician. “I’ve been thinking about Dr. Gammon.”

  Mrs. Campbell paused, her fingers halfway inserted into the mouth of the jar to scoop out the thick slime within. She frowned, her tight bun making her look more severe. In fact, still clad in her outerwear, she looked as frosty as the weather outside.

  Katherine rushed on. “It’s come to my attention that Dr. Gammon might have made a mistake when treating Lord Westing. Do you think there’s anyone in Lord Westing’s household who would have wanted to take revenge?”

  Mrs. Campbell recoiled, her eyebrows knitting into slashes as she applied the lukewarm poultice to Katherine’s ankle. Katherine turned rigid, trying to react to neither the pain of Mrs. Campbell’s indelicate touch on her tender inflamed skin nor the undesirable smell.

  “Of course I don’t know of anyone. Should you be contemplating such things in your condition? I’d like you to drink up now. You need your strength.”

  Rather than drink the noxious brew in her hand, Katherine toyed with the bottle, rolling it between her palms. Emma ceased growling to sprint across the room and bark at a passing carriage, barely a shadow in the reflective glass. Someone down her street must have visitors tonight. For some reason, that made Katherine’s spirits plummet. These past two nights, she had had someone keeping company with her. Several someones, in fact. Now she had only the smelly poultice coating her skin.

  The moment the carriage passed, Emma gave an extra bark for good measure and trotted back to Katherine’s side. When Katherine lifted the bottle to her lips, intending to feign a sip for the sake of politeness, Emma started growling again.

  Emma barked at everyone, even a passing carriage. However, she hadn’t stirred the night of Dr. Gammon’s murder. Mrs. Campbell finished slathering the viscous treatment on her ankle and applied the gauze pads, fastening them with bandages so tight that Katherine’s toes started to tingle. She grimaced, trying to focus on anything except for her discomfort.

  If Emma hadn’t barked the night Dr. Gammon had been murdered, the murderer must have been someone Emma had met.

  Mrs. Campbell patted Katherine’s ankle, jarring her thoughts with a white shaft of pain. “There you are. Are you done with that yet?” After a pause long enough for Katherine to regain her faculties, Mrs. Campbell added in a disapproving voice, “You’ve scarcely started. Drink up, girl!”

  What if no one had visited Dr. Gammon after Katherine left? What if the poisoned food had already been in the house? Reflexively, Katherine, with the bottle brushing her lips, she froze. If the food was already in the house…

  Why is Mrs. Campbell so intent on my drinking this caudle? She swallowed hard, briskly lowering it to her lap. She cleared her throat twice before she managed to speak in an even voice. “Something I have wondered this week is how the murderer entered Dr. Gammon’s residence. He must have let them in, wouldn’t you say?”

  The woman nodded briskly, standing at Katherine’s feet and clenching her hands in front of her. “Yes, I would say so. But that might have been anyone. Any number of people visit the good physician.”

  “Not anyone,” Katherine said, drawing out the words. She fixed her gaze on Mrs. Campbell’s face, reading her every emotion. “It would have had to be someone who Dr. Gammon was comfortable enough to share a snack with. He would never do so with a patient, or at least he never had whenever I brought Emma over for his help. We chatted, yes, but he always administered to her and sent me on my way. But that night, he had a snack.”

  She rolled the bottle between her hands once more. Her thoughts whirled in dizzying circles. What if her theories regarding this murder had been wildly off the mark? If the poison had already been in the house…

  The night Katherine had visited, Dr. Gammon had informed her that Mrs. Campbell had stowed some food in the larder for him. But wait—hadn’t he also said that Mrs. Campbell came every other day? If so, why was she there the next morning? Unless she had gone deliberately to discover it and remove the evidence of poison… hence why the dishes had been washed and put away! Did I hear Emma growling the morning before Mrs. Campbell ran out screaming?

  At this point, it didn’t matter one way or another. Katherine’s instincts were clattering, and they emphasized one particular truth. She was in the house with the murderer—alone.

  When she focused on Mrs. Campbell again, the woman’s eyes were no longer friendly. Her expression cold and calculating, she stared at the caudle in Katherine’s hands. Katherine battled a shiver, wondering what poison was in t
he drink she had tried to foist off on Katherine.

  Katherine was taller and broader than the other woman, but she was also hampered by her ankle. Emma was too small to be of any help, and Harriet had left. Katherine swallowed hard. If there was even the smallest possibility that she would die in the next minute, she had to discover if she was correct.

  “You murdered Dr. Gammon, didn’t you?”

  Although her voice was a hush, the words broke over Mrs. Campbell’s features like a cresting wave. They washed away all semblance of civility, leaving flared nostrils and the curl of her lip. “Yes, I did.”

  Katherine couldn’t breathe. Even Emma stopped growling at the proclamation.

  “I had to,” Mrs. Campbell snapped. “And if you weren’t so bent on putting your nose where it doesn’t belong, no one would have known.”

  “But… why? He was such a good man.”

  Mrs. Campbell’s mouth twisted in disgust. “I didn’t want to kill Dr. Gammon, but he was old, and he didn’t have many years left anyway. If you had stayed home…” She shook her head viciously. “Especially after I tried to hamper you forcibly with the ice on the back path.”

  Katherine gaped, lost for words. If anything, her silence only egged the other woman on.

  “Yes, I iced it over. That’s why I insisted that you come and go out the back.”

  Had Mrs. Campbell been the figure Katherine had seen on the path that evening? It would explain the footprints. Mrs. Campbell would’ve had to stand in the snow in order to ice over the main walkway. But Katherine hadn’t slipped on the way to the house.

  She’d been leaving when something wet slickened the ice. Mrs. Campbell had left her alone to search for the notes, and that would have been the perfect opportunity to run outside and throw water over the frozen walkway. It wouldn’t take long to freeze at these temperatures.

  Feeling small and helpless, Katherine gripped the bottle. Mrs. Campbell stared at the caudle as though she planned on overpowering Katherine and shoving it down her throat. Emma growled low in her throat, dancing around anxiously but touching neither of them. The tension in the air thickened.

  Katherine had to know the truth. “Why did you kill Dr. Gammon? You haven’t given me a reason.”

  The woman took a step forward, brandishing her finger like a weapon. “I told you I didn’t want to! He didn’t know when to stop looking, either. He kept poring over those notes he’d taken about Lord Westing, and I knew he would figure out what I’d done to make certain that vile man never abused or forced himself on another maid in his household.”

  Katherine recoiled at the vehemence in the older woman’s tone. Was she confessing to the murder of Lord Westing too? “You mean there wasn’t a problem with the medicine Dr. Gammon administered to the late Lord Westing?” At least she now knew that the two matters were, in fact, connected. It was some small solace in this terrifying moment.

  “Yes. I took matters into my own hands. That vile lord had been abusing my niece, as well as some of the other servants. Somebody had to put a stop to it, so I did. I mixed up poison to put into his seedcake, and I gave the cake to Mary to give to him. I knew he had a weak heart; Dr. Gammon was treating him for that. I hoped the two physicians would think his heart gave out—and for a time, they did.”

  “Until his daughter raised her voice.”

  “Yes,” Mrs. Campbell sneered. “His daughter. As if she hadn’t turned a blind eye to every one of those abuses. She was crying on every corner that it had been murder! Thankfully, that matter faded before long, but his death never sat right with Dr. Gammon. It’s why he stopped seeing patients. But his early retirement meant that he had more time to spend poring over old matters. I tried other options. I tried to convince him to drop it. I even tried to steal the notes and burn them. But he kept duplicates with his partner.” Mrs. Campbell looked solemn, perhaps even regretful. “If he continued to look into the matter, I was afraid that he would suspect the truth. And who would pay for it? Mary, since she was the one who served him the cake. No. I had to protect my niece. It’s all I’ve ever tried to do!”

  The older woman had a wild quality to her eyes, and Katherine feared contradicting her even long enough to ask more questions. But the longer she spoke, the more likely Harriet would return to the house. Would that make Katherine safer—or put Harriet in danger?

  “Did you leave the poison for Dr. Gammon in his larder?”

  Seemingly wrung of her energy, Mrs. Campbell sighed. “I did. Then I came early the next morning to discover the body. Before I ran out to alert the neighborhood, I cleaned off the dishes so no one could find traces of the concentrated cherry-laurel water I added to the marmalade. The rest of it, I simply took home and disposed of the previous night. Nobody thought to check.”

  Katherine swallowed. “And the notes? Dr. Gammon’s son didn’t take them?”

  Mrs. Campbell looked at her in askance. “No, of course not. He knew nothing. I destroyed them and any others I could find mentioning Lord Westing. I hated to have to go to such lengths, but it had to be done for the greater good.”

  Katherine didn’t think she would ever consider murder to fall in the realm of the greater good, not even the murder of a man who abused others like Lord Westing. He was why the law was in place, to mete out punishment. It wasn’t for the likes of Katherine or Mrs. Campbell to decide who lived and who died.

  The housekeeper’s gaze sharpened, and she met Katherine’s. “Now I’ll have to kill you the same way.”

  A chill chased down Katherine’s spine, and she tried to wrestle her leg off the stool. Mrs. Campbell was quicker, pressing down her knee and digging Katherine’s ankle into the stool. Pain enveloped her, and she gasped, struggling to keep conscious as black spots danced across her vision. Emma started barking, which didn’t help.

  “It’s too bad you were so distraught over Dr. Gammon’s death, Lady Katherine. Everyone knows you’ve been going around insinuating that he was murdered, but no one truly believes it.” Mrs. Campbell walked her fingers up Katherine’s leg to her thigh, maintaining the pressure. Katherine raised her hand, the bottle squarely in it, but Mrs. Campbell grasped it with her free hand. She had the weight of her body behind her, whereas Katherine was helpless in the chair.

  The grin on Mrs. Campbell’s face was far from remorseful. “You simply could not handle being unable to solve the case. Oh yes, I know that you fancy yourself to be a detective. Too bad you didn’t discover the truth sooner.”

  She bore down on Katherine with all her weight. Katherine’s ankle screamed. Emma growled and shrieked and tried to jump into Katherine’s lap to investigate, but Mrs. Campbell was in the way, wrestling for that sarding caudle.

  Grunting with effort, Mrs. Campbell said through gritted teeth, “Now you will drink this caudle if I have to force it between your lips. Don’t worry, I will tell everyone how distraught you were over the case, so they’ll know exactly why you poisoned yourself.”

  With a growl, Emma jumped on Mrs. Campbell’s back. When she bit down, the layers of outerwear prevented her from doing damage. A tear sounded as Emma wrenched her teeth, but it had no effect on her target. Mrs. Campbell wrestled the bottle from Katherine’s hands. As Katherine scrambled to maintain her hold, her fingers slipped over the glass, and warm gruel splashed down the front of her dress. She tried to push away the bottle and stand, but Mrs. Campbell leaned in to press her knee on Katherine’s thigh. She pinned Katherine to the chair with an arm across her collarbone.

  Panicking, Katherine could barely think for all the pain. Emma lost her grip and fell to the floor with a yelp. She bit into Mrs. Campbell’s boot instead. Then—

  Thwack!

  The woman collapsed on Katherine in a boneless heap that rendered her breathless. Panic seized her. She thrashed blindly, trying to throw off her attacker. Liquid trickled on her hip. The caudle, or was she bleeding?

  Someone hauled Mrs. Campbell off her and deposited her on the floor in an unceremonious heap. Emma glan
ced from the unconscious woman to Katherine, hackles still raised and not certain what to do. Pru stood over Mrs. Campbell’s body, breathing hard, a fire poker raised to strike again.

  Katherine locked eyes with her best friend in the world, and a wave of relief washed through her. Pru had saved her. Again.

  Emma jumped onto her lap, sniffed at the spilled remnants of the caudle, and turned up her nose. The dog was too smart to eat poison, thankfully. Katherine pulled at the sticky front of her dress and feigned bravado. Her knees would not have held her at that moment, had she tried to stand.

  She offered Pru a weak smile. “Again? Was that absolutely necessary?”

  Pru looked down at Mrs. Campbell’s prone form and raised an eyebrow. “Why don’t you tell me.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Despite the havoc Mrs. Campbell had wreaked on Katherine’s ankle during her attack, a week later, Katherine felt well enough to walk independently again. She refused to sit for a day longer while an influx of well-wishers visited her. Perhaps the most well-meaning and yet most irritating was Katherine’s own stepmother, Susanna. Since learning of the attack, Susanna had come over daily with soup from the Dorchester kitchens and a book to read to Katherine. Although she appreciated the soup, Katherine was feeling far too much pain to be charitable about the intended entertainment. Not to mention, she could read on her own.

  Her ankle barely gave a twinge as she started the fifth revolution of the perimeter of her drawing room. Wayland hovered at her elbow, his shuffling steps slow to match hers and his fingers brushing against her arm.

  She shook him off. “I can walk on my own, you know.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “Yes, I can see that.”

  This wasn’t his first visit, nor the first time he’d followed her around the room. “My ankle will never heal if you’re forever carrying me around.”

  From his position on the loveseat where he studiously pretended that he wasn’t listening, Lord Annandale snorted. Pru leaned closer and twittered something in his ear that made him chortle. Katherine glared at them both before returning her attention to putting one foot in front of the other.