“Do you have any idea where he would go if he were particularly troubled by something? Please think hard, Josh. It’s important.”
The scrubbing once more subsided. “Has Will gone missing?”
“I’m not sure. But I think he might be a bit frightened, considering what happened this morning.”
Josh’s eyes narrowed. “Miss Huntford, Mr. Ripley’s death wasn’t really an accident, was it?”
“I . . . I really don’t think I should answer that, Josh. We shouldn’t be speculating. You know how Mrs. Sanders feels about gossip.” Eva felt a twinge of guilt avoiding an honest reply, but she knew Josh couldn’t argue with one of Mrs. Sanders’s decrees. “I’m just trying to locate William.”
“Well, I don’t know where he is, but if he shows up, I’ll tell him you’re looking for him.”
“Thank you, Josh.” She started to turn away, until she remembered another vital question. “Josh, does William own a brown tweed flat cap?”
“Brown? Not that I’ve seen. He wears a gray flannel.”
The scrubbing resumed, raising a screech-screech of metal on metal that raised the hairs on Eva’s nape. As she reentered the house, luck brought her directly in George Vernon’s path. The head footman was carrying a box of silver—candelabras, decorative platters, things of that sort—into one of the service rooms. After stepping aside to allow him to pass, Eva followed him inside.
“George, when was the last time you saw William?”
George had retrieved a tin of silver polish and a soft flannel rag from a cupboard against the wall. “Not since last night, Miss Huntford.” His brows drew together in a show of concern. “Wasn’t he here earlier when the police were questioning everyone?”
“No, apparently not.” Eva wondered if William had gone without breakfast again this morning out of fear of Stephen Ripley. Or did he even report to work today? Perhaps that bruise Josh spoke of dissuaded William from coming within arm’s reach of the new head gardener. “Did you see him last night? I heard he came in later than usual, after dark. I’m wondering what might have kept him working so long.”
George dipped his rag in the silver polish and began rubbing in slow, circular motions along the base of a four-branched candelabra. “No, but if he came in late I wouldn’t have seen him, would I? These days, without much company upstairs, we footmen go off duty directly after dinner is cleared away. I was probably already up in my room before Will came in.”
“And you haven’t heard him say anything about how he likes working for Mr. Ripley?”
“There’s hardly been time for him to have an opinion, has there?”
Eva didn’t know about that. In fact, she believed Stephen had made it easy for William to form an immediate opinion, and a far from favorable one. She thanked George for his time and left him to his polishing. In the corridor, she leaned against the wall, absently holding a sore spot on the side of her ribs as she considered. The hedge ran between the formal gardens and the hothouses, and Stephen and William had begun trimming the far side, out of view of the house. In short, it’s quite likely no one saw them while they were working.
Her hand fell to her side. No one might have been able to see them, but someone might have heard them. Especially if they had been at odds.
Especially if they had come to blows, or worse.
She mentally ran through the list of everyone who might have gone out to the kitchen gardens and hothouses. Mrs. Ellison, Foxwood Hall’s longtime cook, came immediately to mind. She went out daily, sometimes more than once, to choose herbs and vegetables for the meals. The woman took pride in selecting almost every morsel herself, with the strictest standards regarding ripeness and freshness. Dora often accompanied her, and sometimes Mrs. Ellison sent the kitchen maid out alone for more simple selections.
Who else? Eva herself often went out to the hothouses for flowers to arrange in Lady Phoebe’s room. Hetta, too, for Lady Julia. And the countess’s maid, Miss Shaw, she supposed, also clipped flowers for her mistress’s bedroom.
She would begin with Mrs. Ellison.
* * *
Phoebe heard her name called from the Rosalind sitting room, named for her great-great-grandmother’s love of the rose garden that grew directly below its windows. She passed her bedroom door—her intended destination—and continued toward the summons. She found Grams sitting alone on the dusky mauve velvet settee, a cup of tea on the tray table before her.
“Shut the door, please,” Grams said. “And come and sit down.”
Curious, vaguely alarmed, Phoebe did as Grams bade her. “How did you know it was me in the hallway when you couldn’t see me?”
“I know your tread.” Grams took a sip of her tea. “I know the tread of everyone in this family.”
Phoebe didn’t doubt the claim. Nothing escaped her grandmother’s notice, which had always gone a long way toward ensuring that Phoebe and her siblings did as they were told. Their mother had died when Phoebe was young, and their father lost his life on a battlefield in France, leaving Phoebe, her two sisters, and their brother, Fox, in the care of their grandparents. Grams ruled with a silk-clad fist, or so Phoebe liked to think of it. Firm, unbending, yet at the same time kind and generous in her stoic way. Grampapa, too, when it came to Fox, but as far as his granddaughters were concerned, he could just as easily be swayed by a smile as by a tear.
“Is there something wrong, Grams?” Phoebe hoped it wasn’t something she had done, and quickly reviewed her actions in the past few days. Had she forgotten an appointment? Was she supposed to have been somewhere when she and Eva went to warn Keenan Ripley of his brother’s murder?
“It’s your sister,” said Grams. “I’m worried about her again and I’d like you to find out what’s troubling her. Besides the obvious, I mean.”
The obvious being Julia carrying the child of her dead husband, a man she admittedly married for his money, whom she hadn’t loved, but to whom she had promised to be a good wife nonetheless. Now, months after his death, the guilt of her actions continued to plague Julia, though she did her best to put up a good front.
“I’m not sure what you wish me to do,” Phoebe said truthfully, and with a measure of regret. “You know Julia doesn’t confide in me. Not much, anyway.” This despite having undergone some harrowing experiences together, including the death of Julia’s husband and her own subsequent kidnapping. During each traumatic experience, Julia would thaw temporarily, making Phoebe believe they’d finally achieved a sisterly closeness or at least a lasting truce. Then the old resentments would creep back in between them like thick, thorny vines. “Have you considered bringing Amelia home from school for a time? She can keep up with her schoolwork, so that wouldn’t be a problem.” If anyone could coax Julia out of one of her dark moods, it was their youngest sister, Amelia, with her gentle ways and unending stores of patience. That was one quality Phoebe had yet to fully cultivate.
“If I did that,” Grams said with a dismissive wave, “Julia would know I was worried, and I’m afraid that would only alienate her further.”
“I suppose you’re right about that. If there’s one thing Julia can’t abide, it’s being fussed over.”
Grams’s silver eyebrows rose. “Especially when there is something wrong.”
Phoebe nodded her agreement.
“Couldn’t you make yourself available to her? Hang about her, you know, as you did when you were girls. You were always following after her, and running to her room every morning and crawling into bed with her.”
Yes, before Papa died, she and Julia had been close, had been like real sisters. How long ago that seemed, how distantly remote. Another life; another Julia. Still, Phoebe scrunched her nose. “Surely you’re not suggesting I behave as I did when I was ten?”
“Well, not quite that, but you can certainly make overtures that will invite a certain intimacy, can’t you?”
“I suppose . . .”
“Do this for me.” Grams’s tone brooked no debate.
“For Julia. Invite her to go somewhere with you. To Cheltenham, perhaps. Or even Gloucester. For some shopping. Take Eva and Hetta. It’ll be fun for all of you.”
“And if she won’t go?”
“She’ll go.” Somehow, judging by the look on Grams’s face, Phoebe didn’t doubt she and her sister would be spending a lot more time together in the near future.
Unless, of course, Julia decided to give her the cold shoulder.
CHAPTER 6
“Dora, you slovenly girl, I specifically asked you to bring me four cups of dates for the spice cakes I’m making for the countess’s meeting at the Haverleigh School tomorrow.”
Eva stopped outside the kitchen, halted by Mrs. Ellison’s biting tone.
“And how many do I find here?” the cook continued. “Not quite two cups, you lazy chit! Where are you, girl?”
Perhaps, Eva thought, now wouldn’t be the best time to question Mrs. Ellison and Dora about what they might have heard from the other side of the yew hedge yesterday morning and today. From where she stood in the corridor, Eva couldn’t see Mrs. Ellison, but she could certainly hear her mutterings and half-muffled oaths, including what she would do to that undependable Dora when she got her hands on her.
Not that Eva worried over much about the young assistant. Mrs. Ellison’s threats, much like the housekeeper’s, always sounded much worse than they were in practice. The fact that Dora was in her third year here at Foxwood Hall attested to that.
“What are you going on about, Mrs. Ellison?” that errant young woman said as she apparently shuffled in from one of the pantries off the kitchen. Eva moved closer to the doorway until, by leaning slightly to the left, she could bring the two main kitchen workers into view.
Mrs. Ellison snatched a bowl from the center worktable and shook it in Dora’s direction. “The dates, girl. The dates! I sent you to the hothouse to pick a quart of dates, and this is what you bring?”
“What’s going on in there?”
The murmur beside Eva’s ear made her jump half a foot and nearly cry out, except that she recognized the speaker immediately. Turning, she rammed the flat of her hand into the woolen, black-clad chest of Miles Brannock. “Don’t sneak up on me like that.”
Having removed his policeman’s helmet, he ran his hand over his red, wavy hair and grimaced in apology. “Sorry. Mrs. Sanders let me in, and I noticed you eavesdropping here—”
“I’m doing no such thing.”
“Saw you eavesdropping,” he continued as if she hadn’t interrupted, “and heard the argument coming from inside.” He gestured into the kitchen. “Anything serious?”
“No, just the usual war of words.” The fright he’d given her forgiven if not quite forgotten, she smiled in lieu of pecking him on the cheek. Such a display wouldn’t do here, where one of the other servants might see. Still, his appearance gave that familiar lift to her spirits, as if she’d taken a particularly potent tonic.
“I hadn’t expected to find you on your feet.” He leaned in closer, his gaze filled with concern. “How are you? Any lingering hurts from your fall earlier?”
“A little sore on my side,” she admitted, “but nothing that won’t ease on its own. I’m glad you’re here. I’ve realized that while no one saw anything this morning, someone might very well have heard something from the other side of the hedge. Did the chief inspector make inquiries of that nature?”
Miles’s lips went flat as he shook his head. “No, he didn’t, and I had the same thought. And while I’d love to be out searching for whoever plowed into you at the gardener’s cottage, I’m glad to have another chance to be here and follow up on matters Perkins left dangling. Where’s the cap you found, by the way?”
“Safely locked in Mrs. Sanders’s desk. Keenan hasn’t been arrested since we spoke, has he?”
“Not yet.” He gestured toward the kitchen again, this time with his chin. Eva once more became aware of the arguing inside, which hadn’t ceased for a moment. “What are they going on about?”
“A bit of a disagreement over the amount of dates Dora plucked from the hothouse trees.”
“That would be the hothouse closest to the yew hedge, wouldn’t it?”
“It would. That’s the one where the larger fruit-bearing plants and trees are housed.” She inwardly acknowledged the providential nature of his timely arrival. While she was more than willing to ask Dora and Mrs. Ellison the necessary questions, those same questions coming from a police constable would be infinitely more difficult to evade. “So yes, Dora would have gone almost right up to the hedge when she went out for the dates this morning. She might have heard something.”
Miles held out a hand. “Shall we?”
Eva didn’t grasp his hand however much she wished to, but instead preceded him into the expansive kitchen with its range that took up nearly one entire wall, its several sinks, its many cupboards and work counters. Dora and Mrs. Ellison stood framed in a shaft of sunlight pouring in through the ground level window behind them. Mrs. Ellison wielded a wooden spoon. Dora held no such weapon, but stood her ground firmly nonetheless.
“I told you, I brought in a full quart and then some. Don’t you think I know a quart when I see it?” She thrust a finger toward the bowl and the dates barely covering the bottom. “That’s no quart, and it’s not likely I’d think it was, nor would I want to come back with that scrawny lot only to be hollered at like this. For goodness sake, Mrs. E.”
“Then where’d they go? Eh?” Mrs. Ellison struck the air with the rounded end of the spoon. “Tell me that.”
Dora was shrugging off the question when she suddenly noticed that she and the cook had drawn an audience. “Miss Huntford. Constable Brannock.” A ridge grew above her nose. “Is there something you need?”
“Don’t stand there gawping, girl, set the kettle to boil.” Mrs. Ellison hurried over to the icebox, where she began rummaging through with her head practically submerged in the cold interior. “Have a seat in the hall, Constable, and I’ll bring you some refreshment. I’ve got some Eccles cakes left over from this morning. And there’s some lovely, fresh clotted cream. . . .”
“That’s not necessary, ma’am,” Miles said in his most accommodating voice.
Eva intercepted Mrs. Ellison as she backed away from the icebox holding a bowl. “That’s quite all right, Mrs. Ellison. Put the clotted cream back and save it for Mrs. Sanders’s and Mr. Giles’s tea. The constable only wants to ask you and Dora a few more questions about yesterday and this morning.”
The four of them marched single file into the servants’ hall and took seats close together at one end of the table. At this time of the day, they weren’t likely to be interrupted, although that would only be true for the next twenty minutes or so. Then the others would trickle in for their afternoon tea before the work of preparing for dinner began.
Miles drew out his notebook and pencil. “What I need to know is whether either of you were out in the hothouse area yesterday morning and this morning, and if so, did you hear anything—anything at all—coming from the vicinity of the yew hedge.”
“Like what?” Dora’s blunt question nearly made Eva sigh with impatience. Hadn’t Miles just explained he wished to know if they heard anything?
He showed greater patience than she felt. “Voices, for instance.”
“I went out there yesterday,” Mrs. Ellison said, “and I did hear Mr. Ripley yelling at William, and once or twice William might have mumbled something that more than likely got him cuffed.”
“You could hear him mumbling?” Miles held his pencil aloft.
“I could,” the woman said with a nod. “Except when I was inside the hothouse. But from the kitchen garden, and on the path, yes, I could hear them speaking.”
“By the time I went out yesterday,” Dora said with a bit of a pout as if she feared being left out of the conversation, “they’d moved from the hedge to somewhere else on the grounds. Mr. Peele used to do that, too. Start in one area, work a while, a
nd move on to something else. I remarked on it once, and he said he moved with the shifting sun, so he’d never be blinded by too much sunlight or too much shade. Said he needed to work in just the right light to keep everything perfect. I expect Mr. Ripley was doing the same.”
“Could you see where they went after leaving the hedge?”
Dora shook her head; her pout persisted. “Being stuck in the kitchen and service grounds all the time, I never can see into the formal gardens. Or the front of the house, for that matter.”
“Be happy you’ve got a situation, girl.” Mrs. Ellison reached over and poked Dora in the shoulder with her forefinger. “There’s many who’d happily take over for you.”
Dora scowled.
Miles wrote down their observations. “And what about this morning? Were either of you out there early, when Mr. Ripley and William would have been working on the hedge?”
“I was out directly after breakfast. I went to the far hothouse to gather dates for Mrs. Ellison.” The kitchen maid tipped her head at the cook with a prickly, I-told-you-so expression, obviously in reference to their earlier argument. “I didn’t hear a thing.”
“No voices? Mr. Ripley giving William instructions?” Miles frowned, which soon had Eva frowning as well as she followed the gist of his questioning. “The sound of clipping? The rustling of branches?”
Dora and Mrs. Ellison frowned as well. The younger woman said, “All was silent. Why, now that I think about it, even the birds were quiet. That is a bit odd, isn’t it?”
“Unless there’s anything either of you can add, you may go.” Miles closed his notebook.
The two women hesitated. The cook said, “What do you think happened?” She lowered her voice. “Did William kill Mr. Ripley?”
“I’ve implied no such thing,” Miles admonished her in his sternest tone. “So don’t go spreading rumors.”
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