Murder in the Servants' Hall
Page 17
Chapter Nineteen
The library door closed behind the retreating figure of Rose Simpson, and a moment or two of silence followed as the three policemen took a minute to collect their thoughts. Sergeant Harris, the least affected of the three by the unexpected turn of events, was the first to recover his faculties and articulate his feelings.
‘Well, I’ll be blowed! An amateur detective. Just what we need in a case like this to unsettle things and make everything more complicated than it need be. And a good friend of yours, too, Sergeant Perkins, so it seems.’ The older sergeant gave the younger one a far from pleasant look. ‘And you’d have us believe you didn’t know the young lady would be here?’
‘Of course I didn’t,’ retorted Sergeant Perkins, though he could feel his cheeks growing crimson in spite of himself. The situation was not helped by the way his uncle was also regarding him somewhat suspiciously, as if he thought there was some truth in his sergeant’s accusation. Ignoring Sergeant Harris’ contemptuous stare, he addressed the conversation to his kin.
‘I tell you, Uncle, I had no idea that Miss Simpson would be here. It’s true I knew she was an acquaintance of Lady Lavinia Sedgwick, but it never occurred to me she would be here in this house, and certainly not in disguise.’ He paused a moment before continuing, as if he were thinking over his words carefully before uttering them. ‘I will admit I was rather keen to lay eyes on Lady Lavinia. You see, I’ve heard one or two things about her from Inspector Deacon and Sergeant Lane which made me rather interested to meet her in the flesh, so to speak.’
‘What things?’ demanded Inspector Connor rather brusquely.
In reply, Sergeant Perkins might have said that neither gentleman had given her a particularly glowing reference, which had only made her appear a more fascinating and intriguing character in the young man’s eyes. To further whet his curiosity, it could be argued, particularly by those who did not like her, that Lady Lavinia had been indirectly responsible for a death that had occurred at Renard’s dress shop. This had been due to her last minute decision not to model at a fashion exhibition held there. Sergeant Perkins decided, on reflection, to say none of this, even though it had greatly influenced his decision to accompany his uncle on the case in hand.
Perhaps his uncle did not expect him to elaborate, for he did not press his nephew when it became apparent that he was disinclined to go into details. An awkward silence returned to the room. Partly to escape it, Sergeant Perkins turned his thoughts instead to Rose Simpson, a woman for whom he had the greatest of respect. He had an unsettling feeling in the pit of his stomach that he had somehow let her down. She had been relieved to see him, there was no doubt about it for it had shown in her expression. Her face had lit up at the not unreasonable thought that he would fight her cause, as he had once done with Inspector Deacon. Yet in this present situation, where he was little more than an observer, he had felt unsure of his position. Matters had been made worse by Sergeant Harris’ open hostility. He did not wish to be accused of encroaching on matters that were not his concern. Much as he wished the situation were to the contrary, it was painfully obvious that his uncle was now rather regretting his rash decision to invite his nephew to participate in the case.
Certainly it placed the inspector in something of a personal dilemma, for the man was torn between his feelings of loyalty towards both his subordinate and his nephew. Sergeant Perkins sighed inwardly. He wondered if Rose would have fared better if he had not been there to influence Sergeant Harris’ first impressions of her. Certainly both policemen were likely to have heard her out rather than turning against her as Sergeant Harris had done immediately he had become aware of their association. Sergeant Perkins did not know whether matters had been made worse or better by Rose bolting from the room the way she had. For one thing, she had not waited for the matter to be satisfactorily resolved. Instead it hung languishing and inconclusive in the air. For, while the inspector had not actually condoned or endorsed her behaviour of subterfuge, nor her expressed intention to conduct her own investigation, neither had he forbidden her outright to proceed along such lines.
In the end, if only to clear the air and move the investigation forward, Sergeant Perkins had decided to follow Rose’s example and seek a temporary stay of execution by appealing to his uncle’s good nature. He had no wish to reopen the argument, nor to be perceived by his uncle as rattling swords with Sergeant Harris. That said, he had no intention of giving way, or providing his adversary with the belief that he had won the argument. Instead, he sought a middle ground.
‘A decision doesn’t need to be made this very minute, Uncle,’ Sergeant Perkins said quickly, before the other sergeant had an opportunity to expand further on why Rose should not be permitted to continue on her chosen path. ‘We will be speaking to Miss Simpson again during the course of our interviews with the staff. Why not wait until then to decide what to do? Miss Simpson will have the opportunity to tell us what she has discovered –’
‘If anything,’ interjected Sergeant Harris with a sneer.
‘Yes, if anything,’ agreed Sergeant Perkins, quietly confident that Rose would have found out quite a bit by then and thus proved her worth. But would she divulge everything she had uncovered? A nagging little voice at the back of his mind suggested she might not, particularly if the ears that listened were not particularly receptive.
Inspector Connor looked from his nephew to his sergeant, mulling over the proposition put before him. He felt himself to be in an uncomfortable position, which was particularly vexing as some of it, at least, was of his own making. There was no getting around the fact that he did not like his nephew’s suggestion. To have this stray girl conducting her own investigation and putting herself into goodness knew what danger was something he was inclined to put a stop to immediately. If truth be told, his views on the matter echoed his own sergeant’s. He was sorely tempted to demand that the girl leave Crossing Manor at once for her own safety. But there was something holding him back from that course of action. Quite simply, he resented the smug look on his subordinate’s face. The way the man regarded Charlie riled him. Quite justifiably, the inspector took some pride in the young man’s achievements; he had followed in his uncle’s footsteps in terms of profession and was working for Scotland Yard, no less. The inspector could not just sit there and watch his nephew be mocked and ridiculed. Besides, Charlie had provided him with a temporary way out of the immediate dilemma, a way of placating his sergeant while also supporting his nephew. With some reservations, he chose to seize it.
‘Very good,’ said Inspector Connor, resuming charge with a thump on the desk. ‘We’ll see what Miss Simpson has to say for herself when we interview her later. I’m not promising anything, mind, Charlie. Now,’ he pushed back his chair and rose to his feet, ‘I think we’ve wasted enough time on all this, don’t you? We’ve a body to see. Lead the way, Sergeant Harris, there’s a good man.’
‘You haven’t been pouring tea out all this time?’ demanded Mrs Field, her small currant eyes bright with righteous indignation, her whole body bristling. From the way the housekeeper had pounced on the girl as soon as Rose had entered the kitchen, it was clear she had been awaiting her arrival with a degree of impatience. ‘Whatever can Edna have been thinking giving you the tea tray to take up to the policemen?’
She turned to glare at the kitchen maid, who shrank back from her and hastily immersed herself in some kitchen task or other, her face flushed.
‘It’s not Edna’s fault. I offered to take up the tray,’ replied Rose rather coolly. She had no wish for the kitchen maid to be reprimanded for her own actions. ‘Albert was nowhere to be found and the maids were in a state of shock. If you remember, Mr Mason had only just informed them that Miss Cooper had not died of natural causes.’
‘Even so, it wasn’t your job to do. Mr Mason was ever so put out when he opened the library door and saw you standing there with the tray. It’s not how things are done here at Crossing.’
‘Ssh!’ The housekeeper looked about her apprehensively, as if she were afraid that their conversation was being overheard. Though as it happened they had generated little interest among the other servants, who were too occupied with their duties or own conversations to give much heed to what they said.
‘There’s no need for caution now, Mrs Field. Everyone knows,’ said Rose rather brusquely. ‘Miss Cooper has been murdered and there’s no use pretending she hasn’t been.’
In her annoyance, she had raised her voice rather unnecessarily, the effect of which was to make Mrs Field wince. Rose found the housekeeper’s rigid determination that the general routine of the house be maintained at all costs, and her manner of pretending nothing had happened, strangely irritating, though it occurred to her that the other maids might find such an approach comforting in a time of confusion and distress. On reflection, she found herself softening slightly in spite of herself, for it occurred to her that perhaps it was only for the sake of the staff that the housekeeper was so insistent on adopting such a stance.
‘You don’t need to go on so,’ said the housekeeper in a thin voice. ‘Things are quite bad enough without you making a song and dance. It’s times like these, Miss Denning, that things need to be done properly. I daresay you’re too young to remember much about the war. Things were allowed to slip, and now look at us. We are nothing without standards. They need to be upheld.’
‘Blow your standards and rules,’ Rose said dismissively.
The words, foremost in her thoughts, had sprung from her mouth before she could stop them. She had felt a certain sympathy for the woman’s feelings, the longing to preserve what had been before. Yet it would not do for her to consider the housekeeper’s sensitivities unduly. She could not let herself become too sentimental. They could not pretend that the murder had not happened, that a lifeless body did not at this very moment languish in the servants’ hall …
‘It’s not for you to say that,’ retorted the housekeeper quietly. Her face was ashen and she looked quite taken aback at such impertinence.
Rose felt a well of desperation and helplessness engulf her. Her head throbbed and she wanted, more than anything, to escape the confines of the servants’ quarters; to go outside into the gardens and feel the fresh air on her face.
‘I don’t answer to you or to Mr Mason,’ she said rather weakly. ‘You are not my mistress.’
‘That’s true enough, Miss Denning. But while you are a servant staying in this house …’ began Mrs Field.
The housekeeper, however, faltered, as if she did not know what else to say or as if she found it too much of an effort to keep up the pretence. Certainly she seemed to flag, groping around for a chair and lowering her ample bottom on to its battered seat. Rose’s melancholy mood appeared to have affected her. For the moment at least, she was speechless. It was this, coupled with the crestfallen expression on her face, that brought Rose sharply to her senses. She had no wish to make an enemy of the housekeeper, and besides, the woman was a sight of abject misery; shock mingled with fear coloured her movements and brought dark shadows to reside under her eyes. For the first time, Rose saw the world as Mrs Field perceived it. The ordered realm that the older woman had so carefully built up about her, and to which she had devoted much of her life, was showing significant cracks. Worse than that, it was threatening to come tumbling down about her ears.
‘I’m sorry,’ Rose said gently, stretching out her hand instinctively towards the older woman. ‘I didn’t mean to be unkind. I’m afraid I can be rather thoughtless. You’ve every right to feel the way you do. It must have been an awful shock. Edna fetched you to see the body, didn’t she? When the murder was first discovered, I mean?’
‘Yes, she did.’ Mrs Field’s voice was a dull whisper. ‘And such a sight I never wish to see again. I didn’t want to believe it. These young girls have such strange fancies. I kept hoping that she was mistaken, that we’d find Miss Cooper snoring gently in the chair.’ She wrung her hands together. ‘Oh, I wanted so much for it to be just a bad dream that the silly girl had had. Pearl is a one for them, you see.’
‘I suppose you knew her well? Miss Cooper, I mean.’
‘No, not really. She has … had only been here a few months,’ sighed the housekeeper. ‘She was engaged not long after the master married the mistress. The first Mrs Grayson-Smith’s maid had found another position, you see.’ She bent forward to whisper in Rose’s ear. ‘It sounds awful to say it, but I can’t say I took to her. Kept herself to herself for the most part, she did. She didn’t like it here, Miss Cooper didn’t. Didn’t think her mistress was grand enough. She kept telling Mr Mason and me how she was used to waiting on socialites and wives of ambassadors, not women who shut themselves away at home and had no visitors. A waste of her talents, so Miss Cooper was wont to say. I’ve an idea she was looking for another position.’
‘Oh?’
‘Just from the little things she said. That she wouldn’t be here long. That sort of thing.’ She paused a moment as she reflected. ‘Well, she got her wish, didn’t she? Only she will be leaving this house in a box, not to attend some great lady.’ Mrs Field turned anxious eyes on Rose. Unshed tears threatened to spill. She put out a small plump arm and snatched in a desperate fashion at the girl’s fingers in an attempt to draw her closer so that she might whisper in her ear. ‘I’m frightened, Miss Denning. You see, I’m desperately afraid that things won’t go back to the way they were.’
Rose was prevented from the necessity of responding by the sharp ringing of one of the servant bells. Mrs Field, roused from her contemplations, looked up and consulted the bell board.
‘The Sovereign Room. That will be for you, Miss Denning. You’d better go. Don’t keep that mistress of yours waiting.’
It was with some relief that Rose left the kitchen. Inwardly, however, she cursed Lavinia for summoning her. It was true that she had desired an excuse to escape Mrs Field’s despondent brooding which, coupled with the recent unexpected hostility she had received from the policemen, did little to inspire her to instigate her own investigation into the death. A sense of duty, however, made her determined to embark on her enquiries. To this end, she had in mind to speak to Pearl or Edna to establish the facts concerning the discovery of the body. To return to Lavinia, therefore, felt like taking a backwards step.
It was consequently with little enthusiasm that she once again mounted the servants’ staircase, scarcely hurrying up the flights of stairs. To emerge into the splendour of the main house, however, was as always something of a shock. Gone were the dismal and depressing greys and browns, the old and chipped wooden stairs, the faded and broken linoleum. All this was left behind and with it there came about a lightening of her mood so that her pace quickened and she almost ran down the landing, eager to enter the golden room with its plush surroundings. Lavinia would be there to greet her and for those few precious moments she would be able to discard her disguise and the pretence of being someone else, much as she would claw off those awful spectacles and throw them on to the bed.
Before she could feel herself fully assimilated with her surroundings, however, the door to Lavinia’s bedroom opened. She had scarcely had a chance to knock on it before she found herself pulled inside by the room’s occupant, the door closed firmly behind her.
‘Is this really necessary, Lavinia?’ said Rose indignantly, detaching herself from her friend’s grip. ‘I know you like ringing for me and all, but I’ve only just finished talking to the policemen. I wanted to speak to Pearl before –’
‘Oh, do shush!’ said Lavinia.
Her eyes were bright and there was a radiance about her complexion, which seemed wholly inappropriate given the gravity o
f the occasion. She appeared to Rose like an excited child, keen to impart some illicit information.
‘You’re not the only one who has been investigating, Rose. I have something awfully exciting to tell you.’
‘Blackmail?’ exclaimed Rose. ‘Are you quite sure?’
‘Well, it was you who put the idea into my mind,’ retorted Lavinia. ‘You thought Millicent might have something to hide because of the odd thing she said. You know, about the police assuming she’d killed her lady’s maid.’
‘Well, it seemed such a very strange thing for her to say. It was as if the words escaped from her mouth before she could think what she was saying. And certainly she appeared to regret what she had said. It did make me wonder …’
‘As it did me,’ said Lavinia, clapping her hands together in an excited fashion. ‘As soon as you’d gone, I told her she should tell me everything, that it would be much better if we knew the very worst.’