Murder in the Servants' Hall

by Addison, Margaret

  ‘I’d say! And so she told you?’ said Rose, finding it hard not to sound surprised.

  ‘Yes, as a matter of fact she did,’ said Lavinia. ‘After all, she regards me as a friend. It was only natural that she should want to tell me all about it. She’s been keeping it bottled up inside her all this time. I’m surprised she didn’t burst.’

  ‘So Cooper was blackmailing her,’ said Rose to herself. ‘And what a strange thing to blackmail her over. I suppose Cooper saw an opportunity and took it. I say, it does reek a bit of clutching at straws, doesn’t it? I mean, trying to find something, however far-fetched, to blackmail her over?’’

  ‘If Millicent had anything about her, she would have stood her ground and weathered the storm,’ said Lavinia, making a face. ‘But you know what she’s like, timid as anything and frightened to death of putting a foot wrong. I’d say she was pretty easy prey.’

  ‘And this all started last night?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve told you. Cooper didn’t actually use the word blackmail or threaten Millcent as such. I daresay she was too clever for that. She just hinted and implied, if that makes any sense? Anyway she left poor old Millicent in very little doubt that it would be in her best interests to comply with her wishes.’

  ‘And it provided Mrs Grayson-Smith with a very good motive for wishing her dead.’

  ‘Oh, you can’t possibly think Millicent had anything to do with this Cooper woman’s murder?’ exclaimed Lavinia. ‘Really, Rose I think the woman would have difficulty swatting a fly, don’t you? Hardly murderess material, I would have said.’

  ‘I daresay you are right,’ conceded Rose, sitting on the bed. ‘Though who knows what a desperate person might do?’ She stared at her friend suspiciously. ‘I do hope you advised her to tell the police about the blackmail. They will have to be told and it will be much better if it comes from her own lips.’

  ‘Well, of course I did no such thing. What a very stupid idea, Rose.’ Lavinia gave her an incredulous look. ‘I’m surprised at you, I am really. As you yourself have just said it gives Millicent a perfectly good motive for the murder. I told the poor girl to say nothing at all about it to the police.’

  ‘You didn’t!’

  ‘Well, of course I did. Do you want to see her arrested?’

  ‘Lavinia, she must tell them.’ Rose leapt up from the bed and took her friend by the shoulders, and shook her gently. ‘Lavinia, listen to me. She must tell them before someone else does. It will come out in the end, it always does. Don’t you see? It will look bad for her if it’s thought she tried to conceal it.’

  ‘I don’t see why it should come out,’ replied Lavinia rather sulkily. ‘I jolly well won’t tell them and I hope you shan’t either. You’re just making things worse for poor Milly. Can’t you see that? She feels bad enough thinking ill of the woman and wishing her gone, without having to endure the embarrassment of telling the police about the blackmail. Think of it from her point of view. Can you imagine anything more awful?’

  ‘Yes, I can. Being arrested for murder, for one thing. No,’ said Rose hurriedly, as Lavinia made to protest, ‘hear me out. Even if we all decide to say nothing, it is bound to come out.’

  ‘I don’t see why –’ reiterated Lavinia.

  ‘Because there was another party to it. That’s to say, someone else who knew what had happened and might be tempted to use that knowledge for their own means. I’m not saying that they knew about the blackmail, but they would know Cooper had in her possession information that could be used for such a purpose.’

  ‘You mean –’

  ‘Yes,’ said Rose firmly. ‘Millicent is in a dangerous position. You must encourage her to tell the police about the blackmail before anyone else does.’

  Chapter Twenty

  The three policemen made their way through the green baize door and down the staff staircase, towards the servants’ hall. As they walked, they passed servants in various degrees of occupation, and heard snatches of conversations, undertaken in hushed tones. The effect of their sudden appearance in a territory that was not their own, and to which they were very obvious strangers and interlopers, was not lost on the policemen. It quelled speech and dispersed the staff so completely as to give the impression of fleeing shadows. Without its decoration of staff, the passage became dull and dowdy, only accentuating the changed environment from that of the splendid library to the sombre colours and sparse furniture of the servants’ quarters. The change of setting had a corresponding effect on the mood of each policeman. They had commenced their journey by mulling over one or two particulars of the case and giving voice to such contemplations. Now, however, they were rendered silent as almost unconsciously they took in the drab surroundings, a foretaste to what was awaiting them in the servants’ hall. For it seemed to all of them fitting, somehow, that a person should be murdered in such a climate, far from the ornate backdrop of the main house.

  There was a young, uniformed constable stationed at the door to the murder scene. Until he had spotted the policemen, he had looked rather lost in his own thoughts. Now he saluted them perfunctorily on their arrival. With a sense of occasion, he slowly unlocked the door and the inspector and sergeants entered the room to commence their examination.

  ‘The fingerprint fellows have done their stuff,’ began Sergeant Harris. ‘The police surgeon’s seen the body. Wants it moved to the mortuary, only he knew you’d want to see it first, in situ, so to speak.’

  ‘Quite right,’ muttered the inspector, though he was only half listening, being more interested in looking about him.

  He glanced quickly around the hall, taking in the large, scrubbed wooden table, which appeared the dominant feature of the room. Drawn up to it was rather an ill-assortment of hard backed chairs, in various stages of repair, which looked oddly abandoned, as if each were awaiting its respective occupant. A handful of battered and faded armchairs, far inferior to those that graced the housekeeper’s sitting room, offering only shabby comfort and sagging seats, were clustered around the fireplace. The windows, recessed, and located high up in the walls, gave the room the feeling of something akin to a large, communal prison cell. The men shivered, coming as they did from the light of the library with its large French windows, which commanded an impressive view of the gardens beyond.

  ‘Can’t say I’d enjoy working in this sort of a place myself,’ commented Sergeant Harris, his expression grim. ‘You’d feel like you were buried alive. The wife’s niece is a scullery maid in a grand house like this one. Hardly sees daylight, poor girl.’

  The inspector coughed in an irritated fashion, keen to get down to the business in hand. With this in mind, he strolled purposefully over to the assembly of armchairs, the majority of which had their backs to the door, so that it took him a moment or two to establish which was occupied by the corpse.

  The deceased was propped up in a high-backed armchair, her head slumped a little to one side on the head rest, giving the illusion of someone sleeping. It was only the deathly stillness of the body, the lack of a gentle breathing rhythm or the soft sound of snoring that showed this to be a lie. A step or two closer and the matter was left in no doubt. A great, gaping wound revealed itself on the drooped head. The sight was not a pretty one and the inspector had to steel himself not to take a step or two back in disgust. Sergeant Harris did not appear to share his superior’s feelings of repulsion, for he leapt forward to point out the various particulars of the injury.

  Sergeant Perkins, though wishing to have sight of the deceased to satisfy his natural policeman’s curiosity, held back a little, keen not to be perceived as overstepping the mark in a case in which he was not officially involved. He did not know whether it was out of respect for the deceased, or a desire that the details of the death be kept from him, but whatever the reason Sergeant Harris appeared to keep his voice purposefully low. The consequence of which was that only the odd word floated into the young sergeant’s hearing. It was only by concentrating hard that he obtai
ned the general gist of what was being said. He gathered that Miss Cooper was unlikely to have known anything of the blow that killed her, having her back to the murderer as she had done, and that death would have been instantaneous. He supposed it was a blessing. If one were destined to be murdered, it was best to die quickly and in ignorance of the fact. However, it did mean that Miss Cooper had been provided with no opportunity to defend herself, no chance to see off her assailant and save her life.

  ‘Do we know the murder weapon?’ inquired Inspector Connor, withdrawing from the body with a sense of relief. ‘One might suppose a poker. It would be convenient, being only a few feet away.’

  ‘But it would be hard to get the right angle,’ said Sergeant Harris. ‘Hard to get a good swing too with the deceased sitting as she was in the chair.’

  He paused a moment to give a practical demonstration and then uttered a noise which sounded surprisingly like a chuckle. Given the situation, the inspector looked appalled.

  ‘Oh, I don’t mean to offend you, sir,’ said his sergeant quickly. ‘But it’s a rum go. The murder weapon, we’ve found it, so we have. It was left on that great table over there, as bold as brass. And you’ll never guess what it was, sir, not in a month of Sundays.’

  ‘Get on with it, man,’ grumbled the inspector. ‘There’s no need to make a meal of it. What is this weapon that you are making such a song and dance over?’

  ‘A copper saucepan, sir, of the ordinary sort.’

  ‘A copper saucepan?’ exclaimed Sergeant Perkins before he could stop himself. Sergeant Harris gave him a look of satisfaction.

  ‘Indeed, Sergeant. Bet you didn’t think of that? A copper saucepan that was left for all to see out on that table there. It had blood on it and hair from the deceased.’

  ‘What about fingerprints? Did our chaps find any?’ asked the inspector with a degree of both urgency and optimism.

  ‘They did not, sir.’ For the first time Sergeant Harris lowered his eyes in regret. ‘The handle had been wiped clean. The murderer had enough presence of mind to do that, even if they did leave the saucepan on the table in full view.’

  ‘What was it doing here in the first place?’ demanded the inspector. ‘Shouldn’t it have been in the kitchen or the scullery? Are we saying that our murderer went out into another room to get the saucepan? Certainly sounds like a premeditated crime to me.’

  ‘No, sir,’ said Sergeant Harris. ‘It was here on the table all the time. It was probably the closest weapon to hand. The servants had a custom, you see, a routine you might say. A saucepan of soup was brought into this room at the end of the evening. They all used to help themselves to a cup, them that had to stay up late, that is. The lady’s maid would probably have had a cup after she had helped undress her mistress for the night, the butler after he’d done his final rounds, the –’

  ‘Thank you, Sergeant, I think I get the idea. What you are saying is that they all knew it was here and that the murder might have been a spur of the moment thing. Our murderer wants to do our young lady in, sees the saucepan lying on the table and picks it up. I take it, it was empty?’ he added as an afterthought looking at Sergeant Harris, who nodded.

  ‘Yes, sir, they only had a dribble of soup each, so the butler told us. Just enough to keep them going. Tide them over to breakfast like. A long day some of them had.’

  ‘Yes,’ muttered Inspector Connor, as if to himself. ‘Else there would have been soup slopped all over the place. And a copper saucepan would have been an easy enough weapon to wield. If you got a good grip on the handle, that is. You could have come straight up to the chair like this and … hello, what’s this? One of those women’s magazines, if I’m not mistaken. Our lady here was probably reading it, proper engrossed in it, she probably was. Least my wife is when she’s reading one of these things. Have to shout to get her attention, so I do. So, our Miss Cooper here is reading her magazine. Our murderer creeps up behind her –’

  ‘Or perhaps she knows the murderer is in the room but is not afraid of him,’ suggested Sergeant Perkins, thinking it was about time he made a contribution. ‘We’re thinking that the murderer was one of the servants, after all. It would be quite natural for him to be here in this room.’

  ‘Well, there would have been that of course,’ conceded Inspector Connor rather gruffly. He resented the interruption when he was in full flow, as he called it. ‘Either way, there would have been nothing to stop our murderer pausing while he took careful aim. The first blow would have stunned the deceased, the second or third would have killed her. All a matter of a few seconds’ work, I’d have said, certainly less than a minute.’

  ‘And that’s not all,’ said Sergeant Perkins, suddenly finding himself keen to exert his expertise as a Scotland Yard detective. ‘It wouldn’t have taken much force. The murderer would have had the opportunity to take careful aim as you’ve said and the saucepan would have been an easy enough thing to wield, particularly as our murderer would have been able to come right up behind the victim without being observed.’

  ‘Yes, yes, we’ve said all that, Sergeant,’ said Sergeant Harris, looking at the young man with a degree of irritation. ‘Unless of course you’ve something else to add? I’m sure we’d love to hear your pearls of wisdom.’

  ‘Yes, we would,’ said Inspector Connor firmly, resenting his sergeant’s tone when addressing his nephew. ‘Out with it, Charlie.’

  ‘It is only that it occurred to me that it would have been just as easy for a woman to have done the deed as a man, that’s all,’ said Sergeant Perkins. ‘Why, there’s no saying that the little scullery maid that found her couldn’t have done her in.’

  ‘Well, I suppose that’s possible,’ admitted the inspector rather grudgingly. He exchanged a look with his sergeant, who nodded reluctantly. ‘It seems a very vicious act for a woman to do. The attack, it looks almost frenzied, doesn’t it? I suppose a girl might have done it, if she were angry enough, whipped up into a fury and all.’

  ‘It doesn’t seem very likely, sir,’ said Sergeant Harris. ‘Tiny little mite the scullery maid is, and the kitchen maid not much better. Hardly anything to them, all skin and bones.’

  ‘You will admit, however, that it is possible a woman might have done this crime?’ said Sergeant Perkins somewhat impatiently, moving out of the shadows to stand next to the corpse.

  As always, he saw in the inert body indications and suggestions of what the person might have been like in life. She had been young and pretty, he could tell that even with only one side of her head fully intact. The fact made the deed seem more awful somehow, as if destroying beauty rather than plainness was a horrendous act in itself. Of course it was irrational, all life being sacred. But he felt himself moved as he contemplated the waste of a bright, young life. He thought there were indications about the face that she had been an intelligent woman; the high, smooth brow, the clear dark eyes, blank and glazed now, but which in life would have been bright and animated. He thought he detected also a haughtiness about her. It was difficult to tell with her head slumped over on one side as it was, but he imagined that she had carried herself well. In different clothes she might well have been mistaken for a lady, rather than a servant. Now, however, the black dress was strangely appropriate and fitting for the occasion. It reminded him of widow’s weeds. Inwardly, he uttered a sigh of relief. They had Rose, he must remember that. She would tell them what this woman had been like in life, whether she had been despised or well-liked, whether anyone would miss her now that she was gone.

  The three policemen traipsed out of the room quietly and thoughtfully. They barely acknowledged the constable on the door, a clear vision of the deceased still occupying the better part of their minds, obliterating all else, so that they were hardly aware of his presence. Each felt that he would retain the image of the dead woman, that it would linger in his head as they interviewed each witness and suspect, a woman with a gaping wound, cut down in her prime. Even as they made their way back to the librar
y, they wondered who could have done such a thing. More than likely, it had been a fellow servant, someone who had sat beside her at meal times, had laughed and cried with her, had shared a joke and endured the same miserable existence below stairs. It didn’t seem possible, but they would find out in the end who was responsible; they would see that justice was done.

  Rose hurried down the hateful, mean little staircases and associated passages back to the servants’ territory. Once again she reflected how easy it would be to miss one’s footing on the steps and come tumbling down. The atmosphere appeared to her to have become more oppressive, as if the staircases and passages were bearing down on her like evergreens in a forest, dark and brooding, shutting out the light. Certainly it was as if the very house appeared to begrudge the space the servants’ quarters occupied, as if the area behind the green baize door had been torn unwillingly from the main house by force. As a consequence, the servants’ living conditions had been made as cramped as possible, forcing a large number of staff into a relatively small space. Rose thought back to the spacious dimensions of the library, a room which she imagined was often left empty and unoccupied for days on end.

  She sighed and tried to rid herself of her indignation, forcing herself to consider the matter in hand. She supposed that it was just possible that the policemen were still viewing the body. While she experienced a natural revulsion at the idea of undertaking such a task herself, she admitted it was not without merit. She had gleaned very little from Edna as to the cause of death or the weapon used. Understandably, the girl had still been in shock and consequently Rose had not pressed her on the matter. Now, however, it was imperative that she find out as much as she could. At any moment, she felt, the policemen were likely to decide to banish her from the house or, at the very least, reveal her identity to all, making any attempt to carry out her own investigation nigh on impossible.

  Rose allowed her mind to drift back to her recent conversation with Lavinia. She wondered if she had impressed upon the girl sufficiently the importance of Millicent Grayson-Smith advising the police herself that she was being blackmailed by the deceased. Knowing her friend as she did, it was the sort of thing Lavinia might dismiss as soon as Rose had walked out of the door, certain that she knew best. Rose had been sorely tempted to go and knock on Millicent’s door and speak to the woman herself. Only her desire to speak to Edna and Pearl as soon as possible had prevented her from doing just that. She could not be in two places at once. She must leave Millicent to act as she thought best and as her own conscience dictated. It was difficult to tell if there was wisdom or intelligence behind those frightened eyes. What little she had seen of the woman did not inspire confidence. Perhaps, though, Millicent suffered only from nerves and an inferiority complex, and faced with officialdom would do her duty and disclose all.