Mrs. Gamble stared at me, round-eyed. “How could it?”
“This house has many pipes and wires for bellpulls and gas and plumbing behind the walls. It’s a modern house, with conveniences not found in older homes in Mayfair.” I’d noticed last evening that the Berkeley Square house did not have a dumbwaiter—the overworked footman carried in and took out all the dishes. The duchess had reached for a silver handbell while Lady Covington had buttons she could use to summon whichever servant she wished. “The dining room here is five steps up from the main floor, and those steps run next to the central staircase. The dumbwaiter goes straight to the dining room, but there is a maintenance hatch through which one can access it in the servants’ back stairs.”
I did not offer to leap up and show her, and Mrs. Gamble showed no inclination for me to do so.
“Goodness,” she said. “Then anyone in the house could have done it. All the servants use the back stairs, and Mr. Jonathan and Miss Harriet run down here anytime they’re feeling peckish.”
“No,” I said slowly. “Not anyone.” I scanned the kitchen once more, noting the spacious feel of it, but also how quiet it was, how lonely. The faded photograph of the man tacked onto the wall surveyed us mournfully. “I realized, as I thought things through in my kitchen last night, that the person who would have the easiest time poisoning the food is you.”
Mrs. Gamble clenched her teacup and stared in bewilderment. “Me? If you are joking, Mrs. Holloway, it is in poor taste.”
“I admit, I highly suspected Jepson of doctoring Lady Covington’s powders,” I said. “But only some of them. The packet Lady Cynthia had tested was a simple laxative.”
“Her ladyship does have trouble with her digestion, it is true,” Mrs. Gamble said. “But it could not have been me, as you know, so please rid yourself of that notion. Whenever I cook food for Lady Covington alone, she’s as right as rain. No sickness whatsoever.”
“Of course not.” I nodded. “If a meal you made only for Lady Covington killed her, everyone would immediately suspect you. So those meals had to be perfectly good. You wanted the poison to seep in when she ate what everyone else did, so that it could be seen as accidental, or done by someone poisoning the food once it left the kitchen.”
This idea had come to me last night as I’d mused. The cook would have the easiest time poisoning the food, but of course, she’d be the first suspected. I’d stumbled over the fact that the meals Mrs. Gamble fixed for Lady Covington alone held no poison at all, but then realized it was very convenient that they did not make her ill. Someone other than Mrs. Gamble trying to kill Lady Covington would surely take the opportunity to poison any meal they could, especially one they’d not partake in. Jepson could have dropped the ground rhodies into a dish while she attended Lady Covington in her chamber. Harriet or Jonathan could pop in to visit their mother as she ate and introduce it to the food when she was distracted. Even George might have found an excuse to speak to Lady Covington when she took one of these private meals.
Mrs. Gamble had ensured that nothing happened to her mistress at all when she prepared the special dinners, deflecting all suspicion from her.
Mrs. Gamble sat very still, her hand with the teacup suspended. “That hamper on the train. It was supposed to be for her ladyship. She weren’t supposed to share it. So how, if I did nothing to what I made for her alone, did that food get poisoned?”
“Because you poisoned it,” I said bluntly. “Lady Covington had grown suspicious of her bouts of illness and, when she met me at the Crystal Palace, asked for my help. My friend Mr. McAdam coming around and asking you about it likely put the wind up as well. Lady Covington had heard of me helping solve a theft and a poisoning not far from this house. When I started poking about, asking you, Jepson, and Mr. Symes many questions, you realized I might expose you. And so you struck. Sending off a hamper of food that would be passed through several hands and could have been tampered with at any time. Meanwhile, you are shocked and protest your innocence.” I leaned to her, just missing the plate of lemon cake. “The horrible thing is, you didn’t mind if those Lady Covington shared the food with grew ill or even died. You murdered Mrs. Hume. She had a child, who is now both motherless and fatherless.”
“A child?” Mrs. Gamble drew back, stunned. “What are you talking about? She had no children.”
“Mrs. Hume had a little boy in secret, who will never understand what happened to his mother. Or perhaps one day he will. Will he seek revenge as well, I wonder?”
Mrs. Gamble’s shock gradually faded. She tapped my plate. “Eat the lemon cake, Mrs. Holloway, while you tell me this rigmarole. It will go to waste otherwise.”
I did not touch the fork. “Is that what it was about, Mrs. Gamble? Revenge?” I glanced at the photograph once more. Cooks were discouraged, even forbidden, depending on one’s mistress, from having personal belongings in kitchens. The man in the photograph must be quite dear to her.
I thought she would not answer me, which would be unfortunate, but at my last word, Mrs. Gamble’s artlessness fell away, and her voice went hard. “Yes.”
“Because of the railway accident?”
Mrs. Gamble’s chest rose with her quick breath. “The train that wrecked at Heyford. January twenty-second, 1875.” She said this without inflection, as though she’d repeated the facts time and again.
“You worked in a house in Oxfordshire, I remember you saying.” I gentled my tone. “Who did you lose in the crash?”
“My husband and my son.” Her voice was a rasp. “They’d gone to Oxford, to see my husband’s mum. They caught that train on the way home.” Mrs. Gamble gripped her teacup, rocking in her chair, her gaze faraway. “A few faulty wheels, they said. How could one set of wheels tip over an entire train? There was Lord Covington, who never had any family on that train, saying to people that it wasn’t the railway’s fault. Why, even Mr. Morris, who should have looked into such things, had been killed. The fault was with the brakeman who didn’t stop the train, his lordship claimed. The brakeman was hurt so badly he died too, and couldn’t answer for himself.”
“But those who investigated the crash said the railway was at fault,” I pointed out. “The board had to stop that service and pay out to the families.”
“They did.” Mrs. Gamble acknowledged this with a nod. “You know what I received? Ten pound.” Her lip curled. “Ten pound, for the loss of me husband and me beloved little boy, while Lord Covington marries Mr. Morris’s widow and brings her to this great house. She loudly says her husband was innocent of all that blood. That Lord Covington was too. Both those men were dead by the time I was able to be hired here, but I could get at her.”
I said nothing as her words rang out, her grief and rage filling the space. “I understand,” I said quietly. “It’s a helpless feeling, when we can’t protect our children. When we should protect them. But you killed an innocent, Mrs. Gamble. One who tried to protect her child.”
“Mrs. Hume didn’t have no children,” Mrs. Gamble insisted.
“She did. She kept it very private.” I let Mrs. Gamble contemplate that for a moment. “Last night I was made to realize how anger and sorrow, nursed for years, can emerge as bitter hatred. How they can twist a good person inside until there is nothing left of her. I also realized how dangerous vengeance can be. One death avenged can lead to revenge for that one, and on it goes. It must stop, Mrs. Gamble.”
“She ought to pay.” Large tears formed in Mrs. Gamble’s eyes and spilled down her cheeks. “Her ladyship’s husband cost me my man, and my son, and she goes on and on about how good her husband was, what a grand thing it is to run a railway. I got ten pound for me flesh and blood, and she and those like her reaped a huge reward. She deserves to die.”
“She lost both her husbands, and now a stepdaughter,” I reminded her.
“She should lose it all.”
Mrs. Gamble dashe
d her teacup to the table. It shattered, splashing me with warm tea and shards of porcelain. I rose quickly and stepped away, and Mrs. Gamble snatched up the plate of lemon cake and flung it to the floor. The plate broke into several pieces, the cake spattering across my boots.
“Yes, I did it, Mrs. Holloway,” she said, climbing to her feet. “I ground up the rhodies like you said, and laced her ladyship’s favorite foods with it. I was patient—when I was first hired here, I’d sneak up to the dining room and watch what she did at table, how she took the top portion of every dish like it was her due, and the rest of the family sat back and let her. Lady Covington must have the first, and best, of everything. I watched and noted and started to experiment. I put in only a little at first so if the wrong person took the food, they wouldn’t die. But she ate the poisoned fish or piece of chicken I’d coated with herbs mixed with the rhodies and grew ill. It was a happy day when the experiment succeeded. I wasn’t quite prepared to kill her at first—it pleased me to see her sick and miserable. She needed to suffer, like I had. I’d have kept on like that, but she then decided her illness was from more than her digestion, and she had to go and bring you in. By then, I wanted her to die. Her being sick weren’t enough anymore. She was supposed to eat all that lemon cake I packed in the hamper. She couldn’t stop praising it, first good word she’s ever had about my cooking—and it were your recipe. It ain’t my fault that Mrs. Hume, who I now learn was a hussy after all, gobbled down the lot.”
Mrs. Gamble rushed around the table but not to attack me. She headed for the back door, trying to make her escape.
I could not seize her in time, but I did not need to. That door flew open, and Inspector McGregor, followed by Symes, Daniel, and Caleb, barreled into the room, Symes wearing a thunderous expression.
Mrs. Gamble snarled and headed for the back stairs, but Jonathan darted out from the servants’ hall and caught her. Mrs. Gamble fought him, and Caleb and Daniel rushed to Jonathan’s aid.
“Mrs. Silas Gamble,” Inspector McGregor intoned as she struggled against the three men, “I am arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Mrs. Jeremiah Hume. I will inform your mistress, who will help you find a solicitor.”
“I don’t want nothing from her,” Mrs. Gamble shouted. “I want her dead.”
After she screamed the word, the fight went out of her. She collapsed into Caleb, who was trying to put cuffs on her wrists. Jonathan held her upright, a look of surprising compassion on his face.
“Take her out, Constable,” Inspector McGregor said to Caleb. “Yes, Mrs. Holloway, I heard it all.”
“So did I, by Jove,” Jonathan said. “I nipped down here for a bit of quiet and to pinch something from the larder. Then Gamble starts raving about railway accidents and how she tried to poison my mother.”
“I hope you did not eat the lemon cake,” I said in alarm. “Inspector, you should gather up the remains. There is rhododendron poison in it.”
Mrs. Gamble glared at me as Caleb and Daniel guided her to the back door. “Why wouldn’t you eat the bloody cake, Mrs. Holloway? You’d have died when you got home and saved me a world of trouble.”
“Because I’ve made a dozen batches of it since Lady Covington demanded the recipe,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “I’ve quite gone off it.”
27
Thank you.” Lady Covington, in her cavernous and silent parlor upstairs, clasped her hands held against her abdomen. “You have relieved my mind as well as saved my life. I’d thought I was a madwoman.” She waved me to a chair. “Please sit, Mrs. Holloway. Lady Cynthia. I cannot express my gratitude enough.”
She’d softened a long way since I had come upstairs to explain what the commotion downstairs had been about. Daniel had departed with Inspector McGregor and Caleb, all of whom I’d summoned via James. I’d had no wish to confront a murderer without them on hand both to hear her admit her guilt and arrest her.
Jonathan had ushered us upstairs to where his mother sat in the parlor with Harriet and Lady Cynthia, and he’d filled in my story with excitement.
“She deliberately came to this house with intent to kill me?” Lady Covington asked now. Jepson carried in a tea tray, which she set on the table before Lady Covington. Her lips were set in anger, as usual, but she didn’t sneer at me as fiercely as before.
“She did,” I said. “She was willing to wait as long as it took to procure the post. Poor woman. Her tragedy broke her.”
“I think Mrs. Holloway is jolly brave,” Jonathan declared. “She sat down with a murderess and drank tea she poured.”
“It came from the same pot, and I waited for her to drink first,” I said. “I suspected the cream and sugar, but those were fine as well. I didn’t eat the cake, because while she nibbled a crumb, that crumb could have come from a previous slice, or she knew such a tiny amount wouldn’t hurt her.”
“Why didn’t she come to me?” Lady Covington broke in. “Why didn’t she tell me what she’d suffered? I too lost a husband in that accident. I know no one believes it, but my heart was broken. I was a long time recovering. Lord Covington’s kindness and understanding about it is why I married him, once I could breathe again.”
She glanced up at his portrait. Lord Covington gazed down at us no less formidably, but I fancied I saw a gleam of relief in his eyes.
“She was treated a bit unfairly,” I said, accepting a cup of tea Lady Covington herself poured. Jepson, instead of departing, planted herself next to the sofa. I sipped the tea, pleased to find it of much better quality than what I’d been served downstairs. “As is usual. Those with more to lose are less compensated.”
“Well, I’d have done right by her. Poor woman, indeed. To have lost a son.” Lady Covington glanced swiftly at Jonathan and shook her head, her eyes holding sadness. “I must apologize to you, Mrs. Holloway, and to you, Lady Cynthia, for my behavior and short temper these last weeks. Not knowing when you will take poison and who is administering it made me quite cross. But you soldiered through. I am grateful. Please believe me.”
“Good riddance, I say,” Jepson snapped. “You can feel sorry for her all you like, your ladyship, but she made you and your brother quite ill and killed poor Mrs. Hume. Thank heavens Sir Arthur has a strong constitution and weren’t harmed by it. She’s wicked and will get what she deserves.”
“There is some truth to what you say,” Lady Covington admitted. “But if I’d known, if I’d found out more about her, Erica might have been spared.”
“Perhaps,” Jepson said with a shrug. “I think she was eaten up with anger, and it wouldn’t have made a difference if you’d tried to help her. I never liked that woman.” She sent a glare to me, as though daring me to argue.
I pretended to ignore her. “Your ladyship, if I could be so impertinent as to ask a boon? Not for me, but for Mrs. Hume.”
Lady Covington raised her brows, but Jonathan cleared his throat. “I already told her, Mrs. Holloway. About Henry.”
Lady Covington inclined her head. “I was shocked, naturally, but thinking it through, it is not so surprising. Erica’s husband treated her dreadfully, and so she sought comfort elsewhere. I will meet Henry and do all I can for him. After all, he is part of the family.”
I let out a breath, relaxing. I’d come to know that Lady Covington had a good heart beneath her imperious manner.
Jonathan sent me a wink over his raised teacup. “I’ve also talked her and George into giving Mr. Amos a promotion.”
Harriet gasped, her face going crimson. “Jonathan.”
Lady Covington bathed Jonathan in a disapproving look. “I was not going to state it so bluntly until the deed was done, but yes. Mr. Amos will assist another member of the board who oversees its finances. Mr. Amos is clever with numbers, apparently.”
“George approved of this?” Harriet asked in amazement.
Jonathan grinned. “Let us say I put it to him
in terms he could not dismiss. He was quite agreeable, in the end.”
He shot me a sly look, confirming that he’d used his knowledge of George’s private life to leverage Mr. Amos’s promotion. I was glad of George’s capitulation for Harriet’s and Mr. Amos’s sake but not certain I liked Jonathan’s methods of going about it.
I finished the polite tea with Lady Covington, who looked thankful to put her worries about the poisoner behind her, and then I departed the overly elegant and muffled house, leaving Cynthia to continue her visit. I had a more pressing appointment to keep.
* * *
* * *
I spent the remainder of my afternoon with Grace, squeezing her hard when I greeted her. Grace held me tightly in return, always sensing when I was in distress.
We took a short stroll together, and I held her hand the entire time. The tale of the railway crash had stirred my deepest fears. How could I keep Grace safe when I could not be with her at all times? If she journeyed on a train without me, would I be approached by a constable telling me of a railway accident that had taken her from me?
Any accident could do that, I knew, from the carts that rumbled past us on the road to the bricks falling from a building undergoing repair. I could never guarantee my daughter’s safety, and that had me clinging to her today.
I kissed Grace good-bye at the end of the afternoon and went home, tears in my eyes.
I had little to tell Tess when I reached the house, because Caleb had stopped to see her and had given her the entire tale. Tess surprised me with tea already prepared and tea cakes made specially for me—no lemon in them at all.
Mrs. Redfern, who had no notion of my adventures, came down while Tess and I prepared supper, to inform me that Lord and Lady Clifford had decided to stay in Town, in this house, for the remainder of the Season. They’d postpone deciding what to do about Cynthia until late in June, when they would return to the country.
Death at the Crystal Palace Page 27