by Jean Stubbs
‘Ah, he’s a lucky man, that butler! Tell me, Kate, how was your master unkind to your mistress? He didn’t ill-treat her, surely?’
‘He would never lay a ringer on her, sir, if that’s what you mean. But there’s more ways than one of being cruel, and he knew them. I’ve seen her cry many a time. I’ve heard them quarrel – not to know what they said, just their voices raised. And the last months, since the summer, she couldn’t sleep at all except she took one of her capsules. And she was always ailing in little ways.’
Lintott was quiet, doodling, waiting.
‘She needs a deal of kindness and attention,’ said Kate, ‘and he never cared for her. No, sir, he didn’t. She was no more to him than his china collection. Oh, he liked to hear people say how handsome she was, but he never cared himself. The night after he died, sir, she slept like a child.’
‘Without a sleeping capsule, even?’ Lintott observed. ‘Because they had all gone and she was afraid to say so. And still she slept like a child – after all the upset?’
Kate looked frightened, but he did not appear to notice.
‘Why did you take that package of letters to your mistress, Kate? Instead of directly to your master, as you were told. Don’t tell me he was resting. That’s all gammon, my dear.’
‘I knew what that woman was, sir. A common streetwalker, tor all her dress. It was only right that my mistress should know what was going on.’
‘That’s the reply I should expect of Harriet, not you. Harriet would think that Mrs Crozier should know what was going on. I’d have said that you might have taken care not to hurt Mrs Crozier’s feelings, and keep it from her. What good did you hope to do?’
Kate repeated obstinately, ‘She had a right to know, sir. Why should he get away with it?’
‘Ah, but he did – up to a point – didn’t he? And would always do so, as long as Mrs Crozier needed a roof over her head and a pretty gown to wear. So whatever you or she might feel about him, he always would get away with it. Wouldn’t he?’
‘Yes, sir,’ very low.
‘Do you know what I wondered, Kate. I wondered if you didn’t let her know out of a mistaken sense of delicacy.’
‘I don’t rightly understand you, sir.’
‘Didn’t you think that your mistress was in love with Mr Titus, and perhaps guilty of unfaithfulness to her husband? Didn’t you suspect that she tormented herself over it? Didn’t you think that what was hell for the goose should be hell for the gander? Excuse me using strong language, my dear, I associate with a very low class of person in my profession! And didn’t you think that if you took her that very accurate description of a trollop, and the package that felt like letters, possibly love-letters, she might feel a bit better?’
Stricken, Kate persisted. ‘There was nothing between them but family fondness. And not a policeman in the land’ll ever make me say anythink different in court!’
Her vehemence had destroyed her gentility for the moment. She sat, all defences down, endeavouring to gather the rags of her ladyhood about her.
‘I know you would never say so, Kate. I just wanted to find out whether you thought so. And I have found out, Kate.’
She was mute.
‘You’re a good girl, Kate, and a clever girl,’ said Lintott kindly, ‘but you’ll have to get up a deal earlier in the morning to get past me, my dear. Having settled that question we can go on to a few others, that are more important. I believe that you were the only member of the staff to accept the idea of Mr Crozier’s taking his own life. Was that because it seemed the best way out for your mistress, or had you a good reason? The truth, mind!’
She had recovered herself, and met the challenge with some spirit.
‘No, sir. I thought at first that he’d had a stroke, like the doctor said. Then, when it come – came out, that didn’t surprise me neither. Mr Crozier was a brooding sort of gentleman. Very inward-looking. Very close.’
‘You don’t think that Mr Titus might have poisoned him, then?’
She said scornfully, ‘He’s not clever enough for that, sir.’
‘Well, well. Not even with a decanter full of port to hide the pills, my dear?’
‘Oh, that, sir! They don’t half talk! Mr Titus was just smoothing him down because they’d had a set-to. How would anybody grind up all them – those pills without being noticed? Besides, there was nearly twenty of them.’
‘Someone suggested they might have been disguised as medicine, Kate.’
‘A whole bottleful, sir? They must be off their heads!’
‘I tell you what occurred to me,’ said Lintott idly. ‘Someone might be laying the blame on your mistress by means of that bottle. There’s nothing to prevent a person dosing a man with three grains of morphine and throwing away a bottleful of capsules, so it looks as though they were the culprits!’
She was startled, questioning him with her eyes.
‘Only a theory, my love,’ said Lintott comfortably. ‘I’ve developed a very nasty mind, along of dealing with the wrong sort for so many years.’
He saw he had puzzled her, but not disturbed her.
‘Why should he commit suicide, my love?’ Lintott asked.
*
‘Laura! Laura! You have not, I hope, read this copy of the Pall Mall Gazette?’
‘I have not had time, Theodore. I have been out to tea.’
‘Then observe that this is what I consider it to be worth!’ And he tore it across and across, and tossed it on the drawing-room fire, as though she were personally responsible.
‘Why, what has Mr Stead done to offend you?’ she asked, for the magazine had become yet another means to explore the world outside, and she cherished it.
‘He has turned to the gutters for his information, in order to sell this scurrilous rag. I will not have my household corrupted, made filthy even by sight or contact. If I wished to wallow in man’s depravity I should study the criminal reports. I thought him a person of some integrity, though his views are not always mine. Still, one must keep an open mind. Now I know him to be a scoundrel who would sell his birthright for a mess of pottage.’
Kate, setting out her evening tray of wines and spirits, was noiseless: effacing herself.
‘But, Mr Crozier,’ said Laura quietly, addressing his most majestic self with due respect, ‘if what Mr Stead has discovered is the truth, surely we should give him a hearing?’
‘I have observed in you, madam, a tendency to romanticism and indulgence. There is right and there is wrong. One strives for the one and denounces and abhors the other.’
‘Are human beings so perfect, Mr Crozier? You yourself contribute to many charities, giving money – for which I honour you – to those who have in some way fallen from grace.’
‘But I do not mingle with them, madam. I would rather see you dead at my feet than dishonoured. I would rather my sons were taken in the flower of their youth than they should explore the sewers of this wicked world. I uphold the sanctity of the home, the virtue of women, the innocence of children. And I say this to you, madam – if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off! Kate! What are you doing?’
‘Your glass of Madeira, sir,’ withdrawing as quietly as she had come.
*
‘You are saying that your master was a hypocrite, my dear?’ Lintott asked.
‘Oh no, sir. He meant every word of it. You could always tell when the master was on his hobby-horse. He got quite passionate, and forgot that murmur at his heart. If he was just angry with the mistress he’d shout and rave, and then clutch his chest like and have to lay down. And we was – were – all running after him in consequence. I’m saying he truly meant it. But folks are human. He held himself very tight, sir. They’re the sort that fall hardest and regret it most.’
‘You’re an observant lass,’ said Lintott, regarding her.
‘He stayed out late at nights, sir, as long as I can remember – and I’ve been with the mistress since Miss Blanche was a baby. Mrs Crozier didn’t seem to mind or
to notice until recently, and then she began to fret herself. But I saw a difference in him the last year. Once or twice he forgot his key, and I went down to let him in. I sleep light, sir, unless I’m poorly.’
The dark brooding face on the doorstep, the apology that was mere outward good manners. The heavy body shrugging from its greatcoat, turning away.
‘Before last year, when he’d been out late, he’d march straight into the drawing-room and pour himself a glass of spirits. He never wanted any attendance – just used to say, “That will be all, Kate!” – but the next morning I’d notice how much he’d had. He never looked any different. He could carry his drink like a gentleman, but he drank heavy, as if he wanted to drown hisself.’
She was losing her gentility as the remembrance wrapped her about, and Lintott smiled slightly and listened attentively.
‘Then what happened last year, Kate, my love?’
‘He changed, sir. Oh, he was still carrying the sins of the world on his shoulders, as my poor mother used to say, but he was different. Used to smile to hisself. It must have been that woman as did it. Though what he seen in her I’ll never know! But he cared somethink for somebody, that was certain. You can tell, sir. He seemed like weighted down and lighted up all at once. You see, sir,’ cried Kate, at last finding an intelligence to which she could unburden herself, ‘they’re all a-sniggering behind their hands, and saying as he had a loose woman, but what does it matter what she was if he saw her different?’
‘I’m with you, Kate. You’re saying he was in love with her?’
‘Yes, sir, and pulled down with the influenza and his own ailments – and whatever Dr Padgett said would make no difference, Mr Crozier looked on hisself as a sick man. Gentleman, I mean,’ recollecting her status and his. ‘So supposing he really cared somethink for this – woman – and she’d got all she wanted out of him, and then blackmailed him atop of it? And him already a religious man that knew he’d done wrong. Isn’t that enough, sir, to drive him to it? Besides …’
But she had run her course, and was sorry she had said so much.
‘Besides what, Kate, my dear? You’ve given me change for a gold guinea already – another few coppers won’t harm us!’
It was what you said about somebody trying to blame Mrs Crozier by throwing her pills out, and taking morphine so as it looked like she’d done it. May God forgive me if I wrong him,’ cried Kate, perplexed, ‘but he fair hated Mrs Crozier. He might have thought as there was nothink left to live for, and he’d see she didn’t live to enjoy herself neither!’
15
A smattering of everything, and a knowledge of nothing.
Sketches by Boz – Charles Dickens
LINTOTT wasted no subtlety on Harriet, who was anxious only to oblige him without implicating herself. Twenty years of age, in service with the Croziers since she was fourteen, wages twenty-pounds, no talent for cookery and too clumsy to wait at table or on her mistress.
‘Would you like to be a cook then, Harriet?’ Lintott asked amiably.
‘Not really, sir. But I’d like to do what Kate Kipping do.’
‘And what does Kate do? I’m very ignorant about these matters, my dear.’
‘Well, sir,’ Harriet’s mild brown eyes fixed on a distant and enchanting prospect, ‘she don’t do no rough work, on account of her hands. She has to keep them nice for sewing, and brushing of Mrs Crozier’s hair and that. And she has a nicer uniform than me, with frills on it, and a little cap, and a better quality gown. And she answers the front door, and speaks very soft, and Mrs Crozier talks to her – and I’d like that, sir.’
‘Of course you would, my love. You’d be very good at it, too, given time.’
She was pink with pleasure, and then faded with recollection.
‘I made a proper mess of it, the night as Kate had the influenza, and I feel as I started the master off on one of his tantrums like. I might,’ said Harriet, eyes rounding, ‘have been the cause of it all!’
Lintott tutted and shook his head, smiling.
‘Cook told me off, proper,’ said Harriet, abased. ‘I dropped the tureen on the carpet, and knocked his pudding over.’
Lintott gave a snort of amusement. She glanced at him timidly, and smiled.
‘Now I want you to help me, Harriet,’ said Lintott casually. ‘I know you’re a quick girl, and a noticing one.’ Harriet concentrated, in an effort to be all that he desired in the way of a witness. ‘I understand you made one or two mistakes at table – that’s beside the point, and don’t matter – but can you tell me how each of them reacted? I want that evening in front of me like a picture. Just keep talking. I’ll follow.’
And through the labryrinth of an untrained mind, particular as to detail and hopeless as to construction, he did follow: holding the thread firmly as Harriet digressed and repeated herself and corrected first impressions. He saw Theodore: cat-cruel, unreasonable, tyrannical. He saw Laura: baited, desperate, full of suppressed anger. He saw Titus: provoked at last into some chivalry of consequence. He drained the decanter of port to its last bitter dregs.
‘I’ve become quite attached to that decanter,’ said Lintott mildly. ‘It’s quite a favourite of mine! I wish somebody had thought to keep it and put my mind at rest. Now why didn’t Mrs Crozier go to bed if her husband was comfortable? And how long did she stay up, or don’t you know?’
Excited, Harriet cried, ‘Until midnight, sir, or a bit past. She come to the attic and woke me up because she wanted …’
‘A lady’s maid?’ Lintott suggested chivalrously, since Harriet’s face had ‘stays’ written all over it.
‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. And I heard the clock strike twelve after I got back in bed.’
‘And why did the lady stay up so late, do you think, my dear?’
‘She liked a bit of P. and Q., as Mrs Hill says. She liked being by herself, and they’d had ever such a to-do, sir.’
‘Well, everybody’s very good at doing my job for me,’ said Lintott cheerfully, knowing he could get nothing more from her, ‘so what’s your opinion of this sad affair, Harriet? Throw a bit of light on it, forme!’
‘Well, sir, it’s plain to me as that Woman did it. Mr Titus and the mistress, sir, are too much the lady and gentleman to do a thing of that sort. Besides,’ leaning forward, ‘they don’t see nothink beyond Each Other. It’s a Passion, sir, like in the novelettes.’
‘Now this is a new line,’ Lintott purred. ‘How did the Woman do it, do you suppose, Harriet? Crept into the house at midnight, crushed up a mort of pills into the port, just in case Mr Crozier felt like a glass some time, and then waited to see what would happen?’
‘She Poisoned the Letters, sir. In The Duchess of Tramura, sir, the Duchess got a Eyetalian Poisoner to Poison a Letter, and wrote it to her Husband. And he Writhed, sir, on the ground, and cried, “My God, my God, I am Undone!”’
Lintott strove to find one corner of this wild narrative that could be pinned down, and failed.
‘I suppose it’s no use asking you why she did that, Harriet, is it?’
‘Because All was Over, sir, don’t you see?’
‘I’m a bit fogged at the moment, my love, but I’m doing my best. While I’m just working it all out you’d better go back to the kitchen, I think.’
‘Yes, sir. Thank you.’ She hovered, obviously in great doubt and confusion. ‘I think there’s somethink else I ought to tell you, sir – only it might upset Mrs Crozier if ever she got to hear about it. And Mrs Hill.’
‘You can trust me, Harriet. Cross my heart and hope to die! Split, girl!’
‘That evening as I was waiting on,’ said poor Harriet, ‘I dropped the saddle of mutton on the kitchen stairs.’
‘Yes, Harriet?’
‘That’s it, sir. I thought, with you being an inspector, as you might find out and then tell the mistress. So I’m a-telling of you first, so as you won’t.’
Lintott’s face was a study in amazement. He recovered sufficiently t
o ask a final question.
‘What did you do when you dropped it, Harriet?’
‘Wiped it on my apron, sir, and served it up. But don’t tell, sir.’
Lintott looked down at the desk sternly.
‘You did well to confess, Harriet,’ he said at last. ‘You were quite right. We’ll say no more about it. Off with you, my dear.’
She dropped a curtsey, relieved, delighted. Lintott sat staring at the door for a full minute after she had closed it. Then he shook his head from side to side and laughed out loud.
‘The dimmest of the lot!’ he said to himself, admonishing the hound who had followed a wrong scent. ‘The dimmest of the lot of them, John Joseph – and she had you hanging on to every word! Lor’ bless my soul for a Dutchman, if she didn’t fool me for a moment!’ He laughed again, even more heartily this time, and wiped his eyes on a coloured handkerchief, which he replaced in a side pocket. ‘You’ve smelled so many rats,’ he told himself, ‘that you can smell ’em when they’re nothing but one mouse as drops the mutton on the kitchen stairs!’
*
‘And whose side are you on, Mr Hann?’ Lintott asked drily.
‘I don’t rightly understand you, sir.’
‘Your master’s, I suppose, since he was good to you. We’ll just run through the details and then we can get down to the particulars. You’re Henry Hann. Sixty years of age. Wages, twenty shillings a week and board, and a room over the stables. Fond of your glass. Well, ain’t we all? The late Mr Crozier took you on because you couldn’t get a situation. Made a condition that you didn’t drink before you drove the family, but undertook not to notice if you drank in your own time. Am I right?’
The coachman nodded, stout and crimson-faced, though the crimson owed more to alcohol than to confusion.
‘You thought a great deal of your late master, and rightly so, Mr Hann. What do you think about your mistress?’
‘A gracious lady, sir.’
‘She has her enemies, even in her own household, Mr Hann.’
‘Not me, sir.’
‘And yet you spread scurrilous tales about her, without foundation?’