by Robin Paige
The hour was still early. The cooks were already at work in the cold and cavernous kitchen, but the corridor that led to the laundry was empty. Winnie noticed, however, that the heavy wooden door that led to the drying-yard was ajar, and she went out of her way to shut it hard, muttering to herself at the infernal carelessness of stableboys and such.
Opening the door to the main laundry, Winnie went in, intending to fire the boiler so that the water would be hot when the laundry maids began the washing. As she entered, she caught the slight but distinct odor of cigar smoke, and scowled. She raised her head and sniffed again.
Yes, cigar smoke, without a doubt, and not the best, at that. A smelly, cheap cigar, such as might be smoked in a stable. Winnie knew cigars, for her father had worked for a Brighton tobacconist and she had early in her life developed a taste for the things—but fine ones, when she could get them. She narrowed her eyes. A cigar meant only one thing: that her laundry had been invaded by some unauthorized person—persons, most likely, male and female. And Winnie, who had by this time wrought herself into a black dudgeon, knew exactly what profligacy had brought them there. Hands on her hips, arms akimbo, she turned to survey the room, hoping to find evidence that would reveal the identities of the guilty parties. When she got her hands on—
That was when she saw him, through the open doorway to the ironing room, which also housed the boiler. Marsh, it was, one of the Easton Lodge footmen. He was seated on a crate at the table in the corner, his head pillowed on one arm on the table, the other dangling. An empty whiskey bottle stood on the table beside him. He was dead drunk.
Winnie checked her angry impulse. She rather liked the black-haired young man, who was the sweetheart of one of her maids and something of a rebel. Since his father died, he had turned surly and resentful, particularly toward Lady Warwick, who had accidentally fired the gun that had injured his father. It was a foolish, even a dangerous attitude and Winnie had told him so, thinking that a word or two from someone who had seen the world might compel the boy to moderate his behavior.
Now that she knew it was Marsh who had made free with her laundry, Winnie was a little less angry. It would be best to let him sleep, at least until breakfast, when a cup of hot coffee would restore him. She went to the boiler, went down on her knees for a vigorous shaking of the grate, then stoked the firebox with coal from the scuttle. When Meg appeared, the girl could carry out the ashtray and bring more coal. The fire blazing merrily, she went out of the room and shut the door on the sleeping Marsh.
Winnie was sorting a mound of soiled towels when Meg came in, settling her cap on her head. Winnie glanced at her, then looked again. Meg’s eyes were red and even puffier than Winnie’s, and her hair was untidy. She had been weeping.
“I saw Mrs. Lynnford just now,” she said in a thin voice. “She says t’ tell ye that th’ maids’ll use up all th’ fresh towels this mornin’. They’ll want more.”
Winnie pushed the towels aside with a snort. Mrs. Lynnford was an old witch of a woman who thought she was as good as the Queen just because she had her own private parlor.
“Well, Mrs. Lynnford’ll just ‘ave t’ wait ’til these’re washed an’ dried, won’t she?” Winnie growled. “An’ ‘f th’ ol’ crow weren’t so mean as t’ pounds, there’d be a plenty o’ towels without ’avin’ t’ wash on th’ Sabbath.” She jerked her head toward the closed door. “Yer sweet‘eart’s i’ there, dead t’ th’ world. I’d see t’ ’im, were ’e mine.”
“My ... sweet‘eart?” Meg faltered. “But ... but ’e’s gone!”
“‘E’s gone, all right,” Winnie said. “It’s a good thing ’e picked th’ laundry t’ do ‘is drinkin’. I’m not so likely t’ git ‘im sacked. But ye’d better keep a tighter rein on ’im, my fine girl, er ‘e’ll lose ’is place sure, an’ no character.”
Meg was shaking her head. “Drinkin’? Marsh niver touches strong drink.”
“It’s not touchin’ it wot gets a man drunk,” Winnie said philosophically, “it’s puttin’ it down ‘is throat. Drunk as a lord ’e be, in the ironin’ room.”
Meg ran to the ironing room door. Heaping curses on the parsimonious Mrs. Lynnford, Winnie tossed towels into a wicker basket, and turned to sort the sheets: But she was startled by Meg’s shriek, and then the sound of hysterical sobbing.
Winnie went to the door. Meg was standing back from the table, her arms wrapped tightly around herself as she swayed back and forth, her eyes riveted on Marsh’s unmoving form. Her face was as white as a linen sheet.
“Wot’s th’ matter wi’ yer?” Winnie demanded crossly. “Wot ’re ye makin’ that noise fer? Ain’tcher ever seen a drunk man?”
“‘E’s dead, Mrs. Wospottle,” Meg moaned helplessly.
Winnie turned to look. On the scrubbed tabletop beneath Marsh’s pillowed head was a puddle of dark blood, nearly dried, which had stained the corner of a scrap of paper on which he had been writing with the stub of a pencil. As Winnie stepped back, her mouth dropping open in horror, she saw on the floor, where it had fallen from Marsh’s dangling fingers, a silver-plated revolver with mother-of-pearl handles.
“Oh, Gawd,” she breathed. “Th’ pore boy’s shot his-self!”
29
Shot? so quick, so clean an ending?
Oh that was right, lad, that was brave;
Yours was not an ill for mending,
‘Twas best to take it to the grave.
—A. E. HOUSMAN “A Shropshire Lad”
Kate received the news of Marsh’s suicide from the somber-faced house steward, who had carried the report to Daisy’s room on the heels of the maid with the tea tray. Kate, thinking that Buffle’s news was something Charles must know immediately, left Daisy and the steward and went in search of him. She found him in his room, stripped to the waist, sluicing his face in his washbasin. He turned, obviously surprised and pleased to see her, and crossed the room in three strides.
“I love you,” he said, putting his arms around her. “I love you desperately. When are we going to be married?”
With a thrill of prohibited pleasure, she leaned her cheek against his bare chest. “Immediately after we’ve told your mother.”
He stiffened. “Let’s elope and tell her afterward.”
“No,” she said. She leaned back, looking into his face. “Charles, there has been another death. A footman shot himself in the laundry. He’s left some sort of note.”
A look of shock, followed by dark anger, crossed Charles’s face. He let go of her. “Wait in the hall while I dress,” he commanded brusquely, and Kate obeyed.
There was a crowd of servants gathered around the closed door to the laundry. Kate followed Charles as he shouldered his way through. Inside, she saw a weeping girl sitting on a low stool in the main room, comforted by a buxom woman with red cheeks and tightly furled brown curls peeking out under a white cap. From yesterday’s sessions with the servants, Kate recognized Mrs. Wospottle, the laundress. The girl, Kate saw with a start, was Meg, the farrier’s daughter, whom she had last seen leaving Wallace’s room the afternoon before.
Meg’s eyes were swimming with tears. “‘E didn’t kill ’isself!” she cried hysterically. She held out her hands, pleading. “‘E didn’t kill that man, neither. I swear ’e didn’t!”
“What man?” Charles asked.
The laundress gestured toward another door. “There’s a note in there, under Marsh’s ‘ead,” she said grimly. “It says m’lady paid ’im t’ shoot Lord Wallace.”
Kate felt as if she had been struck in the stomach with a closed fist. Nothing to lose, Daisy had said. Had she really felt cornered enough to kill?
“Lady Warwick paid a servant to commit murder?” Charles asked with greater calm than Kate would have thought possible.
“No!” wailed the girl. “Leastways, not Marsh!” She began to weep again, wrenching sobs that shook her thin shoulders.
“It’s Marsh who’s dead, then?” Charles asked Mrs. Wospottle.
&nb
sp; “Deader ’n a doornail,” the laundress said grimly. She lowered her voice. “ ‘E was ’er sweet‘eart.”
“Stay here and find out who discovered the body and when,” Charles said to Kate. “I’ll have a look in there.” He went toward the door.
Kate turned back to Mrs. Wospottle. “Did you find him?”
Mrs. Wospottle’s white cap bobbed up and down. “Yes, but I didn’t know ‘e was dead at first. I thought ’e was drunk. It wasn’t until Meg come that we seen th’ note an’ th’ gun an’ made out that ‘e shot ’isself. ‘E was ’er first luv,” she added in a low voice, bestowing on Meg another caress. “She’s takin’ it ‘ard.”
“‘E didn’t shoot ’isself!” wailed Meg. She clasped Kate’s hand as if she were being swept into a raging torrent and Kate was her last mooring. “‘E was goin’ away to Lunnon to join th’ Anarchists. When ’e got a place, ’e was goin’ t’ send fer me. But they killed im first.”
“Th’ pore girl’s ou o’ ‘er’ead wi’ grief,” Mrs. Wospottle said, shaking her head sympathetically. “Marsh drank a ‘ole bottle of whiskey an’ smoked a cigar afore ’e pulled th’ trigger. I s‘pose ’e knew there weren’t no way out fer ‘im. ’E prob‘ly reckoned ’e’d get all th’ blame fer the gentl‘man’s death an’ wanted t’ be sure Lady Warwick got ’er share.” Her lips tightened and her eyes grew steely. “An’ I allus thought th’ best o’ ‘er ladyship. Shows ye ’ow easy they kin fool ye.”
“But ‘e didn’t do it, I tell ye!” Meg cried hysterically. “Marsh doan’t drink nor ’e doan’t smoke. ‘E ’ates the filthy stuff. ’E doan’t write, neither.”
Kate stared at her, perplexed. “He didn’t write, Meg, or he couldn’t?”
“‘Tis all one, ain’t it?” Meg hung her head over her knees, her voice muffled. “’E kin write ‘is name an’ mine. But ’e left school fer service as soon as ever ‘e cud, an’ ’e di’n’t learn nothin’ while ’e was there.” She raised her head. “Anyway,” she added with an air of bitter certainty, “Marsh ‘ates ’er ladyship. ‘E’d niver kill fer ’er, even if she gave ‘im fifty pounds. ’E didn’t trust ‘er, y’see, not after wot she did t’ ’is father.”
“What did she do to his father?” Kate asked.
“She blew off ‘is leg,” Mrs. Wospottle said factually. “ ’E was a loader, an’ she’s a turr‘ble bad gun, so ’tis said.”
Kate tenderly brushed the damp tendrils back from Meg’s face. “You said ‘they’ killed him, Meg. Who were you speaking of? Who are ’they’?”
The girl’s eyes grew round with a sudden fright, and she shook her head. “I daren’t say,” she whimpered. “They’ll kill me, too.”
“They might do that anyway,” Kate said with intentional roughness. “You will be safe only if you tell us who killed him and why, so they can be punished for their wrongdoing .”
Meg shook her head wildly. “But then ’er ladyship’ll find out about th’ letter an’ I’ll lose me place!”
The letter? Of course! “You took the letter from Lady Warwick’s letter case and put it in Lord Wallace’s room?”
“Wot?” Mrs. Wospottle stiffened, horrified. “Ye stole a letter from th’ mistress, Meg?”
The girl bit her lip, then nodded, reluctant. “Marsh tol’ me t’ do’t. ’E said we’d git money for’t.”
“And you took Lady Warwick’s gun, too?” “Th’ gun on th’ floor in there?” Mrs. Wospottle asked, aghast. “‘Tis m’lady’s?”
Meg nodded, the tears coursing down her cheeks. “‘Ow cud I know they’d use it t’ kill ’im?”
Kate remembered that she and Charles had found the letter shortly after Meg had taken the sheets from Wallace’s room. “And I suppose you tried to get the letter back, too,” she said gently.
She nodded. “Marsh decided ‘twas wrong, wot we done. ’E was goin’ t’ give back th’ money they gave ‘im an’ go t’ Lunnon straightaway.” Her voice rose. “But they killed ’im!”
Kate tipped Meg’s face up and spoke softly but firmly. “You must tell us who these people are, Meg. The Prince will protect you.”
Mrs. Wospottle leaned forward. “The Prince?” she asked, awed. “Ooh, Meggie, ye’ve got t’ tell. It’s almost like the Queen’s askin‘, me girl! ’Tis a R’yal command.”
Meg was silent for a moment. “There was two, but Marsh only said one name,” she said finally.
Kate stood and held out her hand. “One will do to start with.”
Charles opened the door to the ironing room, steeling himself for what he would see there.
Before him, sitting slumped over a wooden table, was the still form of the dark-haired young man he had met in the farrier’s cottage the previous afternoon. Sadly, Charles remembered the sullen cast of the young man’s face, his angry look, the resentment in his voice. Was it his anger that had brought him to this bitter end? Charles thought of the girl’s tearful protest that her lover had not killed himself. Was it true? Was this a case of suicide—or of murder?
But there was no time for speculation. Charles went back to the door of the main laundry room and asked Lawrence, loitering there with the other curious servants, to bring the camera equipment from his bedroom, then returned to the death scene. He surveyed the room carefully, taking in the coal-fired boiler in the corner, the drying racks, the ironing table, the mangle. Nothing seemed out of order, and he could see no signs of a struggle. He glanced down at the floor to be sure he would not step on anything of consequence, then approached the table carefully, noting the empty whiskey bottle, the pencil and paper, and the attitude of the body—the head pillowed on the left arm, the right hand dangling, the silver-plated revolver on the floor beside the right foot.
Marsh’s eyes were open and vacant, and the dilation of the pupils and lack of respiration confirmed that he was quite dead, as did the coolness of the skin when Charles touched the hand. A pronounced rigidity in the wrist and elbow confirmed that rigor mortis was well advanced. The entry wound was located above the hairline in the right temple. It was certainly consistent with suicide, he thought, but might equally well have been inflicted by someone standing to the victim’s right. The blood that had puddled on the wooden tabletop under the head and arm was already dry and crusty. Marsh had been dead for a number of hours.
Bending over, Charles sniffed, and detected a sharp odor of whiskey. Then, noticing a large patch of damp on the sleeve of Marsh’s coat, he sniffed there, and discovered the source of the odor. The whiskey, or some part of it, had been spilled on the sleeve. He glanced at the bottle, which was covered with smudgy fingerprints. Did they belong to the dead man, or to someone else?
Bending still further, he looked at the floor. It was lightly dusted—probably the coal ash from the boiler—but there were no discernible footprints. The gun that lay beside the dead man’s right foot, as if it had fallen from his dangling fingers, matched Daisy’s description in every detail. Whose finger had pulled the trigger? Whose fingerprints might a closer examination reveal?
Charles straightened, suffused with a sad irony. He had met this young man less than eighteen hours ago; at a guess, he had been dead for six, perhaps even as many as ten of those hours. That would place the time of death before he and Kirk-Smythe had begun their fruitless vigil, perhaps even during the fireworks display, when the explosions would have masked the shot. But the laundry was isolated, here at the end of the corridor, and the walls were thick. Marsh might have been murdered as late as two a.m., when no one was abroad to hear.
There was one other thing: the note, which lay on the tabletop to the right of the victim’s head. Taking a hand lens out of his pocket, Charles examined the scrap closely, being careful not to touch it. Pinpoint droplets of blood covered the table surface surrounding the note and yet the paper itself was clean, save for a blood-soaked corner. Charles scanned the few lines, printed in pencil. He was reading them for the third time when he heard a knock at the door.
He straightened and turned, h
is attention, as he did so, caught by an object on the floor to the right of the door. It was a cigar butt, no more than two inches long. His eyes lighted when he saw it, and he studied it for a moment, thoughtfully. His attention was recalled by a repeated knock, louder, this time.
“Who is it?” he asked.
Kate opened the door. “Lawrence is here with your camera equipment,” she said. “And Meg has something important to tell you.”
Meg appeared at the door, shuddered violently when she saw Marsh, and turned pale. Mrs. Wospottle put her arms around the girl, and as she did so, her eyes chanced on the cigar.
“There’s th’ wretched thing,” she said, nettled. “I knew I smelled a cigar. Cheap, too.”
Charles looked at her. “Do you know cigars?” he asked.
“Know cigars?” Mrs. Wospottle cried. “Fancy I do, at that. Me father worked fer a tobacconist in Brighton. There wa’n’t a cigar i’ th’ shop I cudn’t sniff out wi’ me eyes shut.”
“Splendid,” Charles said. “We shall hear Meg’s tale first. After that, p’rhaps you’ll be good enough to enlighten us on the subject of cigars.”
30
Stop, let me have the truth of that!
Is that all true?
—ROBERT BROWNING “The Gods Thought Otherwise”
The Prince was pacing restlessly in front of the desk in the library, mulling over what Charles had proposed. “I hope your strategy works,” he said. “What will we do if it does not yield what you expect?”
“There are one or two other lines of inquiry I can pursue,” Charles hedged. He hoped other inquiry would prove unnecessary. “It would be best to obtain a confession if we can, of course. If we do not, Your Highness will be faced with making a difficult and painful judgment on the basis of hearsay testimony and circumstantial evidence.”
The Prince pulled a long face. “Are you certain this is the man we should confront first? What of his confederate?”