Murder Most Historical: A Collection of Short Mysteries

by Ashley Gardner

  No, I couldn’t believe that last. Sir Lionel had been mean-spirited, rather stupid, and cunning at the same time. He could not be up to any good no matter what he did.

  Grace’s idea about the sugar caster interested me, though. I could imagine someone at the table stealthily pocketing the caster full of poison, meaning to replace it on the table with one without poison. But they hadn’t managed it and had to stash the clean caster in the plant. Because the people at the table had started feeling ill and rushed away? Or had the person trying to replace the caster been interrupted by John or Sally coming to clear the table?

  But then, why had Mrs. Watkins claimed there was no sugar caster at all? Copley had been too drunk to wait at table that night ... or had he been? Had he crept upstairs and set the poison on the table, removing it again when Mrs. Watkins’s back was turned?

  There was nothing for it. I had to speak with Copley.

  This entailed finding out where he was being kept, now that he’d been arrested for stealing Sir Lionel’s wine and silver. I regretted hastening away from Daniel so abruptly, because Daniel would know.

  I knew I’d never find Daniel if I wanted to—even if I waited outside the house in Oxford Street, there was nothing to say he’d return there—so I hunted for James. Sure enough, James was lurking around Sir Lionel’s house with the excuse of doing odd jobs in the neighborhood. Daniel had told him to continue watching the place, he said.

  When I told him I needed to speak to his father, James nodded and told me to wait inside Sir Lionel’s house. He handed me the key, said he’d send Daniel to me, and ran off with the energy of youth.

  I entered through the back door and went to the only place in that house I was comfortable, the kitchen. The familiarity of it wrapped around me, wanting to draw me back.

  Too bad Sir Lionel had been such a terrible master. Perhaps when his heir moved in, he’d need a cook. The heir would be of sunnier disposition, appreciate my food, and not make strange demands on me or disgust me with amorous advances. Miracles could happen.

  To pass the time, I went into the butler’s pantry and looked through the silver in the glass wall cabinets. All was as it should be, except of course for the missing pieces that Copley had stolen. The settings all matched—the Leigh-Bradburys had used the same silversmith for years.

  I frowned. I went to the housekeeper’s room, fetched her keys, and returned to the pantry to open the cases. I studied the silver plates, candlesticks, and serving pieces like the chafing pan, a footed dish in the shape of a shell, the cruet stand, and a wine bucket. These pieces were larger, difficult to carry off without being noticed, which was no doubt why Copley had left them. Copley had taken smaller pieces—salt cellar, cups, spoons, finger bowls.

  In a drawer below the glass-fronted shelves I found pots of silver polish and rags, as well as the velvet-lined boxes for the place settings. There were two unopened store-bought pots of polish with pink labels. A third pink-labeled pot had been opened, as had a pot of homemade polish—washing soda and salt, which the polisher would wet with lemon juice or vinegar before rubbing on the silver.

  I took a delicate sniff of the homemade polish then closed the lid and slipped it into my pocket.

  “Kat?” An alarmed voice was calling with Daniel’s deep timbre. “Are you here? Where are you?”

  I locked the cabinets, not hurrying, returned the keys to the housekeeper’s room, and made my way to the kitchen.

  Daniel breathed out when he saw me. “Damn it all, Kat ...”

  “Please do not swear at me,” I said calmly. “And I am Mrs. Holloway.”

  “Why did you have James find me?” The irritation and anger did not leave his voice.

  “To take me to see Copley. I assume you know where they’ve put him?”

  Daniel gave me a nod, his look hard. “At the moment, in hospital. He’s seriously ill.”

  My brows lifted, my heart beating faster. “Oh, dear. In that case, I must speak to him at once.”

  ***

  Copley had been jailed at Newgate, but had been taken to the infirmary. He lay in a bed in a long, mostly empty ward. The ward was gray and unfriendly, windowless and gloomy, but it was a step better than the common cells. Just.

  Copley looked terrible. His face was as gray as the walls and had a yellow cast to it. His entire body trembled, and when we approached, he turned over in his bed and vomited into the bucket at his bedside.

  The air around him stank. I took a handkerchief from my bag and pressed it to my nose.

  “Copley,” Daniel said. “Sorry to see you so wretched, old chap.”

  Daniel was in his scruffy clothes again, holding his cloth cap. He looked like a carter or furniture mover, come to help the neat and tidy woman at his side. When we’d entered the jail, however, we’d been treated deferentially and led to Copley without question.

  “What d’ye want?” Copley rasped. “Let me die in peace. Why’d ye bring her here?”

  “You might not die,” I said cheerfully. “Mrs. Fuller managed to recover. I imagine because someone politely replenished the sugar on her tart for her instead of making her shake it on herself. You probably only held the caster long enough to hide it in the plant pot, and luckily, you wore gloves.”

  Daniel glanced at me, perplexed, and Copley blinked. “What th’ devil are ye going on about, woman?”

  “It is simple,” I said. “You took the sugar caster from the table.” I pointed a gloved finger at Copley. “You did so when you thought no one was looking. Maybe when you and John were clearing up? Or John was clearing up while you helped yourself to any leftover food and drink.” Those plates had been very clean when they’d returned to the kitchen. “You didn’t have time to do anything with the caster—perhaps someone nearly caught you with it. Or you hid it when I sent John for the police and was downstairs dressing, fearing it would be found on you or in your room if there was a search. You stole many of the smaller pieces that night and stashed them to fetch later. Why not the sugar caster too?”

  “Yes, all right,” Copley growled. “I plucked the bloody thing off the table when I saw it, but Mrs. Watkins and John were right on top of me, so I hid it in the plant.”

  “Why not take it back downstairs with the other pieces?” I asked. I thought I knew the answer, but I wanted Copley to say it in front of Daniel.

  “Because it weren’t ours,” Copley said angrily. “Not Sir Lionel’s. I thought maybe them Fullers brought their own caster with them and forgot and left it behind. John would return it to our cabinet, not knowing the difference, then Mrs. Interfering Watkins would find it and send it back to Mrs. Fuller.”

  Daniel listened with a sparkle in his eyes. “You’re saying the caster didn’t belong in the house?”

  Copley wet his lips, but he was losing strength, so I spoke for him. Copley really was a pitiful wretch.

  “The sugar caster was made by a different silversmith,” I explained. “If you check its hallmark, you’ll see. Sir Lionel’s family has used the same silversmith down the generations. All the pieces match. But I advise you, Mr. McAdam, that if you do handle the caster again, or your chemist does, please wear gloves. And ask your chemist to check the contents of this.”

  I brought out the small pot of homemade silver polish, which was still wrapped in my handkerchief. I set pot and handkerchief into Daniel’s outstretched hands—which were covered with thick workman’s gloves. He handled the pot with respect, but looked at me in bewilderment.

  I turned back to Copley. “Did you or John ever use homemade silver polish?”

  “No.” Copley’s voice was weak. “I used the stuff from Finch’s. Much better for keeping off the tarnish.”

  “That’s what I thought. Thank you, Copley. I do hope you mend soon.”

  “Would if the buggers in this place would give me a decent drop to drink.”

  I gave Copley a nod, pleased with him, and excited by what he’d told me. “That is possibly true.” I said. “Shall w
e depart, Mr. McAdam?”

  ***

  Daniel insisted on hiring a hansom cab to take us back through London. I didn’t like to sit so close to him in the small vehicle, but rain had begun to pelt down, and I would have to endure the annoyance for a dry ride to King Street.

  Daniel began speaking as though we had no tension between us. “You believe the poison was on the caster itself?” he asked. “Coating it?”

  I nodded. “Test the homemade silver polish I gave you. If it were rubbed into a paste onto the caster, anyone lifting it would get it on their fingers. Then if they ate bits of food—eventually, they would ingest enough of whatever it is to make them ill. Or the poison could sink in through the skin. I’m not certain about that. Perhaps it would work by both means.”

  “Mrs. Watkins didn’t take ill,” Daniel pointed out. “If she handled the caster ... though she insists it wasn’t there. What about poor John? We need to find him.”

  “John always wore gloves when waiting at table. Mrs. Watkins did not, but she was right as rain when I saw her yesterday, obviously not ill from poison. It is bad manners for ladies and gentlemen to wear gloves at table, and so the diners had no protection.”

  “But Copley?” Daniel frowned as he puzzled things out. “Why did it take him some time to become ill? Butlers wear gloves while they’re setting up or serving at table, as footmen do.”

  He knew a lot about butlers, did he? “True, but I’ve watched how Copley sometimes takes his gloves off.”

  I demonstrated, delicately tugging at the fingers of one glove with my teeth, loosening it before drawing it off. “This is why I do not believe Copley poisoned Sir Lionel and the Fullers. If he’d coated the caster with poison, he’d have been more careful.”

  Daniel made a sound of agreement. “So, Copley is a thief, not a murderer.”

  This wouldn’t help Copley much—he’d stolen items of high value and might be hanged for it, or perhaps transported if someone spoke up for him. Poor drunken fool.

  “I will visit Mrs. Fuller again,” Daniel said briskly. “And see if the caster came from her household. It is still possible she did the poisoning—or someone employed by her at her instruction.”

  I didn’t think so, but I said nothing. Mrs. Fuller would have been certain to take the caster away and dispose of it, I would think, even if she’d deliberately made herself ill. The caster would not have been there for Copley to try to steal.

  When the hansom stopped in front of my boardinghouse, I began to descend, but Daniel caught my hand and drew me back.

  “I want you to take the post I spoke about,” he said. “I will tell Clarendon’s housekeeper to expect you for an interview.”

  I’d had enough. I jerked from his grasp but remained in the hansom. “Let me speak plainly, Mr. McAdam. You have deceived me at every turn. Believe me, I am vexed with myself for letting you. However, I have made my way in this world on my own for a number of years now, and I will continue to do so. I am grateful for what you have done for me—I sincerely thank you for saving me from the magistrates—but I have my life to get on with. I am not a silly woman; I will take every precaution for my own safety.”

  How this speech affected Daniel, I could not tell. He only regarded me with calm eyes—the eyes I’d once thought so handsome—and did not change expression.

  “Very well,” he said, his voice cool. “Then I will bid you good night.”

  I made a noise of exasperation. The least he could do was look contrite. He’d withdrawn, the affable Daniel gone, a cool shell in his place.

  So be it.

  My heart ached as I scrambled down from the hansom and made for my lodgings. I’d fallen for Daniel McAdam, whoever he was, but that Daniel did not exist. This was the painful truth I had to accept, and continue with my life.

  Chapter Ten

  I saw nothing of Daniel or James for the next few days. I unpacked my box at the boardinghouse and visited my agency to find another post.

  Difficult this time of year. Families of the big Mayfair houses were mostly gone to the country, and those who hadn’t left already were packing to head out for the hunting and shooting seasons.

  After that would be Christmas and New Years’, the majority of society families not returning until spring. So many already had cooks installed in their London houses, cooks who went on preparing meals for the skeleton staff in the winter or for renters.

  The minor gentry also went to the country or else they wanted a woman who’d plunk a joint of beef and watery potatoes in front of the family every evening and naught else. At least when Sir Lionel had been baiting me, he’d stretched my abilities and let me create meals worthy of a master chef.

  I came away from the agency the days I visited it depressed and disgruntled. I might have to swallow my pride, hunt up Daniel, and take the post at Berkeley Square.

  I did make a journey south of the river to see Sally, who had indeed returned home. She flew at me and hugged me, having believed me already convicted and hanged even in this short time. She was not much help, though. She knew nothing of the sugar caster or of the extra box of polish. She wasn’t allowed to polish the silver, only to wash plates and crockery. The sugar caster never came near her sink, and she never went to the dining room or Sir Lionel’s library.

  She had nothing but honest innocence and confusion in her eyes, and I came away, unenlightened. She was about to start a new post in another kitchen, she said, thankfully. Her family needed her wages.

  James arrived at the boardinghouse to visit me about a week after that. He did not actually come to the back door and request to speak with me; he simply skulked about in the street until I went out.

  He told me with his usual cheerfulness that Daniel had found the footman, John, who was in Dorset, as I’d suspected. John was in raring good health, thank the Lord. Daniel had asked John to give him the gloves he’d used when serving that last meal and taken them away.

  Daniel’s chemist had tested the caster and found it coated with arsenic. That sort of thing could seep through the fingers or be eaten, with the same result—horrible illness and probable death. It could happen quickly, or take time—there must have been much of the stuff on the caster. Mrs. Fuller had indeed been very lucky.

  When James finished giving me this news, I decided to ask him what I had been wondering about him point blank. “James, does it bother you that your father is not what he seems?”

  The lad considered my question, his father’s brown eyes in his smudged young face regarding me calmly. “I lived with the charwoman, as I said. She had a man also boarding in her house who wanted to use me as his fancy boy and beat me regular when I refused. One day, me dad—Mr. McAdam, as ye know him—came along, had the man arrested, and took me away.”

  James rubbed under his lower lip. “At the time, I thought me dad were the same—a man what liked boys, only he had a few more coins to rub together. But he got angry when I accused him of that. He told me he was my pa and would take care of me now. He showed me how we looked alike, and he knew all about my ma—may she rest in peace—and eventually, I believed him.”

  He shrugged. “Dad comes and goes all the time. I never asked where. If he has a posh house and family besides me—well some gents do, don’t they? A house for the wife and one for the mistress? A house for his legitimate family, and one for his by-blows?”

  I listened with mixed emotions. Daniel had been good to rescue James and make sure he was well looked after. On the other hand, James made a true point about gentlemen leading double lives.

  “Thank you for telling me,” was all I could think to say.

  James grinned. “Don’t look so primmed up, missus. I’ve always known I weren’t the Prince of Wales. I’m a gent’s bastard, Dad’s kind to me, and I get by.”

  Would that I could take such a casual attitude. Daniel indeed led a double life—a triple one, perhaps.

  However, I’d had my fill of men who did whatever they pleased, never mind who they
trampled over or cast aside along their way, uncaring of how many women bore their children and were left to raise them on their own.

  “Thank you, James, for telling me the news. I know you had no need to keep me informed.”

  “Thought you’d like to know. Dad said you’d be interested but didn’t think you’d want to see him.”

  “He thought right.” I dug into my pocket and pulled out a coin, but James lifted his hands and stepped away.

  “Don’t insult me now,” he said. “I did ya a favor.” He renewed his grin, tipped his cap, and jogged away into the busy London street.

  ***

  When next I had the time, I made my way to Pimlico to visit Mrs. Watkins. Daniel might be questioning Mrs. Fuller and her staff up and down, but I wanted to quiz Mrs. Watkins again about that bloody sugar caster.

  I met her in the sitting room of her sister’s boardinghouse. She was having the same difficulty as I in landing a new post, but I imagined she’d find one before I did. More Londoners needed housekeepers while they were away than wanted to bother with cooks, especially cooks of my calibre.

  “Perhaps I should open a restaurant,” I said. “Though where I’d find the funds for such an endeavor, I have no idea.”

  “You’d soon tire of it,” Mrs. Watkins said with conviction. “Instead of cooking for one table that complains, there’d be many tables complaining all night. My sister ran a restaurant for a time, but gave it up for a boardinghouse. An easier task, she says.”

  The maid brought tea, Mrs. Watkins poured, and we drank.

  “Are you certain about that sugar caster?” I asked after we’d sipped.

  Mrs. Watkins coughed, set down her teacup, and wiped her mouth with a napkin. “The one you asked me about before? Of course I am certain, Mrs. Holloway. I would have noticed it.”

  I took another sip of tea. The service was elegant, delicate porcelain with sprays of pink roses on it. No silver in sight, except for the small teaspoons. “You see, Mrs. Watkins, John says he saw the caster there. So did Mrs. Fuller. And Copley stole it, the wretch, hiding it to take away later. So you must have either been extremely unobservant, or are telling me an untruth.”