“Yes, my lady. Er . . . is my lady actually planning to wear the shirtwaist today? Might it wait until . . . say . . . we arrive back at home? And your skirt—”
“I don’t know what I’ll wear at dinner tonight, Stanley. I’ll decide that later. Off with you then.”
Despite the seriousness of her present task, Eva couldn’t contain a grin.
* * *
Phoebe slipped out of her bedroom and moved soundlessly along the corridor. Detecting no sounds but a low hum of voices from downstairs, she went to Olive’s door. All was quiet inside. Had Olive fallen asleep?
Moving away, she crossed to Cousin Clarabelle’s room and again pressed her ear to the panel. She gingerly tried the knob, ready to claim she had knocked softly and was just checking to see if her cousin needed anything. The room stood empty, and she stole inside. The speaking tube apparatus occupied the wall to her right. She hurried over and pushed the button that moved the disk aside. A bell would have sounded upstairs, but she didn’t linger to find out if Eva had heard. Certain she had, Phoebe exited the room and moved on to the suite shared by Hastings and Verna.
There she repeated her actions, but upon her retreat to the door, footsteps thudded along the hall runner. She peeked around the edge of the doorway. Hastings advanced in her direction.
CHAPTER 14
As he traveled the corridor, Hastings stared down at the floor as if he were contemplating the design in the hall runner. Panic surged through Phoebe. Should she back up and hide somewhere in the room? She’d done that once, having nearly been caught snooping through a man’s bedroom. His sudden arrival had sent her diving into an armoire among his personal effects. Humiliating enough, crouching behind a man’s boots, but worse had been the realization, later, that he’d known of her presence all along.
No, she couldn’t risk being caught stooping behind a chair or cowering under the bed. Beside, Hastings still hadn’t looked up. He staggered from side to side, his weight shifting heavily from foot to foot. He veered to his left, and his hand came up to brace against the wall with a thump that tilted a gilt-framed painting. He stumbled, then managed to right himself.
Quickly Phoebe closed the door behind her and hurried over to him. “Hastings, are you all right? Are you ill?” Her words came breathlessly as she covered her own alarm with a show of concern. A sharp odor wafted between them, prompting her to turn her face aside and hold her breath.
Good heavens, he was pissed, completely and utterly.
“Verna? Wh-what are you doing up here?” The words came in a slurring heap. “Didn’t I just leave you downstairs?”
“It’s Phoebe, Hastings. Come, let’s get you to your room.”
She slung an arm around him, and together they stumbled to his door. His weight threatened to drag her down one moment and crush her against the wall the next. His fingertips dug into her shoulder painfully as he held on. Somehow she kept him upright until they reached his room. With her balance established precariously at best, she reached out and turned the knob. Down the corridor, another door opened, and Julia stepped out.
“What’s going on? I thought I heard another crash like earlier.”
“Nothing like that. Our cousin is just a bit in his cups.” As if to prove her point, Hastings tripped over the threshold. Phoebe nearly doubled over in her attempt to prevent him falling facedown on the floor. “Do you think you might lend us a hand?”
Julia appeared at Hastings’s other side and dragged his arm around her shoulders. “Come along now, there’s a good lad. Heavens, Hastings, can’t you hold your brandy better than this?”
“That’s not helping,” Phoebe pointed out.
Their cousin coughed, letting out another bitter exhalation. “Where’s Verna?”
“I’ll go and get her just as soon as we’ve got you settled.” To Julia, Phoebe said, “To the bed.”
They managed to reach the edge of the bed and turned Hastings around so that his back faced it. As they lowered him, he sank heavily to the mattress and promptly fell over sideways, landing on his cheek. Phoebe used the momentum to swing his legs up as well. Hastings rolled to his stomach and immediately passed out.
Julia blew out a breath. “Good grief. That was unpleasant.”
“At least he came peacefully.” Phoebe rubbed her shoulder where Hastings had gripped it. “Thank you.”
Julia regarded their inebriated cousin and wrinkled her nose. “Stinking drunk. He smells like a dentist’s office.” She turned on her heel and headed for the door.
Phoebe followed her into the hallway. “A dentist?”
“Quite.” Julia spoke without slowing her pace. “The last time I accompanied Grams to have a tooth pulled, Dr. Sayers administered some sort of gas that made her so sleepy she didn’t feel the pain. It smelled dreadful.”
Phoebe stopped short. “You mean ether?”
Julia shrugged. “I don’t remember exactly. I was more concerned with Grams breaking my knuckles, she squeezed my hand so hard before she drifted off.”
“Julia, wait.” Her sister stopped and turned, an eyebrow raised in query and a smidgen of impatience. “Can we . . . that is, I wish to ask you something.”
“So ask.”
Phoebe glanced over her shoulder down the empty corridor. Someone could appear at any time, and she didn’t wish to air her thoughts in front of the others. “Can we talk in your bedroom?”
Julia’s release of breath hinted at reluctance, but she turned and led the way, then closed the door behind them. “What is so important?”
Phoebe pressed the words out in a rush, before she changed her mind. “Why are you so angry with me? What did I do?”
Julia’s gaze lifted toward the ceiling. “Nothing, dear sister. You’re perfect as always.”
“Don’t make a joke of it, Julia. We’ve been getting on so much better since last spring. What changed?”
Julia studied her, her expression unreadable. Phoebe silently willed her to give an honest reply and not hide behind her usual shrugs and clipped witticisms. But as the moment lengthened, Julia’s clear complexion darkened and her eyes sparked. Quite abruptly, she flung the door open. “This room has grown intolerably oppressive. I’m going downstairs. Good luck with your snooping. I’ll send Verna up. Maybe Hastings will awaken, and they’ll discuss how they plotted to kill Regina and Ralph, and Eva will overhear them from the third floor. It’s a frightfully clever plan, after all.”
“Julia—”
Too late, her sister had gone.
* * *
Eva hovered near the wall, the funnel-like receiver of the speaking tube pressed to her ear. Every few minutes she connected to a different room. At the moment, she was listening to a symphony of snores from Hastings Brockhurst. She was about to switch the connection again when the creaking of a door played a brief harmony with the man’s snorts. Lady Mandeville the younger called her husband’s name in a petulant voice. She tried twice more. When he didn’t answer, Eva didn’t wonder why. She had heard for herself through the tube earlier that Hastings Brockhurst had passed out cold. And then Lady Julia had said that very odd thing about visiting the dentist.
At a knock at her own door, she reluctantly pulled away from the tube, remembering to close the connection first. While she didn’t wish to miss any conversation should Lord Mandeville awaken, she also didn’t want Myra discovering her listening in on the guests. It wasn’t Myra, however, but rather Lady Phoebe standing in the corridor.
“Hurry, let me in before Stanley comes up and sees me here.”
“I feared you might be her when you knocked.” Eva stepped aside. “Your sister promised to keep her busy below, but one never knows. Have you learned something?”
“I have, and I need to search Hastings and Verna’s suite as soon as possible. I must discover what’s been keeping my cousin intoxicated. I don’t believe it’s whiskey.”
“Does this have anything to do with Lady Julia’s curious comment? She said Lord Mandeville
smelled like a dentist’s office. But then I couldn’t hear any more.”
“Yes, at that point we went into the corridor. What you missed was my guess that what Julia smelled was ether.”
“Ether . . .” A realization crept through Eva. She had heard of this. During the war, Danny had written in one of his letters home about how some of the other soldiers stole ether from the field hospitals. Some used it to escape the constant terror; others sold it for profit. He had promised their parents he had never done any such thing, nor would he, but he had seen the drug incapacitate his fellow soldiers, rendering them useless in the trenches.
Eva shivered at the bleak realities Danny had faced every day on the battlefields. “Your cousin fought in the war, yes?”
Lady Phoebe nodded. “But he was captured and held prisoner for a time. After his release he spent the remainder of the war behind the lines.”
“Do you know where he was held?”
“No. The details were rather sketchy. Cousin Basil didn’t seem to want to talk about it with Grampapa, and Cousin Clarabelle told Grams only that Hastings had been through a horrendous time, and that it had changed him.”
“Shell shock?” Eva had encountered just such an individual last spring, a nurse who had experienced firsthand the horrific consequences of battle. She, too, had found an escape, not with ether but with potentially deadly doses of morphia.
“I don’t think so, at least not in the usual sense,” Lady Phoebe replied. “More of a general malaise, not of the body but of the mind, a discontent that made Hastings more sullen and languid than ever. But then, he never was one for industry or achievement. I suppose that’s why his father disinherited him.”
“A rather harsh thing to do, considering his tendencies were made worse by the war.”
“I suppose Cousin Basil wished to ensure the survival of his estate and everything he’d worked to accomplish during his lifetime. Blameworthy or no, Hastings might have lost it all. Still might, as things have turned out. But why did you ask about the war?”
“Because I happen to know that some soldiers obtained and abused ether. It was a way to escape. To dull the terror and panic. There’s nothing new in ether addiction. It was rather commonplace decades ago and had begun to fade away, but I suppose in the middle of bombs and guns and death, a man finds relief in whatever is available.”
Lady Phoebe sat on the plain wooden chair beside the equally plain dresser. “I thought it odd that Hastings was forever carrying around a glass of whiskey, but never seemed to drink any. Do you suppose he uses it as a prop? You know, to pretend he’s drinking when in fact he’s been sneaking off to inhale ether fumes.”
“A cunning ruse. Few would interfere with a man and his whiskey, but ether is another matter.” Eva’s bottom lip slipped between her teeth as she considered. Ether. Whiskey. Pretending . . .
With breathtaking suddenness, a few scattered pieces fell into place. “My lady, the whiskey in Miss Brockhurst’s room, on her pillow—”
Lady Phoebe gasped. “To cover the scent of ether. Eva, that’s how Regina was killed without disturbing anything in the room. Whoever did it—Hastings, in my opinion—slipped in, probably covered her nose and mouth with an ether-soaked cloth, and then plunged that beastly dragonfly into her skull.”
“Let’s be careful not to jump to conclusions, my lady. The ether must be found first. Lady Julia could be mistaken about the odor. Word must be sent to the police laboratory in Gloucester that your cousin’s pillowcase should be examined again for any traces of the chemical. And you can’t accuse Lord Mandeville without more evidence that it was him. Any of the others could have found the ether in his room and used it.”
“Very true. His wife, for instance. She must know he’s an ether addict. How could she not . . . ?” Lady Phoebe went silent, her gaze locking with Eva’s. “It easily could have been Verna who killed Regina.”
“I do wish Miles would return.” Eva worried her hands together. “For all we know, Miss Asquith made the very same discovery about Lord Mandeville weeks ago, when she and your cousin were staying with the family in London. She herself might have used the ether on Miss Brockhurst, hoping Lord Mandeville would be accused.”
“Then why the whiskey? Why not let the smell of ether be discovered and lead the authorities directly to Hastings? No, it seems that whiskey was spilled to mask the other odor and confound the authorities.”
Lady Phoebe made a good point. “Perhaps . . . perhaps the whiskey was Miss Brockhurst’s, or Miss Asquith’s, and its being there was merely a coincidence. But I should get back to listening.” She returned to the speaking tube and opened the connection once again. Then she remembered another part of their plan. “Actually, my lady, if you care to take my place here now, I could bring Miss Asquith something to eat and attempt to open her speaking tube.”
“My money is still on either Hastings or Verna, but yes, you go ahead. I doubt anyone will miss me below for twenty minutes or so. Try to linger a bit with Olive. She’s talked to you before.”
“She has at that.”
“Good, then for now I’ll stay here and listen to Hastings snore.”
* * *
Balancing a tray on one hand, Eva unlocked Miss Asquith’s bedroom door, but before opening it, she knocked. No answer came from within. Eva knocked again, but this time didn’t wait for a response before going in.
“Miss Asquith, I’ve brought you something to eat.”
The room was much smaller than either Phoebe’s or Julia’s, but nonetheless well appointed in dark, burled walnut furniture that Miss Brockhurst had undoubtedly planned to be rid of during her extensive renovations of High Head Lodge.
Eva felt slightly ashamed of that last thought, realizing she was judging the vagaries of someone no longer here to defend her actions. Miss Asquith, sitting at an escritoire with her back to Eva, continued scratching her pen across the paper in front of her. “I’m not hungry. You may take it away.”
With a quick assessment, Eva located the speaking tube. As luck would have it, the device occupied the same wall as the long bureau to her left. She went to the bureau, set down the tray and, flicking a glance at Miss Asquith’s back, reached out to flip aside the brass disk covering the mouthpiece.
Lowering her arm to her side, she said, “Please, Miss Asquith, it doesn’t do to neglect one’s health.”
Miss Asquith set down her pen and slowly turned. She scrutinized Eva from head to toe and then blinked. “Where is the constable? Why hasn’t he returned to take me off to jail?”
Eva hesitated, debating how much to divulge. She decided Miss Asquith couldn’t very well interfere with the pursuit of the Grekovs while locked in her room. “He’s not here. Earlier, he trapped Dmitry and Valeria into revealing how much English they actually understand. They ran for it, and Miles—er, that is, Constable Brannock—has gone after them. They were not hired to clean, were they?”
Miss Asquith’s face registered surprise and then realigned into an unreadable mask.
“I’m sorry if I interrupted your writing.” Eva gestured at the escritoire and whatever Miss Asquith had been poring over when Eva knocked. “A letter to your family?”
Miss Asquith’s brows drew together. “Hardly.”
No, Eva hadn’t really thought so, not with what she had learned about Miss Asquith’s relations with her family. Then again, her father had relented and granted his daughter a portion of her allowance. Perhaps . . . “If there is anyone you would like me to contact for you, I’d be more than happy.”
“Would you now?” The woman merely went on staring Eva down, as if she sensed Eva’s ulterior motives. Perhaps she suspected that Eva wished to loosen her tongue. Eva only hoped Miss Asquith wouldn’t deduce that Lady Phoebe was listening in from above.
“Yes,” Eva said in her most solicitous tone. “A friend, a relative. Surely you don’t wish to face this ordeal alone.”
“Face what, exactly, Miss Huntford? I haven’t done anyth
ing wrong, despite what your mistress might think.”
Eva shook her head. “Lady Phoebe regrets what she said in the billiard room. It was the shock of discovering Mr. Cameron, nothing more.”
“She doesn’t like me. No one here does. They want to suspect me because I’m different, because they can’t understand me.”
Eva took a chance at being overly familiar by perching at the edge of the bed. Leaning slightly forward, she said with a note of earnestness that was not entirely fabricated, “I would like to understand you, Miss Asquith.”
“How can you? You occupy the other side of the same coin as your employer. You are part of the old ways, and as far as I can perceive, you are a willing participant. If you truly had any interest in understanding people like Regina Brockhurst and myself, you would not be in the employ of the Renshaw family. At least, not in the capacity of lady’s maid.”
“Service is all I’ve ever known, at least since I reached adulthood. As I child I helped out at home, on my parents’ farm. But once my brother was old enough to help my father with the bulk of the work, I sought my own livelihood.” She smiled fondly. “For a time, I attended finishing school on scholarship.”
“For a time?” Miss Asquith shifted her chair to better face Eva. “What happened?”
“My father was hurt. He broke his wrist, a bad break, and I was needed at home. Since there was no telling how long I’d be away from school, my scholarship was awarded to another girl.”
“That’s unfair. Haven’t you grown weary of having the largesse of the wealthy doled out to you as they see fit, when and if they see fit?”
“Miss Asquith, there have always been the rich and the poor, and there always will be. It’s simply a fact of life, and there is no use grumbling about it.”
Miss Asquith’s features hardened, and her chin came up. “Isn’t there? Perhaps you’re wrong about that. Perhaps times are changing. Perhaps the wealthy will no longer control everything and everyone. Will you be ready when that happens, Miss Huntford? Will you know what to do?”
A Devious Death Page 18