The constable shifted his domed helmet from one hand to the other. “Why silver, particularly? It seems unlikely he would own anything of value.”
Eva thought a moment, her nose slightly scrunched as she obviously tried to remember. “It looked tarnished, unevenly so. That’s why I thought it was silver.”
“That would be odd, actually,” Phoebe said. “Silver that sits loose in a drawer tends to tarnish rather quickly. But when worn next to the skin, it retains its luster indefinitely.”
“I’d like to learn more about this piece of jewelry.”
Eva raised an eyebrow at the constable. “Do you think it’s significant?”
“At this point, everything is significant,” he replied. “Nurse Delacy’s war experience, Bernice’s kitchen chores, even a handyman’s necklace. Everything that doesn’t make perfect sense at this school is a circumstance to be questioned.”
Phoebe drew a breath in preparation of diving into deeper waters, perhaps the deepest yet, for she was about to cross a line by involving one of their highest ranking students. But as the constable said, all unusual circumstances were to be questioned. “We’ve discovered something else that doesn’t make sense—Zara Worthington’s high marks. From what we’ve seen with our own eyes, the girl has little aptitude for academics, yet she is considered one of the school’s top students.”
“I’ll give you that’s strange, but I’m not seeing the point, my lady.”
“Don’t you see,” Eva said with a huff of impatience, “it’s likely someone has been altering her marks, possibly to keep her influential parents satisfied.”
“Yes, and if someone decided to stop falsifying Zara’s records, it might have raised fierce resentments.” Phoebe waited for the constable to show signs of understanding.
He did not. “I imagine that might cause a bit of a to-do, but murder—over a schoolgirl’s marks? Hardly likely.”
Phoebe crossed her arms. “Haven’t you noticed that Miss Sedgewick dresses as though she has a fortune at her disposal?”
“Does she now?”
“Yes, she does,” Eva affirmed. “Her clothes are expensive, and they are not leftovers from previous seasons as might be the case if they were hand-me-downs from wealthier relatives.”
“And you are sure of this because . . .” Constable Brannock’s skepticism showed in his expression.
“Because I am a lady’s maid,” Eva said pointedly, “and it is my job to know such things.”
Phoebe nodded vigorously. “It is, and she does, Constable.”
“All right, the woman spends a tidy sum on clothing. I understand she hails from a landed family in . . .” He gestured at the air.
“Hereford,” Eva supplied.
He inclined his head. “Perhaps her relatives have endowed her with a generous allowance.”
“Then why does she work at a school?” Phoebe shook her head. “In my opinion she is a woman who would be much happier out in society than tucked away at a girls’ school. No, the two occurrences—Zara’s marks and Miss Sedgewick’s clothing—seem too much of a coincidence to me.”
He narrowed his eyes in sudden comprehension. “Are you suggesting the girl’s parents have been paying Miss Sedgewick to alter their daughter’s marks?”
“It’s highly possible.” Phoebe gave him a moment to consider, before adding, “And it’s also possible that Miss Finch discovered the deceit, and was murdered to prevent a lucrative situation from ending.”
He was shaking his head before she’d finished speaking. “Miss Sedgewick, a murderess? Doing harmless favors for profit I can see, but poisoning her superior? A well-bred lady dirtying her hands with the likes of cyanide? I’m sorry, my lady, I cannot fathom it.”
“She would have had the opportunity, as she made quite a nuisance of herself in the kitchen prior to the luncheon.” Phoebe looked at Eva. “Isn’t that so?”
“Miss Sedgewick was underfoot more often than not. Except, of course, for when she might truly have been needed.” Eva smiled without mirth.
“If nothing else, the records should be examined for falsifications.” Phoebe crossed her arms in front of her. “As you yourself said, Constable, what doesn’t make perfect sense must be questioned.”
“Is it fair to be tossing my own words back at me, my lady?”
Phoebe smiled. “At least take a look in Zara’s files, please.”
“I can’t, my lady.”
“What do you mean, you can’t?” she demanded.
Eva spoke at the same time. “Can’t, or won’t, Constable?”
“Both of you calm down. I can’t. Inspector Perkins has closed the investigation, and legally I can’t be traipsing into Miss Sedgewick’s office and pulling open file drawers. I’d lose my job.”
“Miss Finch’s office,” Eva murmured.
Constable Brannock took their measure with a long, cool stare. He pushed out a breath. “I can’t do it, but what I can do is lure Miss Sedgewick away from the office long enough for a couple of stubborn young women to do a bit of snooping.”
* * *
“You’ll understand, Miss Sedgewick, that Chief Inspector Perkins wishes to ensure the well-being of the students before he can give his permission for classes to resume. Until all stipulations are met, Haverleigh is still considered something of a crime scene.”
Eva and Lady Phoebe stood pressed against the stairwell wall, waiting for Constable Brannock to lead Miss Sedgewick to the service stairs at the back of the house, well out of the way of her office. Their voices echoed along the corridor. Eva craned forward and peeked around the banister. She could just make them out as they exited the headmistress’s office.
“A crime scene?” Miss Sedgewick slipped her hand into the crook of the constable’s elbow, an act that had Eva suddenly wishing ill on the woman—not a grave ill, but an awkward stumble, an ink smudge on her nose, anything to undermine her poised, perfectly groomed facade. “But I thought the inspector said Miss Finch’s death was an accident.”
“True, but an accident that could easily have been prevented. The correct term is involuntary manslaughter. And it’s only to save the school the ignominy of a public trial that could call into question the staff’s competence that we are using the term accident and dismissing all possible legal action. Unless you are in disagreement with that?”
“Goodness, no, Constable.” Miss Sedgewick raised her free hand to her temple as if feeling a faint coming on. “A scandal of that sort would do nothing to bring back our dear Miss Finch, but could very well shut us down forever. No, I thank Inspector Perkins for his astute judgment in the matter.”
“Then the sooner you and I inspect the kitchen to make sure all potential poisons are now cleaned out of ordinary cupboards and put under lock and key, the sooner the students may return.” Constable Brannock led Miss Sedgewick around a corner, taking them out of sight.
Even so, Eva stood watching for several more moments, saying over her shoulder to Lady Phoebe, “Let’s just be sure they won’t suddenly return for some reason.”
“The constable won’t let that happen.” Lady Phoebe hopped down from the bottom step. “And from the sounds of Miss Sedgewick’s admiring simper, I very much doubt she’s in any hurry to relinquish the attentions of Constable Brannock. Still, we had better do this quickly.”
Eva lingered on the step as Lady Phoebe scurried along the hall to the headmistress’s office. Her stomach seemed to have dropped to her feet, thrust there by Lady Phoebe’s observation concerning Miss Sedgewick and the constable’s attentions. Eva knew very well she shouldn’t care. She had no right to care, for she had certainly staked no claim on Miles Brannock, for all his persistence in trying to further their acquaintance. She had practically pushed him away—and for good reason. Her ladies needed her, and everyone knew a married lady’s maid posed all manner of inconveniences to her employers. Not that he’d asked her to marry him, or hinted that he might. But either a man’s attentions led to marriage, or they
led a woman to her ruin. At this stage of her life neither alternative seemed particularly appealing.
Except . . . Constable Brannock did have a certain appeal, she must admit, at least privately, in her heart of hearts. And seeing the likes of Verity Sedgewick on his arm—well, a giant ache grew in the vacant spot her stomach had occupied until about a minute ago.
“Eva,” Lady Phoebe hissed from the open doorway of the office, “are you coming?”
Eva crossed to her at a trot. “Sorry, my lady. I was just thinking . . . I do hope the constable doesn’t get in trouble for lying.”
“He’s not lying, particularly. I’m sure parents will want assurances that such a dreadful thing will never happen again, and the constable is doing just that. Inspector Perkins will no doubt take credit for having instructed him to do so. Now, then . . .” She trailed off as she surveyed the room and the tall, wooden file cabinets that filled one wall. She went to the closest and read the letters printed on the front. “A through E. Worthington will be in the last cabinet.”
Eva went to the last one, gripped the handle of the middle drawer, and pulled, to no avail. “It’s locked.”
Lady Phoebe groaned. “I hadn’t thought of that. I suppose we’ll have to search the desk for the key, but Miss Sedgewick might have it on her.”
“Well, let’s just see . . .” Reaching behind her, Eva slid a hairpin from her bun. Then she crouched in front of the drawer and carefully inserted the pin into the lock. She twisted one way, then another, slid the pin out slightly, twisted again, and heard a click. She slid open the middle drawer, and began thumbing through the files. “Here it is, my lady, Worthington.” She pulled out the thick cardboard folder and handed it over.
“How did you do that?”
Eva smiled. “My brother Danny taught me a long time ago.”
Their gazes met and held in shared sadness and sympathy for what each of them had lost in the war. Then Lady Phoebe spread open the folder on the desktop. In it were three years’ worth of assessments on Zara’s progress, spanning the time since she enrolled to the present. Phoebe emitted a hmmm as she pored over both handwritten and typed pages as well as lists of subjects and marks.
Eva watched as her lady separated a large envelope from the stack of reports and opened it. “Look at this. Another set of reports.” She gasped. Her eyebrows surging toward her hairline, she abruptly lifted her chin. “It isn’t Miss Sedgewick who has been altering Zara’s marks, it was Miss Finch. See here.”
Eva leaned across the desk to view these other reports. Lady Phoebe’s forefinger jabbed at a printed column, and then slowly traced a path down the page. Lady Zara’s marks in the subjects she enjoyed—etiquette, deportment, music, dance—were high and straightforward. But in academics, each of the marks entered by her instructors had been inked out, changed, and initialed with HF.
“Henrietta Finch,” Eva murmured.
“Indeed.” Lady Phoebe shook her head. “This certainly changes things, doesn’t it? I wonder why Miss Finch would feel compelled to falsify Zara’s marks. What benefit to her? And why keep a record of the fact? She just as easily could have disposed of the original marks.”
It was Eva’s turn to shake her head in mystification. “It made sense that Miss Sedgewick would have entered into an agreement with Lady Zara’s parents, in order to maintain her own expensive tastes.”
“We were obviously wrong about Miss Sedgewick. I suppose she has generous relatives after all. Perhaps her clothes are secondhand, worn once and discarded. But Miss Finch certainly didn’t dress above her means, did she? Or exhibit any behavior that could be considered extravagant.”
“Perhaps she saved the money for her eventual retirement.”
“Perhaps. A favor now for a comfortable life later.” Lady Phoebe sifted through a few more records.
“A favor,” Eva repeated. “My lady, perhaps Miss Finch didn’t do this for money, but for some other sort of favor.”
“What else could an earl do for a headmistress? Miss Finch never married, and thus had no children whose futures she needed to secure. And as far as I know, her own parents were deceased, so it wasn’t for them that she compromised her integrity as a school official.”
Eva compressed her lips, hesitant to voice the notion that sprang to mind. But if they were to find justice for Miss Finch, even unpleasantness needed mentioning. “Just because Miss Finch never married, my lady, doesn’t mean she never had a child.”
Had she expected her mistress to gasp or blush or raise a hand to her breastbone in shock? Lady Phoebe merely studied her and then nodded, proving to be more worldly than most people would have suspected. “If she had, he or she would be grown by now, or nearly so. Perhaps Miss Finch hoped for a good position somewhere for a son or daughter—surely an earl could arrange that. My goodness, Eva, if Miss Finch does have an offspring somewhere, he or she must be told about her death. Just think how horrible it would be if your mother passed away, and you didn’t learn of it until months or years later?”
Lady Phoebe said this offhandedly, yet a pang struck Eva at the thought of Phoebe and her sisters being told of their own mother’s passing years ago. Eva hadn’t been in the Renshaws’ employ then, but that didn’t prevent her from imagining the pain of such a revelation. She had been on hand, however, when the news came about Phoebe’s father. As excruciating as that had been, at least the Renshaw siblings had had the security of knowing their grandparents would continue to care for them. Would a child of Miss Finch have the same assurance?
Likely not, for such a child would have been kept a heavily guarded secret to preserve Miss Finch’s reputation as well as her employment prospects. If such a person existed, he would more than likely find himself very much alone now in the world.
“It’s also possible, my lady,” Eva felt pressed to point out, “that Lord and Lady Benton did not offer a favor to Miss Finch in exchange for tampering with their daughter’s marks. They might have demanded it based on something they learned about Miss Finch, whether she had a child or some other secret from her past.”
“Yes, and in either case, we can’t simply ask Lord and Lady Benton about this, for to do so would be to accuse them, and they would immediately take the defensive.”
“Then how do we set about discovering whether Miss Finch had a child, or what other secret she might have been hiding?”
“Wait one moment . . .” Lady Phoebe had been shuffling through Lady Zara’s records again, and something apparently caught her eye. She separated a page from the others and perused it more closely. “Miss Finch must have had a change of heart. There’s a letter here, unsent by all appearances. ‘My Lord and Lady Benton,’” she read, “ ‘this is to inform you of your daughter’s academic probation. Lady Zara is no longer meeting minimum standard requirements as set forth in the Haverleigh Certificate of Education . . .’” Lady Phoebe glanced up. “This is most puzzling. Whatever made Miss Finch change those marks in the first place seems to have suddenly lost its importance, or at least its persuasive powers. Miss Finch changed her mind only two weeks ago, Eva. Lord and Lady Benton were already abroad by then, so what prompted the headmistress to write this letter?”
“A quarrel of some kind between Miss Finch and Lady Zara?”
“I don’t know,” Lady Phoebe murmured, “but this would certainly qualify as something that doesn’t make perfect sense.”
CHAPTER 11
Sleep eluded Phoebe that night. Her struggles to find a comfortable position merely resulted in her legs twisting in the bedclothes, making her more uncomfortable than before. Did Zara Worthington’s altered marks have anything to do with Miss Finch’s death? Zara had opportunity. She might have slipped any amount of rat poison into Miss Finch’s Madeira cake.
Or could she? Wouldn’t someone have noticed her reaching for an obvious poison? Would a young lady like Zara even know about rodenticides? And if she had slipped some into the cake recipe, wouldn’t Miss Finch have tasted something amiss?
The woman had attacked her dessert with much more than polite acquiescence. She had positively hummed with pleasure as she consumed its entirety.
Giving up on sleep, she sat up and set her feet on the floor, intent on taking up the book she had started last night. Cries from beyond her bedroom door had her snatching up her dressing gown and running into the hallway instead. What now?
She stood a moment, trying to gauge where the sound originated. Her parents’ bedroom. Just as she reached the door, Amelia came out of her room and spotted Phoebe. “I thought I heard . . .”
Weeping drew them both into their parents’ former bedroom, where they came upon Jane Timmons sitting up in bed and leaning over to shake Lilyanne’s shoulder. “Wake up. You’re having a bad dream.”
“It was me, my fault . . . Miss Finch . . .”
Jane, her straight hair falling out of the plait that plunged down her back, turned her plain features toward Phoebe and Amelia. Phoebe switched on the overhead light. Lilyanne tossed in the bed, twisting the covers even more than Phoebe had twisted hers. Her mottled cheeks glittered with tears, and her bright russet curls stuck out every which way, as if Lilyanne had been tugging at them.
The girl suddenly went silent and opened her eyes with a startled “Oh!”
“You were having a nightmare and crying out in your sleep,” Jane said none too gently. “See? Even ladies Phoebe and Amelia heard you.” For all the words might have seemed abrupt, Jane nonetheless reached out to smooth Lilyanne’s hair back from her perspiring brow. “It’s all right now. No harm done.”
Except . . . Phoebe had heard what Lilyanne said. It was me, my fault . . . Miss Finch. Judging from Amelia’s shocked expression, she had heard as well. Despite Jane’s reassurances, Lilyanne’s tears continued to flow, and her gaze, gleaming with remorse, arced across the room to lock with Phoebe’s. Phoebe went to the bed and sat at the edge opposite Jane.
She straightened the bedclothes and arranged them over Lilyanne’s legs. “Would you like to talk about it?”
A Pinch of Poison Page 14