Baked to Death

by Dean James

  “You must work very hard at these gatherings,” Giles said.

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “But I don’t mind. I don’t mind hard work. This year His Grace appointed me his chief serving maid.” Her homely face beamed with pride. “And he often asked me to sing for his guests.”

  “Then he indeed valued you highly,” Giles said.

  “Yes, certainly,” I agreed. “But you must have had to be constantly in attendance when the late duke was here in his pavilion.”

  “Yes, sir,” Etheldreda said. “His Grace was right popular, and there were always a lot of people coming and going.”

  “Yesterday was no different, I suppose,” Giles said. Really, he had taken his cue well. Etheldreda had a hard time taking her eyes off him, and he continued gently to draw her out.

  “Oh, no,” she said. “There were ever such a lot of people here yesterday. I was busy filling and re-filling cups and then taking them out to wash them and bring them back again.”

  “I imagine there were many who came seeking the duke’s favor,” Giles said. “Especially since it appeared that he very well might have been the next king.”

  Her face puckered so that I feared she might start crying. “And a fine king he would have been,” she said, bravely holding back the tears.

  At this rate we might never find out anything concrete, but it wouldn’t do to rush her. I quelled my impatience and left Giles to continue his gentle interrogation.

  “We have met the present king, of course,” Giles said, allowing a hint of distaste to creep into his voice, “as well as the other candidate, I suppose you would call him.”

  Etheldreda’s lip curled. “That fat little toad Sir Reginald Bolingbroke, you mean. What a prat! And a fat lot of good it did him, coming here with a basket full of pastries yesterday.”

  “Was he trying to curry favor with the duke?” Giles asked.

  “Oh, yes,” Etheldreda said. “He tried to make out like he was on the duke’s side, but His Grace saw right through that.” She laughed. “He sat right there and ate those pastries the little toad brought, then sent him away with a flea in his ear.”

  “What time was that?” Giles asked, a shade too quickly.

  Etheldreda frowned, but when Giles smiled at her, she smiled back. “Mid-afternoon, the hottest part of the day.”

  This information was most interesting. Sir Reggie could have given Luke a poisoned pastry, and it might have taken the digitalis several hours to do its work. I longed to have access to the information from the postmortem, and if I were lucky, Robin Chase might be willing to share it.

  Almost as if I had conjured him with that thought, Robin stepped into the tent, startling the three of us.

  “Trying to do my work again for me, Simon?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “Just chatting with this charming young woman, J Robin,” I said airily. “You should hear her sing. She has a very lovely voice.”

  Robin laughed. “Actually, I’ve heard her sing quite often, Simon, though not for a couple of years as she’s been living in London. She’s the daughter of my vicar, and I’ve known her since she was a wee sprout. Hello, Beryl. How are you this morning?”

  “Fine, Robin,” Etheldreda-Beryl said, smiling. “Is this the gentleman you were telling me about last evening?”

  Robin’s face split in a huge grin. “Yes, Beryl, it is.”

  The girl tried unsuccessfully to stop a giggle before it escaped. She clamped a hand over her mouth as she blushed a fiery red. Giles turned his head away, but I could see his shoulders moving slightly.

  “Have a good laugh at my expense,” I said, pretending to pout. “I don’t mind in the least.” I looked up at the handsome policeman. “This must be a first, Robin. Not only do you have a mole conveniently inside the household of the murder victim, you also have your ablest assistant on the job as well.” I beamed at him, and he commenced to stroking his moustache.

  “Yes, well,” Robin said, a bit uncertainly. Too much help can be a problem, Simon.”

  “Yes, well,” I said teasingly. “Am I too much, Robin?”

  Beryl giggled again, and Giles sighed loudly. Robin simply stared at me, stony-faced. Oh, my, best not push him too far. He had been remarkably tolerant in the past.

  “Strike that,” I said. I stood. “Come along, Giles. I suppose we’ve outstayed our welcome, and we had best toddle along.”

  “Not so fast, Simon,” Robin said, holding up a hand in a gesture that told me to stay put.

  I sat back down, and Giles made a funny face at me that Robin couldn’t see, as if to say, “This is a surprise!”

  “As you’ve already put your foot in it so to speak,” Robin said, deadpan, “you might as well keep your foot where it is, at least for the next little while.” He moved closer to stand in front of Beryl, to one side of me.

  “Beryl,” Robin said, “I gather Dr. Kirby-Jones here was inquiring, in his way, about who visited the deceased the day he died.”

  “Yes, Robin,” she said, her eyes wide open and focused intently on his face.

  I wondered whether Robin realized how deeply in love with him the girl was. He gave no sign of it in his avuncular manner, but perhaps that was for my benefit.

  “Would you remind repeating what you told Simon here?” Robin asked. “Even though we discussed this last night,” he added, forestalling her protest.

  “Very well, then,” Beryl said. With admirable conciseness she related to Robin what she had told Giles and me about the visit from Sir Reginald Bolingbroke.

  Robin had pulled a small notebook from his pocket and appeared to be checking a few notes as Beryl talked. When she had finished, he asked, “Who else came to see the deceased yesterday?”

  “His Majesty the King,” the girl answered.

  “Before or after Sir Reginald?” Robin asked, glancing at his notebook

  “After,” Beryl said. “About a quarter of an hour after. I was laying out the clothes for the evening for both the duke and milady, checking to be certain they were in good nick, when I heard the king hail His Grace.”

  “Were you present for any of the king’s visit with the duke?” Robin grimaced slightly as he spoke the two men’s tides.

  “Briefly, Robin,” Beryl replied. “His Grace asked me to serve his guest some mead, and I did so.”

  “Were they talking at all while you were serving?”

  Beryl shrugged. “Mostly chitchat nothing of consequence.” She paused. “I just remembered. The mead I served, well...”

  “Yes, Beryl,” Robin prompted. “What have you remembered?”

  She looked sheepish. “I’m sorry, Robin, I suppose last night I was too dazed by what had happened to recall clearly.” She paused for a deep breath. “And I don’t know whether this has any bearing on anything, but the mead I served was from a jug that the king had brought with him. He said it was a gift for the duke. He makes his own mead, you know.”

  Robin scribbled furiously in his notebook, while Giles and I exchanged startled glances. Could King Harald have poisoned Luke with mead he had brought as an ostensible gift?

  “Did you see both of them actually drink the mead, Beryl?” Robin asked.

  Beryl thought a moment. “I know His Grace did. He quite enjoyed it and commented on the strong taste. But, come to think of it, I don’t remember seeing the king drink any. At least, not while I was with them.”

  “Were you with them very long?” Robin continued his interrogation.

  “No, only a few minutes,” Beryl said, “just as long as it took to serve them, as the duke had asked. Then I went back to my work in one of the rear chambers.” She pointed toward the chamber in question.

  “But you could still hear what they were talking about?”

  “Yes, Robin,” she said, her eyes downcast. “One cannot help it. I did not mean to eavesdrop on their conversation, but there is no way to avoid hearing what goes on in the whole pavilion.”

  “What were they talking abo
ut?”

  “Some business deal in the mundane world,” Beryl said. “The king wanted the duke to give him a contract. It sounded like His Grace had already turned him down a time or two, but Harald, the king, I mean, sounded pretty desperate. He was begging the duke. He even said he would not fight His Grace for the kingship if the duke would grant him the contract.”

  “And what was the duke’s response to that?” I spoke before I thought, and I earned a frown from Robin for my trouble.

  “Go ahead, Beryl, you can answer him,” Robin said.

  Beryl’s hands fidgeted in her lap, and she hesitated in her answer. “It was really rather awful, Robin,” she said at last. “I had never heard the duke sound so cold or so cruel. The poor king was practically sobbing, and the duke laughed at him. He told the king he didn’t need any help taking the kingship away from him, and he saw no reason to barter for it.” She blushed. “Please don’t ask me to repeat the word that the duke called him. But it was rather nasty, and after that the king stormed out.”

  “Did he have anything else to say to the duke before he left?” Robin asked.

  I admired the delicacy of his question. He didn’t want to lead his witness by asking whether the king had threatened Luke.

  Beryl’s face puckered up as she tried to hold back the tears. “He said he’d make the duke pay for this, somehow.” A sob escaped her. “It was all so humiliating, Robin. I actually felt sorry for Harald, even though he’s such an idiot.”

  “Yes, I can well imagine,” Robin said. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and offered it to her. Her eyes shone as she accepted it, and Robin would have to have been blind not to understand their message. I looked away as Beryl delicately blew her nose.

  “What happened after that?” Robin said, after giving the girl a moment to collect herself.

  “I continued with my work,” she said, “and I could hear the duke moving about in here.”

  “How long was it before you entered this chamber again?”

  Beryl frowned, considering. “Perhaps another quarter of an hour, I suppose.”

  “And what did you observe when you came back in here?”

  Shutting her eyes as if to aid her memory, Beryl concentrated. After a moment, she opened her eyes. “His Grace was busy with some paperwork at that table.” She pointed to an area behind us, and we turned to look. Paperwork still littered the surface of the table.

  “And?” Robin prompted her.

  “And then I began to clear away the mead and the drinking cups,” Beryl said. “The duke asked me to leave the mead and his cup with him, but I took the king’s away to be washed.”

  “Was there any mead in the king’s cup?” Robin asked.

  Beryl shook her head. “No, it was empty.”

  “And you didn’t see him drink anything from the cup?”

  “No, Robin,” she said. “I never did. But there was one odd thing.” She paused.

  “What was odd?” I asked, and this time Robin didn’t bother to turn and frown at me.

  Her eyes still fixed on Robin’s face, Beryl responded, “I would have sworn that there was more mead in the jug than there had been when I had poured out for them earlier.”

  Again Giles and I exchanged startled glances.

  This could be potentially damaging for Harald, if the mead should prove to have been the method by which the poison had been administered. “Where is that jug of mead now?” Robin asked.

  “The duke drank it all,” Beryl said, “and I washed the jug. It’s still here, if you want it.”

  “Yes, I think I had better see it,” Robin said. “Perhaps you could show me where it is.”

  Beryl rose from her chair, and Robin followed her into another chamber of the pavilion while Giles and I remained in our seats. “It’s too bad that she washed it,” Giles said, his voice low.

  “Yes,” I said. “That jug could prove to be quite significant. But she wasn’t to know, of course, that the mead might have been poisoned.” I shrugged. “The problem is, though, we don’t know how Luke was poisoned. It could have been the mead, or it could have been those blasted fig pastries he loved so much.”

  “That’s something the scientists will have to sort out,” Giles said, sighing. “And I wonder whether Chase will tell you about any of it, Simon. I cannot quite figure him. One minute he complains that you’re interfering, and the next he lets you (and me, which is even stranger!) sit in on an interview with a witness.”

  “Very odd,” I said, “but Robin can be rather devious, as I have discovered. I’m not sure what his game is at the moment, but as long as he’s being forthcoming, I’m certainly going to take advantage of it.”

  A few moments later Robin strode back into the front of the pavilion, all the while issuing orders over his mobile phone. He was arranging for some of the technical members of his staff to come and take charge of the jug that had once contained the potentially poisonous mead and to survey the whole pavilion for anything they might have missed on their first look around.

  After ending the call and stowing the mobile away in his jacket pocket, Robin fixed a suspiciously friendly smile on Giles and me. “I fear, Simon, Sir Giles,” he said, “that I must ask you to vacate the premises, for, as you no doubt just heard, various members of my team will arrive shortly.”

  “And it wouldn’t do to have them find us lolling about, is that it, Robin?” I offered a jaunty smile as I stood, and Giles did the same.

  “You are a quick study, Simon,” Robin said, offering a more genuine smile this time.

  “I can take a hint,” I said, “believe it or not.” I turned as if to leave the tent, hesitated, then turned back. “One thing, Robin, before we leave.”

  “Yes, Simon?” Robin asked, eyebrows already half-raised in irritated inquiry.

  “Have you any information you can share yet about the cause of death?”

  Giles coughed beside me, but I waited with a patient smile. Robin made a show of reluctance over offering the information, but his heart wasn’t really in it. He wanted me to know, whatever his reason might have been.

  “We do not have conclusive results as of yet,” he said pompously, “because the pathologist hasn’t completed the postmortem and the tests. He won’t make any statement as to cause of death until he has finished with his analyses.” He shrugged. “But I can’t ignore what Professor Lovelace said. It just might be digitalis poisoning.”

  “Very interesting,” I said. “And was the pathologist willing to express any opinion o just how the victim came to partake of the poison?”

  Robin shook his head regretfully. “No, I did ask, but all he would say is that, if it were digitalis, it could have taken several hours to have acted.”

  “Which means that it was not present in anything he might have eaten or drunk at Totsye Titchmarsh’s dinner party last night.”

  “Exactly. If it was digitalis,” Robin said. “But that leaves a number of other possibilities.”

  “The mead he drank, which was brought to him by the king, or one of the pastries that Sir Reginald gave him.”

  “Yes, Simon, it could have been in either of those,” Robin said. “Or in something else entirely. One of our tasks now is to trace, as closely as possible, every step the victim took yesterday. Discover everything he ate and drank throughout the day. When we have the complete results from the postmortem, we’ll know better what we’re looking for.”

  “That should prove interesting,” I said. “If I should happen to uncover anything on my own, naturally, I’ll let you know right away.”

  “Naturally,” Robin said, his tone devoid of inflection. “Now, Simon, Sir Giles, if you’ll excuse me?” He held up a hand, indicating the opening of the tent, through which we could see several members of his staff approaching.

  “Then we shall take our leave of you, Robin,” I said, and without a backward glance, I glided out of the tent, Giles right on my heels.

  Once we were out of earshot of Robin and his
staff, I paused in the shadow of a nearby tent Giles stepped close, sensing the need for privacy. “What would you like me to do, Simon?”

  I smiled. “Good man, Giles.” He dimpled. “Take your time and nose around the encampment, see what you can find out about the daily routine of the de Montfort pavilion. Where they get their food, how it’s prepared, who prepares it, how many servants there are, and so on. Can you manage that?”

  “Of course, Simon,” Giles whispered with confidence. “What will you be doing?”

  “I think it would prove very fruitful to talk directly to some of the suspects in the case,” I said. “I have an idea what their various motives are for wanting Luke de Montfort dead, but I need to get a better sense of who hated him enough to kill him. Who was finally pushed so far that murder seemed the only way out.”

  ‘Just be careful, Simon,” Giles said. “Whoever killed Luke was pretty ruthless, and I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.”

  I couldn’t tell Giles that the possibility of the killer’s harming me was practically nonexistent. Unless, of course, that killer were Tristan Lovelace.

  In that case, both Giles and I could be in deadly danger. Though I felt confident in my ability to protect myself from Tris, I had no such assurance in being able to keep Giles safe from him.

  That thought shook me deeply, and perhaps accounted for the fact that I gave Giles a long, lingering kiss before sending him off on his quest.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  After Giles left me, I dithered for a moment or two, trying to decide in what order to tackle my various suspects. I might as well deal with the most obnoxious and least attractive one first, so I set off to find Sir Reginald Bolingbroke.

  I inquired of the first person I encountered, a cheerful elderly man dressed very plainly, where I might find Sir Reginald. His smile dimming appreciably, my informant directed me to my quarry’s abode.

  “You can’t miss it,” he assured me.

  “Why is that?”

  “You’ll know it when you see it.” He hesitated. I could see that he wondered what business I might have with Reggie, but I merely thanked him and continued on my way.