Marc took one cautious step inside. The room was still warmed by the wall that abutted the parlour’s hearth. Partially hidden by the butler’s forearms and chin was what appeared to be a ledger, opened about halfway. Just beyond it lay a glass tray with quills, an inkstand, and blotting-sand. The ink container was stoppered and the quills in their proper place. Closer to the ledger, however, was a thick pencil. If Chilton had been writing in the ledger, he had been using pencil, not ink. Which was unusual. At the victim’s right hand sat a dusty bottle of what had to be vintage wine of some sort. It had been well-fingered, and four-fifths consumed. Near it Marc noticed a silver flask, lying on its side – unstoppered. There were two small wine goblets on the desk, one at the victim’s left hand and the other across the desk, where a second chair had been drawn up. Chilton had been sharing a drink of his wine with someone seated across from him. His murderer?
“How do we know this was murder?” Marc said to Cobb, who had come up beside him.
“Poisoned,” Cobb said with distaste. “The doc says that there bottle of fancy Spanish sherry was drippin’ with loud-an’-numb.”
“Enough to kill him?”
“That’s right, Marc,” Angus Withers said, coming up behind the two investigators. “From what’s left in the bottle, I’m estimating there was four or five ounces in all, enough laudanum to stagger a horse. I’ll know for sure when I get it back to the surgery. And the corpse shows every sign of having been poisoned.”
“But surely Chilton would have noticed something odd about the sherry?”
“Normally, yes, though it’s not always that easy to detect laudanum in small doses. Of course, you’d have to be sober in any case.”
“You think he was too drunk to spot it?”
“That flask there is pretty much empty, but it definitely contained Scotch whiskey. I’m not the policeman here, but it’s likely the poor devil was nipping at the whiskey while he was working at his accounts and – ”
“And somebody decided to join him, bearing a gift,” Marc said.
“A very expensive bottle of Amontillado. And, as it turns out, a deadly one.”
“Were there traces of laudanum in the second glass, the one across from him?”
“I can’t be sure until I get it back to the surgery, but it was definitely used to drink sherry from.”
“So you’re speculating that someone saw a light in here last night, invited himself in, figured the victim was already inebriated, and offered to share a glass of Amontillado – leaving the bottle, laced with laudanum, to finish the butler off?”
“Something like that,” Withers said. “I’ll leave those details to you and Cobb. Right now I’m concerned with getting the body into my sleigh before rigor starts to set in, and then back to my surgery, not that I think I’ll find anything I haven’t deduced here.”
“Rigor hasn’t started?” Marc said, puzzled. “What time do you estimate death, then?”
“Not long ago. Just before sunrise, I’d say. It takes laudanum five or six hours to actually kill its victim. Add another two or three hours for rigor to begin, and my best guess is that he consumed the fatal amount some time shortly after midnight.”
“I shouldn’t think he’d be working in here much beyond that hour. He’d had a very full day, like the rest of us.”
“I agree,” Garnet Macaulay said as he came up beside Withers. He looked bewildered, as if he’d woken to find himself in a place that had once been familiar but was now completely strange. “And except for this office, the main part of the house was dark and deserted by ten o’clock, when my guests and I left the parlour and billiard-room and went to bed. The two wings at the rear of the house are where everyone sleeps – servants, too. Chilton would be alone in this cubby-hole. No-one would know he was here. I just can’t understand – ”
“What if this door was open?” Cobb said. “The candle would shine into the hall here, an’ you might see it from that round hall at the other end.”
“Either that or the poisoner knew Chilton would be working here,” Marc said. “Garnet, I’ll need to know everything about Chilton you can tell me, but first I want to have a closer look in here.”
“Go right ahead, Marc. I wasn’t finished my chat with Mr. Macaulay anyway,” Withers said, drawing Macaulay discreetly back towards the library directly across the hall from the butler’s office.
Marc and Cobb went right up to the desk.
“You interested in the big book here?” Cobb said.
Marc nodded, then carefully pulled the ledger from under Chilton’s stiffening arms. “Bring that candle closer,” Marc said, indicating one already alight on the shelf just above the desk.
“These other two are burned right down,” Cobb said. “I figure he fell asleep fer good with both of these still blazin’. I lit this one fer the doc when we come in earlier.”
Marc was leafing through the pages of the ledger. “This is a standard accounts book. There are entries going back months, made by Alfred Harkness, the former butler. These last few pages show a different hand, Chilton’s, no doubt, since his arrival just over a week ago. All of them are in ink.”
Cobb was fiddling with the quills. “These’re fresh-cut an’ clean. I’d say they ain’t been used fer a while.”
“Now, this is interesting,” Marc said as he ran his fingers along the inside edge of the opened book. “Three pages, the top three, have been torn out of here – rather neatly, but unmistakeably removed. It’s possible that Chilton had been writing something on these sheets with that pencil.”
“An’ now they’re missin’.”
“Indeed. We’ve got to consider the possibility that Chilton was killed for something he had written on those missing pages, something the killer did not want anyone to know about.”
“So he ripped ‘em out an’ took them with him?”
“If he did – and that seems a reasonable conclusion – then he must have waited until Chilton was too drunk or dazed to notice. Or care.”
“Takin’ an awful chance, wouldn’t you say, sittin’ in here feedin’ a bottle of poison to Macaulay’s butler until the poor bugger was too pissed to blink?”
“True, except that with this door closed the entire south section of Elmgrove would be in utter darkness. Even voices would not carry down the hall to the rotunda, and certainly not into the sleeping quarters beyond it. If one were planning a stealthy poisoning, this would be the ideal spot to carry it out.”
“Likewise, anybody sleepin’ back there could sneak out an’ cross the round room an’ paddle down here without bein’ heard or seen.”
“Yes, and I’m certain he or she did. There are no fresh footprints outside the front door, and the French doors in the parlour are permanently locked during the winter months, I was told yesterday.”
“There’s a back door,” Cobb said. “We come in that way. Brought us inta the round hall near the pink stairway. An’ there’s a rear door to the servants’ wing.”
“True, but don’t bother checking for bootprints back there. The servants will have been up and about at the rear of the place since daybreak.”
“It’d been pretty much tramped about when we got here after eight.”
“Still, I’d like you and Struthers to walk the periphery of the grounds later, and look for signs of external entry overnight. It’s not likely, but we must be thorough. By the way, who discovered the body?”
“Prissy Finch, the maid. She usually checks with the butler before her tidyin’ duties on this floor. Chilton wasn’t in his room when she knocked, an’ when he didn’t show up fer breakfast, she figured he was workin’ here an’ lost track of the time. The door was wide open, she says, so she seen the corpse right off. She says she didn’t touch anythin’, just screamed fer Mr. Macaulay. All this was about seven o’clock. She got the squire outta bed an’ give him the bad news. An’ he sent young Struthers skedadellin’ inta town fer the police. I guess he reckoned it was a suicide an’ the law oughta be brought along
just in case. Turns out he was almost right.”
“You’ve talked with Priscilla?”
“Yup. Her an’ Macaulay. I figured I’d wait until I got the details from Doc Withers before takin’ things any farther. When he suggested murder, I sent fer you.”
“It is not inconceivable that this was a suicide,” Marc said slowly.
“Except there’s no sign of a bottle of laudanum anywhere in here,” Cobb pointed out. “The desk drawer’s empty, an’ you can see fer yerself that there’s nothin’ much on that shelf. I asked Macaulay to have a gander in the butler’s rooms up the hall there. He come back an’ said he didn’t see no medicine bottle.”
“You and I will have to do a thorough search ourselves. Either Chilton or his visitor doctored the sherry, and that amount of laudanum had to come from a pretty conspicuous vial or bottle. And from what I’ve observed myself, Cobb, Chilton seemed to be settling into his job in a normal way. He did not appear depressed. In fact, I’m pretty sure he was initiating an affair with Priscilla Finch. None of this suggests a man ready to kill himself. It’s no wonder that Garnet suspected foul play immediately and sent for the police.”
“An’ you’d think if the butler was about to do himself in, he wouldn’t’ve poured his visitor a glass of the polluted potion first.”
“True. And why leave two candles blazing through an open door, which might attract unwanted attention?”
“An’ that’s pretty fancy wine fer a butler who’s just started his job an’ ain’t had a penny in wages yet.”
“We’ll need to trace the source of the sherry. It may be that Chilton stole it from the cellars here. He would have keys. Also, we’ll need to find out who had a supply of laudanum in this house.”
Cobb sighed. “We already got a pretty good idea on that. As soon as the doc sniffed out laudanum, Macaulay turned white as the snow out there an’ raced off to his big bathroom. When he come back, he was even whiter. He told us his wife’s medicine, almost a full bottle of loud-an’-numb, was missin’ off the shelf.”
It was Marc’s turn to pale. “Oh, dear. That’s too much of a coincidence. And everyone in the house knew it was there – including our illustrious guests.”
“The four gents from Quebec, ya mean?”
“And Hincks and Baldwin also. Where are these people now?”
“I put our people in the parlour behind us an’ the French gents in the dining-room. Prissy went back to the servants quarters, but I told her only to tell the others there that Chilton was dead an’ the police was investigatin’.”
“Well, so far, we’ve got the means and lots of opportunity for someone in this house to have killed Graves Chilton, but what on earth would the motive be? I don’t relish questioning anyone here without some idea of why Chilton would be a target for murder.”
“An’ he has to be the target, eh? It’s his office an’ the killer sat across from him.”
“Yes. And I’m now wondering what could have been written in pencil on those three missing pages that would give rise to homicide?”
“It has to’ve been one of the servants, I figure. Macaulay tells me this Chilton just come from England last week to take over bein’ their boss. Old Alfred’s been dead over two months, so it’s possible one of the regulars had some kind of fiddle goin’ on an’ the new broom was onto it.”
“Good point. I overheard Chilton telling Macaulay that he wanted to leave his post for half an hour yesterday afternoon to check on some discrepancy or other in supplies for the horses. He gave every indication of being a real stickler for detail and correct behaviour. Also, on Wednesday I heard him dressing down Austin Bragg rather publicly – embarrassing him needlessly, I thought.”
“An’ you say this Chilton had an eye on some forbidden part of young Prissy?”
“I’m sure of it. If Bragg was soft on Priscilla himself, there could be plenty of reason for disliking the new man. Still, murder is an extreme solution.” Marc paused, then said, “There was another of the staff here who might have it in for the butler – Giles Harkness, Alfred’s younger brother. Macaulay told me he left in a huff a week or so before Chilton arrived here, because he fancied himself a replacement for Alfred. He hasn’t been seen since, but he would know his way around the estate and would likely be able to get in through one of those rear doors even if they were locked. Though I can’t imagine Chilton offering him a drink or a toast.”
Cobb grinned. “I run inta the fella a day or two after he left.”
“You did?”
“Yup. Drunk as a skunk, he was, in The Cock and Bull. I dragged him to his lodgings. He was holed up in Mrs. McCurdy’s hovel fer down-an’-outs.” The wart on the end of Cobb’s nose twitched as he added, “An’ the bugger made threats against his employer.”
“Excellent. You can check out his whereabouts last night when you get back into town. It’s possible he conspired with one or more of his cronies here to do Chilton or Macaulay some harm. You’ll need to quiz the servants – tactfully – about that.”
“Well, that certainly gives me a few hooks to bait when I go downstairs to start my in-terror-gatin’. An’ servants have a nasty habit of seein’ more’n they’re supposed to. They may’ve seen or heard somethin’ that’ll be of use to us.” Cobb followed Marc back out into the hall. “Now, what about the bigwigs? We can’t just ignore ‘em, can we?”
“No, we can’t. I’d stake my life that neither Francis nor Robert was involved. But I’ll need to question them on what they might have seen or heard, especially in connection with the laudanum container and the source of the sherry.”
“An’ why would four Frenchmen be worried about Chilton or what he was scribblin’ in his ledger? Was there somethin’ secret goin’ on here?” Cobb gave Marc a quizzical look – part puzzlement, part scepticism.
“These gentlemen are . . .ah . . . four businessmen here from Montreal. We were holding two days of meetings about some business plans we’re developing for the time when our two provinces are united.”
“I see. An’ were any of these business plans so important that the details needed to be kept under wraps an’ well away from the competition?”
“That is quite possible.”
“So, what if Chilton was spyin’ on yer ad-lib-erations an’ scribblin’ such details in that big notebook? Could one of the French gents’ve caught him at it – say, by poppin’ in last night fer a chat and a drink an’ then, havin’ a bottle of loud-an’-numb to hand, distracted him fer a bit an’ doctored the sherry?”
Marc thought of someone who might have been carrying laudanum on him, but said nothing to Cobb. Instead he said, “Chilton gave every sign of not speaking French, and our French guests are only marginally acquainted with English, so it’s hard to see how the butler could have been a spy or carried on a casual chat in French prior to the attempt on his life.”
“An’ Chilton come straight from England last week?”
“Apparently. He got off the Kingston to Toronto stage last Thursday, according to Macaulay. And I understand a letter from New York preceded him. It’s hard to see how he could have been hired to come here to spy on a simple business meeting or recruited on route. Still, I’ll need to know everything about Chilton that Macaulay knows. Something may also turn up when we search his room.”
“How are we gonna find the missin’ medicine bottle without searchin’ the whole house?”
“Good question. I’m certainly not going to treat our guests as suspects by ordering their rooms and suitcases turned inside out. We’ll need to start slowly and cautiously.”
Just then Dr. Withers and Garnet Macaulay emerged from the library. Macaulay’s expression had gone from bewildered to distraught. He was wringing his hands.
“But that’s impossible, Angus! These gentlemen must be back in Quebec by Monday. They have obligations. They came here in good faith.”
“My hands are tied, Garnet. I have my duty as coroner to perform.”
“What’s
the trouble?” Marc asked.
“No trouble, counsellor,” Withers said. “Just the law.”
“There’s got to be an inquest,” Macaulay sighed.
“Only if the police do not come up with a murderer,” Withers said, looking at Cobb.
“There has to be an inquest into any mysterious death,” Marc said to Macaulay.
“But we’ll be called as witnesses,” Macaulay protested. “All of us.”
Marc got the point. He felt his stomach knot.
“That’s correct,” Withers said. “No-one who was on this estate last night will be permitted to leave Toronto until after the inquest. I am truly sorry if this proves to be an inconvenience to your guests from Montreal.”
“But if we catch the killer,” Cobb said, “you won’t need an inquest.”
“Right. I’ll tell you what I’m prepared to do. The victim has no family here, so I’ll take the body into my surgery and put it on ice. I’ll give the police until Monday afternoon to charge someone with the crime before I order an inquest. The earliest we could assemble a jury would be next Thursday or Friday – ”
“That’s outrageous!” Macaulay cried.
“Easy, Garnet,” Marc said. “Angus’s offer gives us three days to find the killer – quietly, eh?” Marc looked at his friend, the coroner.
“You can count on that,” Withers said. “Until Monday afternoon, unless the police decide otherwise, no-one outside this estate need know what happened here. After that, it’s a public matter.”
“Then you’ll be wanting a list of our guests and my servants?” Macaulay said hesitantly.
“Not if you’ll give me your word as a gentleman that every one of them will be available, should I need to call them to the stand.”
Macaulay looked vastly relieved.
“Moreover,” Withers smiled, “you’ll be my first witness, Garnet, and the first question you’ll be asked is to name all those present in your house and on your grounds on the day of the butler’s death – under oath.”
Macaulay dredged up a grim smile.
“Thank you, Angus,” Marc said. “We have been having sensitive business discussions with our Quebec guests, and the less public these matters, the better.”
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