Harriett

by King, Rebecca

  “Harriett?”

  Harriett blinked and felt a tell-tale blush colour her cheeks. It took her a moment to try to remember what had actually been said; something about someone being ill? Oh, right, Mrs Bobbington.

  “The only slightly strange thing that happened was that Miss Hepplethwaite appeared to pretend to faint,” Harriett murmured thoughtfully.

  Mark’s gaze sharpened. “How do you mean ‘pretend to faint’?”

  “Well, she collapsed and drew everyone’s attention to her. Madame Humphries demanded some water but, within a couple of minutes of being out cold on the floor, Miss Hepplethwaite had recovered and seemed completely unaffected by her collapse.”

  “You think she was pretending?”

  “I haven’t fainted myself, but of the few people I have seen suffer from the malady had needed more than a minute or two to recover. Miss Hepplethwaite continued with the demonstration within a couple of minutes and was completely unperturbed by her apparent ‘faint’.”

  “Thank you for that.” Mark made a note on his pad. “Is there anything else?” His gaze flickered from Harriett to Babette before lingering on Harriett.

  “I cannot recall anything,” she replied with a frown. She wished he wouldn’t stare at her like that; it was strangely difficult to focus her thoughts on anything. His dimples were really rather distracting and they captured far too much of her interest as it was without her being pinned down by the intensity of his wonderful green eyes, framed with the thickest lashes she had ever seen on a man. “Of course, Madame Humphries glowed when she was in a trance but other than that -” she shook her head slowly.

  “Glowed?” Mark’s brows rose and he flicked a glance at Babette.

  “She turned a strange colour and was talking in an odd voice. A green haze gathered around her when she went into trance.”

  “Did it smell?”

  Harriett shook her head and glanced at Babette, who merely shrugged her shoulders.

  “I can’t remember anything else unusual, sorry.”

  “I will be back tomorrow.” Marks voice dipped to a husky rumble as he sidled around Harriett in the narrow hallway. The sleeve of his jacket brushed her arm as he passed and it took all of his fortitude to continue to move toward the front door. “I will say goodnight.” At least he had a good reason to return in the morning. Even if Minerva Bobbington had died of natural causes, he was going to make a personal call to inform Harriett of the cause of death rather than leave it to Isaac.

  “Good night,” Babette called as the door closed behind him. “Are you alright, my dear? You seem a little dazzled.” Babette had no idea what was wrong with Harriett, but strongly suspected it had something to do with the delightful policeman who had just left. The tension that had hovered in the doorway between them had been palpable, to the point that Babette had decidedly felt like the odd one out.

  “I think that we need to get a good night’s sleep,” she murmured when Harriett continued to stare absently at the front door.

  Harriett gave herself a mental shake and turned toward the sitting room with a shudder. “I don’t think we should tidy up right now. Let’s leave everything as it is and sort it all out in the morning.” Rather too hastily, she closed the door on the sight of the now empty hearth and hurried up the stairs after Babette.

  The rest of the house could wait until morning. Right now she needed some time alone to think.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The following morning, Mark watched David Woods settle into the chair opposite his desk at Great Tipton Police Station. Last night had been a late night for everyone, and David looked about as tired as Mark felt, but, right now, the fog of tiredness was ignored with the weight of the impending news on his shoulders.

  Last night, as soon as he had left Harriett’s, he had been faced with the unenviable task of informing Mr Bobbington of the dreadful news. To say the man had been distraught was an understatement. Without any cause of death, and only a few sketchy details to rely on, it had been a difficult conversation that had lasted until the wee small hours of the morning. It had been nearly dawn by the time Mark had crawled into bed, but even with exhaustion pulling at him, he had been unable to find sleep. His thoughts had been plagued by beautiful brown eyes and a mop of curly dark hair that he felt driven to see again.

  The gravity on David’s face told Mark that he wasn’t going to like the news that the Doctor was about to impart.

  “I think it must be murder.”

  Mark’s brows rose and he mentally cursed. “How?”

  “She choked to death,” David Woods sighed. He dug into his pocket and produced a cloth, which he placed on Mark’s desk. Mark watched him carefully unfold it to reveal a small lump of what looked like heavily stained gloop.

  “What is it?”

  “At first glance? Cheese cloth or muslin, my first guess would be. It was lodged in her windpipe.” David looked at him. “This is what I think may have happened. Last night, only two of the gas lamps in the parlour were lit, if you remember? It was gloomy to say the least. Minerva had been drinking sherry, which is naturally dark in colour. On examination, there was a fairly large amount of sherry in her stomach. She wouldn’t think to look in her glass and, unfortunately, the sherry would hide the evidence of this kind of foreign object. The sherry was served in tumblers, not sherry glasses and she must have had a large amount of the alcohol in her glass. This little piece of cloth must have been in her drink and she inadvertently swallowed it with the sherry.”

  “It had to be drunk,” Mark murmured and wrinkled his nose up in disgust at the brown mulch on his desk.

  “Anyone finding it in food would spit it out. Like I said, it was lodged in her windpipe and isn’t something she could have stuck in her throat without knowing.”

  “So, she couldn’t have inadvertently left a small piece of cloth, say wrapped around a pie, and ate it with her tea?”

  “I am afraid not. If it was likely to be with food, she would have chewed it and probably swallowed it with her food. There was food in her stomach but that was not consumed directly before her death. This little piece of cloth choked her because it was in the liquid she was knocking back. You couldn’t sip this without noticing it in your mouth.”

  “Good Lord. This was in her throat?” Mark frowned down at the horrid, sludgy object and watched as David picked up a pencil off the desk, and slowly prised the small lump apart until it resembled a small square patch of cloth. To Mark, it looked more like cotton than muslin, but he was no haberdasher. He froze at that thought and studied the small square before him a little more closely.

  “I need to do some further tests on it just to make sure, but I think it may have been coated in something. See the darker edges here?” The pencil tip pointed to the slightly frayed edges of the material.

  “What? Poison?”

  David sighed and shook his head. “I really don’t know. Examination has proven that she choked to death. There are clear signs of asphyxiation and she had this foreign object lodged in her windpipe. There are scratch marks to her neck and chin which points to the fact that she was clawing at them as she tried to draw breath. This in her windpipe is almost certainly what killed her, even if it was coated in some sort of poison.”

  “When will you know for certain?” Mark’s voice was sharp. No sooner had David dropped the pencil back onto the desk than Mark swept it up and threw it into the waste paper basket.

  “I should know if poison is involved this afternoon. My staff is working on it as we speak. It is supposition, you understand? The fraying could just be where the material was cut to size.”

  Mark nodded.

  “This cloth is too small to be of any use to anyone though, so you need to consider whether it was specifically cut for purpose. What could anyone use something of this size for?” He pointed to the small piece of cloth that was no bigger than an inch and a half square.

  “Do you think someone intended to frighten her?”

&nb
sp; “Why would you want to frighten someone by dropping a piece of muslin into their drink though? I mean, for what purpose? Nobody is going to admit to putting it there as a joke. It isn’t inconceivable that it contained someone’s medication; a tablet or powders of some sort, and it was accidentally dropped into Minerva’s drink, but it seems highly unlikely that someone would take powders in the middle of a psychic circle meeting.”

  Mark studied the object. “It’s too small for powders, even if one could put powders into a piece of cloth like this.”

  “Powders are usually wrapped in paper though, Mark,” David replied. He leaned back in his seat and studied his colleague. He really didn’t relish Mark having to figure this one out.

  “We are doing more tests on the contents of her stomach. I should have some of the answers to you tomorrow morning at the earliest, but it may take longer than that if I need to do more detailed tests.”

  “Was she on any medication at all?” Mark frowned. He wondered if the woman had carried a tablet or powders in the cloth and had accidentally dropped it in her drink herself.

  David shook his head. “I haven’t seen her for at least six months. If she was taking medication, it was nothing I have given her. I am going to call into the pharmacist and make a few enquiries, but Minerva always seemed to be one of the village’s residents who was always in fine fettle.”

  “Good Lord, so there may be a killer amidst Tipton Hollow’s first psychic circle?”

  “There may indeed.”

  “Damn,” Mark sighed. He inwardly groaned at the thought of all of the people who were in the room last night. It was going to take the next couple of days to interview everyone. The only high point was the fact that he now had a very good reason to remain in contact with Harriett for the next few days at least.

  “Do you know if anyone else in the room were on any kind of medication that they might conceivably need to take with them?”

  David frowned at that. “I don’t have Madame Humphries or Miss Hepplethwaite on my list, I think I would remember them,” he added wryly. “I can check the records of the rest of the group though and get the list to you by this afternoon.”

  “What about Harriett or Babette? Are they on any medication as far as you know?” Mark’s question was just a little too sharp, a little too pointed, and he inwardly groaned at the look of interest on his friend’s face.

  David sighed. He had never seen that intent look on Mark’s face before and wasn’t sure what to make of it. Was it because he suspected that either Harriett or Babette might be involved? Or was it because he had rather too much of an interest in proving their innocence? He rather suspected the latter might be the case but wisely kept quiet.

  “Harriett is always in excellent health. My family have known hers for many years. My father delivered her you know. I haven’t seen Harriett at my surgery since she was a young child with chicken pox. Babette has only had cause to visit me oh, about once or twice in the last ten years. As far as I can recall, there isn’t anything strange or startling about any of the family, apart from the usual aches and pains, that sort of thing. None of them are on any mediation as far as I know.”

  Mark heaved a mental sigh of relief and leaned back in his chair. “I don’t think it is likely that the muslin cloth was left in the glass the last time it was cleaned.”

  “It’s too small for a cleaning cloth, don’t you think?” David frowned dubiously.

  “I know.” Mark shook his head. “I really cannot see that something of this size has any particular purpose.”

  “I know. It had to be cut for its intended purpose.”

  He nodded slowly and pushed to his feet. “Thank you for your haste in getting this to me.” He watched David slowly fold up the cloth and shuddered with revulsion. He had no idea how David did the job he did and was very grateful that his own work was more cut and dried – no pun intended. “I had better go and ask some questions of Tipton Hollow’s Psychic Circle, hadn’t I?”

  David sighed and made his way toward the door. “If you can get me the decanters, I will study them for any trace of anything unusual.”

  “I will do that. In the meantime, send me the reports when you have them. Just leave them on my desk and I will get to them when I have conducted the first round of interviews. Thank you, David.”

  Mark parted company with his friend at the front door to the constabulary and stopped Detective Brown as he entered the building.

  “You had better come with me. We have some investigating to do.” He nodded down the road toward a black carriage that waited by the kerb.

  “What have you found out?” Isaac asked as he cast a glance at the rapidly retreating back of Doctor Woods.

  “Tipton Hollow, please,” Mark called to the driver and settled back into the seat to relay his conversation with David.

  “Good Lord,” Isaac grumbled with a sigh.

  “Although we cannot rule anyone out, I think it is highly unlikely that Harriett or Babette Marchington would kill anyone in their own parlour. Not only would it be foolish to draw attention to themselves by committing murder in their own house, but it would have to be a very arrogant murderer indeed to take someone’s life with so many people around.”

  “They would have to be either very clever or incredibly stupid,” Isaac agreed. He couldn’t see either Harriett, or Babette, being a cold blooded killer. He hadn’t spent much time in Tipton Hollow himself, but he had learned enough about the place to know that the tea shop Harriett ran with her family had an excellent reputation for miles around. The family were held in high regard, and had excellent community relationships with businesses and locals alike. They were the least likely people to be involved in such a sordid event as murder.

  “Which house first?”

  “I need to go to Harriett’s and see if they have cleaned out the room yet. Hopefully, the decanters will have been left untouched. David wants them so he can run a few tests for poisons and the like.”

  “Or more pieces of cloth?” Isaac added ruefully.

  “Or more pieces of cloth,” Mark sighed. Now that the cause of death had been identified, he felt driven to get to Harriett’s house as quickly as possible and stop her from drinking any more of that sherry.

  It seemed to take an age before the carriage rumbled to a stop outside 29 Daventry Street in Tipton Hollow. Mark left Isaac to pay the driver and stalked toward the front door in hurried strides. He tried to keep his impatience at bay, however knocked on the door with more force than was necessary.

  Harriett hurried through the house and wiped her hands on her apron. Her stomach dipped as soon as she saw the outline of the person outside. She knew who it was before she opened the door, and poked at the random curls that had escaped the bun at her nape self-consciously as she took a deep, fortifying breath. With a hand that trembled, she turned the latch and pasted a cautious smile on her face that was at odds with the thrill of excitement that coursed through her.

  “Good morning,” Harriett called and stood back to allow the men into the hallway.

  “Good morning, Harriet,” Mark replied gently as he studied her.

  There were dark smudges beneath her eyes that told him she had slept as little as he had. Her complexion had lost the healthy glow she had had last night, and she now stood before him pale and guarded. He hated to see her thus and searched for something to say to reassure her.

  “Do you remember Detective Brown?”

  It was just over twelve hours since they had left the house, of course she remembers him, Mark thought and mentally winced at the stupidity of his question.

  “Yes, I do, good morning, Detective. Can I get you both some tea?”

  “Yes, please. That would be wonderful.”

  Harriett hesitated at the parlour door. She couldn’t bring herself to go into the room today any more than she could last night and wondered how she was going to get around her sudden reluctance to even think about tidying the room.

  “Why
don’t we go into the sitting room where it is more comfortable?” Mark suggested softly. He had seen the brief flash of fear on her face and read her reluctance for what it was. “Has nobody been in there yet?”

  “Not yet. Babette has been baking and I, well -” Harriett hesitated. She was at a loss to explain her aversion to being in the room because she wasn’t normally a squeamish person but for the life of her she couldn’t even open the parlour door, let alone go into the room.

  “It’s alright, Harriett, we do understand, and it is quite fortuitous really,” Mark murmured softly. “I will explain why in a moment.” He motioned toward the rear of the house and followed her down the hallway.

  What was it about this man that seemed to rob her of her common sense? This was the second time she had met him, and the second time her world felt slightly off kilter, as though nothing was quite the same and wasn’t ever going to be right again. Not in a negative way, but in a way that she knew that something major had happened in her life and it would always colour the way she viewed events and circumstances around her.

  The men took a seat in the room next to the kitchen and waited while Harriett fetched a tray of tea things. She poured the fragrant brew while Babette placed a plate of assorted cakes on the table, the scent of which made Mark want to groan. Once everyone was furnished with tea and cake, the ladies took their seats and waited with an air of trepidation for Mark’s news.

  “I don’t see any way to soften the news ladies, but I am afraid I have to inform you that it looks like Minerva Bobbington died of unnatural causes last night.”

  Harriett stared at Mark as the words rolled around in her head. They tried to seek a place in which to fall into some semblance of order and make sense, but failed miserably.

  “Murder?” She whispered as she stared in horror at Mark, then Isaac. She wanted to deny it was possible, but couldn’t because the truth was written in their eyes. She jumped when the warmth of Mark’s hand landed gently on hers as it rested on the table. The calm reassurance in his steady green eyes immediately settled her and she took a breath to quell the shock. In that moment he was her anchor in a storm tossed sea; her steady ray of hope in the storm that had descended upon her and unleashed its fury. Murder? In her house? How? Who? Why? Questions tumbled around in her mind but her mouth was too dry to speak. Tears pooled in her eyes at the thought of poor Minerva Bobbington. Who would want to kill such a poor, defenceless soul as Minerva?