We rounded the corner to the front of the house and spied the cab patiently waiting, its lanky driver hunched over with disinterest even as tall, elegant Mr. Galloway stood by the open door as though he owned the vehicle himself.
“I’m not so sure I’ll have the time to be able to denote anything during your brief absence,” I pointed out. “Besides, all of this is likely nothing more than the latest fashion of the idle sort.”
“Perhaps.” He gave a little shrug. “But there is no better way to manipulate another than to prey on their beliefs and fears. Too many governments and religions are masterful at it.” He swung himself up into the carriage with a nod and a grin. “Good day, Mr. Galloway . . . Mr. Pruitt . . . Till Friday.” He pounded a fist on the carriage’s ceiling and the coach immediately lurched forward, and as I stood there next to Mr. Galloway I wondered exactly what the hell I was supposed to do next.
CHAPTER 4
The girl was frightened. I could see it in the way she held herself, her arms wrapped across the front of her body as though hoping to ward off something inevitable: a raised voice, a cutting rebuke, a pelting blow; her eyes huge and round, pupils overwhelming the whites as though there was almost no color to them at all. Yet it was not these corporeal sorts of mundanities that held the young woman in such a state, but rather very much the opposite.
“Me mum says I got ta stop listenin’ ta stories and keep me ’ead down ’cause we need the money and she’s afraid I’m gonna quit.” She hugged herself tighter, hunching her shoulders forward as though a chill breeze had just wafted into the room. “I ain’t gonna quit,” she added in a way that sounded more for her own benefit than mine. “I got seven younger brothers and sisters, and me dad drinks wot ’e makes sure as the sunrise.”
“That must be a difficult burden for you.” I gave her a warm smile, hoping to get her to relax at least a little before I dared undertake the real reason for my interrogating her. “You must be such a blessing to your mother. But why does she fear you would quit?” I furrowed my brow and leaned in slightly in an effort to seem conspiratorial. “Was it Miss Adelaide? Was she a difficult mistress?”
“No, sir. . . .” she answered at once, casting her eyes down to the scuffed table in front of us, immaculately clean, but clearly it had seen its share of innumerable meals over the years.
The two of us were seated in the staff’s small dining quarters, tucked in the ground-floor corner of the home just off the main kitchen. I had asked Mr. Galloway if I might have a word with an upstairs maid, and he had chosen to summon Miss Britten. She was, he had informed me, the woman who took care of Miss Adelaide’s quarters. I thought she looked like a woman in her late twenties, but given that she had no husband and still provided income for her family, I decided that she was likely ten years younger than that. Her umber hair was pulled into a neat bun with a small white cap set upon it, not a lock out of place, and though she was of medium height and terribly thin, her broad, angular face looked stout and eminently readable.
“Miss Adelaide were a lovely woman. . . .” Miss Britten informed me with the staunchness that showed she meant what she was saying. “She never ’ad a ’arsh word fer anyone. She were always kind. Weren’t nobody didn’t think the best a ’er.” She hesitated a moment and her eyes shifted around the room as though she hoped I might abruptly end our conversation and keep her from having to say whatever was clearly pricking at the back of her mind. “But sometimes it were like she could sense things none a the rest of us could ’ear or see. One minute she’d be talkin’ like we are now, and then she’d jest go all quiet and look off. . . .” Miss Britten’s eyes crinkled and it felt like she was trying to catch a glimpse of whatever had drawn Adelaide Endicott’s notice.
“Did you ever question her about it?” I asked, though I knew what her answer would be.
“Oh no, sir. ’At weren’t me place. I’d jest leave ’er be and she’d come round again when it suited ’er.”
“And when she did . . . come around again, as you say . . . were there ever times she would confide in you about what had happened to her? What she had seen or heard?” I pressed.
Miss Britten shook her head mutely, tucking her elbows in with that same sense of self-preservation. “She’d tell me there were un’appy souls about. There’d been wrongs done ta people and somebody ’ad ta make it right. Sometimes I’d find ’er cryin’. . . she’d be so sad about somethin’ . . . and the next minute she’d be shiverin’ and lookin’ all undone with ’er eyes flittin’ ’ere and there. And then she’d ask me if I could feel ’em. That’s what she’d ask—‘Can ya feel ’em . . . ?’”
“Them . . . ?” I repeated quietly, anxious to keep her talking. “Who do you think she meant?”
The young woman finally turned her gaze to me, peering at me as though I had lost my senses. “The spirits,” she answered with the simplicity of an exchange about the price of fruit at market. “The ghosts.”
“Yes,” I said with a soft smile that I hoped she would not mistake for disbelief on my part. “Of course. And did she ever tell you what the wrongs were that had been committed? Who these . . . ghosts . . . might be?”
“No, sir,” she answered with a firm shake of her head.
“Did you ever see them . . . ? Feel their presence . . . ?”
“I ain’t never seen nothin’. But sometimes . . .” She looked off again, her eyes not appearing to focus on anything. “. . . Sometimes I think I ’ear someone comin’ inta the room I’m cleanin’ and when I look up there ain’t no one there. And there’s been a time or two . . .” Her voice drifted off for a moment, and I watched her face flush ever so slightly. “I’ll be workin’ somewhere, not payin’ any mind ta nothin’, and I’ll feel a coldness slide past me like I jest brushed up against death ’imself.” She physically shuddered and I realized that her knuckles had gone white where she was still holding herself.
“Have you heard anyone else on the staff speak of feeling such things?”
She shook her head. “Mr. Galloway would ’ave our jobs if ’e ’eard us sayin’ anythin’ like wot I’m tellin’ you.”
“So Mr. Galloway does not give any heed to the things you have felt? What did he think, knowing that Miss Adelaide believed in them?”
“Wot did ’e think . . . ?!” She chuckled. “Don’t matter a fig wot ’e thought. ’E worked for ’er. She could’ve stood on a street corner in ’er bloomers fer all it’d mean ta ’im, but ’e can mind the rest a us.”
“Of course. . . .” I could not cover my discomfited smile at having made such an obvious blunder. “Forgive such a foolish question. Does Miss Eugenia hold to the same beliefs her sister did?”
Miss Britten shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Nah. She always got angry when Miss Adelaide brought it up. Wouldn’t ’ardly even talk ta Miss Adelaide on the days she went ta see ’er spiritualist.” She shook her head again and looked markedly uncomfortable before she continued. “I ’eard ’em ’ave a row about it a time or two, but Miss Adelaide wouldn’t give in.” She lowered her gaze to the table again, and just as I thought she was done talking she spoke up once more in a voice almost bereft of volume. “I think she were right . . . Miss Adelaide. Somethin’ ain’t right ’ere. Somethin’s troubled. Can ya feel it?” Her eyes suddenly shot up to mine, and I was so startled by the abruptness that I found I had to look away.
While I have never truly given much consideration to such things, neither have I presumed to dismiss that which has been so far from my mind. And yet for reasons I cannot even begin to fathom, I would swear that I felt a curious sort of tickle rustle along the back of my neck and discovered myself quite at a loss for words. A flush rose up in my own cheeks, whether from embarrassment or discomfort I cannot say, but it was enough to get me to finally force my tongue back to action. “These old homes,” I heard myself mutter, “are known to creak and groan rather precipitously.”
“Yes,” Miss Britten agreed, unfolding herself for the first time since
we had begun our conversation.
“Do you know anything of the spiritualist Miss Adelaide had been seeing? Her name? Where she lives?”
“No, sir. You’d ’ave ta ask Mr. Fischer ’bout that. ’E’s the one that drove ’er everywhere.”
“Of course. And what of Miss Adelaide’s footman, Mr. Nettle? Did you know him well?”
“I knew ’im. But ’e kept to ’isself mostly. ’Ad ta, I s’pose. It were ’is job ta be around whenever Miss Adelaide needed ’im. So ’e never ate with the rest a us and ’e slept upstairs in the antechamber outside ’er room.”
“Was he close to anyone on the staff?”
“’E only ever seemed ta talk ta them nurses wot was also carin’ fer Miss Adelaide. But that’s wot ’e were ’ere for anyway.”
“Did you ever notice any sort of difficulty between Mr. Nettle and Miss Adelaide?”
“Miss Adelaide were the nicest woman I ever met,” she answered at once. “Never ’ad a cross word fer anybody other than ’er sister, and I already tol’ ya ’bout that. That’s jest the way of it. I got five sisters meself.”
I allowed a slight chuckle as I girded for the last question I needed to ask this young woman. “Do you ever recollect Miss Adelaide suggesting that she might do harm to herself? Perhaps when she was feeling most unwell?”
Miss Britten’s eyes went round as she stared back at me. “No, sir. She were a God-fearin’ woman and would never a done such a thing ta ’erself.”
“Of course . . . of course. . . .” I hastily agreed as if the question was as ill-mannered to me as it clearly had been to her. “Then I will thank you for your time and leave you to your duties.”
“As you wish,” she said as she rose to her feet and gave a quick curtsy. “It’s a terrible thing wot ’appened. And now I fear there’ll be another restless soul wanderin’ these ’alls.” She impulsively rubbed at her bare arms as though the room had suddenly gone cold, and then she withdrew, appearing to take care not to meet my gaze as she did.
CHAPTER 5
That Mr. Galloway was displeased by my question was apparent, and that was before I could tell whether he meant to answer it or not. His face had puckered and his demeanor became even stiffer than what I had become used to seeing. I knew it was a risk to speak with him so pointedly but could not imagine trying to ask Eugenia Endicott these same questions. Doing so would simply have to wait until Colin returned. That I knew he would prefer it that way did give me some solace.
“Must we rummage through this topic, Mr. Pruitt?” Mr. Galloway queried in return, his brows having already caved in upon each other.
We were sitting across a small table in his spare but comfortable set of rooms downstairs, accorded him as the steward. From here he dispensed orders, critiqued daily routines, and reproached staff as necessary, just as I felt he was doing to me.
“I would not ask these questions if I did not believe them to be important,” I responded, hoping it would be enough to elicit an answer from him, however begrudging.
“Very well. . . .” he said with notable distaste. “Miss Adelaide was indeed a proponent of spiritualism, but it was most definitely not a topic discussed amongst the staff. Such an undertaking would have been unseemly and most assuredly not tolerated.”
“I understand. Yet having grown up in a home of some privilege myself, I also know that the staff did talk amongst themselves, and it is that chatter that I am most interested in right now.” I gave him a congenial smile, safe in the knowledge that this man would never know that there was only the smallest measure of truth in my statement. With little more than twenty-four hours before Colin’s return, I did not mean to have my time here be for naught. “Did you have trouble retaining staff, Mr. Galloway? Were people put off by the stories of Miss Adelaide’s spectral convictions?”
“Anyone who harbored such convictions would not have been welcomed here. It is an honor to work at Layton Manor, and you can be assured that the entirety of the staff believes it to be so.”
“Of course. But did anyone ever quit because of the things Miss Adelaide claimed to have seen or heard? Or perhaps they themselves confided an occurrence of their own that gave you even the merest pause?”
“Members of any staff come and go on a whim. I could not, nor would I care to, hazard the sorts of reasons any of them might have had.” He sniffed, clearly intent on ensuring that I understood how banal he thought this conversation to be.
I nodded agreeably but kept my eyes on him. “And you? Have you ever, even once . . .”
The man’s face hardened precipitously, seizing the remainder of the question in my throat. “I should say not.” The words curled from his mouth as though laced with acid.
I offered a smile I meant to be conciliatory but could see that it did not have the intended effect on him. This was a man fiercely loyal to the household he ran, and for that I could not fault him, never mind that it did nothing to aid in my investigation. “How well acquainted were you with Mr. Nettle while he worked here?”
I could see at once that we were on smoother terrain, as Mr. Galloway’s features eased ever so slightly. “I was the one who found Mr. Nettle for Miss Adelaide. I know the woman who runs a service that helps place finer household staff. She is the only person we use at Layton Manor. Though the requirements for Mr. Nettle were unique, I knew Mrs. Denholm would be able to procure such a man. And he did a proper job while he was here.” He allowed his eyes to slide sideways. “Until the end, of course. . . .” He let his voice drift off, and I found myself feeling oddly sorry for him, for the accountability he now so clearly seemed to feel was his to carry.
“Do you also believe Mr. Nettle to be guilty of causing Miss Adelaide’s death?”
“I . . .” He appeared to consider the question quite carefully before turning his gaze to me with an expression so perplexed it seemed almost childlike. “I don’t really know what to think,” he finally conceded. “Something happened to Miss Adelaide, and he has said himself that he was the only one in the room with her at the time.”
“Indeed. But that does not mean that Mr. Nettle is responsible. Did you know him to have had any difficulties in his dealings with Miss Adelaide?”
“Never. Miss Adelaide was a gentle woman, quiet and soft-spoken. There was no one she did not get on with.”
“Of course,” I said, and at least it seemed that everyone was in agreement on that point. “Yet I have heard that Miss Adelaide and Miss Eugenia had some disagreements here and there with respect to Miss Adelaide’s beliefs in spiritualism. Were you aware of that?”
As his gaze hardened I realized that I had once again pushed him too far. “I really could not speak to such things nor is anyone else on this staff at liberty to do so. Such queries are boorish at best.”
“I understand, Mr. Galloway, but everything is admissible when confronted by the possibility of murder. Or are you perhaps suggesting that Miss Adelaide was predisposed to harm herself?” I knew my question for the ploy it was, but hoped Mr. Galloway would not.
“Never!” he answered at once, uncertainty marring the set of his tone. “It may have been an accident. I suppose that is your duty to decide, but I do not believe it necessary to discuss all manner of private matters to determine such a thing. You are a detective, are you not? That is what you do?”
There was accusation in his voice as he glared at me, and I decided I had learned all I was going to from this man. “Were you able to reach Miss Adelaide’s two nurses for me? As I mentioned earlier I should very much like to speak with them.”
“Of course.” He pulled a folded slip of paper from his suit pocket, his demeanor concise and in control, and just that simply I could see that he was well in his element again. “I have arranged for you to meet the day nurse, Miss Bromley, late this very afternoon. She requested that you come to the Queen’s Arms on Queen’s Gate near the Victoria and Albert Museum. I took it upon myself to accept on your behalf.”
“You did well,” I sa
id with a smile, pleased to have this so quickly accomplished. “And the nurse who tended to Miss Adelaide at night . . . ?”
“I have a message out to Miss Whit, but have not yet received her response.” He yanked his watch from his vest pocket and glanced at it. “It is still early since I believe she continues to work at night. Given that to be the case, she may not have risen yet for the evening.”
“Of course. I do appreciate your efforts on my behalf.”
“I am pleased to be of assistance,” he answered curtly, allowing me little sense that he was telling the truth. “I will get word to you as soon as I hear back from Miss Whit.”
“Thank you,” I said as I started to stand.
“Do you have a telephone, Mr. Pruitt?” He looked at me coolly. “Or will I need to send a messenger?”
I smiled at him, certain he knew the answer to his question. “It will have to be a messenger, I’m afraid. Technology is moving far too quickly to keep up with all of the changes. One can only wonder which things will truly improve our lives and which will only serve to annoy.” I gave a chuckle that he did not reciprocate. “Please let Miss Eugenia know that I will be back tomorrow morning. Perhaps you will have had an answer from Miss Whit by then.”
“Perhaps,” he said as he too stood up. “I am sure you can appreciate that Miss Eugenia will not sit idly by for long. She will expect strides to be made without delay.”
“And she cannot be blamed for that,” I answered glibly, though I was reminded in that instant of Colin’s inopportune absence. I would persevere as best as I knew how, following the tenets he had taught me over the past dozen years, but I knew it likely that I would only be treading water until he returned.
“Good day then, Mr. Pruitt,” he said as if he were the lord of the manor himself. “I shall give your tidings to Miss Eugenia, and I can assure you she will look forward to whatever news you bring with you tomorrow.”
The Endicott Evil Page 5