“Her,” corrected Dorsey.
“Her. And I don’t want to alarm the Lady.”
“I’ll do my best.” Dorsey joined him at the side of the bed. Speaking in soft tones to Lady Grainger, she soothed the nearly unconscious woman while Mr. Waverly bent close to the pup’s mouth. I watched as he opened the animal’s jaws, peered at the gums, and then put his own nose next to the dog’s mouth and smelled it.
“That’s all I needed. Thank you. You were very helpful.” He gave a courteous half bow to the maid before using a jerk of his chin to beckon me into the hallway.
We walked to a spot at the opposite end, as far from the library as we could get, so we could talk privately. “What do you think happened, Mrs. Rochester?”
“Sir?”
“I know you to be observant and clear thinking. I ask that you share your opinion.”
“First, Mr. Waverly, please tell me: Did the dog smell of coffee? I saw it lap at the liquid that ran out of Lady Ingram’s cup, but Lady Grainger scolded the pup, so I don’t know whether the dog managed to consume any of it or not.”
“Its mouth did smell of coffee. So you can guess what I was after: Someone poisoned Lady Ingram.”
Chapter 24
My mind reeled at this news. Poisoned? That would mean that someone in this house was a murderer. And try as I might, I could not conceive of such a thing. Lucy? Lady Conyngham? Mary? Blanche? Lady Grainger? No, no, no, no, and no. There had to be another explanation. “Couldn’t it be that she simply reached the end of her days? That her heart gave out?”
“But the dog . . .” said Mr. Waverly.
“What do you know about poisons?” I asked. I had only recently learned about ratiocination, the art of solving a puzzle by applying logic, but Mr. Waverly had worked as an enforcer of the law for some time.
“Not much. Oh, we have the odd case here and there where a bloke foams at his mouth and thrashes about, but . . .”
I shook my head. “This was nothing like that. Lady Ingram simply rolled off of her chair. I was there the entire time. I saw nothing suspicious! We all ate from the same tray. Although, I suppose it’s possible that both Lady Ingram and the dog ate the same biscuit or pastry.”
In silent agreement, we went into the drawing room, where the doctor was bent over the corpse, working to arrange Lady Ingram’s arms over her chest. Willing myself to look away from Mr. Lerner’s activities, I pointed out to Waverly where the older Ingram girl’s coffee cup still sat on the side table. “See there, Mr. Waverly? There’s only a bit left in the bottom of the cup. If there had been poison in this, Miss Ingram would have—should have—died, too. If the drink was poisoned, how can one explain that Miss Ingram is still alive?”
“Hmmm.” Mr. Waverly had his thumbs tucked into his vest pockets and regarded me thoughtfully.
“Both Lady Ingram and Blanche Ingram drank coffee from the same pot. If the Dowager was poisoned, why did her daughter not suffer its ill effects as well?”
“Tell me exactly what happened here,” said Waverly.
I revisited the afternoon’s events leading up to this moment, ending my summation with, “As you can tell, those two events happened concurrently—Lady Ingram’s demise and the dog’s death as well.”
“I take your point, but until I investigate further, I shall reserve judgment,” he said. “Come, let us return to the others.” Mr. Waverly took off for the library as I followed right behind.
The Ingram sisters each occupied a chair. They were both crying softly. Lucy had taken a spot at Lady Grainger’s desk, where she stared out the window, as did Lady Conyngham from her seat deep in a tapestry-covered wingback chair.
“Miss Ingram, how are you feeling?” the Bow Street Runner asked solicitously, inclining his head toward Blanche. “I mean to say, how is your general health?”
“I’ve been a bit under the weather,” she said, blotting her face. “And my head was spinning when I stood up.” She paused and her eyes narrowed. “Why?”
He turned on his heel and left the room. Low voices told us he conferred with Mr. Lerner as they reentered the library together. The young doctor rummaged in his bag before withdrawing a small envelope. He rang for a servant, and when Lillian appeared, he requested a large carafe of water and enough glasses to serve all of us ladies.
“I shall need more water, please, and dry toast, too. Cook it as near to burned as possible,” he said to Lillian. Walking from one person to another, the doctor dispensed what looked like small lumps of charcoal, such as can be found in the hearth after a fire.
“Swallow these, please, with a full glass of water. Drink another full glass as soon as you’re able. I’ll want you to each eat a slice of toast or two, and consume as many glasses of water as possible throughout the day.”
Lady Conyngham stared at the black lumps in her hand. “Whatever for?”
“A precaution, ma’am,” inserted Mr. Waverly.
“Precaution for what?” she demanded. “Enough. I want to go home. I am tired. The King will be very cross with you, Waverly, when he learns you did not obey me.”
“I dearly wish I could, Lady. As it stands, I need to speak to all of you.” He waited until the Ingram girls gave him their attention. “I regret to say this, but I have reason to suspect that Lady Ingram has been poisoned.”
“What? Poisoned! Poisoned? What makes you think that? What?” Mary shrieked.
“What?” Lucy’s jaw dropped.
“Are you saying that someone killed my mother?” Blanche glared at Mr. Waverly.
“It is possible. I can say no more than that.”
Blanche sank down further in her chair. A sheen of perspiration covered her forehead. She grabbed the arms and gripped them tightly. She swayed a bit in her seat. “Then perhaps I was poisoned, too, because I feel horrid.”
Mary turned to her sister. “Don’t be ridiculous, Blanche. You’ve been feeling poorly all week. It’s a game you play. Nothing more.”
Blanche shook her head in violent disagreement. “But I have been ill lately! You know that!”
“Could it have been cumulative?” asked Waverly in a low voice to Mr. Lerner.
The young man pursed his lips speculatively, but said nothing.
“The girl is not alone in feeling unwell.” The Marchioness wiped her forehead with a trembling hand. “Oh my. I am quite certain that I was the intended target. Waverly, you know how jealous people are of my friendship with His Majesty. That’s all the more reason that you must take me home at once. I want to be away from here!”
“Yes, Lady Conyngham. I am nearly done here.” Mr. Waverly bowed to her. “As soon as a constable arrives, we can go.”
I reflected that the Marchioness had felt perfectly fine until she heard Waverly’s analysis. Furthermore, given the vast quantity of sweets and tea she had eaten, there was no way that the poison had been in our food. If so, the Marchioness should have been the first stricken. No, I was certain it had come from the coffee. That alone would account for the deaths of Lady Ingram and the dog.
“And, Samuel, do you agree with him? That our mother was . . . poisoned?” In her unhappy state, Mary Ingram had called the young doctor by his first name, but no one else seemed to take note of this impropriety other than me.
“I think it possible,” the young man admitted slowly, “but it is early days.”
Waverly intervened. “Lady Conyngham, if you could narrate your visit, I might be able to send you on to Carlton House.”
“Yes, of course,” she said. “I am desperate to leave.”
Then it dawned on me that this was not only a tragedy for the Ingram family, and a loss for Lady Grainger, but a huge blow to all concerned in the eyes of society. When word went out that someone had been poisoned at a gathering attended by Lady Conyngham and hosted by Lady Grainger, our hostess would be persona non gr
ata in the ton. Of course, Lucy’s reputation—and mine—would suffer apace, especially as the last known activities of the dead woman had been to publicly slight us. Here we’d hoped a visit would quiet problems—and now the situation was made worse! Much worse!
The Marchioness started talking, and I decided to concentrate on her words. “We had gathered for tea. Just us ladies. The Dowager Lady Ingram was drinking hers when she dropped the cup and fell to the floor.”
Not exactly, I thought.
“After Lady Ingram died, Lady Grainger’s poor little dog Mags was found under her chair. Dead,” Lady Conyngham continued her dissertation.
“Ah, but what was the sequence of events?” Waverly pulled his briarwood pipe from his back pocket. He paused to pack the bowl but did not light it, preferring to chew on the stem. The rich scent of cherry tobacco filled the small, crowded library.
“We were drinking tea and eating when the Dowager’s neuralgia flared up,” said Lucy.
“What did each of you eat and who served it? Miss Ingram, could you start?”
Blanche lifted her chin. “I had a crumpet. Only a half. My digestion has been delicate of late.”
“I ate a crumpet with bilberry jam and a scone with clotted cream,” Mary said.
Lucy closed her eyes and thought. “A biscuit with candied ginger, a scone with a dab of clotted cream and strawberry jam, and a crumpet.” She blushed. “I neglected to eat breakfast this morning.”
“One crumpet,” said Lady Conyngham.
To our credit, no one laughed at this blatant falsehood. By my recollection, the woman had eaten at least two crumpets, if not three, and two scones, plus a handful of biscuits.
I reported my own lone crumpet and the bilberry jam.
“And the beverages?” he asked. We explained we had all been drinking tea up until the time that Lady Ingram’s pain had intensified. At that point, Mary left us to get the rose hips.
“What took you so long?” her sister chided.
The girl blushed. “I thought the rose hips were in Mama’s room, but they weren’t. I searched for them there before I looked in the kitchen.”
“And where did you find them?” asked Waverly.
“Under a tea towel in the kitchen. I must have misplaced them.”
Blanche agreed. “That wouldn’t surprise me, Mary. Not one bit. You’ve been off woolgathering lately. Of course, it’s also possible that one or more of Auntie’s staff helped themselves to the rose hips. Servants do that, you know. Mother was particularly put out with the lady’s maid. Perhaps she took the rose hips just for spite.”
Waverly did not dignify this with a response. Tears streamed down Mary’s face.
“In the meantime, Dowager Lady Ingram drank something else?” Waverly pressed Blanche.
“Coffee. I made it for my mother and myself. I have a tin that I bought at Fortnum and Mason,” Blanche said. Her voice was rough from crying, and despite our history, I felt great sympathy for her. As bad as this was, the coming days would be worse. We don’t lose people in one blow, but piece by piece over the days as we yearn for them and remember anew how they have moved on.
“How much did your mother drink?” asked Waverly.
“One cup only.” Lucy picked up the thread. “When the Dowager Lady Ingram collapsed, she dropped her teacup, and it rolled along the carpet. That was when Mags lapped up some of the liquid, before Lady Grainger stopped her.”
“Then what did the dog do?” the Bow Street Runner asked.
“She disappeared,” Lucy said. “She crawled under Lady Grainger’s chair.”
Waverly chewed on his pipe stem thoughtfully. “I know this will be distressing, but if you could all think back—did any of you notice any change in Lady Ingram before she fell? Did she mention discomfort? Difficulty breathing? Heart palpitations?”
“None but her neuralgia,” Blanche said. She set her face in a scowl. “I think you are mistaken about poison, sir. Our mother died from the stress placed on her heart, made worse by long-standing sciatica. If my sister had gotten her the rose hips promptly, as our dear Mama requested, the pain would not have overburdened her heart. She would be alive today.”
Chapter 25
Shortly thereafter, Waverly dismissed us and left with the Marchioness. Once Lucy had looked in on the Dowager Lady Grainger, we left as well.
“How was she?” I asked when we were in the coach.
“Asleep. That dog was her whole world. I know it may seem silly, but Mags provided Olivia with all the love her husband denied her. The dog was always merry, always thrilled to see her mistress after she returned home, and entirely sensitive to her moods. While I am sorry for the Ingram girls, I do not know them well, but I know what devastation poor Mags’s death will mean to Olivia. Especially on the heels of her sister-in-law’s death.”
“I am very sorry for her.” I watched the line of stately houses go by. “How curious it is. Now Lady Ingram’s snub is the least of our worries.”
“Oh yes,” said Lucy with a bitter laugh. “Is it really possible Lady Ingram was poisoned?”
“I’ve turned this over and over in my head, and there can be no other explanation. Her demise came so suddenly, and with poor Mags gone at the same time, it has to be thus.”
“But why didn’t Blanche die as well if it was the coffee?” Lucy said. “Could it have been in the cream? I don’t take it in my tea, do you?”
“No. I grew up without it, since they were too mean at Lowood to allow us the luxury. Does Lady Grainger add cream to her tea?”
“Yes, she does. So that can’t be it, either. Could it have been the sugar?”
“Nearly all of us indulged in that. The Marchioness heaped piles of cubes in her tea. She would have collapsed first if the sugar was the culprit.”
“But,” reasoned Lucy, “I don’t think that all poison acts upon the victim immediately. I recall Augie telling me about men in his company who supped with a temptress who slipped an herb into their tea. They came back to their barracks, seemingly in fine health, but two days later, they sickened and died.”
“But then how do you explain Mags’s death? I mean, the dog’s demise gave away the game; otherwise, we would have surely concluded that Lady Ingram’s heart gave out. That happens.”
“With regularity,” Lucy said. “But you are right. Someone somehow administered poison to Lady Ingram—or Mags would never have died immediately after lapping up the coffee!”
Chapter 26
Once back at #24 Grosvenor, Lucy sent word to Boodle’s and asked that Bruce and Edward come back right away. Amelia heard our arrival and carried my darling down the stairs so I could kiss my son hello. “Isn’t it a lovely afternoon, Mrs. Rochester? I believe the fresh air today did his appetite good. See? There’s your mum.”
Ned reached for me, and I held him tightly, brushing my chin against his silky hair and taking joy in the undisguised love that radiated from his face.
In front of others, Amelia called me “Mrs. Rochester” as was proper, but when talking about me to Ned, she slipped into the informal “Mum.” In a more formal household, that would never do, but I was loath to criticize the girl. I had not chosen Amelia for her rigid propriety. No, I had selected her for her warm heart, her extensive experience with young siblings, and her unfailing cheerfulness. The loving way she kissed my son made up for any lack in her understanding of society’s expectations.
Back upstairs, Polly helped me tidy up. “The young lady is helping Cook in the kitchen,” she said with a wry grin, referring to Adèle.
“Oh? Is she causing mischief?”
“Lands, no. Cook has had young ’uns of her own. She loves ’em. Last I saw, your girl was having a go at sprinkling sugar on top of biscuits.”
“Did any of the sugar land on its target?”
Polly erupted with an unrestra
ined guffaw. “Some! Only some!”
Once refreshed, I sought my hostess. Lucy paced the length of her library, a walnut-paneled sanctuary filled with leather-bound volumes. The cracks along the spines and the uneven spacing on the floor-to-ceiling shelves told me these books were not decorations but old friends with whom Lucy conferred regularly. Against the northwest wall, under a magnificent painting, the “Shipwreck of the Minotaur,” by Turner, sat a wonderful polished oak desk where Lucy wrote her letters. Whereas most ladies used a piece of furniture that was little more than a small table with one drawer, Lucy had procured a robust piece with a middle drawer that was flanked by three more drawers on each side.
“I have nothing here on poisons.” Lucy sighed as she stared up at row after row of books on shelves approaching the ceiling. “At least, I think not. Will you help me look?”
But before we could drag over the wooden ladder, a brisk banging of the door knocker told us that her brother had arrived with my husband.
While Edward offered me a kiss on the cheek, Mr. Douglas asked, “Sister? What crisis demanded our immediate arrival? Edward and I were engaged in a rousing discussion of the inequities in our justice system. We’d almost won our argument, too, by persuading Lord Nottingham that to mete out the same hanging punishment for the theft of a ha’penny as well as for a murder was ludicrous!”
“Lady Ingram is dead.”
Lucy’s lack of preamble startled both the men.
“How did she die?” asked Edward, reaching behind him to be sure he was close to a chair before sitting down.
“It might be poison,” I said.
“That’s a right turnup for the books.” Mr. Douglas sank into a burgundy leather wingback chair and moved it closer to the fireplace.
“Mr. Waverly was there as an escort to Lady Conyngham—she was also a caller—and a doctor was called in after the fact. Your young Mr. Lerner, in fact,” I said.
“Indeed? Well, Lerner has certainly had a busy day,” Edward mused. I bit my tongue and decided to wait and tell him in private about the spat I’d witnessed in the park between Mr. Lerner and Mary Ingram.
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