An Untimely Death

by Blythe Baker

  “Nor am I,” she said. “But if you are correct and a killer is among them, would it not be best to send them on their way and simply leave your men here to guard the place, as you suggested?”

  “Yes,” he said. “And I shall, but there is one group that we have yet to question.”

  His words were greeted by Mrs. Montford’s curious silence.

  “Your staff,” he said. “They will surely not volunteer any information unless they are asked, will they?”

  “No, I suppose they will not,” Mrs. Montford said. “Very well. Selina, send for Mrs. Rose and tell her to whip up something else for the guests. I know that she will be angry, but we cannot keep them here without feeding them.”

  “Right away, Mrs.—” Selina began.

  “Not just yet, if you please,” Chief Constable Talbot said, taking a step toward us. “I shall question your maids first. And I will send my men to question the others.”

  My stomach dropped as his eyes fell upon me, his gaze scrutinizing.

  Surely, he could not think that Selina or I would have anything to do with the death.

  That was the trouble, though, was it not? If the Colonel had indeed been deliberately poisoned, then someone here had done it.

  Selina and I did not want to leave Mrs. Montford’s side, but the Chief Constable insisted that she and I were both questioned, too. As we stepped out of the room, it became clear rather quickly that outside the parlor, the tension had risen to a breaking point.

  As we strode past the drawing room, the door stood open with a pair of uniformed officers standing at the threshold.

  “What do you mean we cannot leave yet?” a man asked, standing in the face of one of the officers. “We have answered your questions!”

  “In here,” Chief Constable Talbot said, stopping beside a small storage closet.

  I peered inside. There would be barely enough room for all three of us.

  “No, you will wait just outside,” he told me as I attempted to follow him and Selina inside.

  My heart began to race.

  Selina looked over her shoulder at me, her green eyes wide with worry as the door closed.

  The pounding in my ears made it hard to think as I leaned against the wall. Feeling rather exposed, I flattened myself as best as I could and looked up and down the length of the hall. It was bizarre not to see any of the staff going about their usual business. Instead, I watched as one of Chief Constable Talbot’s officers walked down the hall with a servant or maid following after as if being led to prison.

  How strange this all has been, I thought. It amazed me that life could so drastically change in a single instant.

  What would become of the house now? With the Colonel gone, would Mrs. Montford be able to remain at the estate? Would it be passed to someone else in the family?

  There would be many questions in the following days, and I found the mounting dread in my heart difficult to ignore.

  The door behind me opened a moment later. I turned to look. Chief Constable Talbot stepped out and allowed Selina to pass by.

  She gave me a subtle shrug of her shoulders. The softness in her gaze told me that I did not need to worry. She must have seen the concern written on my face.

  “Please step inside, Miss,” Chief Constable Talbot said. “And when we have finished here we will take you back to your mistress.”

  I nodded and quickly stepped into the room.

  He gestured to a small overturned bucket, which I eyed with apprehension. “Please have a seat,” he said.

  Gingerly, I sat down on the edge of the bucket and looked up at him.

  He sat down upon a crate that was labeled potatoes. He sighed, and I found the wrinkles around his eyes were more pronounced in the dim light.

  “Now…” he said. “We have been here for a long time already. I am certain I am not the only one who will want to go home as soon as possible. So, I will ask you once and hope that you will be honest with me from the start. What, if anything, did you see?”

  I nearly swallowed my tongue, looking down at my hands in my lap. “I…saw nothing, sir,” I said. “Apart from the Colonel becoming ill and then collapsing as he did.”

  “You saw nothing suspicious? Nothing strange behind the scenes?” the Chief Constable asked.

  “No, sir,” I said. “My lady asked me to go and find her shawl for her. It happened just as I was entering the house.”

  “And there was nothing indicating a problem?” Chief Constable Talbot asked.

  The knots in my stomach twisted like a snake caught in a trap of vines.

  Yes, I knew something terrible was going to happen. I knew it as soon as I woke this morning. How could I know, though, that it would end in the Colonel’s death?

  Logically, there was no way that I could have truly known that anything would happen. Waking with a bad feeling was not proof enough. If anything had gone wrong, anything at all, I might have blamed the pit in my stomach. It was nothing more than superstition.

  I knew if I told him instinct had warned me something might go wrong today, my words would be dismissed immediately.

  I wished I had seen something more. I wished I could give him an answer so that the truth could be discovered and Mrs. Montford would know who murdered her husband, if that was truly what had happened.

  “All I know that might be of any help is that there was some turmoil among the staff this morning,” I said. “There was a fire in the kitchens and a great deal of tension between the servers and other members of the household.”

  “A fire, you say?” he asked. He pulled a small notepad from within his coat and scrawled the information down.

  “Yes, but it was resolved by the time I reached it,” I said. “It was nothing more than a matter of inorganization, and it was all due to the party.”

  Chief Constable Talbot frowned, his brow furrowing. “That does not seem altogether strange,” he said.

  I nodded. “I am sorry, sir, but that is all I noticed,” I said.

  He rubbed the side of his face. “You remember nothing else?” he asked. “Nothing at all? No one behaving out of the ordinary?”

  I paused, thinking of the garden. “The last thing I remember before my master became ill was that he had been delivered a drink by someone on staff.”

  His gaze sharpened. “And who was it that served him the drink?”

  I leaned back ever so slightly. “I do not know, sir. I never saw his face and all the male servants look similar from behind. It’s the uniforms, you see.”

  Chief Constable Talbot sagged, letting out a long sigh.

  “Thank you, Miss, for your time,” he said, pocketing his notebook once more, his expression demonstrating anything but gratitude. “And for making my problem that much more complicated. You may go.”

  3

  It was true. I had seen someone deliver the drink. And that person had a strange mole on the back of his neck. At the time, I thought nothing of it apart from the fact that I did not recognize him or know who might have possessed such a blemish. There had been no threat, no anxiousness about anything that might happen in that moment.

  I had not felt any sense of danger for myself or for anyone else. Nothing apart from the general nervousness of the day.

  “How did it go?”

  I looked up. I had not realized that I had stepped fully out into the hall, as lost in my thoughts as I was.

  Selina stood in front of me, her expression stricken.

  “Fine,” I said, automatically. “It was fine.”

  Selina’s shoulders relaxed. “All right. Come along, let us return to Mrs. Montford.”

  “Right,” I said.

  We started down the hall, and Selina struck up the conversation at once. “What did he ask you?”

  “If I had seen anything strange,” I said.

  “He asked me the same,” she said. “What did you say?”

  “I told him about the fire in the kitchens,” I said. “But that it was nothing
more than the result of inorganization because of the party.”

  “Of course,” Selina said. “I had not told him that. I had forgotten about it.”

  “Not that it could have been cause for anyone’s death,” I said. “I do not think that it had anything to do with the Colonel.”

  “No, I suppose not,” Selina said, scratching her chin. “Though it could have been a distraction. I wonder if anyone else on staff saw anything that could be of help.”

  “I certainly hope so,” I said.

  “Where are you two sneaking off to?”

  The commanding voice behind us could only belong to one person, a person that I would have preferred not to come across.

  Selina and I turned and were confronted with the butler, Mr. Hendrick. He stared down at us with clear annoyance, his brows knit together in one irritated line.

  “I asked you both a question,” he said, the color rising in his cheeks. “And I expect an answer.”

  “We were simply answering questions from Chief Constable Talbot, sir,” Selina said.

  “Yes, that’s right,” I agreed.

  Mr. Hendrick glanced behind himself, in the direction we had just come from. “Chief Constable Talbot?” he asked. His eyes narrowed further. “What have they learned? Do they know who killed the Colonel?”

  I stared up at him. I had not realized news of the death being suspicious had become common knowledge.

  “No, but that is what they are trying to discern,” Selina said.

  I suppose it is not surprising. He is the head butler of the house, of course. It would only make sense that he would have been informed. He was likely one of the first members of the staff questioned.

  “Did either of you see anything suspicious?” he demanded, leaning further over us. “You did not hide anything from the Chief Constable, did you?”

  My heart thundered in my ears. Of course I hadn’t hidden anything. I had told all I knew.

  Except…the man with the mole…

  Mr. Hendrick’s impatient eyes shifted to me. “What is it?” he asked. “I can see something in your eyes, girl.”

  “It’s…it is something the Chief Constable made me wonder,” I said. “I thought I saw someone I didn’t recognize deliver drinks to the Colonel. Perhaps you were out there and saw him too?”

  “Me?” Mr. Hendrick growled. “Why on earth would I have been doing such menial tasks as serving drinks? I was in the front hall, collecting coats and greeting guests.”

  I thought of Mr. Hose, shooing me away to serve the drinks. It certainly would have been a great deal easier to stand in the hall than be outside in the heat, mingling among the guests.

  “Mr. Hendrick, please excuse us,” Selina said. “We are exhausted right now, with all the questions and everything that has occurred.”

  “I had only hoped to see if the killer might have been the server who delivered the Colonel’s drink,” I said, still prattling along, my thoughts spilling out like water from a burst pipe. “All I can remember is a rather large mole on the back of the man’s neck.”

  Mr. Hendrick frowned further. “Why would you waste my time with such an inane detail? I know of no one on staff who has an unsightly growth. Do you?”

  “No, sir,” I admitted.

  Selina spoke up again. “Please excuse us, Mr. Hendrick. Mrs. Montford needs us. You understand.”

  His expression relaxed slightly. “Very well. But know that I shall be watching you. Mrs. Montford will hear if either of you put one toe out of line…”

  “Of course, sir. Yes, sir,” Selina said. “Come along, Anna. Mrs. Montford is expecting us.”

  I allowed her to urge me along, her hand sliding through my arm, guiding me down the hall.

  “What was that about?” she hissed in a whisper. “A man with a mole? You said nothing of that to me.”

  “I only just thought of it,” I said.

  “And you told Chief Constable Talbot?” she asked.

  “Yes, I told him I had seen someone unfamiliar deliver drinks to the Colonel,” I said. “Right before he—”

  Selina’s face tightened around her eyes. “Yes…I know,” she said.

  “I was foolish for voicing my thoughts,” I added. “I should never have said anything to Mr. Hendrick.”

  “It’s all right,” Selina said. “Though I do wonder if you did indeed see such a thing on the server…the mole, I mean.”

  I looked up at her. “What do you mean?”

  “Mr. Hendrick is right,” she said. “I do not know of a soul that has such a mark.”

  “Neither do I,” I said. “But what if there were servers brought in especially for today?”

  Selina shook her head. “I know for certain that no outside help was hired for today.”

  My heart sank, my mind working. “Perhaps I was mistaken,” I said.

  She gave me a gentle pat on the back. “It would be best to keep this information between you and I…” she said. “Lest it get you into any further trouble.”

  I knew what I had seen, but Selina was right. It was possible, though unlikely, that I was somehow mistaken. And I would not wish to confuse matters any further by hinging help on my observations.

  The knot in my stomach had returned.

  4

  In the time that Selina and I had been answering questions for Chief Constable Talbot, Mrs. Montford had retired to her own quarters. As I hurried up the stairs, I heard a great commotion as the Chief Constable began to allow certain guests to leave the estate, having no further need to question them.

  We passed by Mrs. Carlisle, who stole Selina from me, needing her help to tidy up one of the drawing rooms that had been occupied all afternoon by angry party guests. Selina promised to come to my room before she went to bed herself, and I ascended the stairs the rest of the way to Mrs. Montford’s room alone.

  A heaviness had settled in the corridor at the top of the stairs. The emptiness of the space seemed to have taken on a life of its own, like a shadow seeping into every corner, echoing the truth of the Colonel’s departure.

  Never again would he stride down the hall, whistling the march that he had heard every day during the war. He would never stop to adjust the paintings along the wall when they had been knocked slightly askew by a maid tidying the frame with a feather duster. The door to his study would never again be propped open by a chair, the windows thrown wide to allow the air to pass through the space in the late spring afternoons.

  The Colonel might have been a hard man, but he had been kind to me. Kinder than most, at least. I hardly knew him, all things considered, but I had admired his bravery, his strength of character, and his tenacity.

  I knew that it would take time for the reality of his departure to settle in upon us. I might never grieve in the way that some of the rest of the staff would, those who had served the Montford family for many years longer than I, but I knew that in my own heart, the tragedy of the family I anticipated serving for the foreseeable future struck deep. I hoped the Chief Constable would be able to discover exactly what had happened.

  I stopped just outside Mrs. Montford’s door, my heart sinking. What would I find on the other side? The idea of seeing Mrs. Montford grieving made me nervous. It would be an intrusion on her privacy, on a moment that only she should experience. Yet at the same time, would it not be comforting to have company there with her, even just to sit beside her?

  The line between servant and companion might become blurred, and I wondered if I would be able to read the situation well enough to make the right choice.

  I drew in a breath, steeling my nerves, and opened the door.

  Stillness filled the room, as if it were as empty as the Colonel’s rooms on the opposite end of the hall. My gaze swept over the space and found the back of Mrs. Montford’s head, peeking over the back of her favorite yellow chair.

  No candles or lamps had been lit. The only light came from the dying flames in the fireplace along the wall. The heaps of ash and lack of lo
gs within told me that no one had come to stoke it for hours now.

  The windows on the far wall had been opened, the fluttering curtains the only movement in the room. A cool, crisp wind brushed inside, dying away just as it reached me at the door.

  “Good evening, Mrs. Montford,” I said, quietly.

  “You can come in, Anna,” she said in a calmer tone than I might have expected.

  I stepped inside and closed the door behind me as gently as I could; the idea of closing the door in a regular manner seemed wrong. Disrespectful, even. Every motion, even my footsteps across the room were deliberately subdued, as if they were the physical reflection of my regret.

  I stopped near her chair and waited. Lost for words, I was unsure of what to say now that I was there with her. With the woman that everyone in the manor would be thinking of, the woman who would determine the course of the next few days.

  “Well?” Mrs. Montford said, barely turning her head toward me. “What is it?”

  “I thought you might need me, ma’am,” I said in a low voice. “I am at your service.”

  Mrs. Montford sighed, turning her attention back to the window.

  Darkness had fallen, the last reds of the night melding with the violet of dusk. Stars winked into existence along the horizon, more frequently the longer I looked.

  “I cannot imagine anything else has changed?” she asked in a dull, almost distant tone. “No one is in need of me?”

  “No, ma’am,” I said, folding my hands in front of myself, my fingers growing numb with worry.

  “I should like to be left alone for the rest of the evening,” she said. “Now he is gone, there will be nothing urgent for me to deal with. Unless the Chief Constable learns precisely what caused his death, I want to hear nothing of it.”

  “Of course,” I said. “Whatever you need. Shall I go and inform Mrs. Carlisle?”

  In a way, I longed for her witty, pointed remarks and her clever retorts. I even wished for her snapping, fiery attitude, for at least that would mean that she felt well. This muted version of my mistress felt…strange. As if I was meeting her for the first time.