“A private investigator is still not someone to be trusted,” Sidney said patiently. “He would have no loyalty to us, and no doubt this event would make for juicy gossip. Imagine the bulging pouch of guineas one of the local rags would be willing to hand over for a lurid story about the secretary at war’s wife. We cannot have such scandalous distractions while we are trying to prosecute a war.”
Still holding Liz’s hand, the General threw up his other hand. “So you are willing to permit the lunatic to come after my dear girl again because of your precious reputation?” Now the General’s scowl was directed toward his son-in-law. “Unconscionable, my boy. Perhaps I should take matters into my own hands.”
I sensed that Sidney was controlling himself with everything he had. He was an important man in Her Majesty’s government and no doubt unused to being chastised for his decisions. The prime minister and Liz were probably the only people in the world who could challenge him, and neither would be so boorish about it.
Yet Sidney allowed it, and I knew it was a sacrifice he was willing to make for his adored Elizabeth.
“Father,” he began again. “I have no intention of permitting a lunatic to come after Liz. However, I do intend to be cautious and intentional about my actions. I’ve called Miss Nightingale to us not only because she is Liz’s friend but because she has already proven an investigative talent in a situation at her hospital. We can trust her, and I believe she can help us.”
“Papa,” Liz jumped in, cajoling her father with a winsome smile that made it impossible to remember that she was already the thirty-one-year-old mother of three children, the most recent having just been born in May. “I’m sure Sidney knows best. Why don’t we simply have tea with Florence and see if she can help us?”
Sidney left his place at the mantel and went to the hallway, where he entered into murmured conversation with a passing servant.
I sat on the bed next to Liz so that she was on my right side. Now I could more easily see both the General and Sidney. The two of them reminded me of caged tigers: wary, watching, and dangerous to cross.
“Tell me everything,” I urged. “You know that I will do anything I can to be of service to you, dearest.”
Liz quickly brushed away a sudden tear. The incident must have been horrifying, for my friend had never been anyone I considered to be of a nervous or hysterical nature. In fact, I couldn’t recall ever having seen her weep, not even when her mother died.
“Papa and I were headed to the British Museum. They have a new collection of Anglo-Saxon weapons, you know. I was anxious to show it to Papa, what with his military leadership. We decided to go on Saturday, since he wasn’t needed that day at the War Department. When we—”
“I told Sidney I should have gone down to study the War Department maps while he had his little henpecking party with the prime minister.” The General was glowering again. “Those maps are riddled with errors. For instance, they never accurately reflect the distance between harbors and encampments.”
“Yes, Papa.” Liz smiled fondly at her father and addressed me again. “I finally had my father to myself and was quite happy that he had to put the maps away for a day.”
That effectively silenced the General, although I suspected that he had been torn between his fatherly love for Liz and the need to rectify the War Department maps that might cost life and limb in a future battle.
Liz continued her tale. “As we traveled through Soho, the streets became so very crowded and narrow, much more so than they are here in Belgravia. It made it all so confusing, you see. Poor Pagg, he had to deal with something in the roadway and we came to a stop. He is typically so conscientious about ensuring that the carriage continues moving. That was when this deranged man came from nowhere and practically jumped into the carriage with us. He—” Liz halted her narration and shuddered delicately upon remembrance.
“He managed to perch himself atop the folding steps. I frustrated his attempt to enter the carriage,” the General said, adding his own disquieting details to the account.
“Yes, Papa,” Liz said again. “What was terrible was what he was shouting at me. It was so vile I can hardly repeat it.”
The General interjected again. “I’ll tell you what he—”
“Father, isn’t it best if we let the women talk?” Sidney said, again employing a patient tone that I suspected was reaching its limit.
I wanted to take Liz’s other hand in my own but refrained, lest she feel like a marionette being worked by two puppeteers. “Whatever he said to you was merely the ranting of a madman. You didn’t recognize him, did you?”
“Of course she didn’t!” the General said.
This time Liz didn’t gently admonish her father but merely ignored him. “I have no idea who he was. I’ve been wondering to myself if perhaps I’ve met him before and caused some offense of which I was unaware, and he has now fallen upon hard times and is misguidedly seeking revenge upon people in his past.”
Certainly her idea wasn’t out of the question, but she still hadn’t told me what it was the man had shouted at her. “Whatever he told you must have led you to believe this, I presume?”
Liz shuddered again. “It was terrible. He said—he said—” She took a deep, sustaining breath. “He pointed a finger at me and said that I was the British Bitch and the Babylonian Whore. That I knew it and would be made to pay for it. I apologize for my coarse language, but that was what he said. I confess I felt like Marie Antoinette riding to the guillotine.”
Something registered in the General’s eyes, but I didn’t know him well enough to know what it meant. I could have sworn that it almost looked like guilt. Perhaps I would feel guilty, too, if I thought myself a towering figure of a man who had been unable to prevent his daughter from being insulted like this, not to mention from nearly being murdered.
“But that is positively ridiculous,” I began, feeling greatly affronted for my dear friend. “You—”
It was as if the General couldn’t help himself. “It most certainly is ridiculous! How dare he? When I find him, I will rip out his heart with my hands and feed it to him.” General à Court closed a fist in the air as if he already had the man’s heart in his hand and was readying to carve it into pieces.
I admit I was somewhat taken aback by the General’s gruesome declaration, but I continued speaking, concluding that Liz’s father might be best ignored. “You are the most faithful of women, in both your marriage and in your friendships. There has never been the slenderest wisp of scandal smoke associated with you. Or Sidney, for that matter.”
Now it was Sidney’s turn to shift uncomfortably. I wondered fleetingly what I had said to cause him sudden disquiet. Or was he merely vexed by the madman’s accusation toward his wife? I had to remember that Liz had almost been killed. Any husband would be upset and uneasy.
Liz nodded. “I don’t know why the man was so unpleasant. Worse, there was someone else so unhappy with me that he tried to kill me. Why, Flo?”
It baffled me also. Liz Herbert might be the wife of a famous man, but she herself was perfectly innocuous. “Who knew that you were going to the museum?” I asked.
“What business is it of anyone’s where my daughter and I go?” the General demanded.
“Father, please,” Sidney said through gritted teeth.
He said no more, for a maid arrived with a tea tray. She deposited it on a table without a word, offered a quick curtsy, and left. Since Liz was in bed, I took on the duties of hostess and poured fragrant hot cups of tea for everyone. The General refused to partake and instead dropped his daughter’s hand and sat back, arms crossed on his chest in a belligerent stance.
“Well,” Liz began, lips pursed in serious contemplation as she stirred a lump of sugar in her cup. “Of course Sidney knew. And my maid, Nichols. Poor Pagg knew, since he had to drive us. Why, I suppose all the servants were aware of it.”
“Anyone else outside the house?” I probed, thinking that someone had to have
known in advance that she would be in Soho at that exact moment.
She looked at me helplessly and shrugged. “I don’t think so, but I suppose it’s possible I mentioned it to someone somewhere.”
I turned my gaze to Sidney, who had seemingly drained his tea in two gulps and was already setting the empty cup back onto its saucer. “Did anyone at the War Office know?” I asked.
Sidney shook his head confidently. “I don’t discuss my wife’s activities with anyone.”
That left only the General. As I regarded him, he turned incredulous. “I am here as a lonely widower assisting my son-in-law while between assignments. Whom could I possibly tell?”
That was a bit of an overstatement. Liz’s mother, for whom she had been named, had died just before the General was due to come back from Afghanistan. When he returned, he had simply never mentioned her again. Liz was positive her father made “certain trips to town,” as she euphemistically referred to them, but he had never seemed to develop an attachment to another woman.
Nevertheless, someone associated with the killer—for that’s what he was, even if he hadn’t murdered his intended target—had known that Liz would be in Soho yesterday. All of a sudden, I had a thought.
I looked straight at the General. “Is it possible that Liz wasn’t the intended target but that you, sir, were?”
I instantly knew that the General thought it not only possible but probable. It was only then that I noticed the sunken, haunted look around the man’s eyes, which told the real story of his worry, pain, and again that tinge of guilt.
“Utter nonsense,” the General muttered, but he avoided my gaze, and his protestation was unconvincing. I would have to find a time to talk with him privately.
Sidney, though, was thoughtfully nodding. “It would be easy enough for anyone to have seen the General and me walking in London together. If someone was angry at me, he might have actually tried to get at me by shooting my father-in-law.”
Liz handed her cup and saucer to me as she shook her head. “My love, you are very romantic to think the shots were not intended for me, but it was obvious that I barely avoided being killed, whereas the bullets were wide of their mark where Papa was concerned.”
There was no use in continuing this line of speculation, so I directed the conversation elsewhere. “What did the police have to say about it? Surely they were involved in the immediate aftermath of things?”
“Actually, no,” Sidney admitted. “Our tiger riding on the back of the carriage reacted very quickly and bravely. He actually jumped down from the landau, ran forward, and hopped onto the driver box, then maneuvered the carriage out of there before matters could get any worse. I shall probably promote him to Pagg’s position. In any case, I chose not to involve the police”—he flicked an inscrutable glance at his father-in-law—“and now I’m hoping that you can help us find out who did this, Flo.”
All we knew was that a man had attacked the carriage, shouting obscenities, and then presumably a second man had fired shots at Liz, fortunately missing her but killing the Herberts’ driver. There was no discernible motive for the act, and in all likelihood it had just been one of those random senseless acts that seemed to occur every day in London. I had no idea how I might be able to actually solve the mystery, but Sidney and Liz stared at me expectantly, so I didn’t have the heart to admit that.
“Well, I shall certainly try,” I said with more conviction than I felt. “I suppose I should get straight to work. Liz, I believe I would like to talk to your maid.”
CHAPTER 2
Alice Nichols was fairly young for a lady’s maid, in her late twenties by my estimation. She had nice quarters, directly above those of her mistress on the floor containing chambers for the Herberts’ children as well as their guests. It surprised me that Nichols was not relegated to the servants’ quarters in the attic. She was clearly one of Liz’s favored servants.
In fact, I noticed a bell on one wall of her room attached to a cord that ran down the wall and into the floor, obviously providing Liz a way to directly summon her maid.
The room was furnished in secondhand pieces, but they were of high quality and better than the iron bedstead and pine chest that adorned most maids’ rooms. Nichols also had an overstuffed feather pillow on her bed and several layers of bedcoverings, as well as an extra bucket of coal on her small brick hearth. She even had a recently applied floral wallpaper of pink and red-purple cabbage roses against a pale-green background.
The most interesting aspect of Alice Nichols’s room, though, was a street scene painting on the wall over her oak headboard. It appeared to be of Windsor, judging by the familiar round turret shown in a background shadow. The tightly packed buildings, men and women walking about, and animals in the street were all portrayed very realistically inside the ornate gold frame. It had been done by an oil painter of some talent, and likely beyond the means of a lady’s maid. It was also an unusual furnishing for the room of a servant such as this. Normally one would find a keepsake sketch of a family member, or a stitched sampler representing the servant’s skills. Perhaps the painting had been a gift from the Herberts on some previous Boxing Day, but it struck me as extravagant.
However, it was none of my business and had nothing to do with the attempt on Liz’s life.
Even more interesting than her room was Nichols herself. She was, frankly, striking and unusual, not at all a typical lady’s maid. They were often more like Mary Clarke—older with faded beauty, frequently a poor or unmarriageable relation who found companionship with neither the family nor the staff. Alice Nichols, however, was … vibrant. That was the only word I could put to it.
She wore Liz’s cast-off clothing, as I would have expected, and there was a lovely cameo at her throat. Her hair was long, spiraled, and the striking red of a sugar maple in full autumn color. She wore it tied back loosely with a ribbon so that it tumbled down her back like a blanket of fallen leaves on a river.
Nichols had large, expressive brown eyes framed with dark lashes and a tiny mole above her upper lip that only served to add to her exotic beauty. I confess I was surprised she wasn’t married. I was also rather startled that Liz would allow her maid to outshine her this way.
“Welcome, Miss Nightingale, isn’t it?” Nichols ushered me into her room as if she were a medieval estate’s chatelaine. “Mrs. Herbert said you wished to see me? I didn’t expect you to come to my room but thought I would meet you in one of the public rooms. Or perhaps in the basement.”
Nichols tilted her head to one side, as if determining whether I was of Liz Herbert’s station or more of her own, given my plain, workaday clothing.
“I saw no need to disturb anyone’s routine belowstairs. I don’t believe we’ve met on my previous visits. I am an old friend of Mrs. Herbert’s.”
I saw calculation in her expression now that she understood me to belong upstairs. “Of course, madam. She has been through a terrible time, as I am sure you well know.” Her words seemed friendly enough, but she was definitely guarded against me.
I smiled to set her at ease. “I do indeed. Poor Liz, to have endured such a violation of her person.” I figured that referring to my friend in familiar terms would make Nichols feel that I was bringing her into my confidence. “You can imagine that she is most anxious to see this lunatic removed from the streets.”
Nichols exhaled on a long “Ohhhhh yes. What are the streets of London coming to that a woman of quality is unsafe even while out riding with her kin?” With a careless flourish, the maid put the back of her hand to her forehead. “It makes one despair of the future of mankind, doesn’t it?”
A bit dramatically put, but an understandable sentiment.
“It truly does,” I murmured. “I was wondering, though, if you can possibly help to shed light on the events of yesterday. You are, after all, closer to Mrs. Herbert than just about anyone else.”
Nichols preened at the flattery. “I am. I know her moods and preferences and dislikes v
ery well. For example, she adores the work of Hancocks Jewellers but does not care much for Mr. Robert Phillips’s designs. She also prefers her silks to be brocaded instead of taffeta—too noisy, she says. Mrs. Herbert also insists on gardenia scent for her bath, but lavender for her drawer sachets. I even know—”
“You certainly do have an excellent grasp of your mistress’s preferences, Mrs. Nichols,” I said, giving her the honorific of a married title even though I knew she was not.
She nodded at the compliment, tilting her head downward so graciously that I was almost willing to believe that she came from a more distinguished background than most women in her position.
“I was right, then,” I continued, “to think that you were the appropriate person at Herbert House to help me.”
She raised her head, and I saw spots of color flush her cheeks. “In any way possible, I would be happy to do so, but I don’t know what I can offer you.”
Ah, the sin of pride that courses through the veins of men and women alike. I liked to think myself impermeable to the scourge of that sin, but of course I was not. I had endured so much insult and scoffing at my ideas that how could I not help but preen when someone praised my efforts at cleaning up a hospital … or cleaning up a murder? This young woman in front of me had surely suffered her own slights in an unenviable position as lady’s maid, so how could I blame her for puffing up now?
“I’m sure you can be most helpful,” I said, continuing to encourage her. I noticed that she was not inviting me to sit, although with only one chair in the room, it would have made seated conversation awkward. “How long have you attended to Mrs. Herbert?”
Nichols tilted her head to one side and looked upward, as if in earnest thought. It was an exaggerated motion and made me uncomfortable for reasons I could not identify.
“She hired me when she and Mr. Herbert moved into the house, so that would be three years ago.” Her head came down and she smiled at me, as if pleased that she had provided the right answer.
A Murderous Malady Page 2