CHAPTER 4
I was not unaccustomed to death within the walls of the Establishment. After all, it was a hospital. I had even had the dreadful opportunity to behold a murder inside the building last year. But somehow this felt different.
The room was as silent as an abandoned tomb, despite there being a gaggle of us in there. I couldn’t even hear the roar of the stove fire, as if it, too, had extinguished itself out of respect for the dead man whose head lay on the kitchen table.
The quiet was shattered by Mrs. Webb returning with a pitcher of water drawn from the well. She instantly realized what had happened, and with a high-pitched squeak, she hurriedly shoved the pewter container—sloshing with freshly drawn water—into Nurse Hughes’s arms. The cook then stumbled back to her own room at the rear of the kitchens, mumbling about how we would all be dead soon.
My mind was packed with questions, but first I had to prevent hysteria from spreading. I began issuing instructions to my staff, from having John Wesley fetch the undertaker so the body could be removed to having a nurse attend to the cook. I told Charlie Lewis to begin opening windows throughout the building so that we could release any miasma Mr. Fenton had brought into the building. I directed the remaining nurses to check all the inmates for any choleric symptoms, but to be discreet when doing so.
With everyone else having scuttled out of the kitchens to do as they’d been bidden, I turned to Mary. “It looks like a return trip to Sidney Herbert’s house is in order, for I have to assume that’s who he meant. First, though, I want to see if he bears any proof that he belongs to the Herbert household.”
Mary nodded as she stepped back, almost bumping into the stove as she worried her hands together.
I went to Mr. Fenton’s body, which was of course still very warm to the touch. In fact, he remained almost feverish. The poor man. I hated to do this, essentially ransack his person. But if he was a Herbert House servant, what had he been doing in Soho? How had he known to come to the Establishment to find me? I hoped that his words—as murky as they were—did not constitute some sort of confession.
After a few moments, I came across a pouch of calling cards. They were on fine-quality white paper and stated, “Compliments of Mr. Sidney Herbert, Belgravia.”
So this was a high-ranking footman or other manservant of Sidney’s, someone who might accompany Sidney on visitation and leave behind a card if the person was not at home to receive Sidney.
I also discovered a few items that any servant might be carrying—a candle stub, a key, and a few coins. I did not deem them to be of any importance.
It was my next find, though, that was much more curious. In the interior pocket on the other side of the man’s jacket were three ivory dice. They were scuffed and obviously well used. I was no expert in gambling dice, but these were unlike the traditional cubes I knew were typically used.
In the place of concave pips denoting the value of each of the six sides of a die, there were carved symbols.
I turned one of them around in my palm. I saw a crown, quite elaborately done in such a small space; an anchor; and then the remaining four sides were the symbols of playing card suits: a heart, a spade, a club, and a diamond. The heart and the diamond carvings had been filled with red paint, whereas the others were painted black.
All three of the dice were identical to each other. I didn’t think Sidney would be happy to hear that Mr. Fenton might have been frequenting seedy taverns to gamble in his spare time, but my friend had to know about this.
Was it a coincidence that Fenton had been in Soho at presumably the same time Liz had been attacked?
I was puzzling through this, jiggling the dice in my loosely closed fist, when Mary interrupted my preoccupied thoughts. “Miss Florence, have you completed your, er, task?”
“What?” I said with a start. “Oh, right. Yes, I think so.”
As Mary and I rode together in a taxi to Herbert House, I showed her the dice. She glanced at them distastefully and refused to touch them. “My Milo always said that idle minds were the devil’s playground, and that minds were never as idle as they were when gambling.”
I sat up straight. “So Devil’s Dice isn’t some squalid part of London. Fenton was referring to the dice themselves.”
Mary shrugged. “The sooner you are rid of them, the better, I say. I don’t think Milo would approve of my being in the presence of such evil items. Why, I remember Milo once saying …”
I let Mary prattle on without paying much attention.
As we bounced our way to Belgravia, I examined the dice again against my tan leather–gloved palm, gently rolling them and admiring the carving work on them. Whoever had carved them was a talented artist, for certain. The anchors had a clearly defined rope entwined around each of them. All the diamonds were perfectly shaped with even sides. The crowns were—
That was odd. I turned all three dice so that the crown sides were facing up. At the top of each crown was a different number or letter. One was a “D,” the second a “G,” and the third a “5.”
Strange. Perhaps they were the carver’s initials and the “5” was a … what? Maybe these were part of a larger set containing other numbers that would make this more meaningful. Like a birth or death date.
Or perhaps there were more dice that, when placed alongside the “D” and “G,” would form a word or phrase. Other than a simple word like dog though, I couldn’t begin to imagine what it would be.
* * *
If I thought my hospital had been pandemonium, it was nothing compared to the state of the Herbert household.
Liz was no longer abed, and to my surprise, appeared to be fully recovered from her brush with death.
She was in one of the private family parlors, surrounded by her children. Three-month-old William Reginald lay in a cradle, kicking and gurgling happily to himself through the proceedings.
Four-year-old George and his younger brother Sidney were oblivious to my presence, for they were completely entranced by a trembling, whimpering creature that had taken refuge beneath a deep settee that sat along one wall of the room.
The children were a two-man army, strategizing how to coax it out of its hiding place. As I watched, Sidney waved his hand under one end of the settee, and the animal crawled its way backward in the opposite direction, away from the waggling fingers, only to be unceremoniously grabbed by George.
The boy triumphantly dragged out and held up a thin, short-haired puppy with a dove-colored coat. Its legs were quite long for its skinny little body, but I suppose the young of all species have their ungainly stages.
“Isn’t he sweet?” Liz declared, gazing adoringly at the dog, who was now being smothered in kisses, pats, and tugs by her two older children. “He’s a toy greyhound. The Italians breed such beautiful beasts. We call him Alberto, for the Prince Consort.”
I wasn’t sure the queen’s husband would much appreciate being immortalized in the body of an anxious, mousy dog like this—although the pup certainly had the makings of becoming a striking animal, if the Herbert children did not give it a canine apoplexy first.
However, I had far more dire issues on my mind than the Herbert dog.
I quickly introduced Mary, who’d had the good sense to grab her writing notebook—bulging with our newly made charts—and held it in both hands as she dropped a tiny curtsy to my friend. She seemed awestruck about being in the home of an important man like Sidney Herbert.
“Is Sidney here?” I asked, hoping I didn’t sound as anxious as the greyhound. “I must speak with him.”
Liz smiled. “Flo, dear, you know Sidney and my father spend most of their days at Westminster. Do you already know who attacked my carriage? That was certainly fast work on your part.”
I hesitated. Should I tell Liz about their second dead servant before telling Sidney? “No, I don’t have an answer yet, but I do have some news, and I was hoping to tell you both at the same time.”
I should have known that she wouldn’t
accept such a flimsy statement. Tilting her head to one side and looking at me as though she could see straight through my soul to the wall beyond, Liz said, “They should be home anytime. Flo, whatever the news is, I’m ready to hear it. How much worse could it be than what has already happened?”
She shooed the two older children out of the room. Alberto attempted to run back under the settee, but George and Sidney weren’t having it. Again they tricked him back into their arms, but he wriggled valiantly as they reached the door. He escaped the children with an inelegant thump to the floor and, much to my horror, dove under my dress.
George had enough sense at his age not to attempt to lift my skirts to retrieve his pup. Young Sidney, however, was willing to employ any means necessary, and he was immediately on the floor, attempting to crawl in after Alberto. I was in such a state of astonishment that I almost didn’t hear Mary catch herself in a laugh behind me. I did see Liz hide a smile behind two fingers brought to her lips.
I lifted my skirts and stepped away from boy and dog as gracefully as I could. With Alberto thus revealed, both of Liz’s sons attempted to snatch him again, but they flailed against air as the puppy scrabbled out of the room on his own. The boys followed him, screeching like a pair of barn owls in sight of a rabbit.
It was only then that I realized that Alberto had piddled on one of my boots. A dark stain ran across the top of the brown leather, although thankfully it hadn’t been enough that it had reached through to my stockinged foot. I quickly arranged my skirts again before Liz could realize what the dog had done.
Alice Nichols entered the room at that moment. “Mrs. Herbert, did you wish for me to have your green silk laundered for next week’s—oh.” She stopped abruptly at the sight of me, and I could almost see her worrying that I was standing there to report upon her to her employer.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Nichols,” I said as warmly as I could. “I spoke with you when I was here yesterday.”
“I remember,” she said, her words a theatrical sigh.
I introduced Mary to her, and I hoped the informal, friendly gesture would put her mind at ease.
“Yes, Nichols, the green silk,” Liz said. “And don’t forget that I’m having tea with the ladies’ committee for the Southwark Female Society soon, too. I think perhaps the mauve and black stripe for that. Check the hat I always wear with it. I recall last time I wore it that some of the flowers needed sprucing up.”
“Of course, ma’am.” Alice Nichols left the room. Or rather, she exited, stage left. She was not so talented an actress that she was able to disguise her apprehensive expression as she turned away.
Liz didn’t seem to notice, or, more likely, she was too caught up in her family’s troubles to be worried about it. “Flo, I must tell you about the Southwark Female Society, in which I believe you will be most interested. Its goal is not to supply the poor with money but to afford relief in cases of sickness or lying-in. We offer linens, clothing, coal, and groceries and deliver them straight to the indigent of Southwark. The benefits are not confined to any particular denomination, which I know is important to you.”
I had had a major tussle with the Establishment’s committee, which wanted to restrict inmates to those belonging to the Church of England, but I had insisted that we admit Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, and any other female of middling status who could afford to stay. I am a Unitarian myself and a firm believer that a good Christian demonstrates godly principles in charity without prejudging the condemned on God’s behalf.
Right now, though, my hands were full between the Establishment and this task Sidney had given me. “May we speak of it when I—”
The doors to the room opened again. Sidney and the General had arrived home. Liz’s husband went straight to her to plant a kiss on her cheek.
Liz held up a hand to stop him, then indicated my and Mary’s presence. “Flo!” Sidney exclaimed in a cheerful greeting. I was about to change his happy mood, and my innards twisted at the thought.
“That was quick work,” he commended me, practically parroting his wife. “What news do you have?”
I crossed the room and shut the door, hearing the brass lock click tightly shut before turning back to face the room. “I’ve brought my companion, Mary Clarke, with me,” I said to clarify her presence. “She is of invaluable help to me when I work on a project, as she takes notes and helps me think through things.”
I didn’t need to glance in Mary’s direction to know she was preening at the compliment.
Sidney, Liz, and the General nodded at me. They obviously didn’t care who Mary was; they just wanted me to get on with it. So I did.
“It is my sad duty, dear friends, to inform you that a man by the name of Fenton, whom I believe to be in your employ, died at my hospital a short while ago.”
My words hung in the air like the coal fog around a factory town. Liz silently raised her hand to her chest, the General gaped liked a netted fish, and Sidney—well, poor Sidney looked as though he’d been bashed by the swing of a fireplace poker. He was somewhere between maintaining a shocked, statuelike presence and simply crumpling to the floor. He reached out and grabbed the back of a nearby armchair.
“I—I hardly know where to begin,” he faltered. “You’re sure it was Fenton? He’s my personal manservant. How …?” There were hundreds of bewildered questions in Sidney’s eyes.
I explained what had happened.
“Cholera!” Liz gasped, and I knew she was probably feeling great relief that he hadn’t brought it back to Herbert House and that he hadn’t been attacked as she and the General had.
“What was he doing in Soho?” the General demanded. “Did he not realize there is a madman on the loose there? Surely he knew what had happened to my daughter and me.”
“And particularly to Mr. Pagg,” I offered, probably more sarcastically than I should have, but no one would ever accuse me of being a tactful diplomat.
The General was still full of outrage and paid me no attention. “He’s brought shame onto this house, Sidney! Your servants cannot be permitted to dash about wherever they like. Not only do they get themselves into trouble, they contract disease. They die, for God’s sake.”
Liz’s father was working himself into a fearfully righteous rage.
“Papa,” Liz said, seeming to forget her own distress in the moment and going to her father. She took one of his burly hands in both of hers, trying to placate him. “We don’t know yet why Fenton was there. It may have been innocent. Perhaps he had family there.”
“Well, I may have the answer to that.” I pulled the set of dice from my dress pocket and held them out for the three of them to inspect.
“Dice!” the General roared, brushing his daughter aside. “Just as I said. Servants who are not on a tightly held leash get themselves into trouble. This is an appalling show of disrespect for you—for us—and I for one will not tolerate—”
“Sir,” I interrupted him and his rant. At this rate, I would never finish my story, and I still intended to head into Soho myself this afternoon. “I beg of you, restrain your temper until I have departed.”
My curt admonishment startled him into silence, which I knew was only temporary. With one hand, I tapped my open palm containing the dice. “They do not look like typical gambling dice to me.”
Liz removed one from my hand. “Are they all the same?” she asked as she held it up to scrutinize it more closely.
“Yes, in that they all have the exact same designs for each of their six sides: an anchor, a crown, and the symbols for all four suits of a deck of cards.”
Sidney and the General each picked up one of the remaining dice in my hand. Sidney tossed his into the air and caught it deftly. “I believe these are the type of dice sailors use, aren’t they, Father?”
General à Court squinted at the die in his hand and grunted. “If you say so. Best thing to do is throw them into the fireplace and not let the others know he had been behaving so dishonorably toward yo
u.”
Mary sniffed in agreement. However, I was not about to callously incinerate what was not only a memento of a favored Herbert servant but might somehow be linked to Liz’s attack. What if there was some sort of connection between Fenton, the dice, Liz, and a trip through Soho?
“Was Fenton ever in the Navy?” I asked.
Sidney shook his head. “He came from a family with a long history of domestic service. Impeccable character references.”
“Did he have a male relative who might have worn the uniform? Or a friend?”
Sidney shrugged his uncertainty. “I confess I didn’t know the man’s personal background very well. Not my business to pry into a servant’s life as long as it isn’t impacting my household.”
I braced for what I was sure would be another tirade from the General on how dreadfully this particular servant’s behavior was affecting the household. Surprisingly, it didn’t come.
“There’s something else,” I continued. “Look at the crown side of each die. See the engraving above it?”
“D,” Sidney said, followed by the General reading off the “5” and Liz declaring the “G” on her own die. “What do they mean?” she asked.
“I cannot fathom what the significance is,” I said. “I can only imagine that these dice are missing from a larger set, and that perhaps the other dice help to spell out a longer word or phrase.”
“Five Good Dice?” Sidney suggested.
Could it really be that simple? I wondered.
“Perhaps the ‘5,’ which begins with an ‘F,’ really stands for Fenton,” Liz speculated. “Fenton’s Good Dice.”
“Or Fenton’s Gambling Dice,” Sidney said, his face darkening. “Maybe it’s just a monogram spread across the dice.”
Mary sniffed again, but I could hear her pen dutifully scratching across paper.
I nodded. It was as good an explanation as any. “There’s one more thing. Fenton referred to them as ‘devil’s dice.’ ”
Not surprisingly, the General thundered back to life. “Of course he did! His time-wasting with the dice led him into some unsavory den in a back alley in Soho where the fetid air of cholera blew over him. He was responsible for his own murder and he knew it. My boy, you must allow me to assist you in selecting your menservants in the future.”
A Murderous Malady Page 5