Death at Bishop's Keep (33 page)

The constable studied the mushroom carefully, an intent look on his face. “Is this what I think it is?”

“Quite. Do you mind if I ask a question or two of the young lady?”

The constable nodded, and Charles turned to the girl. “I would like you to tell me what you can about the preparation of the evening meal. Did you assist?”

“Oh yes, sir.” The girl beamed with obvious pride. “Cook said I were a great help.”

The constable leaned forward. “How was that?”

The girl was eager. “Well, I done as usual, cleanin' pots and straight‘nin' the table. Then she let me cut up th' mushrooms fer th' puddin'.” She spoke with a sense of having learned a new skill, one that was usually reserved to those of higher place in the kitchen.

“Go on,” the constable prompted.

“Well, ye see, sir, things were'n a frightful state on account o' we hadn't ‘xpected to do luncheon fer comp'ny. And then th' sweets tray were knocked into th' fire, which weren't nobody's fault. We was just too busy, we was, wot wi flyin' round, tryin' to get it all done up proper. An' then Cook had t' make a new sweet ‘cause th' other were all over soot an' she asked me t' cut up th' mushrooms fer th' puddin'. I'd never done't before, so she showed me.”

“And what did she say?” the constable asked.

“She said as there was diff‘rent kinds an' I was t' cut 'em all up together like th' one she done.”

Charles slid the open bundle in front of the girl. “Did any of the mushrooms you cut up look like this?”

The girl glanced at the specimen. She answered without hesitation. “Yessir.”

“Are you sure? This is important.”

“Yessir,” the girl replied. “ 'Twas th' very last one I cut up. 'Twas so beautiful, I wanted t' put it in. I knew t'wud make th' puddin' taste grand.”

Laken looked sharply at Charles. Charles nodded very slightly. The girl caught the glance.

“T‘weren't nuthin' wrong with it,” she said defensively. “If it'ud bin bad, it wudn't o' bin in th' basket, wud it?”

Charles nodded reassuringly. “Can you tell us where the mushrooms came from?”

“Sometimes Cook gets ‘em in th' woods. Sometimes Pocket picks 'em. Sometimes they're bought.”

“Yesterday's mushrooms,” Charles said. “Were they picked, or bought?”

The girl hesitated, obviously wondering why she was being asked so many questions about the mushrooms. “I dunno, sir. Cook just handed me th' basket.”

“I see,” Charles said. He smiled. “Do you and Cook get along?”

The girl's smile echoed his. “Oh, t' be sure, sir,” she said brightly. “She's almost like me mum. She kep' Mrs. Jaggers from—” She caught herself in midsentence, her guilty expression mirroring her realization that she might be saying too much.

“From what, Harriet?” Charles asked gently. When she did not answer, he said, “Come now, child, someone will tell us. If not you, one of the others. What did Mrs. Jaggers threaten to do?”

“She din't threaten, sir.” The girl's anger was artless. “She done it! She beat me till Cook made her stop. An' she beat Nettie too, an' locked her in th' cellar in th' dark o' night, blackin' grates, e‘en a'ter her candle went out.” She began to sniffle. “Not t' speak ill o' th' dead, sir, but Mrs. Jaggers weren't a kind woman.”

“And how did Cook make her stop beating you?”

Harriet looked up, torn between her reluctance to betray Cook's rashness but proud of her daring. “ 'Twas only water, sir. Nothin' wot'd harm.”

“Water?”

“Cook dumped th' slops on her head. Then Jaggers give her th' sack.”

“She did?” The constable's eyebrows went up.

“Yes, but th' young miss put a stop t‘it.” Harriet's sniffles gave way to tears, and the sorrow of long-held and deeply felt offense. “T'weren't just th' way she beat me, sir, or Nettie. Before us‘ns 'twere Jenny, who died cause o' her.” The tears and the words, intermingled, flowed faster, punctuated by hiccups. “An' Jaggers took th' fire an' th' sofa an' th' jam, an' Miss Ardleigh was goin' to give ‘em all back an' now she's dead too an' I'll have t'find a new place.” The thin shoulders shook with the awful realization of unknown horrors ahead, and tears streaked unchecked down the pallid cheeks.

“That's enough for now, Harriet,” Laken said quietly. “You may go. But you are not to speak of this to anyone else, in any circumstance. Do you understand?”

With a gulping nod, the girl wiped her nose on her apron. Then she stood up and almost ran from the room.

Laken reached for Charles's bundle and poked at the toadstool with his finger. “I take it that you found this on the premises?”

“In the kitchen storeroom,” Charles said, “in a basket with various edible mushrooms. The symptoms of the poisonings are consistent with ingestion of
Amanita
—severe abdominal cramps, vomiting, violent diarrhea, jaundice, coma. These may occur up to twelve hours after the fungus is ingested, and death can take place within fifteen.”

The constable was thoughtful. “So it appears that the two women died of eating the mushroom pudding prepared by Mrs. Pratt, who—if the girl can be relied on—may have strongly resented her employers. You concur, I take it, with my feeling that the girl's involvement was quite innocent?”

“That is my impression as well,” Charles replied. “Mrs. Pratt had both means and opportunity, and the girl has revealed a possible motive. You may find others when you begin to probe. I would especially dig into this business about the dead girl, Jenny. There is also some connection to the parlor maid, who seemed to feel her death quite keenly.”

“Jenny Blyly,” Laken said. “They're sisters.” He stood up. “This part of the job is not my cup of tea. I frankly prefer to go after poachers.”

“Are you going to take her in?”

“Yes. People seem more ready to tell the truth when they're not surrounded by the comforts of home.” He looked around at the bare, bleak room. “However comfortless it may be.”

Charles would have liked to hear Cook's story. But one of the unfortunate responsibilities of staying at Marsden Manor was the requirement of punctual attendance at tea. He stood.

“Then I leave you to it, old man,” he said. “Would you mind conveying my farewell to Miss Ardleigh? I will let myself out by the kitchen door.” There was no point in once more confronting the woman who had met his well-intentioned efforts with such an ill grace. He would only be embarrassed by her apologies when she learned that she had him to thank for apprehending the killer in her kitchen.

Laken held up his hand. “One more question before you go,” he said with a thoughtful look. “Could the young woman have eaten the mushroom pudding and showed no ill effects?”

“Not likely,” Charles said. “In fact, she told me that she did not eat any pudding.”

Laken's thoughtful look deepened. “I wonder why not,” he said.

“The tragedy of English cooking is that ‘plain' cooking cannot he entrusted to 'plain' cooks.”

—COUNTESS MORPHY English Recipes

 

 

 

D
eeply annoyed, Kate remained after Sir Charles left the room to pursue his inquiry, whatever it was. But it was not fair to burden the poor vicar with her irritation. The vicar had come to share her grief over the death of someone they both cared for, and she owed him nothing less than her full attention.

She rose. “The servants are engaged with the constable, so I cannot offer you tea.” She went to the cabinet where Aunt Sabrina kept several bottles of liquor. “Would a glass of brandy do instead?”

“It would indeed,” the vicar replied. His smile was a feeble one, and he took the glass she offered him with a shaking hand. His shaggy mane of white hair was disarranged and his collar was crooked. “The constable, you say?”

“Yes.” She sat down across from him. “Would you care to hear the details of the morning?”

“If it would not be too painful.”

It was painful, indeed. But she had the sense that the old man would find no calm within himself until he learned what had happened from someone who had shared Aunt Sabrina's last moments.

When she finished, he leaned back and closed his eyes. He was silent for a long time, and when he spoke, it was with such a soft voice that she didn't quite hear him.

“Such a rich life.”

“I beg pardon?”

He opened his eyes, pale blue and watery. “Your aunt. She was a remarkable woman who insisted on living her life as she thought best, regardless of others' opinions.” He shook his head. “I envied her,” he said softly. “She was free of the constraints that bind so many of us to our accustomed ways. And yet she was generous to those who had fewer gifts. Sabrina was a woman of many charities.”

Kate said nothing. Perhaps it seemed to the vicar that her aunt had been unconstrained. But however self-governing Aunt Sabrina's earlier life may have been, in the past few years Aunt Jaggers had tyrannized her.

“You said that the constable is here,” the vicar remarked.

“Dr. Randall could not be sure of the cause of death,” Kate said. “It seems there will be an inquest, and probably autopsies. The doctor suggested that the constable be asked to interview the servants while the details were still fresh in their minds. I concurred.”

“Quite right,” the vicar said. “Quite right. But if Sabrina and her sister did not die of illness, how—?” He looked at Kate, alarm widening his eyes. “Did the doctor suggest ... ? Is there a thought of ... ?”

He answered his own question with an emphatic shake of the head. “No, of course not. I am sure that some obscure disease or condition will be discovered to be the cause.”

Kate rose and added another lump of coal to the fire. She knew the word that the vicar could not bring himself to utter. Poison. The same word had occurred to her when Sir Charles had responded so abruptly to her mention of the mushroom pudding. If the pudding had been at fault, the poisonings must have been accidental, arising from ignorance in gathering the mushrooms or carelessness in cooking them. Even though all who handled mushrooms were carefully schooled in the dangers, the newspapers frequently reported such accidents.

But Beryl Bardwell had read too many sensational stories and concocted too many murderous plots to accept that easy answer—especially given the state of high tension at Bishop's Keep. If Aunt Sabrina alone had died, Kate might have suspected Aunt Jaggers to have been responsible. Her treatment of poor Nettie and little Harriet were only two examples of the woman's sudden bursts of ungovernable passion, and there was that business with Jenny as well. Aunt Jaggers hated her sister, and it was very likely that she would inherit the estate. Yes, if Aunt Sabrina alone had died, Kate would immediately have suspected Aunt Jaggers of slipping a poisonous mushroom into the pudding.

But if the pudding were indeed the lethal weapon, Aunt Jaggers could hardly have been the killer. She had eaten two portions of it—hers and Kate's—with a greedy relish.

Kate picked up the poker and stirred the fire. There was another way to interpret the tragedy. Aunt Sabrina had clearly been desperate to escape from whatever threat of exposure her sister was holding over her head. “If I had not already decided to put an end to her intimidations and cruelties, this would be the last straw,” she had said when Kate told her that Aunt Jaggers had discharged Cook. Kate had flinched then at the pent-up fury in her aunt's words. What if that fury had inspired Aunt Sabrina at last to take matters into her own hands? What if her desperation to escape from her sister had driven her to kill?

But Aunt Sabrina had also eaten the pudding. If she had decided to kill Aunt Jaggers, she also intended to kill herself as well. Which was not, Kate thought with a deep sadness, beyond the bounds of possibility. She remembered Aunt Sabrina's instructions to turn over to the vicar the letters and cipher manuscript, almost as if she expected to be incapacitated. Unthinkable as it seemed, Aunt Sabrina might have felt that murder and suicide were the only ways to find release from her tormentor and to forever conceal the secret Aunt Jaggers threatened to reveal.

The vicar looked at her. “You are thinking ...”

“That the constable will soon tell us what he has learned,” Kate replied evasively, going back to her chair. She could not share her speculations with the vicar. She had not a shred of proof on which to base them, and they would only trouble his Christian spirit.

“No doubt.” The vicar made a tent of his fingers against his thin lips. “Did your aunt speak to you about her ... concern for the German letters?”

“Yes,” Kate said. “Thank you for reminding me. She wanted me to give them to you, and the cipher document.” She looked at him. “There is some question in my mind about the letters,” she added hesitantly. Was now the time to mention the business? But Aunt Sabrina had seemed quite urgent about them, so perhaps there was something more here than she understood. It might be best to say what she thought.

“I had already gotten a start on translating the letters when Aunt Sabrina asked me to lay them aside. I feel they are not ... that they are ...” She took a deep breath. “I am no scholar of the German language, sir, but I have learned something of its grammar and spelling. In my opinion, the letters were not written by a native German speaker. I believe them to be forgeries.”

The vicar's eyes narrowed, but Kate suspected he was not surprised. “You are quite sure?”