Death at Bishop's Keep (35 page)

“Not for a certainty,” Laken said. “The scullery maid says that the cook usually picks them.”

She was silent, her head bowed. Then she asked, “How do you intend to transport Mrs. Pratt? Not on your bicycle, I should hope.”

Laken frowned. The bicycle was decidedly useful, but it presented certain practical problems when he was required to take someone into custody. “Will you permit me to borrow a horse and cart, Miss Ardleigh? I shall see that it is speedily returned.”

She set her mouth. “You may borrow the horse but not the cart,” she replied, raising her chin. “I shall ask Pocket to bring the carriage round.”

Laken's mouth fell open. “The carriage?”

“Forgive me, Kathryn,” the vicar said gently, “but it would hardly be seemly to—”

“Seemly?” Miss Ardleigh cried. “Let us not talk of what is seemly on such a day! If Mrs. Pratt must go to jail, it will not be in a cart, like some poor wretch on her way to the gibbet or the guillotine. She will ride in the carriage, with dignity!”

Laken stared at her, astonished. For a moment she glared back, then gathered her skirts in her hand and swept out of the room. He shook his head, bemused. Miss Kathryn Ardleigh was surely one of the most remarkable women he had ever met.

“The cook was a good cook as cooks go; and as cooks go, she went.”

—H. H. MUNRO REGINALD

 

 

 

S
pending the night in the cramped, unheated stone jail behind the constable's office was not an experience Sarah Pratt would treasure in her memory.

What she
would
remember, however, to the very end of her days, was riding to jail in the carriage. Pocket, to his everlasting credit, had donned his finest livery for the occasion. Cracking his whip with a fine flourish, he drove like the very blazes down High Street, the constable bringing up the rear on his bicycle, pedaling as fast as his feet could go. The carriage rattled at an amazing rate past the apothecary's on the corner, where Sarah's friends Gert and Gilda stopped their gossiping and stared, mouths open, as she drove by. It careened past St. Mary's on the right, where Rachel Elam was on her way to Ralph Elam's grave with an armful of purple asters which she dropped in a heap on the path when Sarah waved at her. And past The Marlborough Head, where crazy Mick, sweeping the steps, banged his broom handle into his nose when she gave him a politely condescending bow.

By the time Sarah arrived at the jail and was handed out of the carriage with a great show of dignity by Pocket, she was feeling only a slight resentment at having her day's work interrupted for a visit with the constable. Granted, she was still a cook, had always been a cook, and would always be a cook, no matter how many carriages she rode in. But the young Miss Ardleigh (God bless her bones) had treated her like a lady, and that gave Sarah something to think about as she prepared herself for her visit with the constable.

As it turned out, however, that visit did not take place until morning. The constable seemed to hold the theory that a night spent on an iron cot in a cold cell might loosen her tongue—or perhaps he had something else more pressing to do. At any rate, he locked her up and sent Lily round from the pub with a bucket of hot stew, a half loaf of bread, and a pint of ale. After that, the cot did not seem so hard, especially considering that she was not the one who had to cook the stew or wash the dish from which she ate.

And as Sarah went to her knees beside the cot, she said a prayer for the soul of the elder Miss Ardleigh and another for the younger, pausing to reflect before completing her address to the Deity. Was it because she was an American that Miss Ardleigh had so little respect for the established distinctions of rank? Were all Americans similarly blind to tradition and social custom? Was that how it was possible that Rachel Elam's brother Stanton, having sold both his cows and gone to America, now owned his own dairy; and his wife, who made indifferent cheeses with a noticeable tendency to sourness, now was able to command three subordinate cheese-makers? Hearing no conclusive opinion on the matter from Above, Sarah Pratt finished her prayers, climbed into her cot, and went to sleep.

But her sound sleep was sadly disturbed by pangs of conscience, for she deeply regretted Miss Ardleigh's death and the manner of her dying. While the mistress had an unfortunate share in Jenny's death, she had been tolerant and gentle; if she had not eaten the pudding, no doubt she would have been true to her word to restore both fire and sofa to the servants' hall, and jam as well.

Jaggers, however, was another matter. Sarah could not feel remorse when she thought of the woman's death. Indeed, she could not help rejoicing—yes, rejoicing!—in every fiber of her being. She felt her own part in the tragedy, deeply, as well she should; she was contrite and remorseful, although she had to admit of a deep satisfaction when she thought of her kitchen with no Jaggers in it. And even though she was not surprised that suspicion had first fallen on her, she knew it could hardly rest there long, for
she
had not been the one to select and chop the mushrooms. Nor could it fall on little Harriet, for such a young, innocent-looking girl would not likely be called to account for the deaths, and Amelia and Nettie and Mudd had nothing to do with the preparation of the pudding. No, they were all safe from accusation. If anyone were called to account, it would be the one who had introduced the fatal toadstool into the kitchen. And in her heart of hearts Sarah could not but hope that
that
person, who was more to be pitied than blamed, would also escape accusation. She would do her best to see that he was exonerated as well, and that the poisoning was viewed as the tragedy it truly was.

So Sarah Pratt's sleep was laced with dreams in which were mingled regret, rejoicing, and relief, with the latter two sentiments prevailing. When the sun rose, she rose as well and almost as cheerily. She washed her face in the chipped basin, straightened her garments, and smoothed her cot, on which she sat patiently until Lily brought in from the pub a dish of fatty bacon, with biscuits and a pint of gravy. Having eaten well, Sarah found herself refreshed, alert, and only a little creaky as to joints. She was ready to answer whatever questions Constable Laken saw fit to ask her. She knew exactly what she was going to say and how, exactly, she would explain the deaths of the two sisters. There was one slightly sticky part, but on the whole Sarah did not expect any surprises.

The questioning began at eight. It was carried out in the constable's office, a room which was little bigger than Sarah's pantry, crowded with a table, two wooden chairs, shelf, and iron stove, with a photograph of the queen (God give her a long and healthy life) hanging beside the window. The constable took one chair. Sarah settled herself in the other, smiled at the queen, and prepared to answer the queen's representative.

The constable opened his notebook. “It would seem,” he said, “that the victims died from eating a deadly mushroom.”

Sarah refused to feign sadness for Jaggers, but she could certainly feel a dart of it for the dead Miss Ardleigh. It was that sadness she allowed to creep into her voice. “I knew as much.”

The constable's face tightened ever so slightly. “And just how did you know, Mrs. Pratt?”

“From th' way th' pore things died.” She added authority to the sadness. “Cudna been anythin' but a bad mushroom.”

The constable made a note. “A bad mushroom, meaning a poisonous one?”

Mrs. Pratt nodded.

“And just where did you pick the mushrooms, Mrs. Pratt?”

That did surprise, and, for a moment, alarm her. She narrowed her eyes. “Who sez I picked 'em?”

“Did you not? Harriet says you often do.”

“So I do,” she said, “of‘en. There's a spot at th' edge o' th' wood where th' meadow mushrooms are fat as dumplin's. But I di'n't pick ‘em that day.” She settled herself more firmly in the chair. “That day, there was a deal more t' be done than jauntin' through th' meadow pickin' mushrooms. There were comp'ny for luncheon, a great lot o' it. Four, I made it, an' th' young miss, not t' speak o' the two upstairs, which di‘n't come down an' wanted a tray. Wi' respect, sir, if yer don't b'lieve me, come t' th' kitchen someday when there's comp‘ny t' luncheon, an' see th' goin's-on. I warrant yer, yer'd find no time t'go a-pickin' mushrooms.”

The constable looked at her. “Where
did
the mushrooms come from?”

It was the question she had been waiting for. “I bought 'em,” she said firmly, “from a gypsy. At th' kitchen door.”

The constable appeared startled. “A gypsy?”

“A lad.” She allowed the sympathy to enter her voice. “His folks was camped by th' ditch. His father was a tinker, out lookin' fer scissors an' razors t' grind. His mother were sick with th' fever, pore thing, an' his three lit'le brothers was in th' village, sellin' clothes pegs an' cabbage nets.”

As Sarah spoke, the constable rapidly scratched in his notebook. She watched him, envying the speed of his writing. She could read, and read perfectly, having been taught by Miss Ellison, the now-retired governess of Dedham National School. Miss Ellison had set her to read in the
Royal Reader,
where the young Sarah had been enthralled by such stories as “The Skater Chased by Wolves” and “The Siege of Torquilstone,” from
Ivanhoe,
as well as descriptions of fairy islands constructed by an amazingly industrious mite called a coral, and reports of the vast frozen wastes of the Northwest Territory. Each year Her Majesty's gimlet-eyed Inspector of Schools came in his fine black frock coat with silk-faced lapels to put the young scholars to their annual examination, and Sarah would be placed in the front rank of the recitation to show off her reading ability. But when it came to shaping letters on paper, she was in a different sort of water. She was slow, and Miss Ellison's daily exercises in penmanship—“lightly on the upstrokes, heavy on the down”—seemed monotonously tedious. She envied those who could write down words as fast as they spilled out of their brains.

“Can you describe this gypsy boy?” the constable asked.

Sarah shrugged, thinking of the young man who had stood before her. “Brown hat pulled down over his face, brown trousers a size or two b'yond him, boots, dirty hands. About this high.” She held a hand up to her nose to demonstrate height. “Face brown as a chestnut.”

The constable eyed her. “Are you in the habit of buying foodstuffs from gypsies who call at the door, Mrs. Pratt?” His tone ambiguously implied both a doubt of her veracity and of her prudence.

Sarah summoned dignity to her defense. “I am in th' habit, sir, o' buyin' from vendors when they got somethin' I need. Old Willie Hogglestock comes Mondays with his cart full o' fish an' fruit—grapes, pears, apples. Tommytoes, too”—she wrinkled her nose—“nasty, sour red things wot'll make yer sick. Th' gentry eats 'em with relish—why, I don't know. Then there's Hawkins th' dairyman's helper, wot brings milk, cream, an' butter. Used to be a ship's carpenter, Hawkins did. Come on with th' dairyman after his wife threatened to—”

“I see,” the constable said hurriedly. “When the gypsy boy offered the mushrooms, you looked through the basket quite carefully, did you?”

“Ah.” This was the sticky part, and Sarah knew it. “T” speak God's truth, sir,” she said, averting her eyes from the glance of the queen, ”I did not.”

“You did not?”

“No, sir,” she said remorsefully, “an' I'll ferever wonder in me heart whether 'twas my carelessness wot caused th' trouble.”

The constable frowned. “And how was that?”

Sarah heaved a dramatic sigh. “Well, sir, I thought to meself that th' boy might not be a good judge o' mushrooms. But I cud see that he needed th' money, mother sick an' father a tinker an' all. So I paid him, an' paid a bit mor'n he asked, part fer pity o' his perdicament, and part out o' wantin' th' mushrooms. The elder Miss Ardleigh was right partial to ‘em, an' I thought t' make her a puddin', seein' as she was plannin' t' give back th' carpet.” The constable looked confused but did not interrupt. “But as I was reachin' fer th' basket—t' look through it an' be sure th' mushrooms were wot they should be—there was a commotion.”

“What sort of commotion?”

“Th' lad looked round, like, over his shoulder, an' there stood one o' th' guests, lookin' at him. The boy took fright an' bolted.”

“And then what?”

“Well, there I stood with th' basket in me hand, thinkin' t' sort through it, like. But Harriet had made up th' fire too hot an' th' soup boiled over. As I was tendin' t' that, I burned me thumb.” She held it up to demonstrate the red welt. “I dipped it in Saint-John‘s-wort oil an' bound it up an' went back t' th' mushrooms, which was sittin' on th' table. But th' spit give way in th' fire an' the joint dropped in th' ash an'—”

“Mrs. Pratt,” the constable said, “are you telling me that you did not check the mushrooms?”

“Yes, sir,” Sarah said, low. “I aimed t' do't before settin' Harriet to chop. But th' sweets tray got knocked over an‘—” She dropped her head, her shoulders slumped under the weight of so many domestic tragedies. “I made th' crust fer th' puddin', an' Harriet chopped th' mushrooms. An' that, sir, is how th' sad deed was done.”

The constable spoke with care. “So there could have been a poisonous mushroom in the basket and you would not have seen it?”