An Unmourned Man (Lady C. Investigates Book 1) Page 14

  There was a muffled conversation and then two maids entered behind Ruby. “My lady, this is Claire and this is Rose.”

  Both girls bobbed, eyes on the floor. Rose’s cheeks were as pink as her chapped hands. Claire was a scrawny thing, with prominent blue veins in her temples and along the backs of her wiry hands.

  “You both knew Thomas Bains, did you not?” Ruby said.

  Cordelia opened her mouth to say something but Ruby shot her a look, and she remained silent. She suddenly realised that the girls would talk to Ruby far more willingly than they would speak to Cordelia herself.

  “We did,” Claire said. She might be the smaller of the two, but she stood upright and spoke boldly.

  “Who did he argue with?”

  Both girls stifled their giggles. “Everyone,” Claire said. “He worked here, on and off, and he was forever arguing with Mr Goody, you know, the head gardener. Proper humdingers and all.”

  “What about the doctor?”

  Claire shook her head but looked at Rose, who was frowning. “He did, yes. Do you not remember, Claire? He came in here, Thomas, in a fearful strop, because he said that the doctor would not see him.”

  “I cannot believe that!” Cordelia said, unable to stop herself.

  The girls clammed up immediately, and shrank in on themselves.

  “I am sorry, I am sorry; ignore me,” Cordelia said hastily. “I do not mean to say that I do not believe you. I do. Please. Carry on. I will be silent.”

  With a little chiding and probing from Ruby, the maids began to open up again.

  “I think I do remember,” Claire said, looking intently at Rose for confirmation. “Though it is hard to separate out all the rants and arguments that Thomas had. Yet I am not sure he was ill.”

  Rose nodded. “He did not look ill, and he was never a sickly type of person. But he came in here and he broke that jug. That’s why I remember. I had to sweep it up, and when I was doing so, Mrs Kendal came in, and she began to blame me until I could explain, and I am sure she still thinks I lied.”

  “Oh, she would.”

  Ruby said, “Did Thomas say why the doctor would not see him? Was he busy, perhaps?”

  “I do not think so,” Rose said. “He could not account for it, and he seemed most put out.”

  The two maids shrugged, then, their information exhausted. Cordelia thanked them both profusely, and released them back to their tasks. She rubbed her face, massaging her temples in slow circles to ease her headache.

  “It might be something and it might be nothing, my lady,” Ruby said.

  “Indeed,” Cordelia said. “But I do think something is strange here; in this house and in this town. And I declare to you now, Ruby, that we shall get to the bottom of it. What say you?”

  Ruby folded her arms, and leaned back against the wall. She smiled. “I think that you are right,” she said. “Not for Stanley’s reasoning, though. He will do only what is morally correct. As for me…”

  “Yes?”

  Ruby’s smile became a grin. “I fancy some adventure, my lady. Don’t you?”

  “Oh yes.”

  Mrs Unsworth tutted loudly and began to turn away. Cordelia stopped her, saying, “And do not think you are not part of this, Mrs Unsworth.”

  “I cannot see what part I might have to play here.”

  “Indeed, Mrs Unsworth, you have a vital task only this day. For I need to visit the good doctor’s wife later this afternoon, and I shall not go empty-handed. A pie, I think. A deep game pie. That will do nicely.”

  Mrs Unsworth muttered and stamped out of the kitchen, heading to the stores to look for suitable meat. Ruby and Cordelia’s eyes met.

  “The adventure begins.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Cordelia and Ruby walked to the small town, and went over what they already knew about Mrs Hurrell, each one finishing the other’s sentences.

  “So she ran a disorderly house in London–”

  “Eight years ago, is that right?”

  “Eight years,” Cordelia confirmed. “But here, she is a law-abiding landlady.”

  “So,” Ruby said, “she used her profits from her previous business?”

  “Undoubtedly. But she has not been accepted. Her neighbour, Mrs Kale, did not care for her.”

  “Did Mrs Kale strike you as a woman that would care for anyone? What was she, a laundress?”

  “True,” Cordelia said. “That line of work would make anyone a bitter sort, I think.”

  “Undoubtedly,” Ruby echoed, and laughed. As they turned down the side street that the cottage lay on, she asked, “And what do we look for, here? Was there not a note?”

  “Of course! She claimed that she was out of the house because she had been sent a note. Well, we must find it. And we must see what she wished to hide in that sideboard of hers.”

  They paused outside the house. It was mid-morning. There were no men to be seen or heard; all would be away at work. Work continued here, too, of another sort. Very young children ran in and out of the houses. A few older children, those who could not find employment, were engaged in looking after the younger ones, or set to household tasks. And Cordelia knew, as she looked at the doors and windows, that within were the women, washing and sewing and mending and cooking and cleaning.

  Cordelia knocked very lightly on the door, and then pushed it open to peer inside.

  “Well, this is not London,” she said. “There, this space would have been inhabited again within days, if not hours.”

  They stepped inside, leaving the door open as far as possible. It was not only to let the light in. There was a desperate need to let the smell out.

  Ruby pulled a handkerchief from her small bag, and held it to her nose. Cordelia let her eyes adjust, and said, “I do not think it is anything more sinister than some leftover food, and dust, and a lack of air.”

  “And an unemptied chamberpot,” Ruby gasped.

  “Oh. Yes, and that. Try not to think about it. You’ll only make it worse.”

  Cordelia breathed as lightly as she could and went to the sideboard. It was a dark wood thing, well-made and once very expensive. It was a strange thing to see in an otherwise poor dwelling, but then, furniture such as this would be treasured and passed on. She pulled open the drawer that Mrs Hurrell had been so keen to keep shut.

  Ruby came to her side. “What is it?”

  “Newspapers.” Cordelia pulled the yellowing sheets out and piled them on the sideboard. She felt around in the drawer, and then dragged the whole thing free. It was nothing but an empty box, and there were no secret panels or hidden notes.

  “Just newspapers.” Ruby looked at them. “And not recent, nor local. These are the London papers from some years ago.”

  The text on the large sheets was dense and ran in many columns. The front pages were given over to advertisements – an auction, a new hair perfume, sanitary corsets – and Cordelia skimmed over that. She turned to the scant inner pages.

  There was a rant from a Church of England minister. A supposedly witty analysis of the current season by a smug and anonymous “observer.” Some political commentary that would have been as appropriate ten years ago as one year ago. Ever thus, she thought.

  A name caught her eye. “Ruby, look here.” She laid her finger on the paper. “Mr Carter-Hall.”

  “Oho?” They craned their heads to read, squinting in the gloom of the cottage.

  “It’s something and nothing,” Cordelia said at last.

  “It’s everything,” Ruby said. “His bank had gone bust!”

  “But that is business. Look at the date of the paper; it is a few years old. His new venture is going well.”

  “Is it? His staff leave. His house is in disarray.”

  “I concede that,” Cordelia said. “But maybe he is ploughing his money into tiding his business through a bad time, though when we spoke of it, he seemed very happy.”

  “He would seem so because if he did not, no one would invest, wo
uld they?”

  “But what is all this to Mrs Hurrell? Why would she be concerned with the doings of a bank, some time ago?” Cordelia scanned through the rest of the paper. A woman had been sentenced to six month’s hard labour for keeping a disorderly house, and for a moment she thought she had it; but the woman was called Theresa Juliette, and did not match Mrs Hurrell’s description, especially considering that the offender was French.

  Ruby moved away, leafing through the detritus on the rickety table. “What of this note that she was supposed to have received?”

  Cordelia followed, and together they searched the room.

  “Nothing.”

  “Perhaps she lied.”

  “Or perhaps,” Cordelia said, pointing to the dead range, “it was disposed of.”

  They both studied the ash. “There is no way of knowing,” Ruby said. “But I can collect it for you.”

  “Why, am I a chemist now?”

  “No, I mean for your hangovers, in case you wish to drink it.”

  “Hush.”

  “Looters is it?”

  At the sound of the harsh voice, Cordelia and Ruby both whirled around to face the figure that had appeared in the doorway. “Looters, on my word!”

  “Mrs Kale.” Cordelia stepped forward and affected her most upper-class tone. “How delightful to make your acquaintance once more. And how do you do today?”

  “How do I do what?”

  “You. Do you.”

  “I don’t. What do you want?”

  Cordelia smiled. “You.”

  Mrs Kale took a half-step back but then drew herself up tall. “I am innocent.”

  “Of course you are,” Cordelia said. “Come now. A strong woman like yourself need fear no one. Tell me about the day of the murder.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I imagine that no one else has asked you that, have they? They don’t know, these constables and magistrates and the like. They don’t realise what information women like you have. What power, indeed. I am asking you because no one else has thought to.”

  Was it enough? It seemed so. Mrs Kale inflated her chest and allowed herself a short moment of preening. She said, “I don’t rightly know what to say. I heard the noise and I come on through, and found her like that, against the wall, crying.”

  “Tell me what noise you heard, exactly.”

  “I figures that I heard the noise of the fighting tween them. I ignored it. There’s no call for anyone to go poking into another’s business. I heard him, that Thomas, shout something. There was a thump. Then, nothing for a long while so I got on with my work until I realised she was crying and wailing.”

  Ruby plucked at Cordelia’s sleeve. “Nothing for a long while,” she whispered.

  “Yes. Mrs Kale, what did Thomas shout?”

  “I don’t know. Something along the lines of, you have no care for those who will be … ruined by your actions. And then he said he was going to go to someone, but I didn’t hear any more, really. And I might be wrong.”

  “I am sure you are not. Is there anything else you can remember?”

  “No.”

  “Thank you,” Cordelia said. As she moved towards the door, Ruby spoke up.

  “Mrs Kale, begging pardon, did Mr Carter-Hall and Mrs Hurrell know one another?”

  Mrs Kale shrugged. “No, of course not. As long as he got the rent off her through his bailiffs then why would he want to get to know her?”

  * * *

  A game pie is not a swift thing to cook and cool. Late that afternoon, it was finally in a fit state to be transported. Cordelia left Ruby behind to attend to some mending, with additional instructions to “have a good think.” There had been no sign of Hugo all day, now; she wondered if he was regretting his wager.

  She asked Geoffrey to drive her to the doctor’s house, hoping that the hour of her visit was not too anti-social. Certainly they seemed to keep to less strict hours in the countryside, and she was hopeful she would be received.

  The doctor’s house was a new building, with large airy windows either side of a smart white door. The size of the windows, she thought, meant he could get away with having fewer overall, and avoid the higher rates of window tax. There was a neatly clipped privet hedge at the front of the house, and an archway to the side that led to the stable at the back. Of course, a country doctor would have need of his own horses. Geoffrey pulled up outside the front door, and by the time she was standing on the gravel with the pie in her hands, the staff in the house had noticed her arrival and the front door was standing open.

  It was a woman, a smartly dressed housekeeper, who descended the steps to welcome her. She had one of those young-old faces, with bright eyes set deep in a sea of wrinkles yet her teeth were white and her smile warm.

  “Is Mrs Arnall at home?” Cordelia asked, and introduced herself.

  “She is. Please do step inside.” The housekeeper nodded at Geoffrey. “If you go through to the side, you will find refreshments with our Bill.”

  As soon as Cordelia stepped into the hallway, she was met by none other than Doctor Donald Arnall himself. He looked surprised, and well he might, as he was shockingly undressed in nothing but a pair of trousers and a white shirt.

  This was not the time to giggle and flutter and panic. Cordelia’s good breeding took over. She kept her eyes firmly on his face, and smiled. “Good afternoon, sir. I am hoping to meet your good lady wife. I am assured that she is at home.”

  “And you’ve brought a pie!” he exclaimed, as if he wasn’t nearly naked in his jacketless state.

  “My cook is a marvel,” she said. “It is game pie.”

  “I thank you. Mrs Lyall, will you take it to the kitchens? Forgive us. We do not eat too much meat here, but I assure you that it will not go to waste.”

  The man was impossible. He was standing there, continuing the conversation as if it were a perfectly normal situation. Was it some kind of test? She would match him, she vowed. “Is meat not essential to a healthy life?” she said.

  “In moderation, yes, but there are different kinds of meat, and of course, different methods of preparation that affect the digestibility of it. As a man of science, I am committed to exploring these matters. And it is my fervent belief that what ails a man most, these days, is the consumption of too much red meat over the more healthful and life-giving properties to be found in vegetables.”

  She had been trained to maintain a socially acceptable conversation in almost any topic, but talking at length about vegetables was tasking, even for her. “How interesting,” she said, stalling for time. What on earth could she ask about vegetables?

  There was a light in the doctor’s eyes. She had not had the chance to converse with him for so long a time, and so close up. He was not smiling, but when he spoke, she knew he was teasing her. “Interesting? Even I do not find vegetables themselves to be of high interest, but their effects – ah, now that is the fascination. Come now. We can discuss potatoes, or we can seek out Hetty.”

  She handed the pie over to the waiting housekeeper, and followed Doctor Arnall through a wide set of double doors. As she was behind him now, she could steal a glance at his body; he was lean and lithe and walked like a racehorse.

  She jerked her gaze upright as they came upon his wife, who was sitting by the window and reading a book. She had been so absorbed in it that she had not heard them enter the room. There was a flurry of introductions, and then mercifully the doctor left. Cordelia hoped it was to dress properly. The man was in sore need of a few more layers upon him.

  Mrs Arnall put her book to one side and rose. Like her husband, she was lean and slender, with warm brown eyes and an unfussy way of dressing her hair. Cordelia wanted to like her immediately.

  “Dear Lady Cornbrook, how nice of you to come and see me.”

  “I thought it was about time,” Cordelia said. On an impulse, she said, “Do call me Cordelia.”

  “And I must be Hetty to you,” she replied. “Come. Shall we t
ake tea in the garden?”

  In stark contrast to the slovenly nature of Freda Carter-Hall’s reception, by the time that Cordelia and Hetty were seated on ornate ironwork chairs, there was upon a table, a tray with all manner of good things to eat, some cool glasses of iced lemon-water, and a steaming hot pot of tea as well. But there was something odd about the scones.