PH02 - Do Not Disturb (7 page)
She lifted the lid from the sugar bowl and picked out two lumps with the silver tongs. Plopping them into the milk one at a time, she added, “There’s something else, isn’t there, Baxter?”
“Yes, madam.”
“Perhaps you’d better tell me.”
“I’m afraid there was some trouble at the George and Dragon last night.”
Cecily filled the cups with tea, trying to ignore the
ominous fluttering in her stomach. She set the teapot down, then picked up the cup and saucer. “Trouble?”
“Yes, madam. There was a violent argument, which ended in a fight.”
“Mr. Bickley?” She walked toward Baxter and handed him the tea.
“Yes, madam. According to Mr. Scroggins, shortly before he died, Mr. Bickley had been fighting with Ian Rossiter.”
Cecily stared at him in consternation. “Ian? Surely not. Does anyone know why?”
“No one I talked to seemed to know.” He took the cup and saucer from her. “Thank you, madam.”
“It could have been something to do with Ian’s job. But how foolish of him to fight with his boss. I thought he had more sense man that.”
Cecily returned to the table and picked up her own tea. “I must say I am astonished to hear this news. I know Ian has a quick temper, but in all the time he has worked here at the hotel, I have never known him to engage in a common brawl. I wonder what came over him.”
“Whatever the reason, it was considerably ill-timed, given what happened later.”
“Yes, I see what you mean.” Cecily sat down on a kitchen chair and sipped at her tea. “It’s inconceivable to think that Ian would be capable of murder.”
“He might not have intended it to be murder. He might have simply intended to make the man very uncomfortable.”
“By deliberately poisoning him?” Cecily shuddered. “I find that impossible to believe.”
Baxter stretched up his chin and ran a finger around his stiff collar. “I have to agree with you, madam, I cannot bring myself to believe that Ian is capable of such a dreadful deed. I am merely pointing out the suspicions that are bound to arise from the incident.”
“Yes,” Cecily said slowly. “It would appear that Madeline is not the only person to worry about.” First thing tomorrow,
she promised herself, she would ask Madeline about the potion.
The wind got up in the night, howling down the chimneys and rattling the windows in its fury. Cecily lay listening to the rain driving against the leaded windowpanes, and hoped that all the fishing boats had made it to safe harbor.
Two boats had been lost in winter storms early that year, and a freighter carrying goods from the West Indies had gone aground on the sandbank during the spring tides.
The lighthouse was sorely needed, especially in weather like this. Yet it seemed as if the project had brought trouble to the quiet little village of Badgers End.
Strangers had invaded the calm peace of the countryside, and it would be many weeks before the lighthouse was completed. Lying in the darkness while the storm raged outside, Cecily hoped with all her heart that neither Madeline nor Ian was involved in the death of Colin Bickley.
She hoped even more that there would be no more trouble at the George and Dragon. As Baxter had said so often, sometimes progress brings unwelcome changes. It would be a sad day indeed if the face of Badgers End, and inevitably the Pennyfoot Hotel itself, were to be lost in the never-ending quest for modernization.
Impatient with herself for her morbid thoughts, Cecily plumped up her feather pillow. The winds of change had been blowing ever since the death of Queen Victoria, and she welcomed them with open arms. Progress was good, for the people, for the country, for the world. She just hoped it wouldn’t come too soon to Badgers End.
She left early for Dolly’s Tea Shop the next morning. The wind had blown itself out during the night, leaving a carpet of dead leaves along the High Street and fluffy white clouds scudding across a pale blue sky.
The clean salty air carried a sharp chill to it, reminding Cecily that winter was just around the corner. As the trap bumped along the Esplanade, she could see the huge bonfire being built on the beach. On the night of November the
fifth, the entire area would be lit up with the leaping flames, and the crackle and hiss of fireworks would fill the air.
The villagers would gather around the warmth of the fire and cook potatoes in the glowing embers, while waiting for the flames to consume the straw-filled effigy of Guy Fawkes.
A sudden stab of nostalgia caught her unawares, and she hastily turned her thoughts to a more pressing situation. The sudden and unexplained death of Colin Bickley. She could only hope that Madeline would be able to set her fears at rest.
She dismissed the trap with instructions for Samuel to pick her up in two hours. As she reached the door of the shop, two small boys confronted her. They held up grubby hands with a chorus of “Penny for the guy! Penny for the guy!”
Cecily dug into her handbag and found her coin purse. Taking out two large, shiny copper pennies, she pressed one into each small palm. “Don’t spend it on sweets,” she told them, smiling at their delighted faces.
Shouting their thanks, they sped off down the street in search of new prospects. Cecily watched them go, half amused at their excitement and half appalled at a custom that encouraged the children to beg for money.
A stirring of the cool breeze sent a shiver through her, and she pushed open the door of the tea shop to the welcome jangling of the bell and the fragrance of freshly baked bread.
She was enjoying her second cup of tea when Madeline arrived, breathless and apologetic, her cheeks flushed and eyes sparkling.
What an attractive woman she was, Cecily thought, watching the long, dark hair swing into place as Madeline sat down at the table. It was such a shame she couldn’t find a man to love. Although she didn’t know the full extent of Madeline’s background, Cecily knew enough to understand why her friend had so much difficulty in forming a relationship.
Madeline had been fourteen, selling cut flowers on the
streets of London, when she’d been rescued from starvation by an elderly benefactor. The gentleman had taken the young girl into his home, and Cecily could only guess at what it had cost Madeline for her security.
Eventually, her “guardian” had died, leaving her penniless once more. Madeline had never married and had spoken only once of her past, and only to Cecily as far she knew. But Cecily knew her friend had never given up her yearning for true love, and probably never would.
Cecily waited while Madeline picked a tea cake to pieces before tackling the question she had to ask. Pouring another cup of tea from the silver teapot, she said casually, “Baxter went down to the George and Dragon last night.”
Madeline paused in the act of wiping her fingers on her serviette. She didn’t speak, but her eyes asked the question.
“Colin Bickley was there the night he died,” Cecily said, replacing the teapot on the tray. “He was there from eight o’clock to half past ten.”
Madeline dabbed at her mouth with the serviette. “Did he eat anything?”
“I don’t know.” Cecily folded her hands on the table. “I don’t know that it matters. Anyone could have slipped something into his ale. It would have been simple enough to do without being detected.”
Madeline’s eyes grew large with horror. “Are you saying someone deliberately poisoned him?”
“We don’t know. The point is that he was somewhere else, and could have been poisoned there, and that lifts the burden of guilt from you. Unless …” She watched Madeline’s face while she paused.
“Unless what?”
“Unless,” Cecily said reluctantly, “you sold him one of your potions.”
To Cecily’s relief, Madeline’s face registered surprise. “Of course I didn’t. Why would he want a potion?”
“I’m sure he didn’t. I just needed to know if you’d sold one to him.”
Again Madeline’s eyes widened. “You thought one of my potions had poisoned him?”
Cecily gave a decisive shake of her head. “No, of course not. But someone else might have thought so.”
Now Madeline’s face turned quite pale. “The police?”
“Well, let us hope it doesn’t come to that. I’m sure once they discover what killed him, there will be a simple explanation for all this.”
“And if there’s not?”
Cecily helped herself to a tea cake. “I suggest we worry about that if the event occurs. In the meantime, tell me how the floral arrangements are coming along for the tea dance.
I’m not expecting too many people to attend, but I do want it to look nice.”
Madeline launched into a somewhat distracted description of her ideas, and Cecily munched on her cake while she listened with half an ear. Her mind was still scuffling with the problem of Colin Bickley’s mysterious death.
If Madeline was entirely innocent in this episode, could it be possible that Ian was involved? Surely not. Cecily had come to know the young man very well during his employment at the hotel. He had been most kind to her on more than one occasion during the first few dreadful weeks after James had died.
Although he had left the hotel to work on the lighthouse project, and she could hardly blame him for that since he was being paid far more than she could afford, she looked upon him as she looked upon every single member of her staff at the Pennyfoot—as if they were her own family.
With James gone, and her two boys in the tropics serving in the military, the Pennyfoot staff were all the family she had left. And, Cecily vowed silently, if Ian Rossiter was involved in this unfortunate and tragic situation, she would do her level best to help him.
“Cecily? Are you listening to me, or has a sprite whisked your mind away?”
Cecily started, sending a guilty smile across the table at her friend. “I’m sorry, Madeline, I’m afraid I wasn’t paying attention. I was thinking about the preparations for Guy Fawkes and wondering if I should ask Baxter to put up a fireworks display.”
Madeline clapped her hands in delight. “Oh, what fun. I’d love to help. That’s if he’d allow it. Baxter can be so deplorably stuffy at times.” She looked at Cecily with a mischievous grin. “Don’t you ever get the urge to shock him a little now and then?”
“Frequently,” Cecily answered dryly. She almost added that she very often did just that. But that was between her and Baxter, and it seemed disloyal to laugh about it behind his back.
Madeline’s expression changed to curiosity. “Does he have a Christian name? All I’ve ever heard him called is Baxter. I assume that’s his surname?”
Cecily nodded. “Yes, it is.”
“Then what is his Christian name?”
Cecily felt uncomfortable. For some reason she felt reluctant to reveal that, though she had no idea why. To her relief, she was saved from answering by the sudden appearance of Louise, who had arrived at the table to clear away their plates.
“Thank you, Louise,” Cecily said, smiling up at the dour-looking woman. “That was delicious as usual.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Louise stacked the plates and reached for the hot-water pot. “Will you be needing more hot water, ma’am?”
Cecily cocked an eyebrow at Madeline, who shook her head. “I don’t think so, Louise, thank you. We would like the bill now, if you please.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Louise hurried away with the dishes, and Madeline leaned forward.
“She’s not a very happy person, is she?” she whispered.
“She most likely doesn’t have much to be happy about, since she has to work for a living.”
“You and I work for a living, yet I would not say we were unhappy about it.”
Cecily smiled. “I don’t consider what I do in the Pennyfoot as work. It’s more like taking care of a very large house. And Baxter takes care of the more troublesome duties.”
“Speaking of whom—” Madeline said, then frowned as Louise returned with the bill.
“I wanted to thank you again, Mrs. Sinclair,” Louise said, “for telling me about the cottage in Hawthorne Lane. I will be taking a look at it at the end of the week, on my day off.”
Cecily graciously nodded. “I’m pleased to have been of help, Louise. I do hope you find the cottage satisfactory for your needs. It’s a very pleasant lane and no more than a half-hour walk from here.”
Louise managed a slight smile, then hurried off again.
“She’s moving into Colin’s cottage?” Madeline said, looking aghast. With her finger she sketched a cross in the air in front of her and mumbled something Cecily didn’t catch.
“Is there a reason why she shouldn’t?” Cecily asked, wondering if Madeline knew something she didn’t.
“Well, of course there is.” Madeline leaned forward again and hissed, “Spirits. Evil ones. They will be there for seven weeks after a death. Seven times seven nights. That woman is taking a severe risk if she moves in before they leave.”
“Perhaps you can sell her something to ward them off,” Cecily suggested, wondering why on earth she continued to humor Madeline’s strange fantasies.
Madeline sat up with a look that said the thought hadn’t occurred to her. “Well, I suppose I could.” She gave Cecily a long look from beneath her lowered lashes. “That’s if you are quite sure my remedy won’t cause her more harm than good.”
“Piffle!” Cecily picked up the bill with a flourish. “You know very well I never for one moment entertained the thought that you could have been responsible for that poor man’s death. Now let’s leave here before I give in to the temptation to take just one more tea cake.”
She rose and led the way to the front of the shop, her mind already grappling with how best to help Ian if necessary.
“You don’t look too well,” Mrs. Chubb observed when Gertie staggered into the kitchen. “Perhaps I should give you one of my powders. Set you right on your feet, that will.”
“Gawd Almighty, don’t give me nothing else.” Gertie uttered a loud moan and sank onto a kitchen chair. Her face was the color of sour milk, and she had black half-moons under her eyes.
“Well, you don’t look well at all.” Mrs. Chubb bustled over to have a closer look. She was feeling decidedly guilty
for causing the poor child this much distress, particularly as it had failed to do the trick. Maybe Gertie was pregnant after all. Heaven help her.