The Shadowcutter (9 page)

“Maybe it is more fashionable than we supposed,” said Major Vernon. “Certainly the millinery shops are expensive enough. Yes, you had better get back. I have a note for Mrs Vernon here,” he said, taking it from his coat pocket. “There was nothing for me from her, I take it?”

“No, sir, I’m sorry.”

“There was no reason why she should write.” Major Vernon said. “Tell her I will be back as soon as I can. Certainly tomorrow. I am going to interview the household, but I think I will have to cast the net a little wider, soon enough.”

Chapter Seven

Lady Charlotte was again waiting to meet him in the great marble entrance hall.

“Mr Carswell, has he –?”

“Gone back to Stanegate, yes,” said Giles.

“Ah, good,” said Lady Charlotte, although she did not sound happy. “By which I mean, that is for the best.”

Giles nodded, sensing her confusion. It seemed best to offer her a distraction.

“Are you still willing to help me, Lady Charlotte?”

“With great pleasure.”

“I want to talk to all the ladies’ maids, Miss Jones’ circle, so to speak, although from what Mr Bodley has told me, I am not sure she was ‘of’ their circle, if you understand me.”

“Oh yes, perfectly.”

“Now, I have asked for the Steward’s room to be put at my disposal. I was just on my way there.”

“Do you know the way?”

“I was going to get one of the footmen – Henry, I think it is?”

“I can show you. We have to go through the tunnel. I can show your our railway.”

A large swinging door, upholstered in buff coloured baize, led to a hallway, with a stairwell leading down and in the heart of the well, a large brass cage was suspended by an elaborate mechanism of hooks and pulleys.

“You turn the handle here, and it goes up and down. To fetch the food from the kitchens,” Lady Charlotte said. “We used to get Bodley to give us rides in when we were little, but Mr Grainger, the house steward, would get cross with us.”

“Remarkable,” said Giles, admiring the mechanism.

“Oh, we have perfected all the arrangements – or rather my father has. It is a mania with him, after eating so many cold dinners in his friends’ houses. One never has cold food here at Holbroke, unless of course it is intended to be so! The trolleys come out of the cage and go straight into the serving room here.”

And she opened the door to a room that would not have disgraced itself as a kitchen in an ordinary gentleman’s house. “And beyond that is the dining room and our breakfast room is just to the side there. It is so convenient and efficient. I don’t think I shall ever find a house to match it. Perhaps that is why I am a spinster yet!”

“You could always improve your future husband’s house, I suppose.”

“He will have to be tolerant,” said Lady Charlotte. “And very rich. Quite a rare combination.” She began to go down the stairs. “And this is the tunnel and the railway.”

“Goodness. More of a crypt than a tunnel, I would say,” said Giles.

The steps led into an underground chamber, poorly lit by a few scanty skylights and oil lanterns hanging on hooks. There was a central aisle, with tracks laid in the floor, like those Giles had seen at mines or factories, but instead of the carts there were trolleys set up to carry the dinner trays back and forth, pushed along by a kitchen boy, Giles supposed. To the side broad archways led to rather darker areas which were full of lumber. It was efficient, but gloomy.

“Holbroke is full of surprises,” he could not help remarking, thinking of the elaborate fancies of the Pleasure Gardens.

“We are the eighth wonder of the world,” said Lady Charlotte, rather proudly, as they started of down the central aisle. It was most unjust that the house and all its glories could not pass to her on Lord Rothborough’s death, he thought, when she was clearly so fond of it. An entail was an entail, but he could not help thinking that a fairer system ought to prevail. If a young Princess could ascend the throne and become Queen of England, then why should Lady Charlotte not be a Marchioness of Rothborough in her own right?

-0-

“You have all the women waiting for me, Mrs Hope?” Giles asked the housekeeper.

“Yes, sir.”

“Before I begin on that, perhaps you might give me your impressions of Miss Jones?”

“I tell you, it’s a shock. She is not the sort you would imagine to meet an end like that – what was she doing there? I cannot imagine how she could be mixed up in anything that needed the police looking into it. She was so quiet. And she’s stayed here quite a few times, and I’ve never really got to know her. She was not a talker. Some people come and you learn their whole life story in a matter of minutes, but Miss Jones, no. Very odd now I think about it.”

“And the last you saw of her was at the upper servants’ dinner that night?”

“Yes, sir. She excused herself before dessert, that’s all I remember.”

“I should also like to see where Miss Jones was sleeping.”

“Of course, sir. That’s back in the main house, up in the South Pavilion.”

“I shall see that Major Vernon finds it,” said Lady Charlotte. “In the meantime, perhaps we might have some tea brought in, and Miss La Roche, if she is ready?”

“Yes, of course, my Lady,” said Mrs Hope.

The four maids, those employed by Lady Rothborough and her three daughters were friendly, eager to help, often quite talkative. They came in one by one, all in turn distressed by the loss of Miss Jones, but none of them able to claim any intimacy with her. Some of them were ashamed by their lack of knowledge, as if they had failed to bring her fully into the circle.

Only one of them, Lady Charlotte’s maid, Jane, bold like her mistress, dared to venture a criticism.

“Sometimes I found her a little sly. As if she had secrets she didn’t want to share with us, that she was somehow special.”

“What gave you that idea?” Giles asked.

“There was a woman in my last place, she thought she was better than all of us because her father was the bastard son of an attorney. So she kept herself to herself, as if we could never be good enough for her. There was something about Miss Jones that made me think of her. It was just a feeling, but I did feel it. You would try your best with her, and it would never be more than a few words, and it wasn’t shyness, because there was a way she had of looking at you, as if she were trying to size you up. Does this sound silly, my Lady?”

“No, not at all,” said Lady Charlotte. She glanced at Giles.

“I think we need to look at her room,” he said.

“Oh, I can show you, sir,” said Jane. “She sleeps next to me and Agnes.”

When Lady Charlotte’s maid had gone, and they were alone, Giles said, “This woman is a
tabula rasa
. It takes a great deal of self control to be that self-contained, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yes. Unless she was slightly deaf and couldn’t hear what people were saying.”

“An excellent observation,” said Giles. “Let’s see what you make of her room.”

“You still want me to help you?”

“If I don’t get you into trouble,” he said. “A second pair of eyes and a different point of view is always useful.”

“Then of course,” said Lady Charlotte.

Jane took them back through the tunnel, and then upstairs by the back stairs to the South Pavilion where most of the female guests and the Rothborough daughters lodged. The maids, it appeared, found their accommodation nearby in smaller bedrooms, subdivided for the purpose. Eliza Jones had been put in a long slot of a room, its window divided by a partition wall, on the other side of which lay Jane and Agnes’ room. The walls were papered with a faded pattern of oak leaves and suggested that this might once have been a grand room, but the furniture which was plain and modern told another story. A deal table and chair, a jug and bowl, a narrow bedstead and the woman’s own box were the limit of it. On the wall a few hooks held her clothes. There was a bible on the bed. Giles examined the flyleaf, hoping for a revealing inscription. There was nothing. He shook it over the bed, but nothing fluttered out.

“Let’s have a look at her box,” he said.

“Won’t it be locked?” said Lady Charlotte. She tried the lid and it was indeed locked.

“There are ways around that,” said Giles, taking his keys from his pocket. He had added the skeleton key to his own bundle of keys thinking it was safest in his care. “This is a lock-pickers friend,” he said, showing her the key. “I confiscated it from a rogue.”

“What a useful item,” said Lady Charlotte. “I should not like to see that in less responsible hands, though.”

“No,” he said, gently easing it into the lock and agitating it a little until he felt the lock yield. “There we are!”

The box contained, much as would have been expected, clothing and folded linen. There was also a sewing box and one or two unremarkable books.

“What do you think of her clothes? Anything out of the ordinary?” Giles asked, as Lady Charlotte looked through them.

“No, nothing. Very plain, but suitable. Not her mistresses’ cast-offs – but I have never seen Lady Warde wear anything but her weeds.”

“Stop a moment – may I see that one?” Giles said, catching sight of something which intrigued him. Lady Charlotte handed him the dull blue flannel petticoat with some surprise. He examined it, and his suspicions were confirmed. “Well, my goodness. Look at this.” And he showed her the deep pocket formed by the hem of the petticoat, fixed at intervals by a button to stop it opening. “Can you guess what that is for?”

“It’s very large, for an ordinary pocket.”

“Quite! You could hide anything you liked in there, couldn’t you?” he said. “That’s why they are popular with the light-fingered sorority – what we have here is a thieves’ petticoat.”

“No!” exclaimed Lady Charlotte. “Surely not?”

“Miss Jones clearly had specialist knowledge of the trade. I’ve seen these before. I have seen a silver teapot stashed in one of these. Some of the better shops in Northminster could not understand how things were disappearing. Turned out that a woman called Lucy Peele, apparently a respectable middle-class woman, was coming in and looking at trifles. She would then stash away something when the shopman’s back was turned. Obviously, that’s a ruse that takes some practice to perfect. I wonder how Miss Jones learned about such things.”

“Are you implying she might have had a criminal past?”

“Or a criminal present,” Giles said. “Staying in so many grand houses, running in and out of rooms which are full of tempting bibelots. A silver spoon from the morning breakfast tray here, a snuff box there –”

“That is a rather disturbing thought.”

“It is just a possibility. But given that she was so self-effacing and that no-one knows anything about her – well, that is a known criminal strategy – among successful criminals, that is. They learn to be practically invisible. This is the first interesting thing we have found about her, wouldn’t you say, Lady Charlotte?”

She did not answer for a moment.

“But to steal, from the very people had been so kind to her mistress?” she said. “It seems inconceivable.”

“If Lady Warde is effectively an object of charity,” Giles said, “which you implied to me the other day, then I doubt she pays her maid very well. If at all. Eliza may have got into bad habits somewhere and was using them to supplement a rather paltry income. Thinking of her old age, perhaps? Or possibly the more immediate future?” he added, thinking of the dead woman’s swollen belly. “I know it may be hard for you to imagine, when your people are so well looked after during their employment and in their old age.”

“No, I see your point,” she said. “How sad it is, to think of her doing that.”

“If she did,” said Giles. “After all there is no sign of anything here that should not be here. But then she may have stashed it elsewhere, or possibly she has already sold it on.”

“But how would one do that?” said Lady Charlotte.

“It’s the same sort of knowledge that comes with the petticoat,” Giles said. “There are people who make a trade of buying stolen goods – but you need to know who they are and where they might be found.” He glanced around the room again. “I think we need to talk to Lady Warde again,” he said. “We need a precise record of their exact movements over the last year. I hope she is one of those ladies who keeps a detailed memorandum book!”

Lady Charlotte picked up a black silk dress and shook out the creases from it.

“This would do for her burial,” she said. “I think.” As she straightened the sleeve, something fell from the deep cuffs onto the white counterpane: a blackish brownish mess of dried leaves. “What is that?” she said. Giles stepped forward and examined it. “Is that not –?”

“Tea?” he said.

“Tea,” she affirmed. She pinched up a little between her fingers and sniffed it. “Most definitely.”

Chapter Eight

“And this is
Dido and Aeneas
, by Rubens,” said Lady Charlotte.

They were standing in the Picture Gallery, a room of magnificent proportions hung with a series of Old Masters. They had been walking through the great reception rooms in search of Lady Warde, but she could not be found, and Lady Charlotte had fallen into the role of hostess, pointing out the treasures of the house to him.

“I think it is my favourite,” she said. “The colours, the draperies, the landscape, it is all so beautifully done.”

It struck him as an unusual choice for a young woman, indeed a brave one, but the men were handsome and the women had a fleshy beauty and elegance, in their sensual
déshabillé.

“It is very well done,” he said, enjoying the tenderness of the sleeping couple in their bower. It was a vision of harmonious love as well of nature perfectly realised. “The dogs at the bottom there – they are beautifully painted – that fur –”

He bent down to see what painter’s trick had caused such a life-like effect.

The door opened behind them and he glanced over his shoulder to see Mr Syme coming in.

“Ah, here you are, Lady Charlotte,” he said, “Lady Rothborough has sent me to find you.”

“You have found me now,” she said. “What of it?”

Syme did not reply but came up and stood next to them as they looked at the Rubens.