Unholy Alliance (19 page)

Back in the kitchen proper, he was glad to
see Hetty busy setting out a plate of ham, rolls and butter for him
on one of the several sideboards.

“Help yerself to a glass of ale,” she said,
indicating a small cask with a convenient spigot sticking out of
it.

“Is Tillie available to see me?” he said,
sidling up to the food.

“She said she’d come out in fifteen minutes.
She’s changin’ Mrs. Blodgett’s sheets. I got to go out to the shed
an’ scrub chamber-pots. You’ll be all right here on yer own?”

Cobb eyed the cask of ale. “I’ll manage,” he
said.

***

Cobb was just brushing the crumbs off his lapels
when Tillie Janes poked her head out the door of Mrs. Blodgett’s
sitting-room at the rear of the kitchen and said sweetly, “I’ll be
another fifteen minutes, sir.”

A fresh mouthful of bread and ham prevented
Cobb from objecting, so he resigned himself to another half-glass
of warm ale. Then he went quickly to the hallway and turned right
into the servants’ living quarters. Off a narrow, uncarpeted hall
there were four doors on the left and one on the right at the far
end. Without knocking he went into the first one on the left. A
man’s room. And from the clothes in the rickety wardrobe he deduced
it was Bragg’s sleeping den. It took no more than three minutes to
search the threadbare, Spartan place where Bragg must collapse
exhausted at the end of each day. The narrow window looked as if it
hadn’t been opened since summer. In the adjacent room Cobb turned
over two pretty uniforms before realizing he was in the bedroom of
Mrs. Macaulay’s maid, Phyllis. He gave the place a quick search
anyway. Next came another man’s room, stripped clean of everything
not nailed down: the onetime abode of the self-exiled malcontent,
Giles Harkness. At the end of the hall on the left he found the
somewhat larger and windowed room of Hetty and Tillie Janes. They
shared a single bed covered by a brightly patterned quilt. He found
nothing of interest.

As he was leaving, he gave the interior wall
a sharp rap. To his surprise the partition seemed thick and solid.
At least the staff would not have to listen each other snore.
Directly across the hall he found Prissy Finch’s room, and although
there were more signs of a feminine presence and several frocks not
normally sported by ordinary housemaids, Cobb discovered no hidden
vials or bottles of sherry or pages ripped from the estate’s
accounts-book.

Just as he stepped back into the warmth of
the kitchen, Tillie Janes was emerging from Mrs. Blodgett’s
sitting-room.

Cobb smiled and said, “No need to go inta the
little pantry, Tillie. Looks like we got the kitchen to
ourselves.”

They settled themselves at the long table the
staff used for their own meals.

“I’m so sorry about the delays, constable,
but Mrs. Blodgett – ”

“No need to apologize, miss. Illness ain’t
somethin’ we do to ourselves – usually.”

“Well, at least the dear, dear soul’s had a
quiet night. It’s been some time since that happened.”

“I really need to ask you about last night,”
Cobb said almost apologetically, “though I expect you were pretty
busy right here.”

“I helped as usual with supper preparations
an’ the wash-up. Cal Struthers come in an’ pitched in real hard.
Mrs. Blodgett fell into her chair about eight-thirty. We carried
her inta bed before nine. I decided I better sleep on the cot
beside her.”

“So, other than that sad business, nothin’
else out of the ordinary happened?”

“No, sir. Nothin’.”

“Yer sister told me she heard you come out
here just after she went inta her room to sleep, about a quarter to
ten or so.” It occurred to Cobb that young Hetty must have had her
bedroom door wide open to have heard her sister or anything else of
interest out here.

“I come out to make Mrs. Blodgett a cup of
camomile tea,” Tillie said quickly. “There was still hot water on
the stove.” She looked hard at Cobb, as if she were bracing for a
follow-up probe.

“To help the old gal to sleep, eh?”

“Yes, sir.”

“An’ the two of you stayed together, in
there, fer the rest of the night?”

“All night. She’s been sittin’ up a bit
today, an’ takin’ some soup.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“You wanta talk to her – later?”

“Hardly seems worth it, considerin’ she was
mostly asleep an’ not
amble-tarry
when all the fuss started
upstairs.”

“Thank you, sir. You are very kind.”

Cobb considered himself so, but invariably
blushed when reminded of it. “I’ll just keep usin’ yer pantry, if
it’s okay,” he said. “I gotta make some notes.”

“Go right ahead. I’ll bring you in a cup of
tea.”

“Could ya make that a glass of ale?”

***

He had just finished one laborious page when Tillie
arrived with refreshments. Writing came hard to Cobb: his flawless
memory worked far too fast for his strong, stubby fingers. Normally
he would have returned to the police quarters at City Hall and
dictated his findings to Gussie French. But that was not possible
in this case.

“Ah, lass, just in time,” he smiled.

Tillie nodded, set the glass and plate down,
but did not turn to leave.

“Somethin’ else you need to tell me?” Cobb
said quietly.

“Mrs. Blodgett said I should tell you
anythin’ that might have to do with the awful business upstairs
last night. She said you’d likely be lookin’ close at Mr. Bragg
‘cause he an’ Mr. Chilton didn’t see eye to eye.”

“You heard or seen somethin’ to do with Mr.
Bragg last night?”

“I did. But I never thought to mention it
earlier. It didn’t seem to have nothin’ to do with Mr. Chilton
dyin’ like that. Then I remembered what Mrs. Blodgett told me I
oughta do.”

“And I didn’t ask, did I?” Cobb said kindly.
“So tell me now.”

Tillie took a deep breath and said, “Just as
I was takin’ the tea in to Mrs. Blodgett, I heard Austin and Prissy
come down from their duties upstairs. They turned into the
hall.”

“To their rooms?”

“Yes.” She began to blush. “An’ they were
havin’ a fearsome quarrel.”

Cobb set his pencil down. “A lover’s spat,
was it?”

The blush deepened. “They’re plannin’ to get
married. I never heard them say a sharp word to one another –
never. But they were both shoutin’. Austin was accusin’ her of . .
.”

“Flirtin’ with the butler?” Cobb
prompted.

Tillie’s fingers were splayed out at the
table’s edge, the knuckles white. “Kissin’ him, he said. In the
other pantry, off the hall by the upstairs door.”

The episode Marc must have been alluding to,
Cobb thought. And if this quarrel were so boisterous, why wasn’t it
heard by Hetty, nearby with her bedroom door ajar?

“Did ya hear anythin’ that
Prissy
said?”

“She was angry, but her cryin’ made it hard
to hear what she was yellin’ back at him.”

“How did it all end?”

“I heard Prissy stomp off down the hall an’
slam her door. Austin shouted a bad word after her. I waited. But
there wasn’t any more. I heard another door close, real quiet. I
wanted to go to Prissy – she’s real pretty an’ awful kind to me –
but I had to take the tea into Mrs. Blodgett, didn’t I?”

“You did indeed,” Cobb said, reaching across
and patting the back of her nearest hand. “An’ you were right to
come an’ tell me this.”

“C’n I go now?”

“Yup. Mrs. Blodgett’ll be expectin’ you.”

Prissy left quickly. Cobb picked up his
pencil. Well now, he thought, Mr. Bragg was certainly riled up at
the thought of Graves Chilton grappling with his fiancée. Angry
enough to plot the fellow’s death? It would have been easy for him
to dig out a pilfered bottle of sherry he’d stashed somewhere, slip
up to the dark rotunda, enter the bathroom, remove the container of
laudanum, go into the dining-room where the wide windows would
provide lots of moonlight for him to see well enough to doctor the
sherry and pocket the empty drug-bottle. Then down the hall to the
butler’s office. A friendly chat. Amontillado as a peace offering
between two veteran servants, men of the world who’d gotten off on
the wrong foot, et cetera. Then pad your way back to your room,
knowing that Chilton, already half-cut with whiskey from his flask,
would drink enough of the sherry to kill him or, in the least,
render him senseless and expose his drinking habit to a master who
would not approve of it one bit, who might well sack him
outright.

Cobb was certain he was on the right trail.
Prissy Finch, the foolish girl, had lied to him in order to give
her momentarily estranged lover an alibi, a lie the blackguard had
good reason to urge upon her.

Cobb heard Hetty Janes come back into the
kitchen from the shed where she had been working. He stepped out
and confronted her. She took one look at his face and burst into
tears.

“I was gonna tell ya about the quarrel,” she
wailed. “Honest I was. But I couldn’t see how it would help ya find
Mr. Chilton’s killer. An’ you never asked.”

“There, there, miss, no need to go weepin’ on
me. I just need you to back up the story I already heard. Now sit
down an’ try to stymie yer sobbin’. It hurts my ears.”

Between sobs, Hetty confirmed her sister’s
account of the quarrel.

“Your room is across from Prissy’s, isn’t it?
Did you hear Prissy go into her room an’ slam the door?”

“Uh huh. It shook the whole place.”

“An’ Bragg didn’t follow her in?”

Hetty stared at the floor. “No. He called her
a – a bad name. He was hoppin’ mad.”

Cobb thanked her, told her not to worry, and
headed back into the pantry to work on his notes. As he did so, out
of the corner of his eye, he noticed Tillie Janes standing in Mrs.
Blodgett’s doorway. She had been eavesdropping on her sister’s
interrogation. The two young women looked at each other, and in
that instant something significant was silently communicated. But
Cobb’s head was abuzz with more exciting matters.
Prissy Finch
was lying! Austin Bragg had motive, means and opportunity!

He began to write, as rapidly as his thick
fingers would permit.

It was just before one when Cobb came upstairs and
walked past the dead butler’s quarters to the dining-room. Across
the hall in the billiard-room he could see, through the open door,
four of the gentlemen at the card-table, playing whist by the look
of it. He recognized Macaulay, Hincks and Robert Baldwin. The
fourth player was one of the Frenchmen, a cheerful-looking fellow,
though none of them seemed overly enthusiastic about the game. It
was a lot harder to sit and wait anxiously, as they no doubt were,
Cobb concluded, than to be actively engaged in finding a killer.
Moreover, said killer was likely loose somewhere amongst them.

Marc was not yet in the dining-room. But
Prissy Finch was, fussing with the food on the sideboard. When she
turned and saw who had just come in, she started. Her eyes went
down to her shoes and, head-down, she tried to scoot past him.

“Not so fast, miss. I got another question to
put to you. An’ this time I want the truth.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said, her
defiance belied by a trembling lip.

“I know all about the spat you an’ Bragg had
downstairs at quarter to ten last night.”

“Who told you somethin’ like that?”

“Never you mind. Two people heard it, an’
they heard you slam yer door an’ they heard Bragg call you
somethin’ that’d make a nun blush.”

Prissy was no nun, but she slowly turned
scarlet. She said nothing.

“So, young lady, you don’t really expect me
to believe you an’ Mr. Bragg cuddled together fer a whole night
after a ragin’ quarrel an’ slammin’ doors an’ foul
name-callin’?”

Prissy thrust her trembling lower lip as far
forward as she could. “A few minutes later he come down to my room
an’ slipped in real quiet. We – we kissed an’ made up.”

Cobb released a long, sceptical sigh. “So
you’re stickin’ to yer story, come Hell or high water, are ya?”

“We kissed an’ made up,” she quavered.

“I hope the blackguard is worth lyin’ for,”
Cobb said sternly.

Prissy whirled and fled the room.

Cobb’s anger at Bragg and his kind rose up
biliously, and threatened to spoil his appetite. An alibi had been
concocted and adhered to, but it could – and would – be broken. He
helped himself to three sweet pastries and sat down at the fancy
table to wait for his partner.

***

After a brief lunch, Marc and Cobb made their way up
the hall to the library. The early-afternoon sun was pouring
through the big windows. Outside, the air was clear and cold. It
had not snowed since the squall last night. Following their
customary practice, they began describing, in turn, their
interviews, impressions and conclusions. (Afterwards, they would
read each other’s notes line by line, scanning for small points
that might have been overlooked in the give-and-take of
conversation.)

“You first, Major,” Cobb said generously,
suspecting he had the best lead and hoping to save it for the
finale.

Marc started in on a detailed account of his
interviews, in the sequence in which he had conducted them. When he
got to Maurice Tremblay, Cobb arched an eyebrow, but it was
LaFontaine’s story that riveted his attention and elicited a series
of approving grunts.

“So you see,” Marc finished up, “we now know
a fair amount about what transpired in Chilton’s office. The sherry
was there, unopened, when LaFontaine arrived at midnight. It was
almost certainly doctored already, some time between nine-thirty
and then, which is the time-span the killer would have had to steal
Mrs. Macaulay’s laudanum and prepare the sherry for delivery to
Chilton.”

“Which means it could’ve been anybody in the
house, providin’ they were sneaky enough,” Cobb pointed out. “An’
that medicine bottle could be lyin’ in the snow out there an’ not
be found till spring.”