Chapter Eighteen
Hetty and I parted from Dotty at the mercantile and set our poor, tired feet on the narrow lane to Hadley Grange. “Well, this puts an interesting twist to all we’ve learned so far,” Hetty said. “And to think I was expecting a rather dull fortnight here in the country.”
“Dull would be lovely,” I said wistfully. “I cannot wait until tomorrow, when I can drop all of this into the sergeant’s lap and let him sort it out.”
“Now, now,” Hetty chided. “That doesn’t sound like you, Frances. You are always so determined to flush out the culprit when working on a case.”
“I haven’t given up yet, but this love affair is a complication that opens even more possibilities. Ralph Rallison, for one. Since we spoke with him, I hadn’t considered him as involved in this at all, but what if he was aware of the feelings between his wife and Dr. Penhollow?”
I gasped and clutched at Hetty’s arm as a thought occurred to me. “What if he was so angry with her that he used the phosphorus medication to speed up her death?” I reflexively glanced at the market bag to ensure the bottle was safely inside.
Hetty grimaced. “He wouldn’t be the first husband to do such a thing. But he still has an alibi for the time of Dr. Penhollow’s murder.”
“That’s true, unless he somehow managed to get some poisoned food to the doctor.”
“I know it was my suggestion, but I have to wonder if anyone would do that,” Hetty said. “They would run the risk of killing Ada Penhollow, as well. At least as far as the Rallisons are concerned, their anger is directed specifically at the doctor.”
We had arrived at Hadley Grange and not a moment too soon.
It was already dusk, and if we’d still been on the lane, I wasn’t sure I could have guided us here in the dark.
I let out a heavy breath as we climbed the steps to the front door.
“With any luck, by now Dr. Bertram will have determined exactly how and when Dr. Penhollow died.”
“Good evening, my lady, Mrs. Chesney,” Carter said, opening the door just as our feet hit the top step.
“Good evening, Carter.” I handed him my coat and the market bag and turned to see the house had been dressed up in even more Christmas finery.
The arches that defined the hallway leading to the drawing room were draped with garlands of fir woven through with red velvet ribbon.
The scent was like a walk through the forest. Fiona and the children had been busy.
I was about to comment about them, when a distinctive and highly unexpected sound took me by surprise—a bark.
Fiona had never had a pet in the house, but the barking became louder and was followed by the ticking of toenails against the marble floor.
Before I could prepare myself, Cloud burst into the entry hall and danced merrily around Hetty and me.
His fluffy tail seemed to be spinning in a circle.
“How did the Penhollows’ dog come to be here?” I asked Carter. Cloud bounced between the three of us, his tongue lolling and his tail beating my skirts as if they were carpets.
“I believe Lady Rose brought him,” he replied. Holding our coats in one arm, he attempted to snag the dog by his collar with his free hand. Cloud hadn’t worn a collar when I saw him at Penhollow Manor, which led me to believe Rose must have brought him here on a leash. But why?
“Where is Rose?” I asked.
Carter gave up his attempt to capture the dog and straightened. “I expect she’s in the conservatory with the others.” His tone indicated he did not approve of this.
With the others. Apparently, they’d finished decorating. Poor Dr. Bertram was unlikely to get anything done with the children underfoot. “If you would be so kind, Carter, to have one of the footmen take the dog for a walk, I shall fetch Rose and remind her that she is in charge of him.”
And find out what he’s doing here.
Hetty slipped upstairs quickly, relieved, I’d imagine, that she wasn’t assigned a task. Carter got hold of Cloud’s collar and gently coaxed him away from the door. Since he seemed to have the dog under control, I headed for the conservatory, wondering what sort of chaos I would find there.
Instead, when I pushed open one of the doors and stepped onto the flagstones inside, all was relatively quiet. Dr. Bertram had moved a second worktable across the aisle from the one Dr. Penhollow lay upon, discreetly covered by a sheet. I wrinkled my nose. This room could use a few fir garlands.
A collection of vials and jars lay on the second table, where Dr. Bertram, with his back to me, examined them.
“We can rule out arsenic,” he said to Christine, who sat on a stool across the table, writing in a notebook.
Next to her Lissette leaned against the table and gazed longingly at Dr. Bertram.
So, that was still going on.
Of the children, only Rose was present—glued to the doctor’s side. “What’s arsenic?” she asked. One of her plaits fell over her shoulder when she looked up at him.
“It’s a poison,” he said, meeting her gaze. “It can take quite a while to work, so I thought it unlikely in this case, but always worth checking.”
Since none of them had noticed my arrival, I thought it best to announce myself. “Good evening, everyone. I doubt Dr. Bertram expected to have an audience while he worked.”
“It’s really no problem,” he said. “As long as you don’t mind them observing my procedures, that is.” He glanced down at Rose and back at me with a nervous smile. “Perhaps your daughter is a bit too young for …”
“An autopsy?” I supplied, dropping my hand to my hip. Was the man daft? None of them ought to have witnessed such a thing.
His eyes widened, and his face turned as red as a beet. “No, ma’am, I swear to you I didn’t allow anyone in here when I was performing … ah, the surgery.”
That was a relief. I gave the man a smile of apology and relaxed my stance. “I know the children can be very persistent, Dr. Bertram, so I appreciate your diligence in keeping them at bay, at least during the more unpleasant part of this process. What is it you are doing now?”
“I’m running tests for various types of poisons.
Dr Penhollow ultimately died of cardiac arrest, but there was damage to the intestines that hints at poison, and several poisons result in heart failure, so I’m inclined to believe it’s one of these.
” He waved a hand at the jars and vials on the table.
“Otherwise, I really have to wonder what the man had been eating.”
“I happen to know the contents of his last meal,” I said.
“Yes, I may have discovered that myself, but it will be good to have it verified.” He turned to Christine. “May I have the notebook?”
She handed it to him, and he recorded the details of Dr. Penhollow’s last dinner as I recited them. When he finished, he snapped the book closed. “And now we wait,” he said.
Again? It seemed like we’d already done a great deal of waiting. “How long?”
“I might have some answers in a couple of hours,” he said.
That was better than expected. After all this time, a couple of hours was not too long. “Then I’ll leave you to it,” I said. “But, Rose, I need you to come with me.”
Rose, looking worried, closed her own little book, in which I’m sure she had recorded some helpful notes, such as always check for arsenic. “Am I in trouble?” she asked.
“I don’t know yet, dear. First, we must talk about a certain dog.”
She brightened, so at least in her mind, she’d done nothing wrong. She bid Christine, Lissette, and Dr. Bertram good-bye and followed me out the door into the much warmer, and fresher smelling, hallway. “Now, would you like to tell me how Cloud became part of this household? Or is he only a guest?”
We headed for the front of the house and the stairs. I thought it might be best to talk with Rose in my room, where no one was likely to interrupt us. She twisted one of her plaits while we walked. “I think he’s only a guest.”
“Then it seems you’ve neglected him,” I said.
“I found the poor boy wandering around the house on his own, so I asked Carter to have a footman take him for a walk. Dogs must be walked from time to time. After this, you must be in charge of him since you brought him here. By the way, does Aunt Fiona know he’s here? ”
“Gregory was supposed to tell her,” she mumbled.
Which means Rose didn’t know if he had. Hopefully, if Fiona hadn’t found out about Cloud yet, she would take it well. It was too late to return the dog to the Penhollows today. Which reminded me. “We’ve somehow lost my original question,” I said. “What is he doing here?”
On the second floor, I led Rose down the hall to the room designated for George and me.
Though the past few days had been busy, to say the least, I still missed investigating with him.
More importantly, there were moments during the day, and especially at night, when I simply missed his voice, his touch, his smile—everything.
Rose and I made ourselves comfortable on the bench at the end of the bed. “Well,” she began, “you know we couldn’t decide who killed Scrooge.”
“I can sympathize with that problem,” I said.
“Grace and Gregory and I were talking about it this morning, and it just made me feel bad for Mrs. Penhollow. Nobody liked Scrooge, but she must have liked Dr. Penhollow.” Rose widened her eyes for emphasis. “She married him.”
“It’s a good assumption that she cared for him,” I said.
“So, I left Grace and Gregory to write the next part.” She flapped a hand. “It’s the Ghost of Christmas Present part, and that’s easy.”
“I see.”
“And I took some cookies to Mrs. Penhollow. Cook had just baked them.”
“Did you?” That must have been after Hetty and I were there. Considering Ada was still something of a suspect in Dr. Penhollow’s murder, the thought of Rose visiting there gave me a few pangs. “That was kind of you, dearest, but I hope you didn’t go alone.”
“I didn’t know how to get there, and Aunt Fiona was busy writing some letters, so I asked one of the grooms to take me.”