Chapter Twenty-Two
Selena had just finished pinning up her hair the next morning, and was about to get dressed, when she noticed another note lying on the threshold just inside her chamber door.
She raced to it and unfolded the small piece of white paper. Her heart seemed to gallop in her chest as she read the words inscribed therein.
Stay out of this or die.
Perspiration broke out on Selena’s brow. Who was writing these? What was she being warned to stay out of? The hunt for the hidden money? Or the search for the Websters? Or both?
As fast as her shaking fingers would allow, she threw on a day dress and a matching jacket of rose-colored wool and hurried from her chamber, intending to find Dr. Scott. As she emerged into the corridor, she found him striding quickly and purposefully towards her, his features drawn.
“I got another note,” Selena whispered when he stopped at her side.
“I got one as well,” he replied under his breath. They compared them. Again, they were identical.
Before she could ask the doctor what he thought, Colonel Blackwood exited his own chamber. “Doctor! Miss Taylor.” The colonel’s face was pale.
Selena shoved her note into her skirt pocket, all thoughts about the notes fleeing from her mind as she took in the colonel’s beleaguered state. “Colonel! What’s wrong?”
He met them in the middle of the hall and spoke in a low voice. “It’s … the sandwich.”
Dr. Scott stared at him. “What sandwich?”
“The one I ordered before I retired.” Colonel Blackwood’s lips trembled. “I was feeling a bit peckish last night, so I told Mrs. Middleton that I fancied a toasted cheese sandwich. She said she would have the cook make one up and have it brought to my room.”
“Did someone bring you the sandwich?” Selena asked.
“Yes, that good-looking footman, what’s his name, Sam?”
Dr. Scott’s brows drew together. “Then what seems to be the problem, Colonel?”
“Well, it’s the mouse, you see,” the colonel answered.
A dark foreboding took hold of Selena. “What mouse?”
“By the time the lad had brought up the sandwich, I was too tired to take more than a single bite,” Colonel Blackwood said, “so I left the rest and went to sleep. I soon awoke with terrible cramps and then I became very ill. I presumed it was something I had consumed at dinner. But this morning, I saw that the sandwich had been nibbled at, and I found a dead mouse next to the plate.”
The hair stood up on the back of Selena’s neck. “Oh, no.”
“Let me see it.” Dr. Scott’s voice was as stern as his expression.
Selena and the doctor followed the colonel into his chamber, where a partially eaten toasted cheese sandwich lay on a plate atop the dresser, with the body of a small, grey mouse beside it.
Selena’s pulse jangled in alarm. She turned to the doctor. “Might it have been poisoned?”
“I’ll have to check.” Dr. Scott lifted the plate to his nostrils and inhaled. He then gently peeled away the top slice of bread from the sandwich and studied the layer of melted orange cheese beneath. His facial muscles tensed. “Colonel—you said you were unwell in the night?”
“Yes.” Colonel Blackwood’s face colored. “I lost my supper into my chamber pot.”
“It may be a good thing you did,” Dr. Scott declared. “And it may be a blessing that you didn’t take more than a bite of this sandwich. There’s a textural difference here in this layer of cheese. Do you see it?” He held out the plate for them to study.
The cheese looked like melted cheddar and did have a slightly bumpy appearance. “What does it mean?” Selena asked.
“I suspect it was sprinkled with granules of some sort, which melted into the cheese,” the doctor answered. “Possibly arsenic, which is odorless and tasteless—but when ingested, even a small amount can be fatal.”
Selena’s throat constricted and she was overcome once more by a sense of déjà vu—reminded of the morning that they had discovered Mrs. Whitlock and the remains of her poisoned hot toddy. Except that this time, although Colonel Blackwood was shaky and pasty-faced, he was thankfully alive.
“Arsenic?” the colonel repeated. “I don’t understand. Why would …?” He gasped and his eyes grew huge. “You don’t mean …? Good heavens!”
“Where would someone get arsenic?” Selena asked.
“Arsenic is the key ingredient in rat poison,” the doctor explained.
“Its natural color is white. The Arsenic Act of 1851 aimed to help prevent poisonings by requiring it to be colored indigo or soot, but that’s been difficult to regulate and isn’t common yet.
Mind you, I can’t prove the sandwich was poisoned.
If we could send it to Scotland Yard, there’s a new test that might be able to detect the presence of arsenic.
But cut off here as we are, I can only go on the evidence before us.
The dead mouse, the textural difference in the cheese, and the fact that you became ill, Colonel. You said Sam brought up the sandwich?”
“Yes,” the colonel replied.
Sam, Selena thought, suspicion rising. “Did anyone else enter your room last night after it was delivered?”
The colonel shook his head. “No one. I was already undressed for bed. I took one bite and then went to sleep.”
“If it was poisoned, then, it happened before it was delivered.” The doctor frowned. “Who knew you had ordered a sandwich?”
Colonel Blackwood narrowed his eyes. “Everyone in our group was there. I asked for it after our card game last night—just after Miss Taylor had quit the room.”
Dr. Scott turned to Selena. “Who would have had access to rat poison?”
She thought about it. “Anyone who went looking for it, I suppose. I think it’s stored in a cupboard in the servants’ hall.”
“Could it have been the cook?” asked Dr. Scott.
Selena shook her head. “Mrs. Nash has worked at Darkmoor Park for more than a dozen years. She came as a widow with her infant son, Billy, and is a woman of high principles. It cannot have been her.”
The colonel’s face was still pale. “I hoped you two were mistaken when you said someone had done in Jack Clarke and Mrs. Whitlock and that I might be next. But now … I don’t know what to think.”
“I think it must have been Joe or Maisie Webster,” Selena said, her lips tightening.
“A determined guest could have found that poison. Or perhaps it was Sam, who brought up the sandwich. We’ll have to find out if the sandwich had ever been left unattended, and who else was in the servants’ hall at the time. ”
“Yes. And we ought to tell Mrs. Hillman what just occurred,” Dr. Scott said flatly.
Selena nodded in agreement. “We’ve already shared our theory about the Websters. This is the first concrete evidence that seems to verify there’s a killer amongst us—whether she believes it or not is up to her.”
“I suggest we say nothing of this to anyone else, though,” Dr. Scott insisted. “You’re the only other person here, Colonel, who had anything to do with Clive Webster’s conviction. If our theory about the Websters is correct, then everyone else is perfectly safe.”
“And if Maisie or Joe Webster is here and poisoned that sandwich,” Selena added, “they’ll be surprised—and no doubt upset—to find you still alive, Colonel. Their reaction might give them away.”
The colonel sank down onto a chair, blinking rapidly. “This is a shock. But it will take a lot more than a poisoned sandwich to kill me. I dare the villain to try again. I’m on my guard now.”
“Please, Colonel,” the doctor warned, “be careful. I advise you to stay with the group during the day and move a chair up under your door handle before you retire for the night.”
“And don’t eat or drink anything unless it’s with us in the dining room,” Selena insisted.
“Very well.” Colonel Blackwood rubbed his belly with a grimace. “I’m going to return to bed for the rest of the day. I still feel unwell.”
“Would you like me to give you something for a bad stomach?” offered Dr. Scott.
The colonel made a face. “As long as it’s not laudanum.”
“Understood.” Dr. Scott gave him a half-smile. “I’ll dispose of the dead animal and sandwich and get my bag.”
“Thank you, Doctor. In the meantime,” Selena declared, “I’ll have a chat with Sam … and find out everything I can about that sandwich.”
*
Selena descended the servants’ stairwell to find a beehive of activity.
Gladys was scrubbing the floor. Beryl hurried by with piles of folded linen.
A kitchen maid was making pastries in the still-room.
In the scullery, Billy and another maid were up to their elbows in sudsy water, scrubbing dishes and pots and pans from the morning’s breakfast—a meal Selena had yet to enjoy.
But the matters on her mind took precedence over food. She stopped in the housekeeper’s office, where Mrs. Middleton was working at her tiny desk. “Mrs. Middleton? May I have a word?”
The housekeeper stood. “Yes, Miss Taylor?”
“Last night, after the parlor game ended, did any members of the house party come downstairs?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” Mrs. Middleton responded. “Colonel Blackwood did order a toasted cheese sandwich, but he made that request upstairs.”
Selena had agreed to say nothing of the sandwich being poisoned. “Do you recall who was in the servants’ hall at the time?”
Mrs. Middleton tilted her head. “I think we were all here, miss. Normally, I let some of the staff go to bed by nine, but there was too much to do last night with all the dishes and clean-up required, to make up for our day off on Boxing Day.”
“As I understand it, Sam brought up the sandwich to the colonel. Would he have picked it up in the kitchen?”
“As a general rule, yes. But last night, there was too much going on. I saw the sandwich sitting on a table in the hall and reminded Sam to bring it up. Why?”
“I was just curious.” So, the sandwich had been set out where anyone could have tampered with it. “By the way, the colonel found a dead mouse in his room this morning. Dr. Scott disposed of it, but I wondered if anyone had recently laid out any bait?”