Chapter Five #2
Marie lifted her chin, a red curl brushing against her shoulder. “I grew up on a farm and have seen accidents that would turn your stomach. That’s not where my objection lies.”
“Good, it’s settled then.” I clapped my hands together.
“You and Mr. Burton will find this Hall together. And having a pretty young woman along to ask questions can go a long way in loosening a man’s tongue.
” It had been a while since I’d had any personal experience to attest to that statement, but I was sure it still held true.
Burton lifted one shoulder. “All right then. You go on home, Lady Mary. We’ll handle it from here and let you know what we find out.”
I didn’t bother correcting him. He was new.
He’d learn that I wasn’t the go home and wait for information sort.
I climbed into the carriage and gave Ernest an address that was decidedly not my own.
This trip wasn’t short. Trent’s canning factory was in a part of London I wasn’t familiar with and the smells that assaulted my nose when I stepped from the carriage almost made me wish I’d gone to the coroner’s instead.
Located near the London Docks, a situation that made sense for the distribution of his product, the canning factory was a large two-story structure covered in faded black paint.
A sign reading “Trent Canning Company” hung over wide barn doors, and a smaller, person-sized door sat off the corner of the building.
I headed for what I assumed was the office and was glad when the door closed behind me.
I could still hear the noise from the busy street, but it was no longer ear-splitting.
“Hullo?” I’d expected a din of activity from so profitable a factory, but a peek inside the door to the factory floor showed only a few stray workmen and the machines silent.
“I’m looking for Mr. Hicks,” I called to one of the workers. “Is he here?”
A man peeled off of the group and clomped toward me. “I’m Hicks. What is this about?”
“The death of Mr. Trent.” I nudged a bit of scrap metal with the tip of my walking stick. “I was hoping to ask you a few questions.”
“What d’you want to know?” Fenton Hicks appeared to be in his mid-thirties. He was a thin, gangly type of man and had the look of a hungry dog about him. He gripped his opposite elbows, his narrow shoulders curling beneath his cotton jacket.
I nodded toward the curious glances we were garnering. “Can we speak somewhere more private? The office perhaps?”
Mr. Hicks exhaled through his nose, then without a word brushed past me and through the door I’d come in. Instead of seating himself behind the small desk, he made his way up a narrow staircase.
I followed. The staircase opened up into a spacious loft, one with large, open windows that looked down onto the factory floor.
The other walls were lined with cubbies.
A large wood-plank table served as a desk, with papers, rulers, metal files, and other flotsam and jetsam covering the surface.
A large chair sat behind it centered in front of a narrow, lead-paned window that opened onto the street.
Another chair was in front of the desk, for guests presumably, with a large milk can next to it serving as a second seat.
“Who are you?” Mr. Hicks dropped into the chair behind the desk.
I took the one opposite. It wobbled something fierce, and I thought perhaps the milk can was the safer option.
Sitting as gingerly as possible, I said, “I am Lady Mary Cavindish. You might not be aware of it, but your employer died on my doorstep with a letter addressed to me clutched in his hand. I’m trying to ascertain what it is he wanted to speak to me about. ”
Hicks picked a metal file up from the desk’s surface and scratched his head with it. “Why don’t you just read the letter?”
“The body of the message was destroyed.” I ground my back teeth. Did he think I wouldn’t have read the letter if I’d been able?
“So why come here?” He narrowed his eyes. “You’re not sent by that wife of his, are you? I told her I would get the factory back up and running once the men were assured they would be paid. They’re not going to work for free, you know.”
“I wouldn’t think so. And I wasn’t sent by anyone.
” I leaned forward, pausing when the chair groaned.
When I was fairly certain the contraption wasn’t going to collapse beneath me, I continued.
“Has Mrs. Trent been interfering with the company?” It had only been two days since her husband’s murder.
Was cash so tight that she couldn’t allow herself a mourning period before diving into the company’s finances?
“Of course. She’s worried. And she should be.
” Mr. Hicks slapped the metal file back down on the desk.
“We have food that will spoil if we don’t get it canned soon.
I told her to bring some blunt so the men would get back to work, or give me the authority to write some checks. Businesses don’t run themselves.”
That was a fact of which I was very well aware. Though the people I employed at The Minerva Club liked to think they could manage it all without me.
I sniffed. “Did Mr. Trent make it a habit not to pay his workers? Was the company not doing well?”
Hicks drew his eyebrows together. “It’s doing fine, but Trent was supposed to pay the men their weekly salary the day he died. As it’s not been paid, you can understand if they’re not eager to get back to work.”
“If you’ll excuse my ignorance, but how exactly does the canning process work?” I nodded to a stack of tinned food wedged into one of the cubbies. “It seems unfathomable that food can still be edible after months of sitting on a shelf.”
The manager’s face brightened. “Months? Try years. I tell you, food canning is going to revolutionize how the world eats. Explorers can travel to the ends of the earth without having to worry about starvation. Militaries can launch campaigns knowing they’ll be able to feed their men.
And pretty soon, every pantry in England will have our canned food in it.
Hunger from a bad crop year will be a thing of the past.”
I pushed my spectacles back up my nose. “You are quite enthusiastic about your work, aren’t you?”
Mr. Hicks’s cheeks pinkened. “It’s an amazing scientific accomplishment. I only wish we didn’t have to credit a Frenchie for the process. But it is good, old English ingenuity that is perfecting it.”
The man made me almost want to stand and salute. “I understand its use for survival, but surely canned food isn’t palatable.”
“What comes out of the can tastes as good as what was put into it.” He reached a thin arm over to the cubby and plucked up a tin. He handed it across the desk to me. “Here. Try one. And we’re improving our recipes all the time.”
I rolled the can in my hand. A faint impression had been stamped onto the lid:
Beef Stew
6.11.1820
TCC