Chapter Seventeen
Lady Mary
I stared at the canning factory, waiting as a line of carts rolled down the street in front of me. “I wonder if he’ll admit to accepting a bribe from Mr. Gray.”
Mr. Burton flexed his hands as he stood next to me. “I’ll make him talk.”
I gave him an assessing look. I had debated whether to bring my under-butler along and I still questioned my decision.
Though I would have been hard-pressed to keep Mr. Burton away.
After insisting that Marie spend the remainder of the day resting, he’d further insisted on paying Mr. Fenton Hicks a visit.
Burton had maintained no one had been following him and Marie until they’d left the home of Mr. Hicks.
Burton hadn’t made the accusation outright, but I knew he also blamed the manager for the attack on my maid.
“You said the man you chased wore a brown coat.” A path opened, and we darted across the road. “The woman who saved Marie said the attacker wore black.”
“He could have changed his coat,” Burton growled. He pushed open the office door. It swung inward, bounced off the wall, and careened back. Burton grabbed the edge and pressed it open more slowly.
“Marie will be fine,” I said gently. I’d recognized the look in Mr. Burton’s eyes when he’d brought a damp Marie into the house. A shell of anger covering a lump of fear. “It must have been terrifying for her, but she’s one of those women who bounce back quickly from adversity.”
Burton exhaled a long, slow breath. “I know, it’s one of the things I admire most about her.”
I arched an eyebrow. Admire was one word for it.
I stepped inside the office. “Hallo? Mr. Hicks?” The office and factory beyond were quiet. Had business still not resumed? I would think Mrs. Trent would have authorized the workers to be paid so profits could still be earned.
Something clattered upstairs. “I’ll be right down,” Hicks called.
Burton turned for the stairwell, his feet wide, shoulders tense.
I placed my hand on his arm. “Don’t act in haste. If you truly want to know what happened, you’re more likely to discover it with words than fists.”
His shoulders lowered an inch. “Perhaps.”
He didn’t sound convinced, and I didn’t want a black-and-blue Hicks on my conscience. “And you can’t protect Marie if you are arrested for assault.”
He sighed. “Fine. I’ll behave. For now.”
Fenton Hicks came down the last of the stairs. He hadn’t shaved that day, and there were more wrinkles in his jacket, blue, I noted, than in my linen shift after Southey had made a bed of it. He ran his hand across his stubbly jaw. “Lady Mary. What can I do for you today?”
“Has the factory been closed all this time?” I walked over to the factory door and poked it open with my walking stick. All the machinery was still. “Don’t you have food that will spoil if not canned?”
Hicks stared morosely into the factory. “Much of it has already spoiled. We could get back up and running as soon as the men are paid, but the only response I’ve received from Mrs. Trent is that she needs time to mourn before thinking of business.”
“I suppose that is understandable.” After my husband had died, I’d found the routine of paying bills and managing the estate to be quite useful in controlling my grief. Mrs. Trent, however, might have other things to distract her.
“You’ve been here all day, have you?” Burton asked. His hands were stuffed into his trouser pockets, whether in an attempt to look casual or a precaution against his urge to strike Hicks, I didn’t know. I appreciated the gesture either way.
“Yes, for what good it’s done.” Hicks leaned against the door jamb, crossing his arms. “I’ve cleaned the machines and tables three times over. When we do start again, we’ll have the most spotless factory in London. If we start again.”
“I still don’t understand the process.” I waved to the factory floor. “Can you explain what everything here does?”
He pushed off the door jamb. “Why not?” He led us to a long table with five deep bowls lining the center.
“This is where our workers fill the tins with the food. The tins are then taken to this table to make sure the rims and outsides are clean. We don’t want food residue anywhere but inside the tin. ”
After tasting the canned food, I wasn’t certain we wanted food residue inside the can, either. But I nodded as though it were the most interesting thing in the world.
He continued the tour, showing how the lid press worked, where the tins were heated, and then the final step, where a stamp was pressed into the lid of the tin identifying the manufacturer, its contents, and the date it was processed.
I picked up one of the metal files that lay on a side table. “Why do you have files here? At the factory that makes the tins it makes sense, but your cans are already shaped.”
“When you seal a lid on, the rim of the tin can get rough.” Hicks leaned back against a table, crossing his arms. “Before we send the tins out, we do quality control and smooth all the edges so no one cuts themselves.”
“How decent of you.”
Hicks must have missed Burton’s sarcasm. He smiled fondly. “When old Trent senior was just starting out, I remember him spending nights here making sure all the rims were smooth.”
“You were here then, when Trent’s father owned the place?” I asked.
“I’ve been here since the beginning, and better run this place was then, too.” Hicks sniffed.
“At what step in the process is there the potential for contamination?” I asked.
“A couple.” Hicks rubbed the back of his neck. “The food could be bad to start. When filling the tins, any scratch or dent could interfere with the heating process. And then the heating process itself might not have been adequate to preserve the food.”
Burton rested his hands on his hips. “And what step were you going to tell the courts had been the issue for the spoiled food that killed our sailors?”
Hicks’s face reddened. “What are you talking about?”
I strolled over to a stack of tinned food.
A stray can was wedged between the table leg and the wall, half-hidden by a warped floorboard.
“We spoke with Mr. Gray. He told us you’d agreed to say that it was Mr. Trent’s error, and not Gray’s, that resulted in the contaminated food. Even if it wasn’t true.”
“That’s outrageous!” Hicks paced the floor. “He has no call to say such a thing.”
“I notice that isn’t a denial.” Burton clenched his hands, his gaze fixed on the man.
“I…you cannot…that’s…” Hicks hemmed and hawed until his behavior became most embarrassing. I took pity on him.
“Your business with Mr. Gray isn’t any of ours,” I lied.
I prodded the stray can with my stick until it emerged from under the table.
“And besides, the point is now moot, with Mr. Trent dead. There is no longer a lawsuit that would require lies to defeat.” I bent and picked up the tin.
I squinted at the stamp at the top. “Mutton soup. June the 9th, 1821. Sounds ghastly.”
Hicks stopped pacing. “What was that date?”
I repeated it.
“That can’t be right.” He hurried to me and took the tin, reading it for himself. “This was from the batch that was destroyed. Or should have been destroyed. I wonder how it was missed,” he muttered.
“What do you mean?” Burton asked. “That is one of the tins of contaminated food?”
Hicks scratched his head. “Well, it might not be contaminated, but we know that the food that was bad was canned the week of the 7th through the 15th of that month and year. In order to be safe, Trent ordered all of the tins of that week to be destroyed. I guess this one escaped.”
“Could there be more that escaped, as you call it?” My stomach tightened. I peered beneath the table. “Could there be more contaminated tins in the hands of our military now?”
“No.” Hicks set the tin on one of the tables. “Before we sell anything, we check and double check the date stamp and it is logged in our inventory. We didn’t sell anymore tins from that week.”
I blew out a breath. Well, that was a relief. Our soldiers might get a stomachache from foul tasting food, but at least it wouldn’t kill them.
Hicks strode to one of the neat stacks of tinned food. He plucked one off the top. “Here. Take this one instead. It was canned only three weeks ago.”
I tasted something bitter at the back of my throat. “No, you already gifted me one before. I couldn’t.”
Hicks’s shoulders slumped. “They’re just sitting here. Someone should enjoy it. Please, take it.”
Not seeing a polite way to decline, I accepted with a forced smile. I said my farewells. Mr. Burton seemed loath to leave, so I prodded him with my walking stick until he gave up glaring at the manager and exited the building.
“Why did we leave so soon?” he asked. He guided me across the street and opened my carriage door. “There was much more to ask him.”
“I accomplished my purpose. We now know Mr. Gray did bribe Hicks to give testimony against Mr. Trent.” I settled myself inside and examined the tin. Salted pork. In a can. I placed the tin on the seat next to me. At least it wasn’t mutton soup.
“How do we know that?” Burton settled across from me. “He didn’t confess to anything.”
I gave him a look over my spectacles. “One doesn’t stutter that much unless one is trying to hide the truth.
He came to an agreement with Gray, I have no doubt.
” But did such an agreement increase or decrease Hicks’s motive to kill Trent?
He’d want the lawsuit to proceed, and hence Trent living, if he was to get paid by Gray for his testimony.
But if he was already angry with his employer, could Hicks have decided that killing him was the better path, that Gray might pay more to have the suit eliminated entirely?
“Hicks did seem rather distressed.” I tapped my bottom lip with my thumb. “A guilty conscience?”
Burton’s nostrils flared. “If he was the one who attacked Marie, it will be more than his conscience that will be hurting.”
I couldn’t picture that sad man holding Marie under water.
As past experience had shown me, however, appearances were often deceiving.
“Do you think stabbing as a method of murder indicates the crime was done more in the throes of anger or was it planned out ahead of time?” The carriage jerked forward, and I grabbed for the tin before it could fall to the floor.
Burton took the tin and slid it into his jacket pocket.
I felt a moment of envy over how deep men’s pockets were.
He leaned back on the seat. “I’d say it depends on whether the killer brought the knife, or file, with him, or whether it was already at Trent’s home.”
“It’s not likely that Mr. Trent would have a metal file lying around his study, is it?”
Burton rubbed his temple. “Not likely, but in his line of business, not impossible. We don’t seem to be able to eliminate anything or anyone. This is becoming most frustrating.”
Yes, but if the attack on Marie was any indication, we must have learned something that made the killer uneasy.
I didn’t think Burton would agree that was an encouraging thought so I kept it to myself.
I returned to Mr. Hicks. “If Mrs. Trent isn’t paying company wages, and now Mr. Gray has no need to pay Hicks for his testimony, I can understand the man’s distress. He might be getting short of funds.”
Burton snorted. “No wonder his wife sleeps in a separate bedroom. He isn’t much on charm or looks, and now he’s stopped providing. She might not give him an alibi out of spite.”
I rolled my eyes. The single-mindedness of youth.
The suspicion that Hicks might have harmed Marie had poisoned Burton against the man.
The idea that Hicks might hold his wife’s heart by reading to her each night, or surprising her with flowers, wouldn’t occur to him.
Or that they might sleep in separate bedrooms because one of them snored.
To the young, such everyday annoyances wouldn’t even occur to them.
Well, when Burton married, he would learn.
Love wasn’t always shown by providing the finer things in life.
It was rubbing a poultice on your loved one’s chest as they coughed up the most disgusting substances.
It was sitting quietly by the fire with someone you could trust.
Trent obviously hadn’t learned that lesson. Then, neither had his wife. They’d both broken their vow to honor and be faithful to their spouse, even when times were difficult.
I rubbed my collarbone. And I was in no position to judge. My marriage had suffered through its trials, but at least Cavindish had always known we were there for one another. Trent’s marriage, and life, struck me as rather sad.
A loveless marriage, ill-thought affairs, financial losses. Which of Trent’s troubles had gotten him killed?