Chapter 16 #2
“No, no, not yet. Let him rest.” Nadia glanced at Jasper. “My grandfather has been taking a draught to calm himself. He’ll be better once Frederick is home from London.”
Ursula, handing the filled teacup and saucer to Decamp, nearly made a hash of it as her hands and wrists shook violently, rattling the porcelain. “So sorry,” she squeaked before stepping back and clasping her hands behind her.
Jasper wondered if it had been the mention of Frederick that had flustered her. He had, after all, reprimanded her harshly outside the billiards room a few nights ago.
“Ursula, I overheard a terse conversation on the night of the storm between yourself and Mr. Cowper. He told you to mind your own business if you’d like to keep your position here,” Jasper said, and at the instant draining of color from her already wan cheeks, he was glad he’d brought it up.
He’d asked Frederick about the encounter, but not her. “What was he referring to?”
Frederick had been vague about it, saying it was some gossip and trouble the maid was prone to stirring up. But as Ursula’s wide-eyed terror flicked between Nadia and Decamp, he found himself wanting more specifics.
“Ursula.” Nadia’s tone was sharp enough to make the maid jump. “Answer the inspector’s question.”
“I’m so sorry, miss,” she said, her eyes beginning to fill. “I made a mistake. An awful one, and I feel terrible about it. I thought for certain Mr. Cowper was going to sack me then and there. I fear he still might.”
Jasper held up his hand. “Slow down, Ursula. What mistake was this?”
She was now twisting her fingers together before her, looking nauseous.
“It was when Mrs. Stroud was ill. I found her in bed, asleep, but she’d been writing a letter on the breakfast tray in her lap.
I gathered the tray and was putting the papers and pen back on her writing desk, and…
well…I couldn’t help but read some of the lines.
” The maid winced. “I shouldn’t have done it, I know I shouldn’t have, but before I knew it, I’d read several more. ”
Jasper had an inkling as to what letter the maid had seen. “Who was this letter addressed to?”
“The envelope was addressed to you, Inspector. And Miss Spencer,” she answered, her chin quivering.
Nadia stared at the maid. “You read the private letter my mother gave to her solicitor for Inspector Reid and Miss Spencer?”
Ursula emitted a little whine of desperation. “Not all of it! Just a few sentences. As soon as I came to my senses, I stopped and put it away. I swear! I didn’t realize how important the letter was, not until after the will reading.”
“Its importance doesn’t matter. You should not have been reading your lady’s private correspondence at all,” Decamp said with the typical sternness of a butler.
“What happened after the reading, Ursula?” Jasper asked to stave off another reprimand from Nadia.
The maid quailed but answered, “I was bringing fresh towels to Mrs. Dalton’s room.
It was before dinner, and she was telling Dora about the secret letter to the inspector and Miss Spencer, and how everyone was in an uproar.
I remembered the letter I’d seen, and I didn’t mean to say anything, but I did.
I said, ‘That letter?’ And when Mrs. Dalton asked me what I knew of it…
Well, I’m an awful liar. So, I confessed. ”
“Did you tell Mrs. Dalton what you’d read?” Jasper asked, and when she nodded, he continued, “What, exactly, did you tell her?”
Depending on how far into Francine Stroud’s letter she’d read, Helen might have learned that her mother had suspected her of having a hand in Teddy’s death. It might have spurred her on to leave for London and the Craven Hill residence in the middle of the night.
“First, she sent Dora from the room,” Ursula said. “Then, I told her what I could remember. That Mrs. Stroud had asked you and Miss Spencer to find justice for her son, Teddy.”
“What?” Nadia exclaimed. “Why would Teddy need justice? His fall was an accident.”
“I just know what I read, Miss Stroud,” Ursula said, quivering in fear.
“Something about a glass vial belonging to Helen—Mrs. Dalton, I mean—and that someone who possessed it was on the roof with Teddy that night.” Here, the maid cast her terrified eyes to the floor, her cheeks heating under Nadia’s flaying glare.
“Mrs. Stroud wrote that she’d hidden it under a floorboard in the old house.
That’s where I stopped reading, I swear it. I don’t know anything more than that.”
Christ. It at least answered how Helen had known to get to London as soon as possible. She must have dashed off a note to Stephen immediately, setting her plan in motion to leave Cowper Fields that night. She’d wanted to get to the vial first.
But why? Jasper and Leo already knew about the vial clutched in Teddy’s hand.
A tear catcher that had traces of floral perfume inside.
Taking possession of the vial itself seemed unnecessary.
Francine Stroud had mentioned in her letter that recently, she’d started to doubt her suspicion of Helen and wished for the vial to be returned to her.
However, that revelation had come at the close of the letter, a part which Ursula had apparently not read.
“Someone was on the roof with Teddy when he fell?” Nadia asked as she moved toward her two dogs, both of which were still sitting obediently.
“Possibly,” Jasper confirmed. “Your mother found the glass vial clutched in his hand when she came upon his body. And before she was killed, Helen succeeded in finding it under the floorboard.”
“But…why did my mother never say anything about it?” Nadia asked.
Grateful he’d thought to keep the vial in his pocket, Jasper brought it out, holding the slim glass tube between his thumb and forefinger.
Nadia stormed up to him, her eyes hinged on the vial. “That is Helen’s tear catcher.”
“You recognize it?”
“Of course, I do. Our mother gave them to us when Aunt Emmaline and our cousins died,” she said, referring to Gregory Reid’s wife and two children who’d drowned eighteen years ago. At the time, Nadia would have been quite young, perhaps nine or ten. Helen, perhaps a few years older than that.
Nadia reached for the tear catcher, and Jasper let her hold it.
She gazed at the pretty twist of amethyst and cobalt glass.
“I’ll confess; I didn’t know my cousins or aunt well, so I filled mine with a few drops of water instead of tears.
I remember feeling guilty for it, even though I shouldn’t have—Helen filled hers with perfume.
” She shook her head as she handed the tear catcher back to him.
“We wore them for over a year, as necklace pendants, before our fake tears dried up inside. But they were so pretty we kept wearing them, and I filled mine with perfume too. It’s so odd.
I hadn’t thought of these tear catchers in years, and now, this is the second time in just a few months. ”
Jasper pocketed the tear catcher, intrigued. “When was the first time?”
She peered at him. “Is it important?”
“It could be.”
Nadia crossed the small butler’s pantry toward Decamp. He and Ursula had been listening quietly, the maid riveted, and the butler, his eyes damp and probing.
“Very well, then,” she said. “I was going through my jewelry boxes, setting things aside that I no longer wanted, and happened to find my tear catcher. I showed it to Helen and asked what had ever happened to hers. Her cheeks went tomato red. She was utterly flustered and didn’t want to speak about it.
Of course, I wanted to know why, so I needled her, and eventually she shouted that she’d given it to someone. ”
“Who?” Jasper asked.
Nadia arched a brow. “A man. I attacked her with questions, but she wouldn’t say more, just that it was someone she wished to forget all about. She was so upset, she nearly cried.”
Jasper’s mind began to whirl with everything Nadia was saying. He forced it to slow. “Did you believe her? That she’d given it to a man?”
Nadia furrowed her brow in thought. “I know my sister well.” She paused.
“Knew my sister. I always knew when she was lying. Her nostrils would flare, and she’d blink too much.
But when she said she’d given the tear catcher to someone else, there was none of that.
I only saw humiliation, oddly. So, yes, I believed her. ”
“And when you had this conversation with Helen about the tear catchers, was your mother present?” he asked next.
“Yes. Come to think of it, she was. She was upset by our little tiff and went to lay down.”
Jasper unclenched his hands, which he’d balled into fists at his sides.
He exhaled, finally understanding. After hearing her daughters’ argument, Francine had learned the little vial might not have been in Helen’s possession at the time of Teddy’s death.
That it may have already been given to a mysterious young man.
“Inspector,” Decamp said. “If Mrs. Dalton gave that tear catcher to someone else, how was it found in Master Teddy’s hand?”
“I believe that is what Mrs. Stroud wanted Miss Spencer and me to discover,” he replied. “If Theodore was pushed, and he ripped the trinket free from around his attacker’s neck, where it was being worn…”
“It may have been the man Helen gave it to,” Nadia provided.
“Why would that man, whoever it was, have been on the roof with Master Teddy?” Ursula asked. But then, she covered her mouth and hunched back. “Forgive me, it’s none of my business.”
At the maid’s question, however, Nadia did not appear irritated. Instead, she blanched. “Oh no.”
“What is it, Miss Stroud?” Jasper asked.
“Stephen,” she whispered. Decamp stood up on unsteady legs.
“What about my son?”
“He and Helen would…well, they would often meet on the roof of the house on Craven Hill to be alone,” Nadia whispered, her eyes blinking rapidly.
Jasper thought of Helen’s relationship with Stephen. It had ended right after Teddy’s death. If Stephen had been the man to whom Helen had given the tear catcher, he might have worn it as a sentimental trinket. Had Teddy come upon the lovers on the roof?
He might have pushed the boy from the roof, and Teddy’s hand might have closed around the tear catcher, ripping it free from Stephen’s neck.
When Nadia had brought up the tear catchers shortly before their mother’s death, Helen might have panicked with the memory of what had happened that night, of what she’d participated in.
Perhaps that is why she and Stephen had traveled together to London—to retrieve the tear catcher.
But again, the vial alone was not evidence of any foul play.
And if Stephen had pushed Teddy off the roof, even accidentally, why would Helen have conducted an affair with him now, all these years later?
It made no sense.
Jasper rolled his neck and shoulders, frustrated by the circles he kept traversing with this case.
“Stephen never would have harmed Master Teddy,” Decamp said, though his voice shook.
“Of course not, Decamp,” Nadia said quickly. “I just remembered that they would sometimes rendezvous there. I’m sure I’m wrong about the night of Teddy’s death.”
An awkward quiet fell over the room. Wishing to change the subject, Jasper focused on the maid again.
“Ursula, you’ve explained your transgression of reading Mrs. Stroud’s letter, but you still have yet to explain how Frederick Cowper learned of it and knew to reprimand you for it.”
The maid’s coloring flooded back into her cheeks, and she again appeared timorous.
“I went to the billiards room to bank the fire for the night,” she began.
“Mr. Cowper was there alone, and he commented that Mrs. Dalton had seemed distressed at dinner. He asked me to bring her something for her nerves. I’d been so upset all day, I just started to cry.
He made me tell him why, and when I explained about reading the letter, he was furious. ”
“As he should have been,” Nadia murmured, her dislike of the maid plain.
“Thank you for explaining, Ursula,” Jasper said, frowning. Frederick had said the maid had been gossiping about Francine’s decision to give up the Craven Hill home to strangers. He hadn’t mentioned anything about knowing the contents of the letter. Jasper wished to know why.
He checked his watch. If he was going to visit Sam Everton in Sudbury on his way back to London, he needed to leave now.
“Constable Wiggins will be by shortly with Stephen’s body,” he said as gently as possible to Decamp. “Given the circumstances surrounding your son’s death, an inquest will be standard. I believe the viscount is a magistrate, so I will leave it to him to organize.”
With the evidence as it was, there was little doubt it would be quickly ruled a suicide. Although there was still a niggling sense that there was more to it than that, Jasper had nothing firm to stand on, other than a feeling of the scene being just a little too neat.
He started for the door but recalled something. “Someone should collect the dog. It was tied up and barking when I arrived. I’ve turned it loose, but I’m sure it’s still hanging about the farm.”
“Beau was tied up?” Decamp shifted in his seat to peer at Jasper, his expression one of confusion.
“If Beau is the collie I saw, then yes,” he replied.
Decamp continued to frown. “How peculiar. Stephen never tied up Beau. The dog has the run of the place. One of the best herding dogs there is.”
The sense of foreboding Jasper felt upon arriving at the farm and seeing the barking collie tethered to a post returned.
If Stephen had been planning to kill himself, it made sense for him to have wanted to close the front door to his house to keep the dog outside.
But to tie him up as well didn’t seem to have much purpose.
“Are you certain he would not have restrained the dog?” Jasper asked.
“I suppose he might have, if he had company that didn’t care for dogs,” Decamp said with a shrug, but then rubbed his face again, his heavy anguish palpable.
If his company didn’t care for dogs. Not liking dogs was a phrase Jasper had heard recently. His mind sought where he’d heard it and from whom. Grasping the answer felt like grabbing hold of a live electrical wire.
“Excuse me,” he said, his pulse quickening as he unceremoniously left the butler’s pantry. He needed to be on the next train to London.