Chapter 21
The next day, Katherine asked Anne to take Louie out for a walk.
Miss Fitzjohn had clearly adopted him, moving his little blanket-filled basket into her room and doting on him, but she said she did not think it would be proper to be seen strolling along with a pet so soon after her mother died.
Nor was she ready to face curious passersby while her grief was still so fresh.
Anne agreed and set out with the dog, leaving Rosa and Katherine reviewing Katherine’s old mourning gowns of black crape and bombazine.
The walk took longer than expected, as everyone from the druggist, Mr. Greaves, to the postmistress stopped Anne to ask about Lady Celia’s passing and express their condolences.
When Anne returned to Painswick Court at last, she took Louie belowstairs for food and water. She found the kitchen in an unusual state: utensils spread on every available surface, cook and maids bustling about.
“We are counting and cleaning everything,” Mrs. Pratt explained. “Still trying to find the missing knife. It’s been a few days now, and we still haven’t found it.”
“I did look upstairs but saw no sign of it. Sorry.”
“Not your fault, Miss Anne. And hardly the most important thing at a time like this.” The older woman’s eyes glistened. “So sad about Lady Celia. I wish I had gone up early, just to let her know we were all praying for her down here.”
“I am sure she knew and appreciated that,” Anne said to reassure her. She knew all about regrets.
Jane was there in the kitchen helping. She offered to take Louie up after he’d finished eating. Anne thanked her.
On her way back up, Anne started toward the main stairway.
Hearing muffled voices, Anne paused outside the closed billiard-room door.
This door had always been left open in the time Anne had been living there, so she wondered why it was closed now.
She leaned her head near and heard Mr. Dalby speaking.
Who was he talking to? When she’d left the house, Rosa had been in Miss Fitzjohn’s room, so hopefully he had not trapped her in there with him. She pressed her ear to the wood.
“Stop worrying. It’s safely hidden.”
His voice was the only one she could hear. Was he talking to himself? More likely whomever he was speaking to stood on the far side of the room, while he remained near the door.
“I wanted to keep it at least until after the inquest. Maybe until she’s buried. In case it needed to be found in someone else’s room. . . .”
Mr. Dalby’s words raised gooseflesh on the back of Anne’s neck. What was safely hidden? What might need to be found in someone else’s room?
She had a sickening suspicion what it might be and whose room it might have ended up in. That suspicion began to grow into an alarming certainty.
She wanted, needed, to know who he was speaking with. Should she go outside and peer in through the window? No, he’d see her pressing her face to the glass. Better to hide herself somewhere nearby and see who came out.
Anne walked down the corridor, planning to conceal herself behind the library door. As she reached it, she heard shouts and running feet.
Jane came panting up the stairs. “Oh good! There you are. Mrs. Pratt sent me to find you. Kezia cut herself. Looks bad.”
“Oh no.” Anne hesitated, torn between staying to see who emerged and helping the injured girl. In the next instant her feet were moving toward the stairs. “Let’s go.”
Anne hurried belowstairs, the housemaid on her heels.
She found Joe Webb’s daughter on a stool, a kitchen towel wrapped around her hand.
There was a fair amount of blood, but after Anne ran water over the wound and pressed a clean cloth to it for a time, the bleeding slowed, and she was relieved to see the cut was not as bad as they had feared.
“Thank you for tending to her,” said Mrs. Pratt. “Cut herself on one of the knives, poor girl.”
“She’ll be all right. I don’t think it requires stitches, but she’ll need a respite from washing dishes for two or three days so it can close up and heal properly.”
“Of course.”
“I’ll come back in a few minutes with some liniment my father swears by.”
On her way up to her room for her medicine case, Anne first returned to the billiard room but found the door open and the room deserted.
Buxton passed by, and Anne asked him if there had been any callers earlier.
“Not that I know of, though Toby may have answered the door.”
“Where is everyone?”
“I don’t know, miss. Saw Mr. Dalby on his way upstairs not long ago, but I’m not certain where Miss Fitzjohn is. Perhaps in her room.”
“And Colonel Paine? Has he returned?”
“I’m sorry, miss. I have not seen him.”
“That’s all right, Buxton. Not your responsibility to know the whereabouts of everyone in the family.” She said it kindly, casually, even as dread churned in her stomach.
Anne went upstairs, hoping to find Miss Fitzjohn and Rosa still busy together as she had left them, but Katherine’s room was deserted as well, so she couldn’t rule out Katherine as the person Mr. Dalby had been talking to.
She found Rosa in her own room, sewing black lace trim onto one of Katherine’s gowns, and asked, “Where is Miss Fitzjohn?”
Rosa shrugged. “She left. Said she had something important she had to do. I don’t know what.”
“When was this?”
“Oh, an hour or so ago. Not long after you took Louie out.”
That didn’t help much. Anne was curious what important something Miss Fitzjohn had to do.
“She’ll be back before dinner,” Rosa added. “She’s asked me to arrange her hair again.”
Now that Lady Celia was not there to forbid her, Katherine had invited Dr. Marsland—as well as Dr. Finch and Anne—to join them for dinner. She had not asked Mr. Palling. Anne wondered why, and she wondered again where Jasper Paine had gone. She hoped he had not met with some accident. Or worse.
After delivering the liniment to Kezia as promised, Anne returned to her own room and changed her dress. She waited until Mr. Dalby went downstairs an hour or so later, likely to help himself to the whiskey before dinner.
Then she slipped into the corridor and approached his door. She was about to let herself in when Dr. Finch appeared and demanded, “What are you doing?”
“Shh.” She took his arm and pulled him into the room with her, quietly closing the door behind them. “I will tell you, but keep your voice down. Why are you here, by the way?”
“Invited to dinner, remember? Came upstairs to look in on you and Rosa on the pretext of needing the water closet. I certainly didn’t expect to find you—or myself—in here.”
“I have good reason.”
“I’m listening.”
“I overheard Mr. Dalby talking to someone earlier—I don’t know who.” Anne repeated the gist of what she’d heard and then began looking into drawers and cupboards.
“And you think he hid . . . what?” Dr. Finch asked.
“An adulterated bottle of medicine. Or outright poison—whatever he used.” She continued her search.
“And instead of disposing of it, he hid it, and if the inquest had returned a murder verdict, or if Katherine changed her mind about a postmortem, he planned to make sure the bottle was found in someone else’s room—meaning, in my room. ”
“Thunder and turf. I hope you’re wrong.”
She opened the drawer of his side table. Nothing. “I want to find it before he can dispose of the evidence . . . or poison anyone else.”
“Anne, you are not thinking clearly. You do not want to have that bottle on your person—if it exists. Forgive me, but we don’t know for certain.
If anyone except me caught you sneaking about with such a thing, it would be quite condemning.
And if he is capable of poisoning his own aunt, what do you think he might do to you if he finds you in here, or discovers you have evidence against him?
Now, let’s get out of here before we are caught where we should not be. ”
Footsteps on the stairs.
Anne gasped. Their gazes met, and she saw his eyes widen with worry.
“This way,” she whispered, opening the door to Mr. Dalby’s closet and dressing room.
The door let out into the side corridor not far from the water closet and her reading nook.
But if the person coming up was headed to the water closet instead of his or her bedchamber?
Anne and Dr. Finch would be caught coming out of Mr. Dalby’s dressing room.
Anne tentatively opened the outer door, which creaked. They both froze, wincing and waiting. The footsteps in the main corridor paused.
If whoever it was came around the corner and found them there, what excuse could they give for being at the end of that corridor, past the water closet?
The only door down there besides Mr. Dalby’s dressing room was the little window-seat alcove she’d claimed as her own.
Better to be found there than in Mr. Dalby’s private quarters, she decided.
Anne pulled Dr. Finch into that tiny room and behind its right-hand door, leaving it at an angle, the left-hand door fully open. Just as Jasper said he did as a lad when he wanted to hide.
What she had not counted on was the doctor’s size. It had been one thing to conceal herself there—but two adults?
The footsteps rounded the corner.
Trying to fit behind the door, Dr. Finch crowded close to Anne, nearly pressing her to the wall. The two stood facing each other, chin to nose.
By the light coming in through the windows, Anne saw him put a finger to his lips.
Anne could not have spoken had she tried, her thumping heart seemingly lodged in her throat.
His hands went to her waist, as if to hold them both steady, for which Anne was grateful, as her knees suddenly felt wobbly.
Her hands were trapped against his chest between them, and he dipped his head to whisper in her ear. “Shh . . .”
His nearness felt protective, not inappropriate. His tall, strong body, his warmth and smell of vanilla enveloped her.
The footsteps came closer . . . and seemed to stop just outside the alcove doors.