Chapter 6 #2
Inwardly pleased—with the house quiet and solemn in the wake of the two deaths, now was clearly a good time to interview the staff—Penelope halted on the other side of the deal table, and while Stokes and Barnaby took up positions to either side of her, she inclined her head to Mrs. Pratchett, acknowledging the housekeeper’s curtsy.
Their entrance had caused all conversations and activities to cease. As wide-eyed and expectant as Jeffrey, many of the staff drifted closer to Mrs. Pratchett as if she was their anchor, the solid center they all relied on to hold them together.
Only the outdoor staff held aloof. Penelope noted four individuals, who, judging by their apparel and age, she took to be a coachman, a stableman, a groom, and a stableboy, all of whom elected to cluster around a grizzled veteran of a gardener, who’d been sitting at one end of the table, but now rose to his feet.
“Mrs. Pratchett,” Stokes began in a formal but reassuring tone, “we’ve permission from the dowager and also from Lady Victoria to question the staff regarding the deaths of the earl and Winslow.”
Stoutly, Mrs. Pratchett clasped her hands at her waist. “Ask away, Inspector, and we’ll see what we can tell you.”
“First,” Stokes said, “regarding the murder of the earl, did any of you see anyone in the house or lurking around it who shouldn’t have been there?” He swept the gathering with his gaze. “The time period we’re interested in is between nine-thirty and fifteen minutes past ten yesterday evening.”
Stokes paused with his gaze on the outdoor staff, but along with everyone else, they, too, shook their heads.
Mrs. Pratchett looked around her troops, then stated, “Doesn’t appear we know anything about any strangers lurking, inside or out.”
Stokes nodded in acceptance and consulted his notebook.
“The French door in the study, leading to the courtyard, was open that evening. Open and left ajar.” He raised his head and looked at the housekeeper and the footmen ranged behind her.
“Was that normal? Something the earl might have done? Gone for a stroll about the courtyard and forgotten to latch the door on his return?”
All the staff looked at each other, then, again, all shook their heads.
Mrs. Pratchett offered, “Far as I’ve ever known, the earl didn’t appreciate drafts, and he wasn’t one to seek out fresh air, either, and especially on a chilly night, as last night was.”
Barnaby noted that Jeffrey shuffled uncertainly, then glanced at Mrs. Pratchett.
She didn’t notice, so Barnaby asked, “Do any of you know why the French door to the courtyard was unlocked?”
Jeffrey looked up, went to speak, then caught himself and glanced at Mrs. Pratchett.
This time, she caught his questioning look, all but glared, and gestured for him to speak.
Jeffrey swallowed and focused on Barnaby.
“I remember it was about a year ago. I heard Winslow muttering that the earl had ordered him to unlock that French door every morning and lock it again on his rounds at night. Winslow was grumbling that it was just another door he’d have to check every night, and the Lord only knew why the earl wanted it unlocked, as he wasn’t given to wandering the courtyard. ”
Barnaby found that as strange as, transparently, the staff did. After a moment, he said, “We are correct in thinking that there is no gate between the courtyard and the lane?”
“Aye,” the gardener said. “That wall there’s solid all the way along. Only way past it is over the top.”
Stokes nodded to the man. “Thank you.”
Penelope ventured, “Regarding the earl’s use of the study, was he often to be found there?”
All the front-of-house staff nodded emphatically.
“If he was in the house,” Mrs. Pratchett declared, “and not in his bed or the dining room, he’d most likely be there, in the study. Forever working on his papers, he was.”
Stokes looked around the faces, then said, “Turning to Winslow’s death, we believe the earl was the poisoner’s intended target, but sadly, Winslow took a small tot of the whiskey in the study decanter before retiring in the early hours of this morning.”
That information caused something of a stir; clearly, many of the staff had not heard the details of Winslow’s demise.
“In the circumstances,” Barnaby said, “I think we can all agree that it was perfectly understandable for Winslow to help himself to a small whiskey. However, in this instance, that action led to a tragic outcome.”
“At present,” Stokes said, “we’re trying to discover how the poison got into the decanter.
Winslow himself told us that he’d refilled it last night, and when he returned to the study with the filled decanter, that was when he found Mrs. Alder there for her ten o’clock appointment, but by then, the earl had been murdered.
” He looked around at the faces, all of which wore serious and somber expressions.
“Can any of you confirm that, at about nine-forty-five yesterday evening, Winslow went down to the cellar and refilled the decanter?”
Several heads nodded, and Mrs. Pratchett stated, “We were mostly all here, still clearing up after the family dinner, when he came past. He was grouching about the decanter being empty.” The housekeeper looked at the footmen around her, and they readily nodded.
Jeffrey volunteered, “He was saying that he’d only filled it the day before and carrying on about how it was empty again.”
Mrs. Pratchett pulled a face, then looked at Stokes.
“Winslow blamed it on the younger gentlemen—Mr. Frederick’s sons, and Lady Cleome’s and Lady Constance’s, and even Mr. Christopher.
He claimed they’d filled their flasks, the ones they all seem to carry these days.
” She paused, then added, “Not that Winslow ever caught any of them at it—not that he said, and he would have if he had. But that was what he thought.”
“I see.” Stokes had learned not to write notes while interviewing staff; it made many people nervous.
Now, he looked at Barnaby and Penelope, then returned his attention to the staff.
“You’ll have heard that my men are searching the house for the source of the poison that killed Winslow.
I believe they’re still going through the unused rooms upstairs, but they will, eventually, need to search through here and also through your rooms as well. ”
Mrs. Pratchett tipped up her chin. “There’s a box of rat poison in the pantry, on the top shelf.”
Gruffly, the grizzled gardener volunteered, “We have some in the garden shed, too.”
“And we’ve a box in the stable.” The stableman shrugged. “These days, you have to, don’t you?”
Stokes nodded. “Thank you all for that, but in this instance, we don’t believe rat pellets were used.” He glanced at the gardener and stableman. “I assume that’s the form of rat poison you have?”
Mrs. Pratchett, the gardener, and the stableman all nodded.
“We believe it was a purer form that was used,” Barnaby revealed. “A powder.”
“Oh!” From their expressions, both the gardener and the stableman understood what that was.
The gardener said, “You mean the stuff they use in the country for larger baits?”
“Yes,” Barnaby said. “That.”
The staff exchanged glances, then the gardener volunteered, “I don’t think we’ve ever had call to use that stuff here—in this house.”
Mrs. Pratchett and the stableman nodded.
Penelope was frowning; Barnaby had noticed that she hadn’t been paying much attention to the discussion of the poison but, instead, had appeared sunk in thought.
Now, she said, “To return to the incident of the decanter being empty—empty to the point of needing to be refilled. Had that ever happened before? That it was found to be unexpectedly empty?”
Mrs. Pratchett looked uncertain and looked to the footmen.
All three footmen met her gaze and shrugged.
Mrs. Pratchett turned back to Penelope. “Not that we know of, ma’am.”
Penelope inclined her head. “Thank you.”
Stokes, who’d been quietly studying his notebook, said, “One last point. Can you confirm that, early this morning, when he completed his rounds and locked up the house, Winslow was the last member of staff downstairs? That he was the last to seek his bed?”
Everyone nodded.
“He always was the last up, every night,” Mrs. Pratchett said, and a hint of sorrow crept into her voice.
Stokes nodded and tucked away his notebook. “That will be all for the moment. Thank you. All of you.”
The staff nodded respectfully back, then started to disperse.
After a final nod to Mrs. Pratchett, with Penelope and Stokes, Barnaby turned and walked into the corridor that led to the front of the house, only to see O’Donnell, his expression eager, coming toward them.
Stokes waved his sergeant to a halt, and O’Donnell stopped and waited until they reached him.
“What have we got?” Stokes asked, his voice low.
O’Donnell held out his gloved hand. On his leather-covered palm lay a small brown-paper packet with one corner torn off and a label stuck to the front.
Also speaking quietly, O’Donnell reported, “We found this tucked away in a drawer in one of those tall chests in a room upstairs. But it looks like the room’s not been used for an age.
No clothes hanging in the wardrobe or in the drawers, and decades’ worth of dust in those places maids don’t think to clean when they’re just going through the motions. ”
Barnaby frowned. “So the room’s been tended, but not as if anyone’s sleeping there?”
O’Donnell nodded. “Aye. That’s it.”
They all leaned closer and peered at the packet. The label carried a warning in solid red letters: “Poison.” Higher on the label, closer to the top of the packet, were the letters “Strychn—.” The word was cut off where the packet was torn open.
“Can you turn it over?” Barnaby asked.
O’Donnell obliged, and they saw printing in tiny letters on the brown back of the packet.
Stokes squinted. “What does that say?”
Penelope huffed, opened her reticule, and hauled out her trusty magnifying glass. “Hold it still,” she ordered O’Donnell and bent close to study the letters.
Then, slowly, she straightened. “Chifley’s Chemist Shop. And there’s a date, or part of one, in the corner. The seventh of April, but there isn’t a year. That bit’s been torn off.” She looked at Barnaby and Stokes. “But assuming it was this year, then the packet was bought only last week.”
They considered what that meant, then Stokes turned to O’Donnell. “Get that—with all due care—to Findlay.”
“Get a sheet of paper from the study and wrap it inside,” Barnaby suggested.
“And keep your gloves on regardless,” Penelope instructed.
“Yes, sir. Ma’am,” O’Donnell replied.
Stokes had glanced back at the servants’ hall. “But before you go… Wait here.”
Stokes returned to the servants’ hall and asked Mrs. Pratchett to accompany him along the corridor to where Barnaby, Penelope, and O’Donnell waited.
When, with Stokes, the housekeeper joined them, Stokes nodded to O’Donnell. “Tell Mrs. Pratchett which room we’re looking at.” To Mrs. Pratchett, he said, “It would be helpful if you could tell us who last used the room in question.”
O’Donnell promptly described the room in terms of which corridor it lay along and how many doors from the gallery it was.
Mrs. Pratchett, who obviously knew the mansion like the back of her hand, followed the trail in her head, and when O’Donnell reached the door at the trail’s end, the housekeeper immediately supplied, “Why, that’s Mr. Frederick’s old room.
” She met Stokes’s eyes. “But he—Mr. Frederick—hasn’t used it in an age.
Not since he married and left to live in Hertford Street.
” She paused, plainly consulting her memory, then added, “Indeed, I don’t believe he’s even been inside that room, not for more than two decades.
Long before the old earl, the one before, meaning his father, died. ”
Barnaby met Stokes’s eyes, then looked at Penelope.
Penelope smiled at Mrs. Pratchett. “Thank you. That’s exactly what we needed to know.”
“You’ve been most helpful,” Barnaby assured her. “We’re leaving now, so we’ll be out of your hair.”
Stokes added his farewell, then they turned and, ushering O’Donnell before them, headed for the foyer and the front door.