Chapter 13 #3
As soon as Hilda and Gwen had settled, Penelope said, “We need to clarify the dowager’s movements so that we can be sure we know where she was and at what time on the evening the earl was killed.
We know where she was to the point of the family returning to the drawing room.
We know she dispensed tea from the trolley, then we’ve been told that, at about nine-thirty, she summoned her footmen, Edward and Thomas. ”
Penelope raised her gaze to the pair of burly footmen, who were ranged behind the cook and Hilda. “Please tell us where the dowager went next.”
Edward and Thomas looked at each other, then Edward returned his gaze to Penelope and said, “We carried her, in her chair, up the main stairs, through the gallery, to her room.”
Thomas nodded. “Like we do every night.”
Penelope inclined her head. “And that night, when you got to her room?”
“We set down the chair, and I opened the door, and Mrs. Alder—” Edward broke off, then explained, “When we were called, as she usually did, Mrs. Alder followed us from the servants’ hall and came up the stairs with us and the dowager.
So when I opened the door, Mrs. Alder wheeled the dowager into her room, just as she always did. ”
Thomas added, “And Hilda was there, waiting to help with the dowager.”
Penelope shifted her attention to Hilda.
The dowager’s maid-cum-dresser was a stoutish, solid woman with rosy cheeks and soft-brown hair.
She projected the air of a countrywoman rather than one town bred.
Penelope smiled reassuringly. “So you were there, waiting, when Mrs. Alder wheeled the dowager into her room that evening.”
Hilda nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
“And what happened next?”
“The dowager waved Mary away. She said she wouldn’t need Mary anymore that night, and Mary went off.”
Penelope frowned slightly. “Was that usual—the dowager dismissing her companion as soon as she reached the room?”
Hilda waggled her head. “It didn’t happen every night. Sometimes, the dowager liked Mary to read to her for an hour or so. But on other nights, like on Monday night, the dowager was in one of her crotchety moods and didn’t want to be read to.”
“I see.” Penelope nodded encouragingly. “So Mrs. Alder left, and then?”
Hilda’s expression remained open, and her answers flowed without restraint. “I was waiting to help the dowager get ready for bed, but after fretting for a moment, she declared she wasn’t yet sleepy, what with her mind being too full of things.”
“Things?” Penelope asked.
Hilda shrugged. “Just ‘things’—she didn’t say what.”
When Hilda didn’t go on, Penelope gently prompted, “So then…?”
“She—the dowager—sat and stared at the fire for maybe five minutes, then she had me call the footmen back. She wanted to go down to the music room.”
Penelope blinked and sat straighter. “The music room?”
Together with several of the staff, including Mrs. Pratchett, Hilda nodded. “Aye. Oftentimes, she found it hard to settle, so she’d go down there and…well, just sit in the dark and peace for a while.”
Mrs. Pratchett cleared her throat and, when Penelope, Barnaby, and Stokes glanced her way, explained, “The dowager used to play the pianoforte and the harp, both quite beautifully, when her hands were still good. She used to play to soothe herself, and these days, she just likes to sit in that room and, I suppose, remember.”
“I see.” After digesting that, Penelope raised her gaze to Edward and Thomas. “I take it you returned to the dowager’s room and carried her down to the music room.”
Both nodded. “Yes, ma’am,” Thomas said. “We left her there, just as we always did when she wanted to be alone.”
Envisioning the dowager sitting in her chair, all alone in a room full of memories, Penelope frowned. “But if she’s alone, how can she summon you when she wishes to leave?”
Mrs. Pratchett leaned forward. “Oh, the dowager can walk, ma’am. Just not very easily or for long. She always has a folding cane with her, tucked under her chair’s seat, so she can stand and reach for the bellpulls whenever she wants to call us.”
Penelope stared at the housekeeper, then rapidly rearranged her assumptions. After several moments dwelling on the newly emerging picture, she looked at Edward and Thomas. “When did the dowager summon you back?”
Edward shared a glance with Thomas. “Must’ve been about ten after the hour?”
Thomas nodded. “It was in the middle of all the ructions, what with the earl being found dead.”
Edward returned his gaze to Penelope. “We carried the dowager from the music room to the bottom of the main stairs, but then she heard all the commotion and asked what was going on. We told her that Mrs. Alder had been found standing over the earl’s dead body, and Winslow was saying as she—Mrs. Alder—had killed the master. ”
“How did she react?” Penelope asked.
“Shocked,” Thomas stated. “She was thoroughly shocked and stunned, just as you’d suppose.”
Edward nodded. “She was right taken aback. Hardly surprising.”
“She went deathly pale,” Thomas said, “but then she rallied and ordered us to take her to the drawing room.” He shrugged. “I suppose she could hear that the others—the rest of the family—were still there.”
“We carried her to the drawing room door,” Edward said, “and I opened the door, and she rolled herself in.”
“She didn’t call for us again until much later,” Thomas said. “When the police were leaving.”
Edward confirmed, “We carried her upstairs to her room then.” He paused, then added, “You saw us, I think.”
Penelope nodded. “We did.”
Hilda offered, “I was in her room—I’d stayed there, waiting—and that time, she was ready to get into her bed.”
“I see.” Penelope suppressed her incipient frown and looked first at Stokes, then at Barnaby. Both simply met her eyes and volunteered nothing. Returning her gaze to Mrs. Pratchett and the assembled staff, Penelope inclined her head. “Thank you all. I believe that’s all we needed to know.”
Everyone rose, and Mrs. Pratchett and the maids bobbed curtsies, and Jeffrey hovered, ready to conduct them to the front door. Penelope waved Jeffrey on, and with Barnaby and Stokes behind, she followed the acting butler toward the mansion’s entrance.
On reaching the foyer, she halted on the tiles, and Barnaby and Stokes flanked her. Facing Jeffrey, she stated, “We should take a look at the music room. If you could show us there?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Jeffrey bobbed a bow and turned toward the corridor that led past the study.
They followed him down that corridor, past the study door, then he turned in to another corridor, running at right angles to the first.
Halfway along that second corridor, Jeffrey halted before a door and set it swinging wide. “The music room, ma’am. Sirs.”
Penelope walked into the room. Her gaze fell on a grand piano that squatted in one corner, angled toward the room.
The opposite corner hosted a large standing harp.
In front of the harp, a love seat stood to one side of the space in the room’s center, while a small chaise sat on the other side, in front of the piano.
A quick scan of the surfaces of the piano and the side tables set beside the love seat and chaise confirmed that the room was kept dusted and ready for use.
Penelope halted in the middle of the room and looked out through the windows that took up most of the wall opposite the door, their curtains drawn wide.
She waited while Barnaby firmly dismissed Jeffrey. “We’ll call when we’re ready to leave.”
When she heard the door shut, and Barnaby’s and Stokes’s footsteps drew near, she gestured to the view beyond the wide windows and the French door between them. “And there we have it. The explanation of everything, and the one thing we didn’t know.”
Stokes grunted, and Barnaby shook his head as, along with her, they looked out into the courtyard—the same courtyard the French door in the earl’s study opened onto.
“That’s why the French door in the study was open,” Stokes said.
“And if you recall,” Penelope said, “earlier, Jeffrey told us that, about a year ago, the earl ordered Winslow to unlock that door every morning and relock it when doing his rounds at night. It was about a year ago that the earl moved the dowager from Regent’s Square to live, once more, under this roof. ”
“You think it was at her insistence that the earl had the French door unlocked?” Stokes asked.
Penelope pulled a face. “Given what we’ve learned of the earl, I imagine it was more a case of him growing irritated over having to get up from his desk and his papers and unlock the door whenever she thought to approach via that route.”
“She visited him in private, trying to influence his behavior,” Barnaby hypothesized.
Penelope nodded. “I suspect so. That fits both their characters—his resistant and recalcitrant and hers doggedly determined to advance the overall good of the family.”
Staring at the French door, presently shut, Stokes exhaled heavily. “I’m having a hard time believing where the facts are leading us.”
Penelope didn’t reply, but went forward, opened the French door, and stepped out, onto the gravel. She looked down. “No step. That would have made coming out here easier.”
Barnaby joined her, along with Stokes.
While Stokes wandered toward the study, looking in the same direction, Barnaby said, “You have to admit, it’s hard to accept.”
Frowning, Penelope nodded. “It all fits, yet I find myself asking, ‘Is that what really happened?’”
With a soft grunt, Stokes hunkered down, his gaze on the graveled ground.
After exchanging a glance, Barnaby and Penelope went to join him.
With one blunt fingertip, Stokes pointed at a deep depression, round and about the size of a sixpence.
“She needed her cane to go back and forth. She has to lean heavily on it, and as it’s been less than three days since she last came this way, we can still see the marks left by the end of the cane.
” He raised his hand and directed their attention to the line of similar indentations, spaced out along a route leading to the music-room door.
“Most likely, she holds her cane in her left hand, so these marks were made when she returned to the music room.” He swiveled on his heels and pointed to another set of similar indentations on the other side of the graveled path.
“And that’s the trail she left when she went to the study. ”
Penelope and Barnaby studied the imprints, then both straightened.
Stokes rose.
He looked at Barnaby and Penelope, who both looked steadily back.
Stokes arched a black brow. “So what do we do now?”
For a moment, none of them spoke, then Penelope heaved a sigh and said, “Now, we go and speak with the dowager and ask her why she killed her eldest son.”