Death in Kew Gardens Read online

  I gentled my tone. “Forgive me. I know it must be difficult being far from home.” I’d never been farther than Cornwall, and though I’d found it lovely, I’d longed to return to London with all my might.

  To my concern, his eyes filled with tears. “Indeed.” The sadness in his voice tugged at me. “Very difficult.”

  I put an impulsive hand on his arm. “My dear sir, I am so sorry. Might you tell me your name? Then you would know at least one person in London. I am Mrs. Holloway.”

  He hesitated, gazing at my hand on his arm. I lifted it quickly, wondering if I’d just insulted him again.

  “Li,” he said after a moment. “That is my name.”

  “Excellent. Well, Mr. Li, now that we are friends, perhaps I can accept the gift you are so generously bestowing. As long as it is not too extravagant, mind.”

  The box was small and did not look very costly, but one never knew what was inside boxes until one opened them.

  “It is, as you say, a trifle.”

  “If you promise,” I said doubtfully.

  A smile pulled at the corners of Mr. Li’s mouth. “It is tea.”

  “Oh,” I said, pleased. A good cup of tea was a fine thing. “Thank you, Mr. Li. You are kind.”

  “It is you who are kind, Mrs. Holloway.”

  I decided to end our effusion of politeness by taking the box. The wood was intricately carved but the box was light.

  “There now,” I said, not certain how to gracefully take my leave. “If ever you have need of a friend, Mr. Li, I am the cook in the house yonder.” I pointed to it. “I am extremely busy most of the time, but if you do need help, do not hesitate . . .”

  I trailed off, realizing I spoke to empty air. Mr. Li had slipped into the shadows as I’d pompously waved at the great house. I glimpsed him walking swiftly along Mount Street toward Berkeley Square, but I soon lost sight of him in the lowering mist. The beggars had taken their food and gone, and I stood alone.

  Chuckling at myself, I tucked the box into my basket and returned home.

  I left the basket in the larder, but the tea I took upstairs to my bedchamber and locked into the bottom drawer of my bureau. It was my tea, and I would not risk Mr. Davis happening upon it, and my gift disappearing down his throat.

  * * *

  • • •

  In the morning, Sunday, as I was about to pour out the batter-like dough for the breakfast crumpets, Lady Cynthia rushed into the kitchen.

  She did this often, as she found the company of her aunt and uncle stifling and many of their guests a bore. The accepted life of a spinster was not for her. She demonstrated this today by appearing in trousers—riding breeches to be exact—with boots to her knees and a waistcoat, long-tailed coat, and neatly tied cravat.

  As she kept to her feet, I remained standing, as did Tess, Charlie, who tended the fire, and Emma, who’d come in to help convey breakfast to the dining room.

  “I thought you’d like to know right away, Mrs. H.,” Lady Cynthia said. “There was a death last night. Sir Jacob Harkness.”

  “Oh, dear.” I’d never liked Sir Jacob—what little I’d seen of him—but I felt a dart of sympathy. Sudden death was always sad, difficult for the family. “Poor man. Was he ill?”

  “No, indeed. Fit as a proverbial fiddle.” Lady Cynthia’s voice was as robust as ever. “That’s why I’m telling you. He was murdered. Stabbed through the heart in his own bedchamber. The police are even now swarming the house next door, questioning everyone in sight.”

  2

  I stared at her in shock. The others froze in consternation, Tess behind me, Charlie poised with a shovelful of coal, Emma at the dumbwaiter.

  “Good heavens,” I exclaimed. “What happened? Were they robbed?”

  “Don’t know,” Cynthia admitted. “I have my knowledge from Sir Jacob’s valet, Sheppard, who came charging around to tell Uncle, most upset. Lady Harkness is in hysterics, and Aunt Izzie has gone to calm her down. Not the person I’d want with me if I were upset, but there was no stopping her.”

  Before I could ask more, the back door banged open, and one of the housemaids from next door burst in. “Oh, Mrs. Holloway, Mrs. Finnegan says, will you come?”

  Mrs. Finnegan was the Harkness family cook, and she was disorganized on the best of days. She would be in a right mess now.

  I glanced at the pots burbling on the stove, boiling the eggs for the family’s and servants’ breakfasts. The crumpet dough rested on the table, ready to be poured into rings on the stove. “Tess . . .”

  “Go on,” she said, waving me off. “I can manage. I know you like to be in the thick of things.”

  “Not at all,” I said coolly. “I’m certain their kitchen is at sixes and sevens, and I ought to help.”

  “Right you are, Mrs. H.” Tess winked at me and moved to take over the crumpets.

  “Not too long on the hob,” I told her. “Or they’ll burn on the outside and be raw on the inside.” I called the last words as I hurried down the passage to the housekeeper’s parlor, where I kept my coat.

  “I know.” Tess’s voice rose behind me. “I do pay attention when ya teach me things.”

  I snatched my coat from its peg and put it on over my apron. I saw no sign of Mr. Davis in the hall or in his pantry—I guessed he was upstairs watching the footmen ready the dining room for breakfast.

  Lady Cynthia waited for me at the back door and accompanied me out through the scullery to the street.

  A small crowd had gathered before the house next door. They glanced with envy at Lady Cynthia and me as I walked around the railings and down the stairs to the kitchen. Cynthia continued to the front door, where she was quickly admitted.

  I’d been correct about the kitchen being in chaos. Mrs. Finnegan sweated desperately over a stove that was nowhere near as well ordered as mine. She shouted commands at a kitchen maid who wept and paid no attention.

  The table, strewn with flour and blotched with butter and grease, held a pile of kippers on its wooden surface. I suppressed my distaste. I would have put the lack of cleanliness down to the violent crime in the household, but I’d been in Mrs. Finnegan’s kitchen before.

  “Mrs. Finnegan,” I said loudly over the fizzling stove and the maid’s histrionics.

  Mrs. Finnegan swung around. She was a large woman with greasy black hair stuffed into a soiled cap and burn marks on her cheeks. She was not an unfriendly woman, but now she glared at me.

  “There you are, Mrs. Holloway. You took your time fetching her, Jane. Her ladyship wants breakfast for all the coppers rushing over the house, accusing the servants of stabbing the master to death.”

  “I’ve only just heard.” I stripped off my coat, found a place to hang it out of danger of spattering fat, and took up a towel that looked somewhat clean. “Cease your crying, child,” I said kindly to the kitchen maid. “Fetch a plate for these kippers, and scrub off the table. The best cure for an upset is hard work.”

  The kitchen maid obviously did not agree, but she hurried to obey.

  While the maid cleaned up the mess, I looked over the boiling eggs, the bacon frying in an inch of grease, potatoes bubbling in another pot, and a basket of yellow onions starting to brown.

  “If you’re feeding policemen, make a nice hash,” I suggested to Mrs. Finnegan. “They won’t expect to sit down to a polished meal.”

  Mrs. Finnegan gave me a surly nod. “Best get to chopping those onions, then. I have pork from yesterday’s roast, and plenty of scone scraps from the garden party.”

  The leftover scones proved to be in another basket, hard and stale. But stale breads could be added to other dishes to give them body.

  I moved the onions to the table, which the maid had finished wiping, picked out a few of the best ones, and fell to slicing.

  “Tell me what happened,” I said.

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p; “I don’t know, do I?” Mrs. Finnegan jerked a greenish copper pot from the rack above her head and slammed it to the stove, dumping in the bacon she fished from the frying pan. “I was starting the breakfast when Sheppard bursts in, shrieking the master was dead. Next thing I know, housekeeper is hailing a constable, and in they come, demanding us to tell them whether we’d killed the master. I never see the master, I say to them. I keep to my kitchen and my little cubby for sleeping. But you know what coppers are like. Everyone is a villain, in their minds.”

  I had encountered such policemen before, so I could not argue. “Jane—what do you know about it?”

  Jane, the maid who’d retrieved me from next door, shook her head. “Nothing much, ma’am. I was on the upstairs landing, dusting as usual, when Mr. Sheppard comes rushing down, yelling his head off. When I peeked up the stairs, I see the mistress coming out of the master’s chamber, Mrs. Redfern holding her up. I went down to the kitchen to find out what was the matter, and Mr. Sheppard is here, babbling that the master is dead. Cook had to give him brandy to calm him down.”

  Mrs. Redfern was the Harkness housekeeper. The household did not employ a butler—Mr. Sheppard filled the butler’s duties.

  “And now the police are questioning all of us,” Mrs. Finnegan said sourly. “The master went out last night, so Sheppard said, to that Kew Gardens place, which the master gives so many of his plants to. They’re asking when he came home, who did he meet, did anyone return with him? As though we take all the master’s particulars.”

  “Where is Mr. Sheppard now?” I asked.

  “Policemen have him cornered upstairs,” Jane said. “They think he did it. But he couldn’t have, could he? Mr. Sheppard faints when he sees a mouse.”

  But a man afraid of mice might not necessarily be afraid to fight or kill, especially when threatened. I agreed, however, it was highly unlikely that timid Mr. Sheppard had decided to murder his master and then run downstairs to announce the fact.

  “The house wasn’t broken into?”

  “No one has said that.” Mrs. Redfern chose to enter the room as I asked the question. “Good morning, Mrs. Holloway.”

  “Mrs. Redfern.” I gave her a nod. She and I were not on the most cordial terms, likely because we both knew our own minds and were not willing to retreat from our opinions.

  Jane, who should have returned to her duties upstairs, curtsied stiffly to Mrs. Redfern and hurried contritely out.

  “Very kind of you to assist us, Mrs. Holloway,” Mrs. Redfern said. “But scarcely necessary.” She gave me a sharp look from eyes that were intelligent and watchful.

  “On the contrary,” I answered. “Mrs. Finnegan is rushed off her feet. I have suggested a hash for the constables, since you need to feed them. Browned onions give it a nice flavor.”

  As I spoke, I chopped the onions into a careful dice, my knife making a tick, tick, tick sound on the table.

  Mrs. Redfern folded her arms, the keys on her belt clanging. “Since I know you will be eager to learn all, I will tell you this, Mrs. Holloway. Sheppard entered the master’s chamber early, as Sir Jacob likes to rise and breakfast at six. Sheppard found the master in bed, in his dressing gown and nightshirt, with a stab wound in the middle of his chest amidst a quantity of blood. Turned the white sheets quite red, he said.”

  I have a good imagination, and the description made me a bit queasy. The kitchen maid sank into a chair—a maid should never sit when senior staff is present, but I do not think the poor girl knew up from down at the moment.

  Mrs. Redfern ignored her and continued. “Sheppard lost his nerve and bolted out of the room, shouting hysterically, which woke the mistress, who, I am sorry to say, ran in and saw her husband lying there, dead. I put Lady Harkness back to bed, she being upset, as you can imagine, and went out and found the constable on his beat. He fetched a sergeant, and he fetched a fellow from Scotland Yard, who is now investigating. One of the ground-floor windows was open, so it is likely the culprit entered and exited that way.”

  Mrs. Finnegan dumped cut-up pork into the pot with the bacon and scattered flour over all. I would have added some mushroom ketchup and cloves to give the hash flavor, but Mrs. Finnegan only poured in a handful of salt and mashed everything together.

  “The police should stop accusing us of doing him in,” Mrs. Finnegan said darkly. “Next thing you know, they’ll cart the lot of us to jail.”

  The kitchen maid gasped again. I wiped my hands and patted her shoulder. “If it’s an open window, they’ll believe it an intruder.” I longed to examine the window in question, but I would have to invent an excuse to go upstairs. “Stands to reason. Why would any of you murder Sir Jacob?”

  Mrs. Redfern’s lips pinched. “Nothing has been stolen, that we can find. Sir Jacob’s watch and purse with his money were in their places, all as should be. But the master never made a secret that he left us each a small legacy in his will, so of course, one of us killed him for our fifty guineas. Or the mistress did it for all the money he’d leave her.” Her icy stare told me what she thought of these theories.

  Sir Jacob had certainly been generous—fifty guineas was a good sum, enough to ease a person’s way in the world. I’d observed while working in great houses that often those who had little or started with little were more lavish and openhanded than those who were used to wealth. I’d known the cook to a duke who’d nearly beggared the woman while he lived in ease upstairs, while a man who started in the gutter paid his servants handsomely.

  “That’s as may be,” I said. “But none of the servants would have reason to climb in through the window. And if you are like me, you prefer to be fast asleep in the middle of the night, not skulking about the house with a knife.”

  The kitchen maid nodded fervently, and Mrs. Finnegan looked relieved.

  I returned to my task of preparing the onions and carried them to the stove to brown. I advised Mrs. Finnegan to add the meat and gravy she’d just made to the onion pan, and though she stared at me in puzzlement, she obeyed. We added the potatoes after that, stirring all together and letting the hash sizzle.

  “Why did your master go to Kew Gardens in the middle of the night?” I asked Mrs. Redfern. “Surely, the place would be shut.”

  “It wasn’t the middle of the night,” Mrs. Redfern answered. “It was seven of the clock. Sir Jacob bade Sheppard fetch a hansom, and off they went. Sheppard accompanies him everywhere. He says that once they were there, he lost the master in the fog for a few minutes. He swears he saw him talking to someone off in the mist, but he can’t be certain. They came home just before nine, and Sir Jacob went to bed.”

  “I see.” I briefly wondered whether the person Sir Jacob met at Kew had followed him home and committed the deed.

  Then again, the journey to Kew might have nothing to do with his death—if Sir Jacob shared his exotic plants with the gardens, he might have met with a person there to discuss such things when they wouldn’t be disturbed by punters coming to gaze on the flora. Still, it seemed an odd time for a garden appointment.

  Once we had the hash finished, I helped Mrs. Finnegan set it in a covered pan to be carried up to the constables. Mrs. Redfern departed, muttering that someone had to keep an eye on the goings-on upstairs.

  The dumbwaiter in this house had ceased to work a year ago; Sir Jacob had never bothered to have it fixed, so the maids and footmen lugged the food up themselves.

  I volunteered to help carry the trays and plates to the dining room so I might have a look about. I had never been anywhere but the servants’ areas in this house, and when I emerged from the back stairs, I was astonished to find the main floor decorated with every part and parcel of China that could be fitted into a packing crate and transported on a steamer.

  There were many-drawered cabinets of red polished wood, chairs with curved backs, screens painted with lavish scenes, and settees upholstered in red an
d strewn with tasseled cushions. Scrolls of silk, some with Chinese writing on them, others with pictures, hung on the walls.

  Objets d’art crammed every available space the cabinets and tables provided. I saw carved wooden boxes, as well as vases, bowls, and pots of many shapes, sizes, and colors. One lovely bowl of translucent porcelain, a blue dragon dancing around its sides, caught my eye. It was exquisite, like a breath of air.

  There appeared to be no organization for these things—they were simply jammed onto every shelf and surface or piled on the floor.

  A long table of exotic wood filled the center of the dining room, surrounded by ordinary factory-made chairs. The sideboards held plenty of lacquerware and thin vases, but these were for decoration, not use.

  We set our trays onto silver racks that had small candle burners beneath to keep the food warm. The plates the policemen would eat from were plain, not the exquisite Chinese porcelain the family used.

  I had worked in houses whose owners had collected chinoiserie—furniture made in the Chinese style and lavishly decorated with black lacquer and gold paint. The Harknesses, however, had brought home the true China—or at least what the Chinese would sell to foreigners—with furniture in rich woods, lovely porcelain, and scrolls with beautiful calligraphy.

  The wooden boxes reminded me of the one Mr. Li had given me, carved with curlicues and flowers. I admitted I valued the box more than the tea inside—I drank tea every day, but it was not often I was given such a fine container.

  The Harknesses had piled up a treasure trove, and pile was the correct verb. The things sat haphazardly, as though we walked through a warehouse, not a home.

  I peeked inside the room Jane whispered to me held the unlocked and open window. It was a drawing room, also filled with Chinese souvenirs and glass cases. One of those cases lay on its side, smashed, presumably where the thief had knocked it over while climbing into or out of the house.