A Soupçon of Poison Read online

  Difficult this time of year. Families of the big Mayfair houses were mostly gone to the country, and those who hadn’t left already were packing to head out for the hunting and shooting seasons.

  After that would be Christmas and New Years’, the majority of society families not returning until spring. So many already had cooks installed in their London houses, cooks who went on preparing meals for the skeleton staff in the winter or for renters.

  The minor gentry also went to the country or else they wanted a woman who’d plunk a joint of beef and watery potatoes in front of the family every evening and naught else. At least when Sir Lionel had been baiting me, he’d stretched my abilities and let me create meals worthy of a master chef.

  I came away from the agency the days I visited it depressed and disgruntled. I might have to swallow my pride, hunt up Daniel, and take the post at Berkeley Square.

  I did make a journey south of the river to see Sally, who had indeed returned home. She flew at me and hugged me, having believed me already convicted and hanged even in this short time. She was not much help, though. She knew nothing of the sugar caster or of the extra box of polish. She wasn’t allowed to polish the silver, only to wash plates and crockery. The sugar caster never came near her sink, and she never went to the dining room or Sir Lionel’s library.

  She had nothing but honest innocence and confusion in her eyes, and I came away, unenlightened. She was about to start a new post in another kitchen, she said, thankfully. Her family needed her wages.

  James arrived at the boardinghouse to visit me about a week after that. He did not actually come to the back door and request to speak with me; he simply skulked about in the street until I went out.

  He told me with his usual cheerfulness that Daniel had found the footman, John, who was in Dorset, as I’d suspected. John was in raring good health, thank the Lord. Daniel had asked John to give him the gloves he’d used when serving that last meal and taken them away.

  Daniel’s chemist had tested the caster and found it coated with arsenic. That sort of thing could seep through the fingers or be eaten, with the same result—horrible illness and probable death. It could happen quickly, or take time—there must have been much of the stuff on the caster. Mrs. Fuller had indeed been very lucky.

  When James finished giving me this news, I decided to ask him what I had been wondering about him point blank. “James, does it bother you that your father is not what he seems?”

  The lad considered my question, his father’s brown eyes in his smudged young face regarding me calmly. “I lived with the charwoman, as I said. She had a man also boarding in her house who wanted to use me as his fancy boy and beat me regular when I refused. One day, me dad—Mr. McAdam, as ye know him—came along, had the man arrested, and took me away.”

  James rubbed under his lower lip. “At the time, I thought me dad were the same—a man what liked boys, only he had a few more coins to rub together. But he got angry when I accused him of that. He told me he was my pa and would take care of me now. He showed me how we looked alike, and he knew all about my ma—may she rest in peace—and eventually, I believed him.”

  He shrugged. “Dad comes and goes all the time. I never asked where. If he has a posh house and family besides me—well some gents do, don’t they? A house for the wife and one for the mistress? A house for his legitimate family, and one for his by-blows?”

  I listened with mixed emotions. Daniel had been good to rescue James and make sure he was well looked after. On the other hand, James made a true point about gentlemen leading double lives.

  “Thank you for telling me,” was all I could think to say.

  James grinned. “Don’t look so primmed up, missus. I’ve always known I weren’t the Prince of Wales. I’m a gent’s bastard, Dad’s kind to me, and I get by.”

  Would that I could take such a casual attitude. Daniel indeed led a double life—a triple one, perhaps.

  However, I’d had my fill of men who did whatever they pleased, never mind who they trampled over or cast aside along their way, uncaring of how many women bore their children and were left to raise them on their own.

  “Thank you, James, for telling me the news. I know you had no need to keep me informed.”

  “Thought you’d like to know. Dad said you’d be interested but didn’t think you’d want to see him.”

  “He thought right.” I dug into my pocket and pulled out a coin, but James lifted his hands and stepped away.

  “Don’t insult me now,” he said. “I did ya a favor.” He renewed his grin, tipped his cap, and jogged away into the busy London street.

  ***

  When next I had the time, I made my way to Pimlico to visit Mrs. Watkins. Daniel might be questioning Mrs. Fuller and her staff up and down, but I wanted to quiz Mrs. Watkins again about that bloody sugar caster.

  I met her in the sitting room of her sister’s boardinghouse. She was having the same difficulty as I in landing a new post, but I imagined she’d find one before I did. More Londoners needed housekeepers while they were away than wanted to bother with cooks, especially cooks of my calibre.

  “Perhaps I should open a restaurant,” I said. “Though where I’d find the funds for such an endeavor, I have no idea.”

  “You’d soon tire of it,” Mrs. Watkins said with conviction. “Instead of cooking for one table that complains, there’d be many tables complaining all night. My sister ran a restaurant for a time, but gave it up for a boardinghouse. An easier task, she says.”

  The maid brought tea, Mrs. Watkins poured, and we drank.

  “Are you certain about that sugar caster?” I asked after we’d sipped.

  Mrs. Watkins coughed, set down her teacup, and wiped her mouth with a napkin. “The one you asked me about before? Of course I am certain, Mrs. Holloway. I would have noticed it.”

  I took another sip of tea. The service was elegant, delicate porcelain with sprays of pink roses on it. No silver in sight, except for the small teaspoons. “You see, Mrs. Watkins, John says he saw the caster there. So did Mrs. Fuller. And Copley stole it, the wretch, hiding it to take away later. So you must have either been extremely unobservant, or are telling me an untruth.”

  “Well, you may believe what you like.” Mrs. Watkins’s indignation made her cup tremble as she picked it up again. “John is not bright, Copley only saw a silver piece he could steal, and Mrs. Fuller is obviously lying. She must have poisoned the meal, perhaps in the wine. They poured that themselves.”

  I sipped tea again and gave a little shrug. “It may be as you say.”

  “I will tell you what I think.” Mrs. Watkins leaned forward, the cameo at her throat moving. “That delivery man, Daniel McAdam, as was always hanging about the house. He must have had something to do with it. There’s something not quite pukka about him.”

  I nodded, saying nothing.

  I had, in fact, considered Daniel as a suspect. He certainly was good at misleading. If he’d been watching Sir Lionel as he’d said, having Sir Lionel report to him, perhaps he’d begun to see the man as a danger.

  Sir Lionel could report to these bad people that Daniel was requiring Sir Lionel to give him information. To shut Sir Lionel’s mouth, Daniel poisoned the caster and got it to the table somehow—perhaps through Copley. When I was arrested for his deed, he felt remorse and decided to help me.

  I had not pursued this line of thought, because my emotions about Daniel were jumbled, and I refused to trust my own judgment where he was concerned, at least not for the moment.

  The maid brought in a stack of clean plates and began to lay them on the long table on the other side room. Tea would be served to the other tenants soon, and I ought to go.

  I rose, but instead of leaving, I walked to the table. The maid was setting at one end a silver cream pot, sugar bowl with lumps of sugar in it, and sugar caster for the finer sugar that would be sprinkled on tea cakes.

  I took up the caster, turned it over, and examined the hallmark, f
inding it identical to the one on the caster we’d found at Sir Lionel’s.

  The maid, ignoring me, moved to the other end of the table and laid out a twin of the cream pot and sugar bowl—two sets for a large number of diners.

  I moved to her, lifting the second sugar bowl as though admiring it. “Do you have two of everything?”

  “We do,” the maid said, continuing to lay out forks and spoons. “It’s not posh silver, but it’s nice looking, I think. Except for the second sugar caster. That’s gone missing.”

  I turned around to Mrs. Watkins, the caster and sugar bowl in my hand. Her face had become a peculiar shade of green.

  “So the caster didn’t come from Mrs. Fuller,” I said to Mrs. Watkins. “It came from here.”

  A number of things happened at once. The maid looked up in surprise, her expression holding nothing but bewilderment. The door to the parlor opened and Mrs. Watkins’s sister rushed inside. Mrs. Watkins left the sofa and came at me in a run.

  Certain Mrs. Watkins meant to attack me, I held up my hands protectively, the silver pieces still in them. Her sister, Mrs. Herbert, came after her.

  At the last minute, Mrs. Watkins swung around, putting herself across me like a shield. “Leave her be,” she said swiftly. “Mrs. Holloway knows nothing. She’ll say nothing.”

  I stared in surprise at Mrs. Herbert, the sister, and then realized that I’d seen her before—in a photo in Sir Lionel Leigh-Bradbury’s library. She was older now—that photo had been of a fresh-faced young woman. I recognized the straight nose and regular features, the happy eyes of that girl. Now cynicism and age lined her face.

  “Who are you?” I blurted out.

  “I was his affianced,” Mrs. Herbert snapped. “I broke the engagement when I realized what a parsimonious, evil little man he was. I married a better man. And then Sir Lionel ruined him. My Charles died in disgrace and penury, because of him.”

  Thoughts rearranged themselves rapidly in my head. Mrs. Watkins swearing the sugar caster hadn’t been there, John swearing it had, and Copley plucking it from the table after supper and hiding it.

  “You gave Copley the poisoned polish and told him he must use it, didn’t you?” I asked Mrs. Herbert. “Paying him a nice sum for his services? I have no idea if he knew what it was—he might have been more careful if he did. Then you told Copley to carry the caster to the table. I shouldn’t wonder if you promised him he could have it. If his greed made him ill or killed him, so much the better.”

  Mrs. Watkins, whom I’d never seen less than dignified, shook with tears. “Oh, Letty. How could you?”

  “I have no remorse,” Mrs. Herbert said, her head high. “Sir Lionel held a minor government post, and he filled enough ears with lies to have my Charles investigated for treason. The case dragged on and on until Charles sickened and died. He was proved innocent in the end, but too late for him. Sir Lionel killed my husband, as good as stabbing him through the heart.”

  “Is that why you stuck my carving knife into him?” I asked. “To make a point?”

  Mrs. Herbert looked momentarily puzzled. “I never went into the house. Or near it.”

  Of course she hadn’t. That way, nothing would connect her to the crime. The damning sugar caster would be taken away by Copley, cleaned and sold. No one would know it came from Mrs. Herbert’s house.

  But Copley had bungled it, lost his nerve, possibly when John had come to clear the table, and stuffed the caster into the rubber tree’s pot to be retrieved later. He’d been caught going back into the house to find it and the other pieces he’d stashed, while the poison was working inside him to make him sick.

  I could picture Copley creeping up to Sir Lionel’s library, where the man sat, dead already, to stick my carving knife into his back to both ensure the man was dead and throw blame upon me. The scullery maid had heard him moving about and came to fetch me, so Copley had to flee back upstairs and pretend to be just waking up, no time to pick up the caster.

  And then the house had been full of police, rambling all over it for the next day or so, and Copley had made himself scarce to wait until the house was empty again. He couldn’t have known that I’d be released from prison and Daniel would be watching to catch him.

  “How could you?” Mrs. Watkins repeated. “A second man died, and his wife was taken ill.”

  “Copley is ill as well,” I put in.

  Mrs. Watkins went on, ignoring me. “Any of us in that house could have touched that piece or used the polish, Letty. John, the scullery maid, Mrs. Holloway, even me.”

  Mrs. Herbert scowled. “Would serve you right for working for that monster, taking his money.”

  “I did it for you.” Mrs. Watkins began to sob. “I was trying to discover how to ruin him. For you!”

  Mrs. Herbert paused at that, then her expression hardened. “I am not sorry that Sir Lionel is dead. My Charles has been avenged.”

  With that, she came at me in a rage. Mrs. Watkins caught her sister before she could reach me. I was about to spring forward and give Mrs. Herbert a good thump, when the woman’s heel caught on the carpet, and she collapsed to the sofa.

  The strength went out of her, her face growing pale, her pupils narrowing to pinpricks. Her breath came in gasps, full-blown hysteria on its way.

  Mrs. Watkins sank down beside her sister, crying as well, the two of them becoming a wailing mess. The maid looked on in shock.

  I put down the silver pieces, opened my bag, removed my smelling salts, and went to the two ladies, waving the little bottle under their noses.

  Mrs. Watkins sat up abruptly, but Mrs. Herbert remained slumped against the sofa’s back, breathing hard. I could see the innocent beauty she’d been before she’d been trapped by Sir Lionel. Sir Lionel had been an odious man, and I couldn’t help believe he’d been justly punished.

  On the other hand, there was nothing to say Mrs. Herbert wouldn’t simply become a crazed poisoner. She’d not worried a bit about the rest of us being sickened as well, from the Fullers—people she’d never met—to her own sister. In addition, I’d almost been tried for the crime, my fate, certain hanging.

  I took from my bag the vial of laudanum I’d brought for the purpose of subduing Mrs. Watkins—because I’d thought it she who’d poisoned Sir Lionel and the Fullers. While Mrs. Herbert lay gasping like a fish, I held her nose and poured the laudanum into her mouth, forcing her to swallow.

  Mrs. Watkins was still crying, but she made no move to stop me. Perhaps she too worried that her sister had gone a bit mad.

  After that, I strode out of the room and out of the house, in search of a constable. I nearly ran into James, who was hovering near the railings that separated the house from the street.

  “Gracious, what are you doing here?” I asked him.

  “Following you,” James said. “Dad told me to. You all right?”

  “No. Fetch a constable, will you? I’ve found the poisoner of Sir Lionel Leigh-Bradbury.”

  I had the satisfaction of seeing young James gape at me before his face cleared, and he beamed.

  “I knew you could do it!” he shouted, then was away in a flash, running to find the nearest constable.

  Chapter Eleven

  I was never certain what happened to Mrs. Herbert. She was arrested, likely shut in to the same kind of cell I had been, her trial scheduled.

  I walked away from Mrs. Watkins, her house, Sir Lionel’s, and all the rest of it. I visited my daughter again, holding her close until I could breathe once more.

  I knew, though, that I’d never be free of it in my heart. I’d lived in a house where a man had been poisoned and died, and I’d condemned a woman to death for it. She’d go to the crowded cell in Newgate where I had waited in fear, only she would not be set free.

  I’d met Daniel, half fallen in love with him and had been sorely deceived by him. After Grace’s father deserted me, I’d vowed I’d never let a man trick me again, and yet the first fine pair of eyes I saw, I was off. I badly needed
to curb these tendencies.

  My agency did at last find me a post a few weeks later, in a large house in Richmond. The lady of the house had heard of my cooking from my previous employer, Mrs. Pauling, and was happy to have me.

  Richmond was a bit far from my daughter for my taste, but the pay was good, I had an ample number of days out, and it was only a short train ride to the heart of London. Perhaps I could bring Grace out to Richmond to visit me, and we could walk along the river and see the sights. She’d like that.

  The house was a good place, with the kitchen run efficiently—even more so once I’d taken command.

  One cold winter day, as I went over a list of what I needed to prepare supper, a gentleman walked, unannounced, into the kitchen.

  This house had a large servants’ hall across the passage from the big kitchen, its own laundry rooms, housekeeper’s parlor, a butler’s pantry far larger than the closet-sized one at Sir Lionel’s, and a fairly cozy bedroom down the corridor for me. The corridor and rooms were always teeming with the servants needed to tend a large household.

  The gentleman could only have entered the servants’ area by coming down the stairs that led to the main house, or in through the scullery door from outside. Either way, he’d have been noticed and politely questioned by the three strapping footman, the butler—who was a proper butler and not a wastrel like Copley—and the housekeeper, long before he reached the kitchen.

  However, no one seemed to have stopped him, and the entire staff, when I looked around, was startlingly absent.

  The gentleman was Daniel. He was dressed in what I would say were middle-class clothes—not so posh as the ones I’d seen him wear in Oxford Street, but not so scruffy as his work trousers and boots. His hair was tamed but not pomaded, a bit rumpled, but combed flat. He set a hat and pair of leather gloves on my kitchen table and rested one hip on the tabletop as though perfectly at home.

  “It is good to see you, Kat.”

  I waited a few heartbeats until I was certain my voice would not crack. “Good day, Mr. McAdam. How is James?”