Death at the Crystal Palace Read online

  “He is now in London. I wish I knew why.”

  “Ah,” Mr. Fielding said in delight. “And you would like me to find out.”

  “I would have asked Daniel, but he is very busy these days.”

  “Busy doing the police’s dirty work for them—yes, I know. Daniel asked me to look in on you from time to time for him.”

  “He did?” I halted in surprise. Not because Daniel wanted someone to make certain I was well, but because he’d asked Mr. Fielding to do it.

  “Shocking, is it not? My dear brother doesn’t trust me an inch—not that I blame him—but he has decided to give me a task looking after the most important person in the world to him.”

  My face grew warm, and I resumed my steps, speeding them a little. We reached Park Lane, and Mr. Fielding led me across the road when we found a break in traffic. We went through a gate into Hyde Park, which lay wide and green on this May afternoon.

  “James is the most important person in the world to Daniel,” I corrected him.

  “Of course,” Mr. Fielding said cynically. “Fatherhood is all. Or so I am told. Living with the hellions for the past few months has made me realize such sentiments are all puffery. Fatherhood is devilishly hard. Instinct makes us protect the children so our species will survive, and that is the whole of it. The noble ideals imposed on us about it are balderdash. I’d use a stronger word if I weren’t with a lady.”

  I’d believe him if he weren’t so adamant and red in the face. “So our species will survive?” I repeated. “Are you a follower of Mr. Darwin?”

  Mr. Fielding squeezed my arm and hopped a step, his humor restored. “I wouldn’t be a good ecclesiastical if I wasn’t,” he said with mock solemnity. “I do believe we descended from apes—why else would I know so many fellows who are the spitting image of monkeys? And some ladies too. Whether God had anything to do with that, I don’t know.”

  “Gracious, I do hope you do not speak these alarming ideas from your pulpit, Mr. Fielding.”

  “Never.” He flashed a grin. “I give them the epistles for the day and take my sermons from them. Or I read out a sermon another bloke wrote—I tell them it’s by the other bloke so no one comes ’round later and thumps me over the head with their book of collected sermons. But if I find one that’s clever, I read it. Saves me the bother of writing my own.”

  At least he studied the sermons and the lessons, I reflected. Perhaps some of the ideas in them would rub off on him.

  “We are straying from my question,” I said, “which I believe you have done on purpose. I am interested in what brings Lord Clifford to London, and if his presence poses any danger to Lady Cynthia. Her parents claim they have her best interests in mind, but I am not so certain. If they take her home to the country, she will be more or less a prisoner there. There are not many choices in life for a spinster.”

  “Even a stunningly beautiful one. She is a stunner, you will agree, Mrs. Holloway, especially in those trousers. If I had any inkling toward marriage, I’d do her the honor.” He shrugged. “Which she would turn down in a flash, so we are both safe.”

  Mr. Fielding spoke glibly, but I saw a flicker of pain in his eyes. He’d lost a woman close to him recently, a good-hearted one, and while he never spoke of her, I knew he grieved.

  “Mr. Fielding . . .”

  “I agree with you, Mrs. Holloway.” Mr. Fielding raised his hands. “They’d shut her away, fearing her oddity—or more likely, her blunt tongue. Lady Cynthia is their only surviving child, and she’s an unmarried woman with strong opinions and scandalous friends. Her ma and pa will either keep her stuck at home or try to marry her to a boring aristocrat who will squash her spirit. I don’t mind at all helping you save someone so original.”

  “Good.” I let out my breath. “I have no idea how you will go about discovering their motives, but I must beg you to be discreet.”

  “My dear woman, I am a master of discretion. I convinced the Church of England to let me take orders, didn’t I? They had to have been mad to do it, but I tend my flock well enough, and they don’t regret it thus far.”

  Mr. Fielding stood still and gazed across the massive park toward the Serpentine. The original Crystal Palace had stood on the vast green, erected the year I was born, for the Great Exhibition of science and technology. Less than a year later, the Crystal Palace had been dismantled and rebuilt—and expanded upon—in Sydenham, south of the Thames. The place had been a marvel when first opened, I’d heard, and the current incarnation was larger and even more impressive than the first.

  “I will discover Lord Clifford’s scheme,” Mr. Fielding said. His exuberance faded, and his expression became serious. “If you worry, then there is cause to. I learned that lesson. I will discover his business and impart all to you, and then we will decide how we can stop him.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Mr. Fielding walked me home. I quite enjoyed my short stroll—it was a fine day, and Hyde Park was one of the few places in London a body could find a breath of fresh air.

  Mr. Fielding bowed and tipped his hat to me when he left me at the head of the outside stairs in Mount Street.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Holloway,” he said loudly. “Your interest in charitable works for the destitute is heartening. I only wish more domestics were as compassionate about their fellow souls.”

  “You rather overdo things, Mr. Fielding,” I admonished him in a quiet voice.

  “Only giving what’s expected of me.” He dropped his volume to match mine. “Also, my speeches will keep you in the good graces of your mistress. Carry on with your fine cooking, Mrs. H. And no worries.”

  He winked, straightened his hat, and strode off, assuming a countenance of extreme piety.

  I smiled to myself as I descended to the kitchen. I liked Mr. Fielding, despite Daniel’s warnings, but I knew I could not let myself soften completely toward him. He was indeed a reprobate, which is why I’d sent him after Lord Clifford. A fraudulent man would recognize another fraudulent man’s activities.

  I entered the kitchen to find Mrs. Redfern, who relaxed in relief when she beheld me. “Thank heavens, Mrs. Holloway. Lady Clifford is on her way down.”

  “Down?” I blinked as I shrugged off my light coat and hung it on its peg. “I thought she’d send a list of changes she wanted.”

  “As did I, but she has decided to come herself.” She broke off abruptly as a light patter on the slates announced the arrival of her ladyship.

  As Lady Clifford halted languidly in the passage outside the kitchen, I was struck by how much she resembled Cynthia’s younger sister, Emily, who had first hired me to work in this house.

  Lady Clifford had the same pale hair as her daughters, a delicately boned face, light blue eyes, and an air of being too fatigued to keep herself upright. I recalled my first interview with Lady Rankin—Emily—and how she’d peered at me tiredly over her writing table and said she supposed I’d do.

  Her mother now regarded me with a similar weariness. Her gown, a cream-colored organdy, was adorned with lace on the high collar, cuffs, and placket of the bodice. The gown reminded me of those Emily had worn, and I wondered if Lady Clifford’s choice had been a deliberate one.

  Lady Clifford peered vaguely into the kitchen as Mrs. Redfern, Tess, and I quickly curtsied.

  “Mrs. . . . ?” She gazed at me, eyes half-closed as though trying to see me in the dim light.

  “Holloway, your ladyship. How may I help you?”

  “Come with me.” Lady Clifford beckoned and wandered down the passageway, me behind her, until she came to the larder.

  She gazed into the room—a long chamber lit by one high window, filled with shelves of crockery and boxes of foodstuffs, as well as empty crates that had held today’s vegetables stacked neatly, ready to be returned to the vendor. Lady Clifford entered and glanced about as though she’d never s
een a larder before.

  “The meals,” she said, not looking at me. “Too heavy. An herb salad and a bit of rice. That is all I require.”

  “I am happy to cook a special meal for you, your ladyship. To serve you at supper or on a tray, or however you like.”

  Lady Clifford’s fair brows arched. “This is for the entire family, my dear. It is growing far too warm to continue with the fare we had last night. Whole roast chickens and beef and potatoes.” She made a delicate shudder.

  “Mr. Bywater prefers it,” I explained. “He is hungry after his day in the City.”

  “Neville ought to stay home then.” For a moment, Lady Clifford’s languor slipped, and she spoke as a sister irritated with her younger brother. “And the meat pies.” Another shudder. “My dear, my brother might like them, but I loathe them. It reminds me of a horrible boardinghouse I stayed in when I first married. That was long before Reginald—his lordship—came into his inheritance.”

  “I understand, your ladyship.” I thought it unfair she decided that no one would eat what she loathed, but it was not my place to say such a thing.

  “Good. Then we’ll have no more of that. No gravies, no sauces. Simple salads, perhaps some fish from time to time, but only with lemon and a little minced herbs on the top. His lordship doesn’t like his meals fussy.”

  I knew that if I served Mr. Bywater salad, rice, and a tiny portion of dry fish with a smattering of thyme, I would have to quickly look for another post. He preferred plain fare to anything complicated, which I agreed with—food does not have to be complicated to be good—but Lady Clifford was taking things a bit far.

  “Mummy?” Cynthia’s voice floated down the back stairs, followed by the arrival of Cynthia herself, her hurry stirring the tails of her man’s frock coat. “Mummy, what are you doing down here? Papa is searching for you.”

  “Saving his digestion from these awful meals,” Lady Clifford said, as though I weren’t standing a few feet away.

  “There is nothing wrong with the meals, Mummy. Uncle likes Mrs. Holloway’s cooking. He’s cross as a bear when his stomach isn’t happy. He’ll be impossible to live with if she does not carry on as usual.”

  “We should all give in to my brother’s whims, should we?” Lady Clifford asked in annoyance.

  “Better than existing on leaves and rice. Papa washes down his meals with so much port, he never worries what he eats, if he even notices.”

  “Cynthia.” Lady Clifford became a mother now, admonishing her wayward child.

  “I’ll not be sitting down to a parsley salad every evening. I prefer more robust victuals. Whatever you are cooking for supper is fine, Mrs. Holloway.”

  “Cynthia, you are not the mistress of this house. Of any house.”

  Cynthia let the dig at her unmarried state float by. “Auntie is at the moment, and she’ll fight tooth and claw to keep Uncle happy. It really is the best way for peace in the house. You must see that.”

  Lady Clifford’s brows slammed together. “Your uncle and aunt are trumped-up nobodies.”

  “Careful, Mummy. You are Uncle’s sister, so you were a trumped-up nobody right alongside him at one time in your life.”

  Lady Clifford flushed, but she seemed to have forgotten my existence. “I married well. That is the difference.”

  “If you are waving your choice of Papa as an example of how well I can do, I will pass on marriage altogether, thank you.”

  Lady Clifford drew herself up, facing Cynthia squarely. I did not move, keeping as still as I could in the shadows.

  “Cynthia, if you believe you have a say in the matter, you are mistaken. Your father and I can no longer bear the keeping of you. You are well past the age when you ought to be married with a husband looking after you. You now exist on our charity, and that is running out. You cannot expect your aunt and uncle to keep you either.”

  Cynthia’s face lost color, but she kept her voice steady. “Papa has run through the last of the money already, has he? Only yesterday he was telling me he was in funds.”

  “For important things,” Lady Clifford said. “Not for paying the bills of a girl-child who prances about in men’s clothing trying to be shocking. You are nothing but a spoiled chit, Cynthia. If you were a son, things would be different. You’d be the heir. As it is . . .”

  Lady Clifford abruptly ceased speaking, her shoulders sagging. She pressed her hands to her face as grief broke through the wall she placed between herself and it.

  Cynthia lost her derisiveness and gathered her mother into her arms. “There now.” Her voice went soft. “Don’t take on so.” She sent me an apologetic glance. “Go on with the cooking, Mrs. H. Leave her to me.”

  I nodded, my heart squeezing in sympathy. Cynthia rubbed Lady Clifford’s back as her mother sobbed on her shoulder.

  Cynthia’s brother had taken his own life years ago, and Lord and Lady Clifford had not recovered from it. Who could? I asked myself as I slipped past Cynthia and along the passageway to the kitchen.

  No one at all. The tragedy would cling to them for their lifetime.

  * * *

  * * *

  Tess and I finished supper and placed the dishes in the dumbwaiter to be sent to the dining room. I gave them potato and leek soup, asparagus braised and sprinkled with lemon zest and parsley, slices of roast beef with a green salad—to show Lady Clifford I acknowledged her taste—and finished with the lemon cake I’d perfected last night. All plates came back empty, including Lady Clifford’s.

  “She ate every crumb,” Mr. Davis reported as he returned from supervising the serving upstairs. He slid off his coat and hung it on the back of a chair in the servants’ hall, where Tess and I were taking our evening meal, and slumped into the chair. “His lordship, if you please, told me the wine he took—and opened far too soon—did not go with the beef, and he didn’t think much of the vintage. If Lord Clifford had asked me instead of helping himself, I’d have decanted a nice Côtes du Rhône, which would have done splendidly.”

  He shook his head and snatched up a newspaper that lay askew on the table.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Davis,” I said around my mouthfuls of shepherd’s pie—which had turned out well, the potato crust browned and tasty. “I tried to stop him.”

  “Nothing you could have done, Mrs. Holloway.” Mr. Davis began turning over the leaves of the newspaper. “He’s a lordship, and we’re not. Perfectly fine if they steal things, innit?” Mr. Davis’s polished tones often slipped when he was angry. “Speaking of aristocrats, it seems the police have begun rounding up the blokes who assassinated those gentlemen in Dublin last week. What’s the world coming to?”

  “What have Irish murderers to do with aristos?” Tess asked. She’d already made short work of her shepherd’s pie and lingered over a cup of tea. “Seems like the men what did the stabbings were the opposite of genteel. Fenians and their like.”

  Last week, in a place called Phoenix Park in Dublin, the chief secretary for Ireland and the Irish undersecretary had both been brutally and shockingly murdered, stabbed to death in the early evening as they walked home through the park.

  “I mean the police are talking to some of the peerage.” Mr. Davis tapped the page. “Doesn’t say whether the aristos were helping the assassins or are friends of the deceased.” He peered more closely at the paper. “This fellow here seems familiar, but I can’t place him.”

  I rose to look over his shoulder at the small photograph he indicated. It was blurry, but the man Mr. Davis had his finger on was clear enough, with a short gray beard, a tall hat, a severe suit, and an even more severe frown. His name was not stated in the text around it, but if the man was a peer, the newspaper would hardly wish to be sued for libel for implying he had a hand in the murders.

  It was the man half behind the first who caught my eye. He’d turned his face away from the camera, as though not wanti
ng to be seen, so only a part of his jaw and slicked back hair under a top hat could be viewed. However, I knew that curve of jaw, the thick dark hair, and the manner of standing very, very well.

  He might not wish to show his face, but the man behind the stern aristocrat was Daniel McAdam.

  8

  Mr. Davis did not notice my unease as I peered at the photograph, nor did he recognize Daniel. I would not have had I not been as familiar with Daniel as I was. His guise as a gentleman completely absorbed him.

  I resumed my seat as Mr. Davis perused the article. “Seems funds have moved from England to Ireland, but they don’t know from whom. The Irish Home Rule question is so heated I wouldn’t put it past some of our gents to sabotage it. Or help it along. It’s hard to say.”

  Usually, when Mr. Davis started going on about political doings, I let my mind wander. Now I lifted my teacup and slurped a good bit of tea without noticing the taste. What had Daniel to do with this peer? And the assassinations in Ireland?

  I knew Daniel got himself involved in dangerous undertakings, but this one was truly terrifying. The anarchists responsible for these killings—a group named the Invincibles—would stop at nothing to murder Daniel if they thought he hunted them.

  But why on earth should Daniel be after these assassins at all? The police in Dublin had already arrested several men, and the newspapers had reported that even more culprits had been found. The photograph Mr. Davis pointed out had been taken here in London, outside the Houses of Parliament, nowhere near Ireland.

  No, Daniel must have been with this gray-bearded man for other reasons, and a journalist had taken the opportunity to snap their photo as they emerged from the building.

  The question gnawed at me. When Mr. Davis abandoned the paper and focused on the shepherd’s pie I’d fetched him from the kitchen, I read the entire article.

  The journalist remained vague about what English or Irish peers they suspected had given the anarchists help and instead concentrated on the assassins involved—one with the interesting moniker of James “Skin-the-Goat” Fitzharris—and the grief of the murdered men’s families. The fact that the victims were gentlemen prominent in the government caused very real concern. Would the prime minister be next? The queen herself?