Dear Laura (16 page)

But she had run her course, and was sorry she had said so much.

‘Besides what, Kate, my dear? You’ve given me change for a gold guinea already – another few coppers won’t harm us!’

It was what you said about somebody trying to blame Mrs
Crozier by throwing her pills out, and taking morphine so as it looked like she’d done it. May God forgive me if I wrong him,’ cried Kate, perplexed, ‘but he fair hated Mrs Crozier. He might have thought as there was nothink left to live for, and he’d see she didn’t live to enjoy herself neither!’

L
INTOTT
wasted no subtlety on Harriet, who was anxious only to oblige him without implicating herself. Twenty years of age, in service with the Croziers since she was fourteen, wages twenty-pounds, no talent for cookery and too clumsy to wait at table or on her mistress.

‘Would you like to be a cook then, Harriet?’ Lintott asked amiably.

‘Not really, sir. But I’d like to do what Kate Kipping do.’

‘And what does Kate do? I’m very ignorant about these
matters
, my dear.’

‘Well, sir,’ Harriet’s mild brown eyes fixed on a distant and
enchanting
prospect, ‘she don’t do no rough work, on account of her hands. She has to keep them nice for sewing, and brushing of Mrs Crozier’s hair and that. And she has a nicer uniform than me, with frills on it, and a little cap, and a better quality gown. And she answers the front door, and speaks very soft, and Mrs Crozier talks to her – and I’d like that, sir.’

‘Of course you would, my love. You’d be very good at it, too, given time.’

She was pink with pleasure, and then faded with recollection.

‘I made a proper mess of it, the night as Kate had the
influenza
, and I feel as I started the master off on one of his tantrums like. I might,’ said Harriet, eyes rounding, ‘have been the cause of it all!’

Lintott tutted and shook his head, smiling.

‘Cook told me off, proper,’ said Harriet, abased. ‘I dropped the tureen on the carpet, and knocked his pudding over.’

Lintott gave a snort of amusement. She glanced at him timidly, and smiled.

‘Now I want you to help me, Harriet,’ said Lintott casually. ‘I
know you’re a quick girl, and a noticing one.’ Harriet
concentrated
, in an effort to be all that he desired in the way of a
witness
. ‘I understand you made one or two mistakes at table – that’s beside the point, and don’t matter – but can you tell me how each of them reacted? I want that evening in front of me like a
picture
. Just keep talking. I’ll follow.’

And through the labryrinth of an untrained mind, particular as to detail and hopeless as to construction, he did follow: holding the thread firmly as Harriet digressed and repeated herself and corrected first impressions. He saw Theodore: cat-cruel,
unreasonable
, tyrannical. He saw Laura: baited, desperate, full of suppressed anger. He saw Titus: provoked at last into some chivalry of consequence. He drained the decanter of port to its last bitter dregs.

‘I’ve become quite attached to that decanter,’ said Lintott mildly. ‘It’s quite a favourite of mine! I wish somebody had thought to keep it and put my mind at rest. Now why didn’t Mrs Crozier go to bed if her husband was comfortable? And how long did she stay up, or don’t you know?’

Excited, Harriet cried, ‘Until midnight, sir, or a bit past. She come to the attic and woke me up because she wanted …’

‘A lady’s maid?’ Lintott suggested chivalrously, since Harriet’s face had ‘stays’ written all over it.

‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. And I heard the clock strike twelve after I got back in bed.’

‘And why did the lady stay up so late, do you think, my dear?’

‘She liked a bit of P. and Q., as Mrs Hill says. She liked being by herself, and they’d had ever such a to-do, sir.’

‘Well, everybody’s very good at doing my job for me,’ said Lintott cheerfully, knowing he could get nothing more from her, ‘so what’s your opinion of this sad affair, Harriet? Throw a bit of light on it, forme!’

‘Well, sir, it’s plain to me as that Woman did it. Mr Titus and the mistress, sir, are too much the lady and gentleman to do a thing of that sort. Besides,’ leaning forward, ‘they don’t see nothink beyond Each Other. It’s a Passion, sir, like in the novelettes.’

‘Now this is a new line,’ Lintott purred. ‘How did the Woman
do it, do you suppose, Harriet? Crept into the house at midnight, crushed up a mort of pills into the port, just in case Mr Crozier felt like a glass some time, and then waited to see what would happen?’

‘She Poisoned the Letters, sir. In
The
Duchess
of
Tramura
,
sir, the Duchess got a Eyetalian Poisoner to Poison a Letter, and wrote it to her Husband. And he Writhed, sir, on the ground, and cried, “My God, my God, I am Undone!”’

Lintott strove to find one corner of this wild narrative that could be pinned down, and failed.

‘I suppose it’s no use asking you
why
she did that, Harriet, is it?’

‘Because All was Over, sir, don’t you see?’

‘I’m a bit fogged at the moment, my love, but I’m doing my best. While I’m just working it all out you’d better go back to the kitchen, I think.’

‘Yes, sir. Thank you.’ She hovered, obviously in great doubt and confusion. ‘I think there’s somethink else I ought to tell you, sir – only it might upset Mrs Crozier if ever she got to hear about it.
And
Mrs Hill.’

‘You can trust me, Harriet. Cross my heart and hope to die! Split, girl!’

‘That evening as I was waiting on,’ said poor Harriet, ‘I dropped the saddle of mutton on the kitchen stairs.’

‘Yes, Harriet?’

‘That’s it, sir. I thought, with you being an inspector, as you might find out and then tell the mistress. So I’m a-telling of you first, so as you won’t.’

Lintott’s face was a study in amazement. He recovered
sufficiently
to ask a final question.

‘What did you do when you dropped it, Harriet?’

‘Wiped it on my apron, sir, and served it up. But don’t tell, sir.’

Lintott looked down at the desk sternly.

‘You did well to confess, Harriet,’ he said at last. ‘You were quite right. We’ll say no more about it. Off with you, my dear.’

She dropped a curtsey, relieved, delighted. Lintott sat staring at the door for a full minute after she had closed it. Then he shook his head from side to side and laughed out loud.

‘The dimmest of the lot!’ he said to himself, admonishing the hound who had followed a wrong scent. ‘The dimmest of the lot of them, John Joseph – and she had you hanging on to every word! Lor’ bless my soul for a Dutchman, if she didn’t fool me for a moment!’ He laughed again, even more heartily this time, and wiped his eyes on a coloured handkerchief, which he replaced in a side pocket. ‘You’ve smelled so many rats,’ he told himself, ‘that you can smell ’em when they’re nothing but one mouse as drops the mutton on the kitchen stairs!’

*

‘And whose side are you on, Mr Hann?’ Lintott asked drily.

‘I don’t rightly understand you, sir.’

‘Your master’s, I suppose, since he was good to you. We’ll just run through the details and then we can get down to the
particulars
. You’re Henry Hann. Sixty years of age. Wages, twenty shillings a week and board, and a room over the stables. Fond of your glass. Well, ain’t we all? The late Mr Crozier took you on because you couldn’t get a situation. Made a condition that you didn’t drink before you drove the family, but undertook not to notice if you drank in your own time. Am I right?’

The coachman nodded, stout and crimson-faced, though the crimson owed more to alcohol than to confusion.

‘You thought a great deal of your late master, and rightly so, Mr Hann. What do you think about your mistress?’

‘A gracious lady, sir.’

‘She has her enemies, even in her own household, Mr Hann.’

‘Not me, sir.’

‘And yet you spread scurrilous tales about her, without foundation?’

‘Did Miss Nagle tell you that, sir?’

‘No one in this house told me, Mr Hann. That’s how far the tales have spread. Why, I could double and re-double the
information
I’ve got this afternoon – just with what I hear from
outside
! Tongues – aye, and pens, too – are busy round this
neighbourhood
.’

The coachman rubbed his hands on his knees, discomforted.

‘It’s that Mr Titus, sir. He’s a right bad lot. He tells stories about me to make folks laugh. That’s slander, sir, isn’t it?’

‘Not if they’re true, Mr Hann.’

Henry turned over the muddled contents of his skull and could find no answer.

‘So you don’t mind slurring the reputation of a gracious
mistress
provided you can cast a clod of mud at Mr Titus?’

‘I didn’t think on it that way, sir.’

‘Then do so, Mr Hann. Do so in future, if you please. Will you copy this for me?’

The coachman sat bemused, turning the paper round and round in his hands.

‘I don’t know my letters, sir. I can’t neither read nor write.’

‘Then give it back here, man. Now, what’s
your
version of this matter? Let me guess! Mr Titus poisoned his late brother with his sister-in-law’s sleeping capsules, which he crushed into a decanter of port wine, so that he could pay his debts. The fact that the late Mr Crozier kept a mistress, who was blackmailing him by means of love-letters, is beside the point. Correct?’

‘Sir,’ said Henry slowly, but with some dignity, ‘it wasn’t the master’s Fancy Woman. It was Mr Titus’s.’

‘Well, well, well,’ said Lintott softly. ‘You can be too clever for your own good, John Joseph. If you get much sharper you’ll cut yourself! Tell me what you know, Mr Hann, if you’ll be so good.’

‘It was like this, sir. When my master recovered from the
influenza
he was pretty well knocked up for a week or two after, and instead of riding into the City on his horse I took him in the carriage. Now I never knew about that Woman coming with the Letters, sir, because Kate is very close and said nothink. None of us knew anythink about that until the inquest. So when this Woman run up to the carriage I didn’t know as it was her.’

‘When was this, Mr Hann?’

‘A day or so after he went back to work. She run up, and the master was fair put about. She said somethink like, “I’ve been waiting to see you!” And he called me to stop, very sharp, and held up his hand as if to tell her to shut her mouth – excusing the expression, sir. Then they was whispering together, and then she went off and he told me to drive on.’

‘How do you know she was Mr Titus’s flight of fancy?’

‘He just said to me, as we was driving off, Mr Crozier said, “That brother of mine will get into one scrape too many!” Then he sunk his chin in his hand, like this, and never spoke another word until we reached Crozier’s.’

Lintott tapped the desk with his pencil, thinking.

‘How do you account for the fact that Mr Titus reported her as his brother’s mistress, Mr Hann? Or don’t you believe that?’

‘It could be lies, sir. Mr Titus don’t know the difference
between
truth and falsehood. He takes whichever serves him best at the time. But it could even have been, sir, that Mr Crozier was a-trying to protect Mr Titus from somethink serious and passed it off to him as somethink else.’

‘Far-fetched,’ said Lintott, ‘far-fetched. But worth bearing in mind, of course. Truth’s a funny thing and can take a corner or two that nobody expects. There’s nothing more than that, then?’

‘Well, sir, that’s what I know. But there is somethink else. Mrs Hill is a great one for her family. Harriet’s a cousin’s daughter, and Mrs Hill’s niece cleans for Mr Titus. So we get like a view of both sides, with them seeing each other on their day off.’

‘You’re a lovely lot!’ said Lintott, in admiration. ‘So what does Mrs Hill’s niece say?’

‘Mr Titus was taken up with a young woman in the theatre line, as sounds just like the Woman in Question. Put two and two together, sir, and what do you get?’

It was plain that Mr Hann would get nothing at all, so Lintott helped him out.

‘I’d make it four, myself. But having met everyone here I’d say it was ninety-nine at least. Thank you, Mr Hann. Is there
anybody
in the kitchen that I haven’t seen yet?’

‘Only Annie Cox, the kitchenmaid, sir. She can’t tell you nothink.’

‘I’ll be the judge of that. Be off with you and send her in – and keep your observations to yourself, Mr Hann.’

*

‘Annie Cox, sir. I think as I’m thirteen, sir, but I don’t rightly know. There’s a many of us at home and my mam don’t
remember
. Wages is ten pound a year and keep.’

‘And what do you do with a fortune like that, Annie?’ Lintott asked, rattling the change in his pocket, and smiling.

‘I shall take it home on my day off, sir, and give it my mam – else my dad’ll have it for the Drink.’

‘I don’t suppose, Annie, that you can read or write, can you?’

‘No, sir.’

‘It’s of no consequence, Annie. Don’t trouble yourself. Are they kind to you in the kitchen?’

‘Sort of, sir. Mrs Hill, she don’t half tell me off. But then she gives me a piece o’ pie, sir.’

‘Ah! That pastry is worth the end of her tongue, isn’t it, Annie?’

‘I ’spect so, sir. Yes.’

‘And the mistress, is she kind to
you?’

‘I’m not allowed in the house, sir, while the family’s about, except for prayers.’

‘I see. Well, Annie, do as Mrs Hill tells you and say your
prayers
every night as well as every morning. Then I shouldn’t be surprised if you were a housemaid in a few years’ time. You’d like that rarely, wouldn’t you? Yes, of course you would. Here, Annie, here’s a ha’penny for you. And, wait a minute, Annie. Here’s a humbug. Cut away, and be a good girl, mind!’