Murphy's Law (23 page)

"Molly, sir." I lowered my face rapidly again until he was looking at a cap.

"You don't have to be nervous with me, young woman. This is a happy household. If you do your work well, you have nothing to be afraid of."

"No, sir. I'll go and find Holmes for you, sir." I made a bobbing curtsy, grabbed my sweeper, and ran down the stairs. I was pretty sure he hadn't recognized me. The question was whether I had recognized him. He had spoken to me in a soft, rumbling voice. I'd have to wait to see how his voice sounded when it was booming.

I found Holmes without any trouble and passed on the instructions. He turned very pale.

"The master came home and I didn't even hear him come in? That makes twice in one week now. Dear me. I must be slipping. Very well, girl. You can go back to your duties."

I left him and went into the kitchen to pass on my message to the harried cook. She now had several pots on the stove and was moving from one to the next.

"Oh, blast him, right when I'm in the middle of waiting for this sauce to thicken," she muttered. "And Ruby still has all those potatoes to peel."

"I could take it up for you, if you'd like," I said.

"You? You're the parlor maid. It's not your job. Don't be ridiculous."

"I just wanted to help. I've finished doing the stairs."

She glanced around as if she was committing a

crime. "Well, I won't say no this time," she said, "and if the master doesn't like it, you can tell him I didn't want his favorite sauce to curdle."

She pointed out the pie and pickles to me, then gave me step-by-step instructions on which cloth to put on the tray, which napkin to go with it, and which salt cellar to use. When the tray was finished to her satisfaction she sent me off with it. "Up in his study. Third door on the left as you go along the upstairs hallway. Don't linger now and come back down the servants' stairs."

I carried the tray up the stairs and was just approaching the study door when I heard the master speaking.

"I told you, Bertie, there is nothing to worry about."

I paused in the hallway. The study door was half open and I got a glimpse of the alderman speaking into a telephone. "Who could find out? We are the only two who know and everything will be fine if you don't blab. ... Yes, I'm aware of the newspaper man, but, in my opinion, he was just fishing. He can't know anything ... No, that wouldn't be a wise move at this stage. Only calling attention to you, which then calls attention to me. Just sit tight and shut up, Bertie. This will all pass over and everything can go on as it was before. Of course I still plan to be the grand marshal of the St. Patrick's parade. Why shouldn't I? The people love me."

I watched the speaking part of the telephone being hung back on its hook. I was about to knock on the door when I saw him open a drawer in the top part of his desk. He pulled that drawer all the way out, then reached in and opened another drawer behind it. He removed papers from it, went through them quickly, then nodded in satisfaction and put them back again. I tiptoed back down the hall, waited a suitable amount of time, then made another approach, before tapping on the door.

"Your lunch, sir."

"What? Oh yes. Put it there." He indicated a spot on a side chest of drawers where a tray containing a whiskey decanter and soda siphon already stood. I put the tray down and made a hurried departure.

Twenty-one

We servants took our midday meal together at the big scrubbed kitchen table. I came into the kitchen to find Daisy, George, and a couple of others I hadn't seen before already seated. I pulled out a chair beside Daisy.

"Where do you think you're sitting, girl?" Mrs. Brennan demanded. "You're a newcomer. Your place is at the bottom of the table, beside Ruby."

With all those eyes on me, I moved to the bottom of the table and tried to look humble. I picked up my fork and was about to reach for the nearest plate when Ruby dug me hard in the ribs.

"We have to wait for Mr. Holmes to say grace," she whispered.

We sat and waited until Mr. Holmes made a grand entrance and took his place at the head of the table. "For what we are about to receive may the Lord make us truly thankful and ever mindful of the wants of others," he intoned. Then we all fell upon our meal.

The food was better than anything I had eaten in my life before--a joint of cold ham, cold roast beef, another large round pork pie, hot-jacket potatoes, a big slab of cheese, pickles. I wondered if we were celebrating our own special occasion until the cook said to the butler, "I'm sorry for such meager fare, Mr. Holmes, but I've been so run off my feet this morning that I didn't have time to cook for us today."

"I quite understand, Mrs. O'Leary," the butler said. "I'm sure we can all make do with leftovers for once."

Make do with leftovers? If it turned out that the alderman had nothing to do with the events on Ellis Island last Monday night, I might do well to stay here for a while--if I could ever learn to be humble and behave like a proper servant, that was. But what I had seen and heard in the upstairs study made me think that I was on the right track. The alderman had something important to hide--something that had piqued a newspaperman's interest and the Irish community shouldn't know about. What else could it be? He had obviously confided in one other person and it sounded very much as if that person--Bertie, wasn't it--had been prepared to kill on his behalf. I

was dealing with a dangerous man all right. I would have to tread very carefully indeed.

I wondered if parlor maids had any duties during dinner parties. If they were all busy cooking and serving food, I might just have time to slip up to the master's study and see what I could find. At least I'd be reasonably safe, knowing that the alderman and his wife were in the dining room, eating with guests.

As soon as lunch was over the cook and senior servants went for an afternoon rest. Holmes, it turned out, went out for a walk. I was instructed to wipe off all the best china, then place it in the little lift they called a dumbwaiter to be taken up to the storage area behind the dining room. There was an anteroom, hidden to one side of the dining room, where the plates were stacked in the correct order. Food would also be sent up in the dumbwaiter. Two footmen would carry it through and serve at table. Apparently female servants were too lowly and clumsy for such tasks. Which might mean I had some time and opportunity to do a little scouting.

I worked fast, polishing all those plates, sixteen of each, then sending them up for the footmen to lay out above. Mrs. O'Leary, the cook, sat in a rocking chair beside the kitchen range, snoring. Ruby, the scullery maid, was still out there washing up the plates from our meal and the pots that had been used that morning. No sign of Daisy--I presumed she was up helping the footmen. I was all alone. I darted out of the kitchen. If Mrs. Brennan had an office, then Mr.

Holmes must have one, too. Cautiously I opened one door after another until I came to a door that was locked. By peeking through the keyhole I saw a tidy desk, a large bunch of keys hanging on the wall ... it had to be Mr. Holmes's office, but unfortunately he seemed to be the one person in the household who locked his door when he went out.

I went back to the kitchen, just in time, as it turned out. As I stepped in through the door a bell started jangling on the far wall. Mrs. O'Leary woke with a start. "The mistress's sitting room," she said. "She must have returned from lunch, and Mr. Holmes isn't back from his walk yet. You'd better go and see what she wants, girl."

"Which room is it?"

"First floor, at the far end of the hall, past the master's study. Go on, run. She hates to be kept waiting."

I ran up the back stairs, past the master's study and tapped on the far door before entering. An exquisitely lovely young woman, with blond curls piled on a doll-like face, was reclining on a pink silk chaise lounge before the fire. I couldn't have been more surprised. The alderman was a middle-aged man. His whiskers were already graying at the sides. If this was his wife, then she was a good twenty years younger, and very lovely. She was reading a letter and didn't look up as I came in.

I waited a few moments and then cleared my throat. "You rang, madam?" I asked.

She glanced up, then went back to the letter. "When I am ready to talk to you, I will," she said, her voice matching the coldness of her expression. Then she looked up again. "You're new."

"Yes, madam." I hoped my own expression looked suitably chastened.

"And your name is?"

"Molly, madam."

"In which case, Molly, the first thing you should learn is that servants are here to wait on their masters. When I am ready to give you an order, I will do so. Is that clear?"

"Yes, madam, only I thought that perhaps you hadn't heard me come in. I just wanted you to know I was there."

Her delicate cheeks flushed. "And you do not answer back. Servants in this house speak when they are spoken to."

I hung my head, not sure whether saying I was sorry might constitute speaking out of turn again, and tried to look like a mortified parlor maid.

"It's all right. I'll overlook it this once, seeing that you're new and haven't had a chance to be properly instructed yet." She gave me an enchanting smile. "Please tell cook that the dressmaker will be arriving at four for a final fitting for tonight's dress. We will have tea and suitable cakes in my dressing room at four fifteen."

"Yes, ma'am."

"I hope you'll be happy with us, Molly. You may bring the tray up to my dressing room

at four fifteen. Make sure you don't spill anything."

I was getting good at curtsys. Humility was going to take a little longer.

Mrs. O'Leary sniffed when I passed on the instructions. "Tea and cakes. As if I haven't got enough to do with cooking seven courses for sixteen. If she doesn't watch what she eats she'll lose that lovely figure and then the master will lose interest. It wasn't for her brains he married her."

"Have they been married long?"

She leaned toward me confidentially. "Only a year. His former wife died suddenly and he married this flibbertigibbet before the poor woman was cold in her grave. She was one of the original Floradora Six."

I had heard enough about the Plumbridge Nine, but the Floradora Six? She saw the surprised look on my face. "You know, the Broadway show, "Floradora." They say all the girls in that original sextet married millionaires. We're in the wrong job, girl. But then I never did have Mrs. McCormack's figure, even when I was young." She chuckled, ran her hands over her ample stomach, and went to check something in the oven.

I had even more to think about. If the alderman was the monster I thought him to be, then maybe his wife's sudden death was no accident, either.

At four fifteen on the dot I carried the mistress's tray upstairs to her dressing room and I made sure I knocked. Loudly. Her personal maid took the tray from me at the door. "Zay are busy and do not wish to be interrupted," she said in a very French accent. Even so I managed to catch a glimpse of the most gorgeous burgundy velvet gown that clung to her figure like a second skin. As the door was closed behind me I heard her say, "And I think the rubies tonight, don't you, Francine?"

Back in the kitchen, tea had been laid on the table for us. Loaves of bread, slabs of butter, pots of jam and honey, and two different cakes. Was it only yesterday that I had wondered whether I would die of starvation? Now I was worried about whether the tight waist of my uniform dress would stand yet another meal.

Mr. Holmes and Mrs. Brennan joined us

for tea.

"Final instructions, everybody," Mr.

Holmes said. "George and Hamish, you have clean white gloves ready for tonight? Bring them to me for inspection. Daisy, you will be positioned in the anteroom before the guests take their places, ready to take each course from the lift and place it on the hot plates. You will then take the dirty plates from George and Hamish and send them down in the lift for Ruby to wash up. You girl--what's your name? Yes, Molly. You will act as go-between. You will be available at all times to take messages to the kitchen as necessary, bring up items that didn't make it into the lift. You will use the servant's staircase and make sure you are, at no time, seen by the master's guests. Is that clear? Good. And I don't need to remind you that any dish dropped and broken will be paid for from your wages--and we are using the best Wedgwood tonight."

So I was going to be occupied, after all. At everyone's beck and call all evening with little chance to explore the alderman's study. If I disappeared for more than a moment, I'd be missed. I reminded myself there would be other occasions. I didn't have to accomplish everything in one day. But I felt a terrible sense of urgency, a nagging voice in my head that if I didn't act now it would be too late. Maybe it was that Celtic sixth sense working again, because I also sensed the presense of danger.

At six thirty the first guests started arriving. Mrs. Brennan and George were in the hallway to take coats and hats. Holmes was in the drawing room, stationed at the drinks table. Daisy was to take the trays of hot hors d'oeuvres upstairs as they came from the oven. And I found myself jobless for a moment. Suddenly I realized that this was my big chance. The alderman would be in the drawing room with his guests. The butler and housekeeper were otherwise occupied. There was nobody to see me flit into the alderman's study.

My pulse was racing so violently that I found it hard to breathe as I came out of the servants' door on the first floor. I could hear the sound of voices and laughter floating up from the floor below. There was a knock at the front door, a gust of cold air wafted up to me, and voices echoed from the marble tiled hallway. More guests were arriving. I waited until I heard Mrs.

Brennan escort them to the living room before I tiptoed down the hall and tried the study door. It was unlocked. I opened it and went inside. I wished that I had a torch, like Daniel Sullivan had used that night in the photography studio. The electric light, after I located the wall switch, was so very bright and visible. But the window faced the side of the house and I doubted if anyone would have need to go around there tonight.