Sheri Cobb South (8 page)

“Thank you, my lady. I shall do my best not to disappoint. In the meantime, though, if I am to be your footman, I must point out that you do not call Thomas by his surname.”

“It would be highly improper of me to call you by your given name!”

“It would be highly improper of you to call your footman anything else.”

She threw up her black-gloved hands in surrender. “Very well, when we are in company, I shall address you by your Christian name. But when we are alone, it is only fitting that I call you Mr. Pickett.”

“And risk forgetting, or being overheard? No, I think I had best be ‘John’ for the duration.”

“You drive a hard bargain,” conceded Lady Fieldhurst, then added with a twinkle in her eye, “but you should be aware that it is not at all the thing for a servant to correct his mistress.”

“Beg pardon, my lady,” said Pickett, bowing deeply from the waist. “I shall bear it in mind.”

Her smile warmed him all the way down to his toes. “Oh, I’m so glad you have come! It has been perfectly dreadful, not being able to confide my fears to anyone, while as for the atmosphere in this house, it is thick with rumor and suspicion.”

“You believe someone in the house set the fire that killed the vicar?”

“I think it must have been.” She crossed the room to take a seat in the chair before the fireplace. “But I must not keep you standing here! Do sit down.”

“I’ve been sitting in a crowded stage coach for the past three days,” he reminded her, but took a seat at the writing desk nonetheless. “Now, exactly what is it that you suspect?”

“I think—I think perhaps Mr. Danvers did not burn to death in the fire.”

“I saw the vicarage on my way up from the village,” Pickett reminded her. “I doubt any man could survive such an inferno.”

“No, but—you may think it foolish of me, but I find myself wondering if perhaps he was already dead.”

Pickett’s eyebrows rose. “And the house burned after the fact to destroy any evidence? Tell me, my lady, what makes you suspect such a thing?”

“I returned to my room shortly after dinner, and had opened the window to see if the storm had passed when I heard a noise—a sharp, cracking sound. I thought at the time that lightning must have struck a tree somewhere in the Home Wood, but now I think—no, I am almost certain it was a gunshot.”

“I believe the two can sound amazingly alike, my lady.”

Lady Fieldhurst bristled. “Pray do not patronize me! You forget, I am country bred, the daughter of an avid sportsman. I know what a firearm sounds like.”

“I beg your pardon, my lady. I meant no disrespect.”

Deflated, Lady Fieldhurst dashed a hand wearily over her eyes. “No, it is I who should beg your pardon. I did not urge you to come all the way from London only so that I might snap at you. In fact, my nerves are shockingly on edge.”

“It would be more shocking if they were not, given that you suspect you may be dwelling under the same roof with a murderer.”

“The murderer—if murderer there be—may not be in the house at this moment, but I think he must certainly have been on the night of the fire. The bridge washed out while we were at dinner, you see. The vicarage was completely cut off from everything except the church and Hollingshead Place. Oh, and its Home Wood. There are gypsies camped there. Do they count?”

“We won’t rule them out just yet,” said Pickett, withdrawing a small notebook from the inside pocket of his blue and silver coat. “Now, who was present at this dinner?”

“The Hollingsheads, of course—Sir Gerald, Lady Anne, their son Philip, and their daughter Emma,” she said, ticking them off on her fingers. “Their younger daughter, Susannah, had come down from the schoolroom for the occasion, along with her governess, Miss Grantham. Then there was poor Mr. Danvers and his curate, Mr. Meriwether. And Mr. Carrington. I didn’t speak with him much, but I had the impression he was something of a nabob.”

“A nabob?” echoed Pickett, pencil poised in midair.

“One who has made a fortune in the East—tea, perhaps, or something similar. Then there were Lord and Lady Kendall, along with their son, the Honourable Robert Kendall. They are near neighbors of the Hollingsheads. Lord Kendall is a Justice of the Peace.”

Pickett grimaced. “Please, tell me Lord Kendall didn’t do it!”

“Why not?”

“Because,” he explained, “as a Justice of the Peace, he is the one I would apply to for an arrest warrant.”

“Oh, dear! Yes, I can see how that would be a bit awkward for you.”

“Did any of them appear to have a grudge against the vicar? Might anyone expect to profit from his death?”

“Well, none of them would have to listen to him talk about that book of his, but I doubt that constitutes a motive for murder.”

Pickett looked up from his scribbling to ask, “What book?”

“Mr. Danvers was writing a voluminous tome chronicling the history of the village church,” she explained. “He apparently delighted in sharing tidbits from his research, often and at great length, whether his audience wished to hear them or not.”

“And so someone killed the old boy in self-defense, before he bored them all to death?” concluded Pickett with a hint of a smile.

“Pray do not joke about it!” Lady Fieldhurst beseeched him, shuddering. “It may sound absurd, but it was altogether ghastly.”

“I beg your pardon. It must have been most uncomfortable for you.”

“Not half so uncomfortable for me as it was for poor Mr. Danvers.”

“Indeed. Was there anyone else who might stand to gain if the vicar were out of the way?”

The viscountess frowned at the memory of a certain overheard conversation. “Out of the way. It is interesting that you should put it that way.”

“What are you thinking?”

Lady Fieldhurst rose from her chair and began to pace the thickly carpeted floor. “I was thinking of the curate, Mr. Meriwether. He is in love with Emma Hollingshead, but her parents disapprove, at least in part because of his lack of fortune. Now that the vicar is dead, Mr. Meriwether may well be granted the living which would allow him to marry Miss Hollingshead. But it hardly seems a wealthy enough position to kill for.”

“I’ve known men to be murdered for much less,” Pickett observed.

“But I doubt Mr. Meriwether would win Lady Anne’s approval in any case. Apparently he is a distant relation, and Lady Anne remarked within my hearing that he was illegitimate, or nearly so.” She pondered the implications of her ladyship’s words. “How can one be nearly illegitimate?”

Beneath his head of white powder, Pickett flushed crimson. “Perhaps Mr. and Mrs. Meriwether were blessed with a son rather less than nine months after the wedding,” he suggested.

“Oh! I daresay you are right. Certainly Lady Anne would not wish her daughter to marry where there had been any hint of scandal. She has very high expectations for Miss Hollingshead.”

“On the other hand, what better way to eliminate an unwanted suitor than to see him hanged for murder?”

Lady Fieldhurst wheeled about to look at him in surprise. “I beg your pardon?”

“Miss Hollingshead and Mr. Meriwether plan to marry as soon as he is granted the living. Lady Anne—or Sir Gerald, if you prefer, or the two of them together—are not delighted with the match, but they know any attempt to break up the lovers will only strengthen their attachment. So they kill the vicar, and Mr. Meriwether, who has the most obvious—indeed, at this point the
only
—motive is convicted of the crime. Mr. Meriwether goes to the gallows, and the heartbroken Miss Hollingshead no longer has the will to resist her parents’ plans for her.”

“That is a perfectly horrid scenario, Mr. Pickett!”

“John,” he corrected her. “And you are right: it is perfectly horrid. It is also pure speculation at this point. We don’t even know for certain that there was a murder at all.”

She stopped before the fireplace and gazed down into the flames. “Was it wrong of me to send for you on nothing more than a foolish whim?”

Pickett rose and crossed the room to stand beside her. “No, my lady, it was not wrong.”

“The coroner seemed quite convinced the vicar was burned to death when the vicarage was struck by lightning.”

“In that case, I don’t think much of the coroner. I think it highly unlikely that the vicarage was ever struck by lightning.”

“Indeed? What makes you say so?”

“Simple probability. Lightning tends to strike objects that are higher than their surroundings—a tall building, or a tree near an open field. The bell tower of the church would have been a much more attractive target—so would Hollingshead Place, for that matter, standing as it does on higher ground.”

The viscountess blinked at this revelation. “I, for one, am very glad it did not! I can just imagine the chaos if the entire household had been obliged to evacuate in the middle of dinner.”

“Exactly so. Which brings us to the next question: why did Mr. Danvers apparently make no attempt to escape from the burning building? Was he in any way infirm?”

“Why no, not that I could tell. He was not a young man—I daresay he was sixty years old, at the least reckoning—but he was quite spry. In fact, he would have traveled uphill to Hollingshead Place on foot, had Mr. Carrington not offered him a ride in his own carriage, and he insisted upon walking back to the vicarage in spite of Sir Gerald’s best efforts to persuade him otherwise.”

“Did he show any signs of deafness—using an ear trumpet, or perhaps talking a bit too loudly?”

She shook her head. “If you are thinking he might have slept through the storm and awakened only after the house was ablaze, I fear that theory won’t wash. According to Lord Kendall, his body was discovered in the part of the house that was once the study. He had apparently not yet retired for the night.”

Pickett drummed his gloved fingers soundlessly on the mantel. “Hmm. He was already on the ground floor, yet evidently made no effort to leave the house. We must assume, then, that someone or something prevented him.” He cocked his head and regarded her thoughtfully. “Tell me, has he been buried yet?”

“No. The ground is too saturated from the rain. His body has been laid out, though, and the coffin is being kept in the church.”

Pickett nodded. “Appropriate enough.”

“And cool and dark, which is more to the purpose.” Her eyes widened as a singularly gruesome thought occurred to her. “You don’t intend to prize the lid!”

“Probably. I’ll want a closer look at the ruins, too. They may still be smoldering, but they should have cooled off enough for me to poke around a bit.”

“Really, John,” said her ladyship, blushing a little at the unaccustomed intimacy of using his given name, “what kind of servant demands time off after less than twenty-four hours on the job? I cannot be optimistic about your future in domestic service.”

Chapter 4

John Pickett Belowstairs

Pickett arose at dawn the following morning, breathing a silent thanks to the mother of the absent footman, James, for requiring her son’s presence at such an opportune time; he had no desire for a witness to his early morning wanderings. He donned not his borrowed livery, but his own brown serge coat, and crept from the room carrying his shoes in his hand. He made his way down the corridor past the other footmen’s chambers, freezing in his tracks when a growling noise issued from behind the door to his left. He let out a ragged breath; apparently James was not the only one of the footmen who snored.

Having successfully navigated the first stage of his escape, he started stealthily down the stairs. He had a bad moment when the third tread from the top creaked beneath his weight, but although he paused for a moment to listen, no angry voice challenged his presence. He resolved to avoid that particular step in the future, and continued his journey. As he crossed the shadowy kitchen, he wondered fleetingly which female he most wished to avoid: the censorious Mrs. Holland, or the concupiscent Molly.

He received his answer as he drew abreast of the door to the wine cellar, and heard the housekeeper’s voice issuing from within.

“—Surely mistaken, Mr. Smithers. You must have miscounted.”

“I assure you, madam, I took a thorough inventory just last week when I prepared an order for Berry Brothers,” the butler answered. “A bottle of the ‘86 Hermitage is unquestionably missing, along with two bottles of the ‘94 Sauternes. Much as it pains me to cast aspersions onto anyone’s morals, I must ask: have you noticed any erratic behavior on the part of any servant which might suggest a weakness for strong drink?”

“Hmm ...” The housekeeper pondered the question. “It seems queer to me that several bottles of wine should turn up missing very shortly after the arrival of that fellow from London.”

“Lady Fieldhurst’s footman?”

“The very same. He seems to me a shifty sort who would like nothing better than to get up the skirts of the female staff. If he thought to loosen them up a bit with a glass or two from the master’s cellar, well, I wouldn’t put it past him.”

Pickett blinked at this hitherto unsuspected facet of his character. What would Mrs. Holland say if she knew that, far from being the seducer of innocents she took him for, he was the innocent, at least in the sexual sense? Not that he hadn’t had his share of opportunities; aside from the predatory Molly, there was always Lucy, who considered it her mission in life to deprive him of his virtue. Although Molly scared him to death, he might have been tempted to oblige Lucy, had he not seen enough of disease, poverty, and prostitution to make him resolve to save himself for the woman who would one day be his wife—a hypothetical female who had recently acquired a marked resemblance to the lady sleeping upstairs in the best guest chamber.

He reminded himself that it was this lady, not Mrs. Holland, toward whom his duty lay. Still clutching his shoes, he stole past the wine cellar and soon made his escape from the house. He paused on the back stoop long enough to slip on his shoes, then set out down the hill toward the ruined shell where Mr. Danvers had met his death.

The distance from Hollingshead Place to the burned-out vicarage was not great, but to Pickett, a Londoner born and bred, and accustomed to the anonymity inherent in sharing one’s habitat with more than a million of his fellow men, the long expanse of unbroken green sloping downward toward the road seemed almost nakedly exposed. Anyone glancing out the window might see Lady Fieldhurst’s footman stealing furtively toward the scene of the recent conflagration. Then again, Pickett reasoned, surely such inquisitive behavior could not be considered unreasonable for a newcomer to the vicinity, particularly one possessed of a lively curiosity. If confronted, Pickett decided, he would feign a morbid fascination with the macabre. Surely such a pretense would not prove to be beyond his capabilities; his landlady, Mrs. Catchpole, frequently accused him of just such a peculiarity, usually just before urging him to find himself a new profession and a wife. Such a proclivity might prove useful, should he be forced into an encounter with Mrs. Holland before having an opportunity to change his clothes and wash the smell of smoke from his person. He hoped matters would not come to such a pass; he suspected Mrs. Holland’s cure for this idiosyncrasy would be even less welcome than Mrs. Catchpole’s.