A Study in Scarlet Women (Lady Sherlock #1)(66)

Hodges unclenched and clenched his hands again. “No, Inspector. We don’t have that sort of lowlife in this house.”




Tommy Dunn echoed that opinion. “Ain’t no master more generous than Mr. Sackville. And a new master mayn’t even want us to work for him. Why would anyone hurt him?”

He made a valid point. For a servant to poison the master of the house was for him to endanger his own livelihood, especially in a hired house like this, with no one coming to inherit the property. The next tenant might very well bring a full complement of retainers.

Treadles asked Dunn about Mr. Hodges leaving the servants’ hall while Mrs. Meek and someone else discussed the merits of the house and of the master.

“Was that you or was that Becky Birtle?”

“Must have been Becky. Don’t remember nothing like that.”

“Weren’t you there?”

“No. Went back to me own room after supper.”

“I understand you didn’t get on with Becky Birtle.”

Hostility darkened Tommy Dunn’s face. “She thinks too much of herself, that girl.”

There was an excess of antagonism in his expression; a high opinion of herself couldn’t be the only thing that bothered him about Becky Birtle.

“Did you feel a sense of affection for her before your sentiments turned?”

The young man snorted. “What? You asking if I fancied her?”

“Yes.”

“Never. She’s a scrawny girl—bony like a goat. Didn’t do a thing for me.”

“Then why did you come to dislike her?”

Dunn shrugged, but his jaw was held so tight a vein bulged on his neck. “Like I said, she gave herself airs.”

Something had happened to derail a once friendly enough association, but Treadles was not going to get it from Dunn.

“Do you know anything about a whisky decanter that’s gone missing?

“Caught Mrs. Cornish in my room looking for it. She said she didn’t think I took it, but someone might have hid it under my bed or something. Can’t say I believe her.”

Treadles did not enjoy this aspect of his work. A murder investigation unearthed not only deeply held, obsessively nursed grievances, but a plethora of everyday resentments. The undercurrents that would have otherwise remained beneath the surface for the foreseeable future.

One didn’t need to be naive to enjoy the idea of a harmonious household, where the master was gentlemanly and considerate and the servants dutiful to their employer and kind to one another. To not believe in the possibility was to become the kind of cynic who suspected every ordinary establishment of seething with acrimony and discontent.

And Robert Treadles had been such a fortunate man—he owed it to himself not to go down the all-too-easy route of skepticism and disenchantment.




As there was nothing to be gained by interviewing Jenny Price again, Treadles called in Mrs. Meek, who arrived in a high state.

“Is it true, Inspector, that Mr. Sackville had been poisoned with arsenic?”

Treadles had expected that the news would have spread. “I’d like to know who came to you with the information.”

It might help him judge the differing degrees of rapports among the servants.

“Nobody came and told me. Mrs. Cornish looked all shaken when she walked past the kitchen. So I followed her and asked what was the matter. She told me. It was such awful news that I asked both Mr. Hodges and Tommy Dunn, too, because I didn’t want to believe it.”

She stared at Treadles, as if still hoping that he would reassure her otherwise.

“It is true,” he said softly.

Immediately her gaze shifted to Sergeant MacDonald. The latter nodded, closing the last avenue of denial.

Mrs. Meek slowly sank into a chair. “But that’s evil. Evil.”

Treadles gave her a moment to collect herself. “According to the answers you provided last time, when you reached Mr. Sackville’s bedroom, one of the first things you did was to open the curtains. Is that correct?”

She looked at him in bafflement. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Please answer the question. Did you open the curtains?”

“I did.”

“You are sure they weren’t already open?”

Mrs. Meek sat up straighter—she bristled with the injured dignity of someone about to defend her integrity. “I am completely sure, Inspector. We all rushed to Mr. Sackville’s bedside. ‘Feel him, feel him,’ Becky was yelling. So I did, and his temperature was all wrong. I looked up at Mrs. Cornish. But she wasn’t looking at him. She was looking at the curtains. I remember this very clearly. It was still dim inside the room, but light was already seeping in around the edges of the drapes, halolike, if you will. Then Mrs. Cornish pulled open the curtains on her side and I did the same on the window closer to me.”

There was an innocence to Mrs. Meek’s reply, a resolute lack of insinuation.

Treadles was reminded of his own obliviousness to the significance of the curtains. A thought occurred to him. “Have you ever worked in any other position in a household, Mrs. Meek?”

“No, Inspector. I was always the cook. Cook’s assistant early on, and then the cook.”

Perhaps she truly was plainly stating the facts. Perhaps she herself didn’t understand the import of what she had revealed.