Strike at Midnight(23)

“I’ll do my best.”

Another knock at the kitchen door had me facing off with the same woman who had opened it before. Only this time she had a spoon in her hand and she didn’t look afraid to use it.

“I need to speak to Mrs. Muffet,” I said quickly before she attacked me with her culinary weapon. “John sent me this way.”

“Come in,” she said, and then she shut the door behind me as soon as I stepped inside. She hurriedly walked back to a mixing bowl and stirred it like a deranged woman as she spoke to me. “She will most likely be tidying up in the main parlor. Second door on your left as you walk out of here.” She tilted her head towards the door to the right of where I was standing.

“Thanks,” I said, keeping my eyes on her—and that spoon—as I walked out of the door.

“Right,” I murmured as I got my bearings. “Second door on the left.”

A scream suddenly pierced my eardrums, and it sounded like it was coming from the parlor. My feet were running before I even decided it was a good idea, and I turned into the parlor to see an unexpected sight. A short, plump woman was standing on one of the chairs while waving a feather duster around.

“Are you all right?” I asked, and she gave me a shocked look. Her eyes widened and she jumped off the chair so fast that I thought she was going to go headfirst into the fireplace.

“A spider,” she said, trying to right the cap on her head. “I’m afraid I’m terrified of them.”

A small chuckle escaped me. “Amen to that,” I said, and I moved further into the room. “I take it you’re Mrs. Muffet?”

“Yes I am,” she said, standing up straighter and putting on her professional airs. “May I help you?”

“I hope so,” I replied, sitting down on the seat that was closest to me. She gave me a horrified look as I did so, and I had to bite down on my lip to keep from reminding her that she had been standing on the damn thing only moments before. “I need to ask you some questions about the Duke of York, Mrs. Muffet.”

“What about him?”

“I’ve been hired by Sir Raymond to look into his disappearance.”

“How ridiculous,” she said as if she were the keeper of all knowledge. “He was here only two nights ago.”

“It wasn’t him.”

“Excuse me?”

“It was an imposter. You will be filled in on further details soon enough, but until then, I need some answers.”

“Who are you?” she asked, jabbing the feather duster so close to my nose that I actually sneezed. “Are you here to try and get money out of the duke? Are you trying to stir up trouble?”

“Whoa,” I said, putting my hands up. The harried woman with the spoon was no longer a concern with Mrs. Muffet waving the duster under my nose. “Look, lady. I’ve just been paid to find the real duke. Now, you can answer my questions so I can do my job, or I will personally find that spider and ram it down your throat. Do we have a deal?”

“How dare—”

She took a step backward when I stood up and made a move towards her, but she still had that feather duster aimed at my nose as if it were a weapon.

“I don’t dare,” I said carefully. “I do. So it’s up to you what action I take next, Mrs. Muffet. Drop the feathers.”

My eyes squinted into my scary glare—it never failed—and she dropped the duster.

“What would you like to know?” she asked with reluctance, and I smiled.

“That’s better,” I said, taking a breath to calm my own rising temper. “All I want to know is what driver took John’s place the night John was ill.”

“Oh,” she said, taking a moment to reflect. “I believe that was Billy. He was new here and he didn’t stay long. He was only here for a couple of days. He left the day after that, actually.”

“And you didn’t think that was suspicious?” I asked.

She pinched her lips together and said, “We have a lot of stable hands who pass through here. And we don’t usually make a habit of giving them such responsibility. But there was no one else to do it.”

“I get that,” I replied with a little patience. “But why not raise the alarm when the duke, or this Billy, didn’t turn up the next day?”

“It wasn’t unusual for the duke to disappear days on end,” she said with a hint of panic in her eyes. “We just assumed that was the case. We were going to alert the authorities, but then he turned up. We didn’t have reason to doubt that it wasn’t him.”

My look of disdain should have been enough to let her know exactly what I thought of that.

“Can you give me a description of Billy?” I asked, needing to find this guy. It was too much of a coincidence that he had conveniently turned up at the exact moment John had fallen ill and the duke needed a driver.

“A bit taller than you, I suppose,” she said, finally starting to show a bit of concern. “He had black hair that fell to his shoulders and sun-tinted skin. He was quite young, about one and twenty. He was a pleasant boy, and he seemed eager to please from the moment he turned up here asking for a job.”

Yeah. I bet he had.

She babbled on about how she usually had such wonderful instincts about people, and I was quite proud of the fact that I didn’t tell her that I thought her instincts were a pile of crap. Not when she still needed to provide me with information.