I HAD INTENDED to spend Friday working on my typing and clearing out the most pressing assignments, but after a day spent at Scotland Yard and tracking down Miss Carrollton, I’d found the clicking of the keys relaxing, and concentrating on not accidentally typing “jail” for “gaol” kept my mind off of Mrs. Delford’s troubles, so I’d ended up finishing up all the work piled up on my desk before I went to bed.
With a free morning spreading out in front of me, I started out by going to the bakery and taking my time deciding what to try. The Victoria sponge had been quite good, but I wanted something different. I decided on something called millionaire shortbread. After my experience with Victoria sponge, I bought four pieces and hoped to eat one in the end. I stopped by the telegraph aviary on the corner, but Miss Carrollton hadn’t sent me anything by telegram or mechanical bird. Of course, there was still a chance for something in the post. Until then, I planned to forget all about everyone connected with Mr. Carrollton’s dinner party.
I had just gotten the kettle boiling and had my tea steeping when there was a tapping on my door. I recognized it at once and got out a second cup.
“It’s open, Mrs. Albright.” I’d sort of been expecting her, so I arranged two pieces of shortbread on a plate.
Mrs. Albright entered carrying a small stack of envelopes. “I brought up your mail. Nothing interesting, although there is a sale on fabric at Liberty’s.”
Nothing from Miss Carrollton, then. It was really too early to expect anything, and rather unlikely there would be anything to expect. I brought the tea tray over. “Maybe we should go have a look.”
“I’m afraid I can’t today. Mrs. Pomeroy asked me to visit her this afternoon. Mr. Carrollton will be at the funeral. She said she wanted to be prepared if anyone came back with him, but I think she really doesn’t want to be alone.”
“Understandable. She was close to Mr. Ainsworth, then?”
“She’d known him a long time. She worked for his father. He was a nice man. You saw him in the kitchen. So I was wondering what your plans were for the afternoon.”
I remembered Mr. Ainsworth calling Mrs. Pomeroy his favorite cook. “Why do you want me to come?”
“You understand all of these police terms. I think it would be a comfort to her to understand what’s going on. Besides, how often do you get to see a crime scene?”
More often than I’d like, but clearly Mrs. Albright had put a lot of thought into how to tempt me into coming. “How can I turn down an offer like that?”
Mrs. Albright relaxed. Mrs. Pomeroy must be very worried about the police if it was that important that something be explained to her. Mrs. Albright turned her attention to my tea-tray. “So what are you experimenting with today? Ah, millionaire shortbread. Very nice.”
“Would you like some?”
“No, no. I wanted to put together some things for Alma. I have some penny novelettes I was going to bring her, remind her of when we were young and read those every Saturday afternoon, take her mind off of this.”
I took the hint. “I have some extra pieces of shortbread. Do you think she would like it to go with the books?”
After Mrs. Albright had left with two pieces of the shortbread wrapped in a napkin, I spent the morning enjoying the rest my tea and going through patterns, trying to decide what I would need fabric for. Mrs. Albright came to pick me up after lunch, and we took the Underground back to the Carrollton house.
When we got there, Mrs. Pomeroy was leaning on the railing around the stairs to servants’ entrance, waiting for us. “Miss Pengear, you did come. I’m so glad.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so I just smiled and stayed a step behind Mrs. Albright.
“Well, come on downstairs. I have the kettle on.”
We followed her down and through to the kitchens. I hung my hat and coat up after Mrs. Albright, so I was still in the cloakroom when Mrs. Albright followed Mrs. Pomeroy into the main kitchen. I heard Mrs. Albright gasp and hurried to follow.
Mrs. Pomeroy’s neat kitchen was in shambles. Everything had been spread out over the huge wooden table. I could clearly see the divide between the chaotic jumble Scotland Yard had left behind and what Mrs. Pomeroy had started to organize.
“I see the police were here.”
Mrs. Pomeroy looked around her. “It was worse yesterday. I got all of the food back in the icebox, but we had so many visitors wanting to express their condolences, and all of them expected to be fed.”
“I didn’t realize Mr. Carrollton was that close to Mr. Ainsworth.”
“Oh, he wasn’t. No one thinks that. They just wanted a look at the murder scene.” Mrs. Pomeroy poked around the crockery set out on the table. “I’m sure I have some cups here.”
Mrs. Albright found two saucers and a mismatched cup on the sideboard. “Why don’t we take you out to a tea shop, get you away from this mess.”
Mrs. Pomeroy sighed. “It’s a nice thought, but Mr. Carrollton might bring people back with him, and I need to be here for that. Besides, I made a walnut cake. You wouldn’t want that to go to waste, would you?”
I was very glad that Mrs. Albright agreed. “At least let me get the tea steeping, and then we’ll help you tidy this up.”
“I won’t say no to that. But Miss Pengear, I’m sure you came to have a look at the crime scene. Just go on up. Mr. Carrollton won’t be back for a while.”
“If you don’t mind—”
Mrs. Albright set the steeping teapot down by the stove. “You’re the only one who’ll understand what’s there. That’s where you’ll be the most help.”
I didn’t relish the thought of tidying the mess in the kitchen. “If you don’t mind, then I’ll go poke around a bit.”
Upstairs, the front hall was empty. On an impulse, I went to the coat cupboard and poked around until I found the mackintosh. I felt all of the pockets, but there was no sign of a bottle, empty or otherwise. Ross must have taken it with him. I continued up the main stairs to the dining room.
I half expected to see a constable on duty outside the door, but there was no one at the murder scene. Not that they needed anyone. The door was still blocked with Inspector Hamilton’s magnetic tapes. I examined the clamps holding them to the wall, but I could see that, other than a small space for Inspector Hamilton’s key, there was no way to release them. I doubted the lock would be something I could override myself, and it was very likely I’d trigger some kind of an alarm if I tried. There wasn’t much to see inside anyway. The police had cleared the table and taken the cloth. I peered through the gaps between the tapes, but there was nothing I hadn’t seen the night of the party.
I continued down the hall to the drawing room where I had gathered with the ladies after the murder. The room had been cleaned since then, the armchairs pushed back into place against the wall, the small table back in its corner. I sat down on the settee and looked around the room from there, but nothing struck me. Not that I really thought Miss Carrollton had anything to do with the murder. I leaned back and felt something hard against my back. I felt around the cushions and found an empty whiskey bottle. So that’s where Ross hid it, probably while the guests were being questioned. I put the bottle back in case the police wanted to find it.
Mr. Sharma had been sitting near Miss Carrollton. I grabbed the straight-back chair and dragged it over to the place it had been that night when Mr. Sharma had been sitting in it. When I sat in it, I had a clear view of the settee, but not of the rest of the room, although I did have a good view of the door. In fact, I was able to keep my head down as if I were looking at the patient and still watch the door out of the corner of my eye. But what would Mr. Sharma have been looking for? Or whom? I ran my hand along the edge of the cushion but felt nothing.
I pushed the chair back where it had been and went to the seat by the fire. The angle was slightly different. I nudged it into place and pantomimed putting the tray on the table. I kept trying until I got the chair into what I thought was the right position then sat down again.
From this angle, Mrs. Delford would have been able to see the fire and very little else. I ran my hand along the edge of the cushion, feeling around until my fingers brushed against a bit of loose fabric. I pulled it out and discovered it was a handkerchief. Clean, neatly hemmed, with the initials “L.D.” embroidered in stem stitch with blue thread on the edge. Mrs. Lavinia Delford’s, no doubt. I tucked it in my pocket as I stood. She would probably like it returned, and it would give me an excuse to visit her.
There was nothing else in the room that I could think of, so I went back into the corridor.
I went past the study next, expecting it to be closed off like the dining room was, but it wasn’t. The door wasn’t even shut all the way. But of course, the study wasn’t a crime scene; we’d just stored the body there until the police came for it, and we’d all gone there after being questioned. I tried to remember the scene when I’d first stumbled in. Mr. Ainsworth had been laid out on the sofa. Mr. Carrollton had been sitting beside it with his back to the door.
There was nothing to be learned from the sofa, though. It had been covered with a slipcover matching the one on the armchair, and that had been removed, presumably with Mr. Ainsworth’s body.
I sat on the sofa and scanned the room. I had a clear view of everything there, but then Mr. Ainsworth had been unable to see anything, so there was no point to me lying down to check the view. I did a quick feel on the cushions and knocked a few coins to the ground. Probably not a clue since there was no way to know whose they were or how long they’d been there, but they were evidence that I had been poking around, which was sure to annoy Inspector Hamilton, and probably Mr. Carrollton as well. I’d noticed even innocent people objected to having their rooms searched by nosy strangers, no matter how well-meaning. I knelt down and started collecting up the coins. I felt under the sofa to catch any that had rolled away and found a pipe, of all things. I pulled it out and looked at it.
There was nothing in the study to suggest that Mr. Carrollton smoked a pipe, not even an ashtray, so it was most likely Mr. Ainsworth’s. I vaguely remembered him sneaking one like it out when he’d come into the kitchen. I stuck the coins back between the cushions and, after a moment’s thought put the pipe back under the sofa. I couldn’t return it to him after all.
So what next? The desk. Maybe Mr. Carrollton had left some papers out, some clue about what Mr. Ainsworth had planned to tell him.
But the desk was such a mishmash of papers, I couldn’t tell what was important and what wasn’t. I scanned the top layer, but it was all personal letters, something from Mr. Sharma accepting his invitation, a bill from a tailor, a past-due note from a dressmaker. I slid a small pillbox, blue enamel with copper trees, aside so I could read the description of the dress purchased: cream and peach taffeta, six cream velvet roses, Princess Victoria–style train. It was the dress Miss Carrollton had worn at the dinner party, and even though it was a past-due notice, it was marked paid in full at the bottom. So much for a sordid secret mistress. There wasn’t much else. The chair was perfectly normal. There was a mismatched bit of molding behind the desk, but it only concealed the wires from the telephone in the hall below. It looked like the chair had been hitting against them when they were exposed, fraying them. I didn't see a telephone in the study, but there could have been an extension upstairs, perhaps in the bedroom.
I looked around the room to see if I’d missed anything, but then I heard footsteps in the hallway. I moved away from the desk at once and made it all the way to the door before I saw Mr. Carrollton come upstairs from the front hall. He was back early. I was too late to blend into the shadows, but I did manage to get into the corridor with the study door closed behind me before he spotted me.
“Ellie, isn’t it? Did we need a maid again?”
“No, sir. I’m visiting Mrs. Pomeroy.”
“Oh, very nice for her. Did you find what you were looking for in there?”
I realized it was strange for me to be in the study if I was supposed to be visiting the cook. I glanced towards the dining room, but saying I wanted to see the scene of the crime sounded morbid. I pulled out the handkerchief from my pocket.
“Mrs. Delford lost this. I’m going to bring it back to her.”
“Very kind of you.”
“I’ll be out of your way, then.” As I made my escape, I saw Mr. Carrollton glance into the study like he thought I was pinching the silver. I hurried down to the kitchen.
When I returned to the kitchen, I saw that Mrs. Albright and Mrs. Pomeroy had made enough progress on the tidying up that they had been able to spread out their tea on the table. They had already started on their cake when I arrived. “Did you find anything, dear?” Mrs. Pomeroy asked as soon as I was off the stairs.
I wasn’t sure if any of what I’d found meant something or not. That didn’t seem very comforting, so I hedged. “Mr. Carrollton returned.”
Mrs. Pomeroy got to her feet. “I didn’t hear the doorbell. I’d better go and see if he needs anything. Will you wait?”
Mrs. Albright glanced at me. “No, no. We’d best be going. I’ll call on you again on your day off.”
“Thank you for coming. And you too, Cassie.”
The bell from the study rang, and Mrs. Pomeroy started up the stairs. I glanced at the walnut cake, but Mrs. Pomeroy hadn’t offered to let me take any with me, so I followed Mrs. Albright out to the street cake-less.