A Tea Party of Sorts
Emma came out of the kitchen with a fresh pot of tea and a plate of jam and cream scones, courtesy of Janet, and two extra cups, all of which she placed on Charity’s table.
“I need to apologise,” Henrietta said, joining them and helping Emma pull up two extra chairs. It was a tight fit at the table but with a bit of shuffling they were soon all comfortable, or as comfortable as they were going to get.
“Apologise?” Charity asked, eyebrows raised. Henrietta picked up the teapot and topped up everyone’s cup.
“Yes. With the stress of what was happening yesterday I didn’t get the opportunity to introduce you all properly. I know you’ve met Emma, Charity, but the rest of the family haven’t. Do help yourself to the scones.”
With that, Henrietta formally introduced Emma to Charity’s sister, Grace Hewitt, Grace’s daughter Miriam, and her fiancé, Jonathan Inglis. The usual pleasantries were exchanged, albeit a little strained.
“Are you planning on staying long in Echuca?” Emma asked Grace politely, doing her best to pretend this was a pleasant social interaction, and that she and Henrietta hadn’t just hijacked the table.
Looks were exchanged.
“Well, until this matter of the house is decided, at least,” Grace replied hesitantly.
“Ah, do you have something to offer on that subject?” Charity cut in. “Is that what this tea party is about? Janet will let us have the house if we don’t have her charged with murder? Is that it?”
Henrietta looked as if she were about to faint. She was struggling to keep up her part. Emma didn’t want an all out argument and have the Pickles storm off. They needed more time, and the family were going to find out the result of the autopsy anyway.
“We spoke to Dr. MacArthur, the coroner, this morning, Miss Pickles,” she explained. “Henrietta thought the sooner we all knew what had happened the better, before more accusations were thrown about and a real rift created in the family. According to the autopsy, your father died of a heart attack.”
“Well, at least we don’t have a murderer in the family,” Charity said stiffly.
“But he was hit on the head,” Miriam exclaimed. “The doctor said so. He saw the wound.”
“That’s true,” Emma said, “but it didn’t kill him.”
“But could it have caused the heart attack?” Jonathan Inglis spoke up for the first time. “An event such as that would have been a great shock to an elderly and frail man.”
“Yes, that must be what happened,” Miriam agreed. “I’m truly sorry, Aunt Henrietta, but I can only tell the police what I saw.”
“Will Janet be charged do you think, Jonathan?” Grace asked. “Will there be a trial?”
“Hard to say at the moment,” he replied. “There’s a wound to the head. Someone was seen with a piece of firewood in their hand at the scene, which mysteriously disappears, apparently thrown into the fireplace and burnt. That’s circumstantial evidence at least. Then there’s an argument over an inheritance, so a possible motive.” He nodded. “A case could be made.”
“Are you involved with the law, then, Mr. Inglis?” Emma asked. That analysis hadn’t come from a layman, she didn’t think.
“I passed the exam for the bar two years ago and have been working for a firm of solicitors in Melbourne,” he said smiling.
“He’s brilliant,” Miriam asserted.
“Perhaps you should engage Mr. Inglis to defend Janet, Henrietta,” Charity said drily.
“I’d be happy to do it,” Jonathan Inglis said, earning a glare from Charity, who clearly was being facetious with her suggestion. “Though I hope it won’t come to that,” he added hastily. “But I would do it pro bono, as it’s family. Please don’t hesitate if it becomes necessary.”
“Thank you,” Henrietta said faintly.
Charity pulled on her gloves. “We really must be getting home. I need to get the roast in the oven for dinner. I don’t know where the time is going to these days.”
Henrietta and Emma exchanged a look of alarm. Had they given Janey and Peggy enough time?
“I hope you enjoyed your lunch,” Henrietta said to Grace.
“Lunch was quite delicious,” Grace replied, as she gathered up her bag and gloves. “You have a lovely little place here.”
“You must come by again while you’re in town,” Henrietta urged. “And if there’s anything you’d really enjoy I’d be only too pleased to serve it.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you. I will keep it in mind.”
Henrietta took her time unlocking the front door. Jonathan Inglis held the door open as she followed them out to the street for a last goodbye.
“Mr. Inglis, may I ask you a legal question?” Emma spoke before he stepped out.
“Certainly, Mrs. Berry, if I can help.”
“I didn’t like to ask in the hearing of the family members, but what is the legal position on someone interfering with a dead body?”
“Ah, you’re thinking of Mr. Pickles being already deceased before he was hit on the head?” Emma nodded. “It is a criminal offence, subject to a jail term depending on the circumstances and the actual interference.”
“I see. Thank you.”
He inclined his head to her and joined the ladies. Henrietta stared after them as they moved off down the street, and then popped back into the cafe.
“Janey’s just turned in between the buildings,” Henrietta reported breathlessly. “I didn’t see Peggy.”
“Thank goodness.” There was no way Emma would’ve been able to explain it away if Janey had been caught at the boarding house. “Let’s hear what she has to say.”
Janey was placing the kettle over the fire when Emma and Henrietta hurried into the kitchen.
“Did you find anything?” Emma asked.
Janey shook her head. “No buckets of bloodied water and washcloths,” she reported, seeming to savour the words as she selected a clean teapot from the shelf above the bench. “And nothin’ out of place Peggy could tell.”
“Good, well done. So, if something turns up, we’ll know it’s been planted,” Emma said.
“You don’t really think the police would do something like that, do you?” Henrietta asked.
“I hope not, but best to be a step ahead, just in case.” Janey put tea leaves in the teapot, as the kettle began to sing. “What did you do with Peggy?” Emma asked.
“Left her peeling potatoes for dinner.”
“Charity will be pleased to see that, anyway,” a relieved Henrietta said with a laugh.
“She won’t ever say so,” Janey commented.
“No.”
Janet came in through the back door. “Who won’t ever say so?” she asked.
“Your Aunt Charity. She won’t ever compliment a maid on something well done,” Henrietta told her daughter.
Janet laughed without humour but didn’t comment. Having worked at the boarding house in years past Janet knew her aunt’s personality very well.
“I saw them leave from upstairs,” she said now. “How did it go?”
Henrietta updated her. “Jonathan offered to defend you if it came to a trial,” she told Janet. “Free of charge, too.”
Janet eyebrows shot up to her hairline. “Well, that’s awfully good of him. How did Miriam take his offer?”
“I didn’t notice. We were sitting on the same side of the table.”
“I thought her smile seemed a bit fixed,” Emma offered as Henrietta looked to her. “I get the feeling she isn’t as sure of him as she’d like to be.”
“That’s not what Peggy says,” Janey told her.
“And what does Peggy say?”
“She doesn’t like that Miriam. Says she’s full of herself and orders her man about.”
Emma tried not to smile. It was Miriam Janey was describing and not herself, wasn’t it? But people’s relationships and perceptions were interesting. Perhaps what Peggy saw was a confident woman telling her man what to do, when Miriam’s reality was about getting reassurances that he cared enough to do as she wanted.
“What else did Peggy tell you about the people in the house?”
“She says Grace wants money from her father, and she and Charity snipe all the time, and it made the old man angry,” Janey said, pouring boiling water into the teapot.
Janet gathered up enough cups and saucers and took them to the table in the middle of the kitchen, while Henrietta went into the cafe and brought back the plate of scones that had barely been touched. Janey carried the teapot to the table and began to pour.
“How did Peggy come to be here in the Tearoom, anyway?” she asked, helping herself to a scone.
“She had a bundle of bags to carry home when Miss Charity and the rest of ‘em came into the cafe for lunch,” Janey explained, “so I offered to help her take ‘em home. Then I invited her to have lunch here in the kitchen.”
“That was very enterprising of you,” Emma encouraged. Janey gave her a sideways look as if unsure whether she was being praised or not. “Well done,” Emma added for good measure.
“Did she tell you anything about yesterday, when my father-in-law died?” Henrietta asked.
Janey swallowed a mouthful of scone. “Peggy says she never went near the parlour after lunch, and Mr. Pickles never rang for her. She found out the old man had died when Miss Charity sent her to fetch Mr. Nathaniel, and he sent her to fetch you.”
“And you were already there?” Emma said to Janet.
Janet nodded. “I was going to speak to Grandfather at the cafe, but we were busy. I couldn’t catch up with him outside because that Mr. Collins was there, so I was really pleased when I got his note asking me to call. I know he could be difficult to get along with,” she said sadly, “but I didn’t want to be arguing with him. I was just hoping we could sort out this business of my inheriting the boarding house.”
“No, he wasn't an easy man to get on with,” Henrietta agreed. “He never said much, and he had definite ideas, which it was almost impossible to change."
"It was," Janet agreed. “I don’t know that I could’ve changed his mind about the house, so when I got his note I though Aunt Grace might have convinced him to change his will. I doubt he would have done it for Aunt Charity. They never got on.”
Henrietta nodded. Emma had the impression that both women had cared about Old Mr. Pickles, despite his idiosyncrasies.
“I'm not sure what to do now,” Janet said. “I'd like to just give the house back to Dad and my aunts, but then I feel I'm going against what Grandfather wanted."
“They’d only recently learnt he was leaving it to you, didn’t you say?” Emma asked Janet.
“Yes, he told them over dinner two days before.”
“What are you thinking?” Henrietta asked.
“It doesn’t make sense that Charity, Grace, or Nathaniel would kill him. They’d more likely try to convince him to change the will. But then…if he refused, as you seem to think he would, they might have hit him out of frustration and anger. Perhaps Nathaniel slipped away from his office and…”
“No.” Henrietta and Janet both said at once.
“Never. Nat would never consider such a thing,” Henrietta added.
“No,” Janet repeated shaking her head. “That can be easily proved, anyway, if he never left the office.”
That was true enough. She might be able to get Daniel to make discreet enquiries about that. It could be easily proved, as Janet said. One way or the other.
“Charity and Grace are probably more likely, being on the spot, I suppose. How long had you been in the parlour before Miriam came in and found you with the piece of firewood in your hand?” Emma asked Janet.
“I’d barely walked in the door. I let myself in as usual, and I knew he’d be in the parlour. He always was these days. I thought he was asleep. It was Miriam who looked at him properly, when he didn’t wake when she spoke to him.”
Emma nodded. If they couldn’t prove conclusively that Janet hadn’t hit her grandfather on the head, perhaps they could muddy the waters by putting up the possibility of several others who had the opportunity and possible motive for doing so, weak as that motive seemed to be.
A timeframe for everyone’s movements was becoming imperative. In fact, the less proof there was as to where everyone had been in that two-hour timeframe, the better. She was going to have to talk to all concerned and was considering how difficult that might prove when Janey spoke up again.
“Peggy says he was arguing with someone when he come back from lunch.”
“What? Who? Did she see who it was?”
“No, she were in the dining room. Miss Charity had sent her to change the tablecloth and throw out the flowers. She heard the old man come in with someone and they were arguing. They went into the parlour and closed the door.”
“Could it have been Mr. Collins?” Janet asked.
“Of course,” Emma said. “They walked off down the street heading in the right direction. How well do they know each other?”
Henrietta shrugged. “I’ve no idea.”
“Me neither,” Janet said.
“Nathaniel might know. Should I ask him?”
“Yes, it gives us someone else with an opportunity. Oh, my goodness. I should have thought of him, but it just didn’t occur to me that he might have been in the house. I don’t suppose Peggy heard anything of the argument, Janey?”
“She heard the other man say, “You’re being unreasonable,” and then the door to the parlour closed, and she could only hear their voices.”
“Was he there for long, does she know?”
Janey shook her head. “She was upstairs after that. She might have heard a door slam, but she wasn’t sure.”
“I wonder if anyone else in the house heard anything.”
Something else to enquire about. Tomorrow was looking like a busy day. Just so long as she didn’t bump into Sergeant Donovan doing the rounds of questioning as well.
There was the sound of someone trying the front door to the Tearoom.
“Oh, my goodness, look at the time. We need to open again,” Henrietta said, pushing her chair back. “They’ll be knocking the door down for their afternoon teas any minute. Are you going to be all right to keep working, Janet?”
“I guess so. At least Aunt Charity’s not likely to be back today.”
Emma hesitated for just a moment. “Would you like Janey to stay a while longer?”
“Would you?” Janet asked Janey. “We need to bake, and Peggy didn’t get to finish the washing up.”
“How come she was doing it anyway?” Henrietta asked, turning back.
“She’s putting her trousseau together, so I offered her a sixpence for helping,” Janet explained. “She was awfully grateful.”
Henrietta shook her head. “Sixpences have a habit of adding up,” she said, and went to unlock the front door.
“And we only have one pair of hands each,” Janet said, refusing to be chastised. “Come on then, Janey. Scones, biscuits and a twenty-minute cake will keep that lot quiet for five minutes, at least.”