Rather despondently Luke set off later that afternoon to try and track down some of the other people who had been in the kitchen on the fatal morning. He didn't hold out a great deal of hope for his success. He had one name, the fishmonger Hadleigh, and he might be able to trace the Countess's milliner and her butcher, and even the girl delivering the milk. And he could always talk to the other servants from Redditch House. Suky and the boot boy, and Jane, the laundry maid, had all been in the kitchen, but he didn't really think any of them could be implicated. Still, they might be able to give him important scraps of information. He was discovering that none of the information he had fitted, and he needed more before he would be able to build up a complete picture.
He had just turned into Gray's Inn Lane when his name was called, and he caught a glimpse of Sam coming towards him. Sam gestured urgently. 'Luke, over here!'
He wove his way through the carts which always made this lane busy, and finally crossed over to where Sam waited.
'What brings you here?'
'Such a commotion! The constable's been asking questions again, and the Earl's fit to murder him. Or all of us, more like. I wanted to tell you something.'
'Here?' Luke suggested, indicating a tavern behind them, but Sam shook his head.
'Too public. Can we go back to your aunt's house?'
They turned round, and Sam refused to utter a word until they were in Aunt Caroline's morning room, and she had insisted on providing them with mugs of ale and some spice cakes just out of the oven.
'Please stay, Mrs Prevost,' Sam said when she made to leave them. 'I'd like you to try and make sense of it as well.'
'Three heads are better than two? Very well. Now what is it you have to tell us?'
Sam took a deep breath. 'The constable came again, and insisted on hearing what everyone had to say. He saw everyone, apart from Gillitty, that only a few of us know is still there, and you, Luke. He was put out you weren't there, and no one knew where you could be found. It makes it look bad for you.'
'For you too if he discovers you knew where to find me and didn't tell him. Thanks, Sam.'
'He spent ages with Harris, then the Viscount went in again and came out looking like thunder. Harris refused to tell anyone what it was about, and he's been avoiding all of us since then.'
'None of the others discovered it, when they were questioned?' Luke asked. Had Harris known something to the Viscount's detriment? Yet surely if he had he'd have been turned off at once?
'There's Drummond and Cook, as well, of course. He hasn't seen either of them yet, but he said he means to. I don't know what the Earl and his Ma told him, but the rest of us knew what we'd all said. Anyway, it's all turned upside down now. It seems as though the Earl couldn't have done it, but his Ma could.'
'But – I thought Miss Armitage was with her? And no one was with him,' Luke protested.
'Well, Maggie now says she was with him, but had been too embarrassed to say so at first. She says there was nothing improper going on, they were just talking, but nobody believes that!'
'I wonder if she can be believed now?' Aunt Caroline said thoughtfully. 'Could the Viscount – I can't get used to him as the Earl – have forced her to supply him with an alibi?'
Luke nodded. 'It's possible. He'd be quite unscrupulous in threatening her if she didn't say what he wanted. But how could the Countess have the opportunity? Miss Armitage fetched her tea before Jenny brought up the Earl's chocolate.'
'Yes, she couldn't have done it then. But what we're all forgetting is that soldier who came,' Sam said triumphantly.
Luke looked startled. 'You mean he might have done it? Someone had paid him? But how could anyone know he would have the opportunity?'
Sam shook his head. 'Not him, that's too hard to believe, even though he was alone in the drawing room for ages.' He turned to explain to Mrs Prevost. 'I took him up to the drawing room, you see. It's on the first floor, same floor as the principal bedrooms.'
'You mean where the Earl and his wife and son all slept?'
Sam nodded. 'I had to do it, as Drummond wasn't there. Or at least he was there, in the kitchen, but wasn't doing his job, he was waiting for that hackney. Then I went to ask if the Countess would see him. She said soon, and I went downstairs. But Miss Armitage didn't go along to the drawing room with her.'
'So if the timing was right, and she saw the chocolate where Jenny had left it, and if she had some cyanide handy, she could have slipped it in,' Luke said slowly. 'But that's not likely. There are too many chancy things. And where would she get the poison?'
'It also means I was up there, after I left the soldier, and Miss Armitage was on her own too after the Countess went into the drawing room.'
Luke buried his head in his hands. 'So many more potential poisoners!'
'I hope you don't count me!' Sam said with a cheerful laugh.
Luke shook his head. 'I don't, but does the constable? Can anyone be sure of the time? I suppose it's possible any of them might have seen the chocolate, been alone with it for a few seconds.'
His aunt sighed deeply. 'It doesn't fit,' she said slowly. 'To have the poison available it has to be planned. Yet to take the chance of putting it in the chocolate indicates someone took a sudden opportunity. I suppose it's just possible the Countess, or anyone else for that matter, carried it round with them just in case they had this opportunity, but it just doesn't feel right.'
Luke nodded. 'It's much more likely to have been put in the chocolate while it was in the kitchen.'
'The soldier came in through the kitchen,' Sam said. 'It was a few minutes before anyone noticed him and asked what he wanted. He said he'd been told to wait there when he knocked. He could have been near the chocolate.'
'Cook didn't mention him,' Luke said. 'I wonder why not, when she could recall everyone else?'
'She might have been fetching some of her bags,' Sam suggested. 'Or she might have been outside, too busy saying a fond farewell to Mr Hadleigh!'
'If he was there for just a few minutes, that's possible, I suppose,' Luke agreed. 'That means he might have been hired to do it. But would he have waited so long afterwards? It was ages before the Countess went to him.'
Sam nodded. 'If I'd done it I'd have scarpered as fast as my legs would carry me.'
Luke was puzzled. 'Has there been any confirmation of the news he brought? Is Percy really dead?'
Sam looked startled. 'You mean it could be young Percy? Hoaxing everyone, come home and murdered his dad while everyone thought he was dead or on the other side of the world? Or hired someone to do it for him?'
'If an official letter comes, which it must do soon if he's really dead, let me know. Until it does we have to keep him in mind too.'
After a few minutes while they thought about this complication, Aunt Caroline sighed and turned to Sam.
'As for the rest, was there anything new about the people in the kitchen? Was anyone cleared? Did anyone recall anyone else who was there? Do you have the names of all these strangers, delivery boys, and milk maids?'
'There was no one else we haven't mentioned, except the soldier. I know where the butcher and the milk girl came from, and the milliner. Many's the time I've carried hats home from there! And Mr Hadleigh, of course. But I don't know who the other boy was, or the woman looking for sewing, and nobody else did either.'
Luke frowned. 'And of course the soldier has vanished too. I seem to have a lot more people to see. Sam, I'll start with the people in the house.'
'That's too risky, surely. If anyone sees you, or lets on you've been, you could be arrested.'
'I have to take that risk, Sam. To find out who really did it is the only way to turn suspicion from me.'
Sam groaned, but agreed Luke had the right of it.
'Is there some time when I can come there, when the Earl is out of the way? I can't keep making assignations one by one!'
***
For the next two days Luke spent much of his time finding elusive delivery people and asking them questions. He found a free hour each day, however, to loiter in Theobalds Road in the hope of waylaying Bella Bates taking the pug for its exercise.
On the second morning his luck returned. He saw her leave the house as he approached, and hastened to catch up with her as she turned towards Red Lion Square.
'Miss Bates, well met,' he said cheerfully. 'May I walk with you today?'
She smiled shyly up at him, and he had to restrain himself from either taking her in his arms and covering those delicate, enchanting lips with kisses, or urging her to flee with him, away from the house where, he was certain, she must be unhappy. How could anyone living with Frederick and his family be happy? Common sense returned, however, and he contented himself with remarks about the weather, which was warmer the past two days, and similar innocuous and, he realised afterwards, inane topics.
Bella didn't appear to find them trite. She confessed that she detested the dog, for he was a nasty vicious brute who could not be trained to leave things alone. 'He is always running away with anything left near enough to the ground for him to snatch, but the walks I have to take with him at least enable me to escape from the house occasionally.'
'Are you so dreadfully unhappy?' Luke demanded in a fierce voice which made her eye him uncertainly.
'No, not really,' she said slowly. 'The house is so crowded, though, and Amelia insists they have nowhere else to go, unless – but that is unlikely.'
'What is?'
She hesitated, then shrugged. 'Well, you know Frederick is cousin to the new Earl of Redditch? His father was brother to the Earl who has just been killed so dreadfully. But of course, coming from Bow Street, you know all about it.'
Luke had almost forgotten the role in which she knew him. 'Oh, yes, of course. But what is it your sister expects?'
'Well, she says that Augustus, the new Earl, must have been responsible for his father's death. But that is ridiculous! No man would kill his father, and in such a horrible way! I believe the poor man was in agony as he died.'
'It does seem unlikely,' Luke murmured. 'But does your sister know anything? Or is it mere suspicion?'
'Disappointment, more like!' Bella said with a deep sigh. 'Amelia used to be such an amusing girl, and I still love her. I believe that poverty, especially when she believed she'd made a good marriage, has hurt her deeply.'
Not everyone became sour and resentful because of poverty, Luke thought. His own family were not like that, thank heaven.
Bella went on. 'She has always resented it that the old Earl didn't give Frederick an allowance, or one of his houses. She says that Augustus is suspected, for he has most to gain, and if he is found guilty he would be hanged and Frederick would inherit. And then I needn't – '
She paused, and as Luke looked down at her he saw her cheeks suffused with a rosy blush. But it was anger, he realised, not embarrassment.
'You need not do what?'
She sighed. 'I won't do it, anyway. Not if they lock me up and starve and beat me, as Amelia says Mama ought to do. She says Mama has been too lenient. You see, she – she wants me to marry, and I don't in the least wish to.'
'Is this a general aversion to matrimony?' Luke asked lightly. 'Or is the bridegroom not to your taste?'
'He – he's old! But he's very rich, and it would solve all our problems, Mama's debts. Well, if Augustus did do it, and Frederick became rich, Amelia says they still wouldn't help us, but I don't see why they couldn't help Mama. I don't matter, I would find a position as a milliner. I make all my gowns already. It makes me shudder to think of marrying an old man. But Amelia says he's so old he won't – won't bother me in that way,' she finished in such a low voice Luke barely heard her.
Fuming, Luke was barely able to suppress his anger as he pictured this lovely child in bed with an elderly roué He was silent. What could he say or do to help? But he vowed that he would try something.
She went on, having swallowed a few times. 'What is even worse, Amelia says he's so old he's sure to die soon, and I'd be a rich widow. For he has no other family, you know, he has never married and has no children by another wife, so all would come to me. But I think that's odious, to marry a man and hope he'll die soon. Even if I don't like him!'
Luke could find no comfort for her, but after a while he suggested they tried to meet each day at the same hour, and Bella smiled delightfully up at him. Once again he had to restrain himself, to remember she was not like many serving girls, willing to give their favours freely for some small gift.
***
The butcher's boy admitted that the other lad with him had not, as he'd said, been delivering fish, but was his brother who'd been eager to see at first hand what life was like in a Mayfair mansion. Neither of them, they said, had taken any notice of Jenny or seen the chocolate on the table.
'It were all such a muddle, people dashin' abaht all over place, an' shoutin', I dain't know wot were goin' on,' the interloper maintained, and Luke believed him.
The milliner's assistant, pert and pretty, but with sharp eyes and a quick tongue, said she'd tried to go through into the front of the house, but had been pushed back by one of the footmen. She tossed her head. 'I could see I'd get nowhere in that bedlam, so I went out and decided to go back another day.'
Mr Hadleigh asserted that he had not gone inside the kitchen. 'I knew, as soon as Mrs Robinson told me she was leaving, that I would receive no order that day, so I left,' he said briskly.
No one knew who the woman seeking sewing work was, so Luke abandoned any hope of finding her. Sam had already asked if anyone at the other houses nearby knew her, but they could add nothing. Nor could he hope to discover the soldier's whereabouts. That left the girl who brought the milk and the other servants.
He loitered in the mews early one morning and waylaid the girl as she carried her yoke towards the kitchen door. At first she was inclined to be flirtatious, but when he revealed what he wanted to know she berated him for a pesky nuisance who had nothing better to do than prevent honest girls from earning their living.
'You were with Joseph in the dairy, I believe?'
'So where else should I be when I'm putting the milk in a cool place, where I'm told ter put it?' she demanded truculently.
'If you were, you couldn't have seen what people were doing in the kitchen,' he replied. 'I'm trying to discover who might have been close to the range or the table, who could have poisoned the chocolate. I'm hoping those people I can in no way suspect, such as yourself, might have some information.'
'What's it matter ter you?'
'My neck,' he said curtly. 'I'm likely to be accused if there are no other suspects. And how can I prove my innocence unless I discover who did do it?'
She stared at him, then grinned. 'Best get away from 'ere, then, 'adn't yer?'
Sam discovered that on the following day the Countess was going to stay with her daughter, and the Earl meant to travel to Redditch Court. 'Going to make them know who's master now,' he said. 'He said he wasn't going to keep so many servants eating their idle heads off, so it's my guess he'll send most of them packing. It might have been us, but he prefers Town life. Come round in the afternoon, they should both be safely out of the way by then.'
Luke's sudden reappearance in the kitchens of Redditch House caused considerable excitement. Partly to escape notice if the constable should see him, by looking as little like a servant as possible, he had dressed in his best clothes, a mulberry coat, pale fawn breeches, and well-fitting boots polished to as high a gloss as that Augustus demanded. But he did not gain any more information. None of the servants who had been in the kitchen could recall much about that morning. Joseph was curt in his replies, Suky kept casting worried glances at Jenny, and the boot boy disclaimed any knowledge of who had been there anyway.
Harris had gone with the Earl to Redditch Court, but the others believed he'd been asleep until the excitement was over, only waking when the Viscount had sent for him long after the Countess had been put to bed. Jane said she'd only popped in for a moment, and hadn't taken any heed of who'd been there. Maggie simply glared at him and refused to answer his questions. Miss Armitage had left with the Countess, and Mrs Grimsby was out on another of her mysterious errands.
He managed to escape without permitting Jenny to follow him, but Amos met him outside.
'Have you found anyone who could employ Gilletty?' he asked anxiously.
'My aunt is asking amongst her friends, but not many of them employ coachmen.'
'Poor old feller's gettin' fretful, 'e can't abide bein' cooped up in 'ayloft all day.'
'Surely he can come out now the family's not here? None of the servants would betray him.'
Amos nodded. 'It's not that. I'm afeard that if 'e comes out 'e'll find it too difficult ter go back. Then the Lord knows what 'e'll do.'
Luke walked thoughtfully back to Clerkenwell. He didn't see what else he could do to try and solve the mystery, but he would once more ask his aunt if she had any hope of a job for Gilletty.
When he reached the house, however, all thoughts of Earls and coachmen and murder fled. His grandfather was sitting in the parlour with his aunt and uncle.
***
Sylvie twisted her hands together nervously. 'I came with Farmer Jackson's wife, in the gig,' she explained. 'She was coming to market, and I can go back with her. Have you employed anyone else?'
Lady Capstone looked at her ruefully. 'No, my dear, not yet. But I cannot offer you the post, child. For one thing you are too young, and have no experience of small children, and I know your grandparents would not permit it.'
Sylvie bit her lip. 'I am seventeen,' she said urgently. 'I would learn. I have helped care for my cousin Belinda's babies sometimes.'
'I need a nursery governess, not a nursemaid. Besides, your grandparents would object,' Lady Capstone reminded her.
'I'm a burden to them, and to Luke! He is permitted to work as a servant to earn his bread, so why should I not do my part? I cannot bear it, to be beholden to them all!'
'No, my dear. It is far better for you to be with your family, who love you, and who can care for you properly. Here in Oxford you would be subject to all sorts of insults from the undergraduates. Some of them look on any serving girl as legitimate prey. If you must find a position, and I do sympathise with you and admire you for wishing to help, it really would be better for you to find one in a small village where there are fewer dangers for unprotected girls.'
Despite all Sylvie's arguments Lady Capstone would not be moved, and after asking her what time Mrs Jackson proposed setting off for home, she told Sylvie she must remain with her, and her own maid would escort her to the market to meet that lady.
Sylvie fretted, but permitted Lady Capstone to take her up to the nursery where, she said, she could help Rose, the nurse, and experience what it meant to care for a lively girl of three and an even livelier boy of two, plus a babe in arms.
'I am convinced that after an hour of it you will change your mind,' she said. 'I have to see my dressmaker now, but you can join me in the drawing room for some tea before you leave.'
Sylvie was thinking furiously. She would not be driven back home, she would not give in so meekly. If Lady Capstone would not employ her, there would be others who might, and she did not mind what position she took so long as it enabled her to earn her living.
Her grandmother, she recalled, had applied to a Registry when she needed a new housemaid. She supposed there were some in Oxford, and if she could escape from the house she would find one. Fortunately she still had with her the bonnet and shawl she had worn for the expedition. She was decently attired for walking in the town.
For twenty minutes she listened to the nurse's chatter, and played with the two little ones while the baby slept and the nurse mended their dresses.
'I don't often get the chance while they're awake,' she said.
Sylvie wondered whether to ask her for the direction of a Registry, but decided that might enable her grandparents to trace her too swiftly. She had no intention of disappearing altogether. She knew they'd worry, and she wasn't heartless, but for a few days she meant to hide, until she was securely established in a post and they would not wish to force her to go home.
Her opportunity came when the nurse discovered she had left some of the clothes to be mended down in the laundry.
'I can fetch them,' Sylvie offered quickly.
She sped down the back stairs, waited outside the kitchen until the cook had gone to fetch something from the still room, and then whisked through into the small garden behind the house. Moments later she was walking sedately along a narrow lane which led back to the centre of the town. Her heart was thumping and she could scarcely breathe, but she was elated at the success so far. Now all she needed was to find the Registry, persuade them she was suitable for a position, and hope there was one available where she could start immediately.
She had no illusions. If her plan failed, and she had to return to the Rectory, she would be guarded more strictly than ever, and have little chance of future escape. This was her only opportunity.
***