Page 8

By the time we reached the kitchen, Tess had returned. “I told him,” she whispered to me as I began to fix Mr. Thanos a plate. “He sent me back here and hurried off.”

I nodded at her in thanks and carried Mr. Thanos’s meal to him.

He rubbed his hands. “Seems callous to want food at a time like this, but thank you, Mrs. Holloway.”

“I said the same thing,” Cynthia stated. She and Mr. Thanos shared a tiny smile of camaraderie, which pleased me beneath my bewilderment.

I agreed with Jane that a tramp swarming into a fine home on Portman Square and stabbing the young master to death as he happened to cross the hall was an unlikely occurrence.

Constables walked their beats in these parts, even on Easter Sunday, and one would be certain to notice a vagrant looking for unlocked doors.

The idea came to me that perhaps the open door was a blind, and someone already in the house had decided to do away with the young master. One of the guests enraged with him? A servant, such as Armitage, who might strike out in a drunken stupor if Lord Alfred argued with him?

I would more believe it the work of an intruder, if it weren’t for Mrs. Morgan. She’d been afraid for some reason, and the tea intended for her had been laced with poison. Had Lady Babcock wanted Mrs. Morgan sunk into a long stupor or perhaps out of the way entirely?

Mrs. Seabrook had mentioned that Mrs. Morgan and Lady Babcock had been quarreling “something fierce,” speculating it was over the menus.

But Lord Alfred’s death cast a more sinister shadow on the arguments.

Had Mrs. Morgan realized that Lady Babcock meant to do away with her stepson?

Tried to persuade her against it? Therefore, Mrs. Morgan had to be taken out of the way?

Then again, I reasoned, Lady Babcock might not have tampered with Mrs. Morgan’s tea at all. If she’d set the cup down somewhere between wherever she’d brewed it and the cook’s bedchamber, anyone could have slipped the poison into it.

Anyone in the house at the time , I amended. Which meant the servants and the rest of the family.

I had no idea how difficult it was to get hold of morphine. Was it something only a doctor could dispense, or did one walk into the nearest chemist’s shop and request it? Mrs. Seabrook had mentioned that a doctor did give Lady Babcock medicine, but she hadn’t specified what.

These were questions the police would have to ask, as it was not my place, but the two events narrowed down the list of suspects.

Then again, the incidents might be entirely unconnected. Lady Babcock, in her rather dim way, might have been trying to nurse Mrs. Morgan back to health, and had nothing to do with whoever had killed Lord Alfred.

Watch out for her, Mrs. Morgan had urged me.

Because she thought the woman might kill her stepson?

I needed to know who had been in or outside of the dining room when Lord Alfred had died.

Under the pretense of packing up the food, I moved to the table near Cynthia and Mr. Thanos so I could have a low-voiced conversation with them.

“Who were the guests today?” I asked Cynthia.

Her light blue eyes went wide. “Good Lord, are you thinking one of them killed Alfie while we were enjoying our soup?”

“It is one possibility,” I said cautiously.

“Well, let me see.” Cynthia’s eyes narrowed in thought.

“There’s Margaret, of course, Alfie’s sister.

Another member of the family turned up—Desmond Charlton.

Third cousin, I believe. Margaret is batty about him.

Wants to marry the fellow, though Lady Babcock doesn’t approve of the match.

Desmond and his brother haven’t much money, at least, not enough for Desmond to marry Margaret and keep her in the manner to which she is accustomed.

Then there was a bishop, whose name I can’t remember?—”

“Norris,” Mr. Thanos supplied.

“Norris,” Cynthia repeated. “A few friends Margaret invited that I know fairly well myself—Catherine and Thomas Bowler, who have recently made a match. Alice Hodgkinson and her sister Caroline, who are of eligible age, probably brought to entice Alfred to propose to one of them. Their brother Cuthbert, who was likely there as a potential husband for Margaret. As I say, Lady Babcock doesn’t like Margaret’s attachment to Third Cousin Desmond, so she’s always matchmaking for Margaret.

Auntie and Uncle, of course. Thanos. Me.

Oh, and Lady Babcock’s aunt, whose name I also can’t remember. ”

“Miss Jordan,” Mr. Thanos said.

“That’s it. Jordan. She faded into the woodwork, as though she didn’t want anyone to notice her. Not that I blame her. Both Margaret and Alfred were rather rude to her.”

Mrs. Seabrook had referred to Miss Jordan scoffingly as a nobody. I imagined the son and daughter of the house thought the same, especially as they didn’t seem pleased with their stepmother.

Her ladyship ain’t wanted, Mrs. Morgan had said about Lady Babcock. No one can stick her.

I wondered why Lady Babcock had invited her aunt when she herself wasn’t welcome in her own husband’s house. But perhaps Miss Jordan hadn’t had anywhere else to go for Easter. Perhaps the woman thought it better to suffer some rudeness in exchange for an excellent dinner than to sit alone at home.

I myself would rather fix a simple meal and enjoy my own company, but others did not have such fortitude. And perhaps Miss Jordan didn’t have the means for even a simple meal. The upper classes were full of impoverished and forgotten gentlewomen.

“All remained in the dining room?” I asked as I laid Mr. Davis’s unopened wine bottles into their crates. “For the first part of the meal?”

“Once we were being served, yes,” Cynthia answered.

“Before that, we rather drifted about. Foul-tasting ratafia in the drawing room, though I longed for a stiff whiskey. Then we wandered from there to the dining room, no gentlemen taking in the ladies or anything like that. Very informal, and rather haphazard, which is how Lady Babcock prefers things. My aunt had much to say about that, but I like Lady Babcock. An uncomplicated woman.”

“Any of us could have lingered to stab Lord Alfred, I suppose,” Mr. Thanos said.

“I can’t say who exactly was in the dining room at any one time except myself and Cynthia, of course, before the soup was served.

” He blenched. “What a horrible thought. No, it must have been an intruder, don’t you think? ”

Mr. Thanos’s words and expression pleaded with me to agree. Much easier to believe an anonymous person of the streets had broken into the house and done murder, than someone one had sat down to a meal with.

“I find it odd that the front door was left unlocked and unbolted when there was no footman to guard it,” I said.

“Exactly,” Cynthia agreed. “Very likely it wasn’t unlocked at all, and the murderer opened it to make it seem so. Which means, Thanos, it must have been one of the dining party, I’m sorry to say. The bishop is a shifty cove, I’ve always thought.”

I could not tell whether she’d have believed such a thing if Alfred hadn’t been murdered. But then, not all members of the clergy were upright beings. Some were given livings based solely on their connections rather than any religious leanings.

“I also find it odd that Lord Babcock wants it kept quiet,” I said. “Lord Alfred is his son and heir. Shouldn’t he want to know who murdered him?”

“Yes, but what a scandal if it’s known Alfie was killed in his own house,” Cynthia answered. “They’ll never live it down. I’ll wager Lord Babcock will put about that Alfie died of sudden illness and swear us to secrecy.”

“Or, his lordship already knows who killed him.” I firmly set a lid onto the box of wine. “And wants to spare that person the gallows.” Would he stand by his own wife, I wondered. If she’d murdered his beloved son?

“You don’t suppose Lord Babcock killed Alfie himself?” Cynthia’s brows rose. “That can’t be, can it? What man would kill his own son?”

“’Cause maybe he ain’t his son.” Jane had paused in her duties to listen, and now she dropped this interesting bit into the conversation.

“Why on earth would you say that?” I demanded. I ought to admonish Jane for eavesdropping, interrupting, and stating such slander, but I was too curious to be very outraged.

“The first Lady Babcock had many beaus, so they say,” Jane said without compunction. “Wasn’t pure as the driven snow when she married his lordship. I’ve heard it was put about that his young lordship wasn’t actually the marquess’s son.”

“That’s not true,” Mary flashed, also having drifted to us. “He’s a fine young man—” She broke off, tears filling her eyes, as though she realized she now had to speak of Lord Alfred in the past tense.

“Oh, he’s the son of an aristo, all right, but which one?” Jane said darkly. “Begging your pardon, your ladyship.”

“Never mind … Jane, is it?” Cynthia said.

“I’ve heard that rumor myself, but I think it’s all rot.

Alfie resembles—resembled—Lord Babcock quite a bit, so no one officially questioned Alfie’s legitimacy.

The first Lady Babcock took that secret to her grave, if it was even true, so we shall never know. ”

“It is of no matter anymore,” I pointed out gently. “Who will inherit Lord Babcock’s title now? Third Cousin Desmond?”

Cynthia shook her head as she chewed a mouthful of ham and aspic.

“Desmond’s older brother, Stephan. He’s not here today, as he is in France for reasons that are not clear.

Desmond is representing their branch of the family.

With Alfie out of the way, Stephan is the heir, Desmond the spare.

” She coughed and reached for the glass of wine I’d poured for her.

“I say, you don’t mean that Stephan did it?

Disguised himself as a tramp and all that and stabbed Alfie?

To clear the way for their twig of the family tree? ”

“Anything is possible,” I said with a shrug.

As I’d learned through helping Daniel investigate crimes, the police were usually less concerned with why a person was killed than proving who had done it.

There was plenty of motivation for murder—a person might be a wealthy man who would bequeath a large sum when dead, or he’d aggravated the wrong person too many times, or he was the victim of a robbery or some other random crime.

In Lord Alfred’s case, he stood in the way of another man inheriting a title and an estate.

Illegitimate children could not inherit, of course, no matter what, but if no one knew Lord Alfred was illegitimate, or no one could prove it—or if it wasn’t true at all—then there wasn’t much any doubters could do.

But perhaps there was enough shame or fear of the truth that someone in the family had decided to make the question irrelevant.

Now this Stephan would inherit, and his brother had been conveniently in the house.

Or perhaps Lord Alfred had simply angered someone, who’d struck out in rage, whether they’d meant to kill him or not.

How they’d managed to kill the man while everyone had been in sight of each other in the dining room was another problem.

Not that I would have the chance to look into the matter. This was not my kitchen or my house. I was being bundled back to Mount Street as unceremoniously as I’d been bundled to Portman Square.

Armitage put an end to our conversation by storming rather unsteadily into the kitchen.

“Are you still here?” he demanded of me. “You’d better clear out right quick, Mrs. Cook. The police have arrived, and they’re questioning everyone in the house, like the bastards they are.”