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H aving delivered his message, Armitage stamped down the passageway to his butler’s pantry and slammed the door.

Jane’s face went tight. “The police? I can’t have no dealings with the police.”

Why not? I wondered. Guilty conscience? And about what?

“I will not let them question you without me by your side,” I promised her.

I’d learned from experience that constables or sergeants weren’t always kind to servants, often assuming one of them was the culprit from the outset.

Any reported theft or murder in a home led police directly to the staff.

With the entire dinner party in the dining room digging into the fish, that left any servant wandering the house as a suspect.

Which included Mrs. Seabrook, I reminded myself. She’d claimed to be tidying up the drawing room and heard the front door open. She could have quietly stabbed Lord Alfred, opening the door to hint at an intruder.

Despite Lord Babcock’s wishes, the police were here now.

Tess had reported to Daniel, who’d have gone straight to Scotland Yard.

We’d watched from the stairs outside the scullery while men in severe suits carried out Lord Alfred’s body on a draped stretcher and loaded it into a van, presumably to take to a morgue.

Mary had renewed her weeping as they went.

Lord Babcock had walked out with his son. He was a tall man, but his frame was bowed with grief. He rested a hand on the stretcher before the bearers loaded it, as though saying good-bye.

My eyes filled with tears as I watched. Poor man.

I had hoped that Inspector McGregor would be called upon to run the investigation. Though he disliked my interference, he’d believe me if I told him the kitchen staff had been with me working hard while the crime had been committed.

I heard McGregor’s rumbling tones outside as we returned to the kitchen, but it wasn’t he who descended below stairs to interview the staff. It was Sergeant Scott.

I’d first met Detective Sergeant Scott when he’d detained Lady Cynthia’s father last fall in connection with a murder. The sergeant was a tall, youngish man with a sharp face, fair hair slicked against his skull, and shrewd blue eyes that took in everything around him.

If the sergeant was surprised to encounter me in this house, he made absolutely no sign of it. He instructed me to send in the kitchen servants to speak to him one at a time in the housekeeper’s parlor before walking purposefully there and closing the door.

Cynthia and Mr. Thanos had retreated upstairs after Armitage’s announcement, as they would be interviewed as well. They’d sent me sympathetic glances as they went but could no longer help me.

I decided to approach Sergeant Scott first. I entered the housekeeper’s parlor to find a small room containing a few comfortable chairs, a writing desk, and a sideboard with a half-full carafe of wine reposing on it.

Sergeant Scott had pulled the desk away from the wall so he could face his suspects and had set a chair in front of it for those he’d interrogate. He did not look up when I entered, only continued scribbling into a small notebook.

I declined the silently offered chair, preferring to stay on my feet.

“Is Inspector McGregor speaking to the upstairs?” I asked before Sergeant Scott could address me.

“He should be told that the footmen were instructed to be in the dining room, leaving the front door unguarded, which is a strange thing to do. Inspector McGregor might be wise to find out who gave the order.”

Sergeant Scott continued writing for a moment, though whether he took note of my observation or ignored it, I couldn’t say.

He at last fixed me with his pale blue gaze. “Mrs. Holloway, you are cook for a family in Mount Street, not this house.”

No question of whether I’d changed my place of employment since I’d seen him last. He knew I didn’t work here and waited for me to explain my presence.

“Lady Babcock’s cook has taken ill. Mrs. Bywater volunteered my services.”

His brows rose slightly. “Do you often cook for other households on your mistress’s whim?”

“No,” I said, a bit too quickly. “This was an unusual circumstance.”

Sergeant Scott’s pencil scratched on his page. “The nature of the cook’s illness?”

“I don’t really know. She is poorly, I can tell you that. The morphine given her can’t help, can it?”

The pencil abruptly ceased. Sergeant Scott looked up at me again, his eyes even sharper. “What morphine?”

“It was introduced into her tea. I have no idea who put it there.”

“How do you know she was given morphine? And that it was in the tea?” His skewering gaze told me the most likely answer was that I’d put it there myself.

“Because I accidentally drank it,” I admitted.

“Fortunately, only a small mouthful, but the effect was strong, and the tea was terribly bitter. I gave the cup to Mr. McAdam to test. The report I received was that there were trace amounts of morphine. I am not certain if the dose was meant to murder the cook, make her ill, or make her well. The lady of the house carried it to her, but that does not mean she put the morphine in it.”

“You knew poison had been put into a cup of tea, and you didn’t summon a constable?” Scott demanded.

In my younger days, I might have wilted before his accusing stare, but I’d grown strong. “I did inform the police, in a way. I gave the cup to Mr. McAdam. As I say, the morphine might have been put there for benevolent reasons. If Mr. McAdam had been alarmed, he’d have told Inspector McGregor.”

“McAdam doesn’t answer to McGregor,” Sergeant Scott growled.

“I know,” I replied as calmly as I could.

Daniel worked for a horrible man called Monaghan, but I had no idea how much Sergeant Scott discerned of the exact nature of Daniel’s assignments.

I knew very little myself, because Daniel wasn’t allowed to tell me.

Scott knew something of it, but it wasn’t for me to babble about Daniel and the tasks Monaghan set him onto.

Sergeant Scott regarded me severely for a few more seconds, then returned to his book. “Describe the events of today, leading to the death of Lord Alfred Charlton.”

“We were busy preparing the Easter dinner,” I said.

“Which is quite a long process. None of us left the kitchen, that I saw, once all the guests had arrived. Hours pass quickly when one is cooking, and it is a miracle we finish it all by the time the butler summons the diners. We had ham and its accompaniments, a mutton shank and some quail, all the vegetables, the fish and the soup, bread to go with every course, not to mention the pastries and tarts I’d been working on over the past week?—”

“Given that you were paying close attention to your tasks,” the sergeant interrupted me.

“Could it be that you didn’t notice anyone from downstairs nipping up to the main floors?

Lord Alfred was fatally stabbed in the base of his neck.

Death would have been very quick, and the murderer back in place before she was missed.

You likely have a number of deadly knives in the kitchen.

My constable is even now collecting them. ”

I briefly reflected that it was a mercy I’d decided against bringing my own. “Why did you say she ?” I asked. “You suppose the murderer was a woman?”

“All the male servants were in the dining room, according to the butler,” Sergeant Scott answered without hesitation. “That leaves the female servants unaccounted for.”

“You wouldn’t be so certain of the killer’s gender if an intruder walked in and did it,” I pointed out. “You are assuming someone in the house killed Lord Alfred?”

“I assume nothing, Mrs. Holloway. I only note what happened so the inspector will have as much information as possible to make an arrest.”

His words were logical, but I was not reassured.

“Lord Alfred was wandering the house, I’ve been told.

He might have met his death before everyone was settled in the dining room, if one of the guests lingered to speak to him.

You say it would have been very quick—how do you know he wasn’t dead before the meal was served? ”

Sergeant Scott’s next glance told me he found me irritating and arrogant. “I will speak to the rest of the kitchen maids,” he said, ignoring my question. “Their names?”

I bristled at his preemptory tone but answered without argument.

“Tess Parsons, who is my assistant. Jane, the undercook, and Mary, scullery maid. I don’t know their surnames, but Mrs. Seabrook will.

” As Sergeant Scott wrote this down, I continued, “I will remain while you question them. They’re fearful, which is understandable. ”

“No, I will speak to them alone, without them looking to you for instruction on how to answer.”

“I’ll not abandon them, Sergeant,” I said tightly.

Sergeant Scott frowned at me but remained cool. “You will not be?—”

He broke off on a sudden, staring sharply at the door. I heard what he did, the sound of bottles clinking.

Scott rose and swiftly stepped past me. He wrenched open the door to reveal Armitage staggering into the hall with a large crate of wine bottles.

“You there,” the sergeant demanded. “What are you doing?”

Armitage started, nearly dropping the box, but an answer sprang readily from his lips. “Moving the master’s wine to a safe place. If there’s a tramp lurking about, I need to make sure he don’t nick anything, don’t I?”

He lied—a few of those bottles were ones I’d brought that I hadn’t finished packing. Armitage’s safe place was likely one in which he’d either drink all the wine or sell it on.

Sergeant Scott detected the lie as well. “Put them down,” he ordered.

“ I didn’t kill the young master. You’re no one to tell me what to do?—”

“Now.”

Armitage started again but after assessing the sergeant’s impatience, he lowered the box to the slate floor. He straightened, one hand going to his back.

“ You can answer to the master if they go missing,” Armitage muttered both to me and the sergeant. “And put them all back. I have me duties to attend.”

“I will speak to you soon,” Sergeant Scott informed him. “Wait in there.” He pointed to the butler’s pantry.

Armitage began to splutter, but again, he wilted under Scott’s cold stare. Armitage sent me a baleful glance but scuttled into the butler’s pantry and slammed its door.

I moved around Sergeant Scott to peer into the box. “Half of those belong to the Mount Street house,” I said. “May I take them?”

Sergeant Scott studied me without expression. I knew he did not give two sticks about who the wine belonged to, but he also knew that aristocrats were possessive of their expensive wine collections. He gave me a minute nod.

“Send in Miss Parsons when you go.”

Without giving me a chance to answer, he stepped back into the housekeeper’s parlor and closed the door with a decided click.

I’d never heft six bottles of wine under my arms, so I began to shove the crate down the hall toward the kitchen. I half expected Armitage to pop out and accuse me of theft, but he stayed put. Sergeant Scott, without ever raising his voice, had thoroughly intimidated him.

I was not as worried about Tess facing Sergeant Scott alone, despite some petty thieving in her past, because she’d grown less fearful about the police in the last few years.

Her beau, Caleb Greene, was a constable, and she’d helped Daniel and me in some of our investigations.

Tess had finally concluded that the Peelers were simply men doing a job, though there still were plenty of constables who thought nothing of bullying innocents.

I entered the kitchen half bent over the box I was pushing.

“You are next, Tess,” I said breathlessly, and then added for the benefit of the others, “Sergeant Scott can be aloof, but there’s nothing to be frightened of. Just tell the truth. We were all here in the kitchen when the young master died.”

I heard no response, so I straightened up, pushing tendrils of hair from my face. Tess and Mary regarded me with worry.

“I’m not afraid,” Tess said. “But Jane’s gone.”

“Gone?” I shoved at another recalcitrant tendril. “What do you mean gone ?”

“She legged it,” Mary supplied. “Not ten seconds after you went into the room with Old Bill. She tore away her apron, and off she went.”