Page 78 of The Maid's Secret

Mama ignored her until she could no longer. “What is it you want, Penelope?” she snapped.

“Mrs.Mead,” the girl answered, her voice tremulous and weak.

“She’s in the kitchen,” said Mama.

The girl floated away as if in a trance.

Once she was gone, my mother whispered to Priscilla, “She’snotworking out.”

“Good help is so hard to find,” Priscilla replied.

A few minutes later, Mrs.Mead ran past the parlor, moving so quickly she was barely recognizable. As Mama and Priscilla ignored her in favor of a discussion on the importance of wedding favors, I poked my head into the corridor. Mrs.Mead was heading toward the conservatory. I heard the glass door slam as she exited the manor.

I returned to my spot on the settee.

“What do you think, Flora?” Mama asked.

I was so tuned out I had no idea what they were discussing. “I leave that to you. Mothers know best,” I said.

“You see? She’s become much more pliant since meeting your son.”

“I’m glad he could be of service,” said Priscilla.

It wasn’t long after, maybe thirty minutes, that a great crashing sound was heard down the hall.

“My goodness, what’s the commotion?” said Mama.

She headed to the conservatory, and Priscilla and I followed, halting in the doorway of the glass room because what we saw before us was a vision from a nightmare.

All five men had returned from the hunt, their faces muddy, their bodies drenched. Papa’s tweed cap had vanished; his hand was trembling. Both he and Magnus held their rifles stiffly. Algernon stood beside them, rifle gone, eyes wide with shock. Uncle Willy was moaning something about a deer in the forest. In front of them all stood John, his face streaked not only with mud and tears but with fresh blood. In his arms he held Mrs.Mead, her head lolling, blood spreading across her chest like a rose blooming in fast motion. It was a portrait of terror, Molly, as fresh in my mind today as the day I witnessed it.

“Don’t just stand there!” my mother screamed. “Do something!”

But only Uncle Willy and John moved. They gently lowered Mrs.Mead to the floor, where they held her blue hands and wept overher.

Despite my mother’s protest, there was nothing to do, for the truth was clear to everyone. Mrs.Mead was dead, and no power on earth could bring her back to life.

—

Chapter 23

The egg has reappeared. I can’t quite believe it. It doesn’t make sense. But that’s what Mr.Snow told me just now on the phone. He’s sent someone to pick me up from home and bring me to the hotel, so I head out of my building and wait on the sidewalk for a car to appear. I’m expecting a taxi, but what arrives is a police cruiser.

Detective Stark rolls down her window. “Hop in,” she says. “I’m going where you are.”

And so, not for the first time, I find myself heading to the Regency Grand in Detective Stark’s police car.

“Why would the egg suddenly reappear?” I ask the detective as she drives.

“I have no idea,” says Stark, “but we’ll find out more once we get there.”

When we arrive at the hotel, Mr.Snow is pacing anxiously on the red-carpeted stairs.

Speedy lopes over and opens my car door. “Molly! Your egg’s got legs. It ran back to you,” he says with a strange grin on his face.

“Speedy,” says Mr.Snow, “are you the doorman or the town crier?”

“Is it really true?” I ask as I exit the car and head into the hotel with the detective.