A thin lady with neat gray hair, dressed all in unadorned black, stood in the kitchen doorway.
“Madam,” Mrs. Robertson said, “what can I do for you?” As she spoke she was waving the servants back to work, and, abandoning their tea, they scattered like a flock of birds disturbed by a dog in the park.
The lady, who was presumably their employer, regarded this flurry of motion with clear satisfaction. “I am just returning the inventory of…” Her sharp, beady eyes had found Janey, the cuckoo in the nest who had been edging reluctantly toward the back door. Janey froze.
“Oh, this is a neighbor’s girl who joined us for a few minutes on her half day. She is just going.”
“Yes, she is,” thundered the lady. “And she won’t be back! Get you hence, girl, back to that den of iniquity that has been foisted upon us! And tell your evil mistress to begone from the sight of decent people.”
Rumbled,Janey thought, trying not to laugh. And yet, as she swaggered out of the suddenly silent kitchen and across the back garden to the mews, she found her legs were shaking.
Chapter Nine
Leaving the carriagefor Constance’s use, Solomon took a hackney to Scotland Yard, where he was lucky enough to catch Inspector Harris in his office. The man rose to shake hands over his desk, eyeing Solomon with his usual mixture of displeasure and interest.
“I was wondering when you would appear. Sit down.”
Solomon took the handkerchief-wrapped flask from his pocket and laid it on the desk before he sat. “We found that this morning, under the garden shed, where it might have been kicked by accident or by design. It reeks of opium.”
Harris’s eyebrows flew up. Silently, he unwrapped the flask, examined it, and sniffed it. He grimaced. “It does. The question is, was it always there and my fools missed it? Or did someone plant it there for you to find later?”
“I can’t see what their objective would be in that,” Solomon said. “On the other hand, someone is definitely trying to cause trouble for Constance.” He told Harris about the manure piled on the back doorstep.
The policeman looked only vaguely interested. “I don’t have the men to investigate quarrels between neighbors.”
“Even if your murdered bodies are an extension of that quarrel?”
“Murderedbody,” Harris corrected him. “Singular.”
“Really? Was there an autopsy on Nevvy? If they weren’t put on that step from different places, isn’t it likely they were drinking together?”
“There’s no proof of that.”
“There’s no proof of anything very much,” Solomon retorted. “But Constance did say Nevvy’s fingers were curled as if he’d been holding something.”
“He can’t have been holding itandkicking it under the shed.”
Solomon sighed. “I know. And I see no reason for St. John to have been drinking with vagrants. He seems to have been a refined sort of fellow, and had no shortage of friends.”
“On the other hand,” Harris said thoughtfully, “the doctor at the hospital did give Neville some opium a couple of weeks ago. And a month before that. If he saved it up and put it all in the flask full of brandy, I suppose it could have killed both of them. But why would St. John have drunk anything so foul? Unless he was in the habit…”
“Was he?”
“Not according to his family or his servants. There was a bottle of laudanum in the house for emergencies, but the housekeeper swore it hadn’t been touched since the boy broke his arm falling off a horse in the park two years ago.”
“Did you speak to the family physician?”
“We did. He had no concerns over the health of any of the family. Hadn’t seen St. John since he came to treat the boy’s arm. His family, his friends, all thought he was in perfect health.”
“But worried…” Solomon drummed his fingers on the desk. “Still no witnesses?”
“Not to murder, and not to the loading or unloading of bodies.”
“The same with us,” Solomon said restlessly. “So far. Tell me, when they were interviewing neighboring households, didyour men find any ill feeling toward Constance’s establishment? Outrage, I mean, rather than mere disapproval.”
Harris shook his head. “No. My instinct is the bodies died where they were. Though why they were there…”
“Constance’s cook occasionally gave vagrants a cup of tea to drink on the doorstep,” Solomon admitted. “She may even have let them in, which is strictly against the rules, so she never admitted it. Her assistant remembered Nevvy’s face, though only after she’d calmed down enough to think. Neither of them were lying. Mrs. Cate never saw the bodies.”
