The Endicott Evil Read online

  “If you are not going to listen to what I’m telling you, then your assistance will not be needed,” I groused.

  Paul glanced up at me, his expression wholly unperturbed. “Is that what Mr. P. says?”

  I could not help but roll my eyes. I would not let this boy get to me. “Your safety is of paramount importance to both Mr. Pendragon and me, Paul. If something were to happen to you—”

  “Ain’t nothin’ gonna ’appen ta me,” he cut me off with a snort. “I can take care a meself. Been doin’ so since the moment I were born. So you can stop bein’ a twat.”

  “I am well aware that you are capable of fending for yourself,” I said with a growl, “but you will learn that the people who care about you will worry just the same. It is a good thing, not a slight on your character.”

  Paul stared back at me, his hazel eyes round with surprise and, for an instant, void of the arrogance that always seemed to shield him. “What’s it Mr. P. wants me ta do?”

  “Find her. There is a boardinghouse just down the way that she was dropped in front of yesterday. Unfortunately, we have learned that she is not staying there. As I mentioned, the lady is clever and not about to be so easily netted. So we need you, and perhaps one or two of your more capable blokes, to do a bit of poking about in the buildings along this block and the next to see if you can get any information on her without arousing any suspicion. It is most critical, and I am afraid time is of the essence.”

  “Time is wot?”

  “Short. We are short on time. It is possible that she is about to flee the city at any moment. In fact, she may have already done so.”

  “Me and the boys’ll find ’er,” he said with all the assurance of one who has earned a lifetime’s living doing just that. “Ya ain’t got nothin’ ta worry about.”

  “I will worry about you and the other lads, Paul, if you do not heed my warnings about this woman. You must take care at all times and never presume that she does not know we are looking for her.”

  “Hmm . . .” He shrugged. “With this one soundin’ so tricky and all, I jest may need ta charge ya somethin’ extra.”

  I could not help but admire the lad’s enterprising spirit, especially if it assured me of the safety of him and his brood. “If you and your boys find her without any of you getting caught or hurt, I will see to it that you each receive an extra stipend for your efforts.”

  “A wot?”

  “Pay . . . pay . . .” I hastily corrected. “I will pay you extra. And there is one more thing: The woman has dyed her hair black now. She is no longer blond.”

  He beamed as he stabbed the photograph into his pocket. “Not ta worry. You jest be off,” he said with a bob of his chin toward the alley’s exit. “Me and the boys can’t get nothin’ done with you hangin’ about. Bugger off, now.” He chuckled as he backed up toward Cumberland Terrace again with a decided bounce in his step. “I’ll be by yer flat the second we find this ol’ witch.” He chuckled again and disappeared around the corner with a sudden burst of speed.

  I knew young Paul was clever, and worked hard to convince myself that he and his chaps would be fine, yet that was something I dared not presume where Charlotte Hutton was concerned. Which left a knot in my stomach at the thought of what we were asking Paul and his boys to do. If something were to happen to any of them . . . but I stopped myself from completing that notion and instead made my way out of the area as quickly as I could.

  CHAPTER 22

  Eugenia Endicott did not bother trying to hide her displeasure at seeing us. Granted it was Sunday, not that she gave any indication of being on her way to or from church, but I had thought she might at least feign satisfaction that we were actively working on settling the manner of her sister’s death. Even though Colin had already made it clear that he did not believe Adelaide had jumped from the window, I could not shake the impression that Miss Eugenia still did not trust us, which put me in mind of the spectral child’s disembodied voice. I wondered at Miss Eugenia’s fervid dismissal of the topic. And in the next instant young Paul’s resolute face popped into my head. That we had left him searching for Charlotte Hutton still did not sit well.

  “Are you paying attention?” Colin interrupted my ruminations, highlighting the fact that I was obviously not in the least.

  “Yes,” I answered anyway.

  He was leaning out the window of Adelaide Endicott’s bedroom yet again, and I wondered at his tenacity in doing so, given that he had already been through it from both directions. Could there still be anything of note that he had not already discovered?

  “What did I say?” he asked out of nowhere.

  “Pardon?”

  He glanced back at me from his ratcheted position halfway out the window. “If you were paying attention just now, then what did I ask you to do?”

  “Really?!” I had no recourse but to affect offense. “Do you really mean to quiz me?”

  He chuckled as he turned back around. “That’s what I thought.”

  I heaved a sigh. “All right then, what is it you want me to do?”

  “Look around the room. If Mr. Nettle says he heard the voice of a child, then it had to be coming from somewhere.”

  I glanced at the large, cold space and tried to imagine how such trickery might have been accomplished. There were two spindle-legged side tables beside the huge four-poster bed, which was draped with a heavy maroon fabric that had been pulled tightly back and tied to the posts, revealing the perfectly made bed as though it were waiting for the room’s occupant to return at any moment. A large, intricately carved, three-door armoire stood across the room, the center door covered by a mirror, and it had laughing cherubs in fine relief along its top corners with sprays of carved roses and buds peeking from beneath delicately hewn leaves that ran fully across the top and partway down its sides.

  The walls of the room were a dusky pink with dark wood wainscoting covering the bottom third. A vanity of the same stately design as the bed stood against the wall that separated Miss Adelaide’s room from the anteroom where Freddie Nettle had slept, and while there was a space beneath it for a woman’s legs, it was otherwise open and therefore seemed an unlikely spot for a child to hide. Not to mention that it was on the wrong side of the room and quite a distance from where Mr. Nettle had claimed to hear the pleading waif.

  It was obvious that the only place for a child to hide, assuming one had done so at all, was either beneath the bed or inside the armoire. Though it too was some distance from the window, I yanked the doors to the armoire open and peered inside. To my surprise it was a clutter of clothing and accessories, speaking to a lifetime of accumulation. Dresses of all types were wedged in so tightly they barely gave when I pushed against them, with shoes, hatboxes, and handbags of every imaginable color and size stuffed along the shelf across the top and all over the floor so that they were piled two and three high, with extra bags on hooks that had been screwed into the inside of the doors themselves. A moth looked unlikely to be able to breech this space let alone a child of any size, so I swung the doors shut again and turned back to the bed.

  With a tug at my trousers I got down on my knees, peering underneath at what appeared to be a veritable wall of darkness. With one hand I scrabbled a small box of matches from my shirt pocket, hastily lighting one, though only managing to cast more shadows than light across the claustrophobic space that looked quite filled with more hatboxes anyway.

  “What are you doing?” I heard Colin from behind me, his voice soft and calm but with an undeniable hint of mirth to it.

  I glanced back up at him. “I’m looking to see if someone might have hidden under here. . . .” It made sense to me, but nevertheless, a crooked grin tugged at one corner of Colin’s mouth. “You told me . . .” but I didn’t bother to finish the sentence. Clearly, I had failed at his greater meaning, so I blew out the match and stood up. “What?”

  “Do you recollect Mr. Nettle saying the child’s voice was coming from beneath the bed?” />
  “I don’t recall him saying he knew where it was coming from,” I answered curtly. “I’m certain he didn’t have any idea, given the pyrotechnics making him question his own sanity and the fact that Miss Adelaide was hovering in front of the open window.”

  “He said it sounded as though it was emanating from out of the colored mist, which would be by the window,” he reminded me. “But we know it can’t have come from the window itself. That’s where the phosphorous powder had been ignited and tossed from. I’ve already seen that the rails of Mr. McPherson’s ladder fit the notches left in the casing on that window perfectly. And given that there are notches I would say that this game against Miss Adelaide has been going on for some time.” He turned away from me and strode back to the window. “And I do not believe for an instant that this is the sport of a child. So the voice”—he knelt down by the window and rapped against the wainscoting—“it had to have come from inside this room. . . .”

  I stood there while he crept along the floorboard, knocking against the wainscoting every few feet as if waiting for someone to knock back. It seemed a preposterous exercise and I could hardly imagine that he truly expected to find anything, so I was not in the least surprised when he straightened up after having gone as far as the nightstand by the bed to no avail. Rather than giving up, however, he stalked back to the window with a burgeoning frown and repeated the same exercise, heading in the opposite direction. The sound, when it came, was as distinctive as the difference between the timbre of a man’s voice and a woman’s.

  “Oh . . .” I said before he had even stopped tapping on the dark rectangle of wood rising just off the floor.

  “Indeed,” he answered back, carefully running his fingers along the bead molding that outlined the panel itself. “So allow me to make my earlier point again. . . .” he said as he fanned out from the panel and began slowly poking at the adjacent woodwork before dropping his hands to the baseboard itself. “. . . You have been preoccupied today, and I wish you would come out with it already.” The words had scarcely left his mouth when a soft click suddenly registered, barely above a whisper, springing the panel he was kneeling in front of no more than a finger’s width. He looked up at me with a wry smile. “And there you have it.”

  As I stood there staring at the unlatched panel, I had to admit that he was right. I was distracted and needed to pursue this case as I would any other. Disembodied voices, spectral visions, pleading souls: Their sources had to be as tangible as the phosphorous powder Colin had already discovered. And now this, a small black cubby just large enough for a child to hide inside.

  “This Endicott business has me vexed,” I muttered as Colin swung the little entry door fully open. “I’m not thinking right.”

  “Yes,” he said mundanely as he peered inside. “But why?”

  “If you must know, I am worried about Paul. We have left him and his mates to search for a woman we have every reason to believe is dangerous. We still don’t even know for certain the level of her complicity in her own son’s death. It bothers me. That boy idolizes you, and I worry that he’ll do something impetuous to try and earn your praise.”

  Colin lit a match and stuck his head inside the tiny space, leaving me to wonder if he’d even heard what I had been saying. “You’re fretting over nothing,” he replied after a moment, not bothering to turn his head, so that his words came out muffled and dismissive. “That little shite is more clever than you and I together. He’ll probably be elected prime minister one day and we’ll be working for him in our dotage.” He leaned back out and extinguished the match with a single puff, holding his other hand up as though it were made of glass. Before I could ask what he was doing, he brought his fingers to his nose and took a hesitant sniff. “Ginger,” he said.

  “What?”

  “It would seem our poor, pleading, phantom child has a predilection for ginger biscuits.”

  CHAPTER 23

  The scents coming from the Endicott kitchen were heavenly. I could smell a roasting chicken with root vegetables, a fair amount of rosemary, and just the right amount of garlic. Above it all was the warm, doughy scent of baking bread and something sweet and thickly infused with cinnamon and cloves. We had not been invited to this part of the house, though that fact did not concern Colin, who had insisted we go down to see the cook the moment we had left Miss Adelaide’s room.

  “I am reminded that we have not had any lunch,” he said with a note of regret as we rounded the last step down the back stairway that let directly into the kitchen. I knew Mr. Galloway would be positively undone if he found us using this route.

  “I will never understand how you can forget to eat,” I started to grouse just as a lovely young woman of diminutive proportions with strands of straw-blond hair peeking from beneath a cook’s cap strode into the kitchen carrying a tray of the most perfect fruit tarts I had ever seen. She yelped as her eyes fell upon us and came to so sudden a halt that the dozen miniature tarts were nearly lost to the floor.

  “My sincerest apology for causing you a fright,” Colin said as he steadied the tray from the opposite side. “I am Colin Pendragon and this is Ethan Pruitt. . . .”

  “I know who ya are,” she answered with a scowl. “I just didn’t expect ta find ya skulkin’ about me kitchen.”

  Colin’s smile froze and a single eyebrow arched. “We have come specifically to speak with you,” he explained crisply, as though that should make everything all right.

  She set the tray of tartlets onto the table and wiped her hands on the full-length apron tied around her slender waist. “Mr. Galloway know you’re down here?”

  “No,” Colin answered, “though I suspect there’s a good chance he will have heard your cry of a moment ago.”

  “Well, we don’t normally entertain guests in the kitchen,” she shot back as she yanked open the oven and peered inside, her interest in us appearing to wane by the instant.

  “As it should be,” Colin agreed smoothly. “However, I would hardly consider either of us guests, given that we are here to investigate the murder of your mistress.” His words brought her up short as he’d intended them to, causing her to finally return her attentions fully to us. “I assume you are Mrs. Barber?”

  I was astonished that he remembered her name.

  “I am,” she answered with a pride that caught me by surprise. “Go on, then, sit yourselves down.” She gestured toward a couple of chairs shoved behind the large preparation table at the room’s center and farthest from the stove and ovens. With a paucity of motion she took a kettle from the stove and poured two teas before scooping a couple of the tartlets onto plates and setting them on the table near us. “Come on, then,” she said by way of invitation, “they ain’t gonna eat themselves.”

  Neither of us needed a second summons before we dragged our chairs across the floor, landing in front of the two places she had prepared for us. “Mincemeat,” Colin practically purred as he tucked into the pastry. “I don’t believe we could have timed our visit any better.”

  Mrs. Barber chuckled as she poured herself a cup of tea and sat down across from us. “I’m glad ya like it, but I doubt you’ve come creepin’ about me kitchen in search of it. So why don’t ya tell me why you’re here.”

  I remembered the coachman, Devlin Fischer, referring to Mrs. Barber as a feisty woman, and now I understood precisely why.

  “I only mean to trouble you with a few simple questions,” Colin said, a look of contentment flashing behind his eyes as he finished the pastry. “Are you the only cook at Layton Manor?”

  “I’m the only one they need,” she fired right back.

  “Of that I can attest.” A slight grin played at his lips. “Do you ever make ginger biscuits?”

  She smiled. “They another of yer favorites?”

  “Not like mincemeat. But I am more interested in whether they are a particular favorite of someone here?”

  “Miss Eugenia likes ’em. She says they help settle her digestion. Mostl
y I make them when His Lordship comes because they’re about the only biscuit I’ve ever known him to eat.”

  “Does Lord Endicott visit often?”

  “I don’t believe I’ve seen him in some months.... Other than the night Miss Adelaide died,” she was quick to correct.

  “Certainly. And anyone else? Anyone on the staff have a special penchant for ginger biscuits?”

  “Mr. McPherson is awfully fond of them,” she said with the faintest flush as she referred to the groundsman. “And Mr. Nettle used ta enjoy ’em, but then a man his size enjoyed everything I put before him.” She chuckled again.

  “What about Miss Adelaide’s former nurses?”

  “Miss Whit and Miss Bromley?” She appeared to give the question some consideration before answering. “I can’t say I remember either of them makin’ a fuss over anything I cooked. They’re practically just girls, ya know?” She gave a curious sort of smile as though her reference should mean something to us. “But nobody has access to the kitchen anyway. This spot belongs ta me and I don’t take well ta visitors.” She took a quick slug of her tea. “Do ya really suppose Mr. Nettle had somethin’ ta do with Miss Adelaide’s death?”

  Colin grimaced as he leaned back and finished his tea. “It is a complex and sordid affair,” he said after a minute, “but I am still inclined to believe that Mr. Nettle is himself a victim in this case, as he lacks a motive. That most essential component in any crime.” He abruptly pushed himself up from the table with a quick flash of a grin. “I must thank you for your time, Mrs. Barber, but most of all I am grateful for your culinary generosity.”

  “It’s my pleasure,” she said as she stood up. “If there is anything further you need you know where I’ll be. But next time you might send for me rather than slinkin’ into me kitchen.” She snatched up our cups and plates and carried them to the large sink near the door. “You can go out this way if ya’d like.”

  “That would be ideal, as we are headed out to the stable,” Colin said at once.