The Endicott Evil Read online

  “I understand that you wish to set a clock on the truth,” Colin stated so simply and smoothly that Lord Endicott did not appear to take the least offense at it.

  “I suppose you could say I do, but then I am well aware that you have a sizable reputation, young man,” he said, his eyes fixed on Colin and his tone unaccountably light. “I cannot begin to number the times I have heard your father crow your praises, so I do not think it unwarranted to expect the unexpected from you. Have I mistaken your renown for something less than what it is purported to be?”

  Even before His Lordship finished his declaration and posed his needling conceit, I suddenly understood precisely why he was indeed such a longstanding member of Parliament and the diplomatic corps. Not only had he discerned the extent of Colin’s formidable ego, but he had also ferreted out how best to incite it. So I was not in the least surprised when Colin nearly stumbled over his words to respond.

  “You may certainly take solace in the fact that your beliefs are not ill-placed. I am indeed nearing the end of my investigation, and I should think that Tuesday morning will be as good a time as any to put this case to rights.” I longed to shake my head and rub my brow, but it was what Colin said next that most astonished me. “Will you meet Mr. Pruitt and myself at Layton Manor midmorning on Tuesday, then? We shall need to bring Freddie Nettle along, and it will do no good if your sister refuses him entry to the house.”

  Lord Endicott’s face pinched as he stared back at Colin. “Will that really be necessary?”

  “Imperative, I’m afraid.”

  “Very well, then. But I will caution you not to turn this into an exercise in self-aggrandizement. My family will not serve as fodder for your diversion.”

  Colin’s eyebrows shot up even as I girded myself for his response. “My diversion? And whatever have I done to earn such a scornful rebuke?”

  Lord Endicott’s lips thinned. “I said yours was a sizable reputation. I did not say all of it was good.” And having thusly spoken he turned on his heels and plodded down the stairs, and not a moment later I heard him call his farewell to Mrs. Behmoth before the door opened and slammed shut.

  “That pompous old prig,” Colin barked as he tossed the undrunk portion of his tea into the fire, causing it to flare up angrily.

  “Tuesday morning . . .” I lamented. “Whatever made you agree to such a thing?”

  “You heard him. How dare he speak to me like that. And to drag my father into it as well! And what is with those ridiculous muttonchops? Have you ever seen anything so pretentious in your life?!”

  “’E’s a good man,” Mrs. Behmoth hollered up from the bottom of the stairs.

  “He’s a self-important bore!”

  I thought I heard her snicker, but after a moment she called out, “You want yer dinner up there?”

  “We don’t have time for dinner tonight,” he fired back. “Get your overcoat, Ethan. We’ve got work to do.”

  “Suit yerself. But I ain’t warmin’ it up later,” she warned as I heard her amble back to the kitchen.

  I stood up and grabbed my overcoat from the hall rack. “You’ll tell me where we’re going . . . ?” I prodded as we started down the stairs.

  “You should know,” he shot back, his voice thick with annoyance. “I got it out of your notes.”

  He pulled ahead, tackling the steps two at a time, and though I could not imagine what he was referring to, I decided to let it pass until we were well on our way.

  CHAPTER 26

  The vestry of St. Mary Islington stood on the northern boundary of the city and was divided into eight wards in 1855: Upper Holloway, Lower Holloway, Highbury, Thornhill, Barnsbury, St. Mary’s, Canonbury, and St. Peter’s. I knew all of this. I was as aware of the city’s wards and parishes as anyone could be, having moved frequently in my youth, both before and after my parents’ premature deaths. And yet I had missed something so fundamental and obvious that I was left to feel ashamed at my lack of diligence and wished we would reach our destination already so I could do something other than sit in the back of a cab like a fool.

  “Do stop your sulking,” Colin said when we finally entered Highbury ward, heading for the address I had copied out of Mrs. Denholm’s files.

  “I’m not sulking.” But I sounded petulant even to myself.

  “Isn’t it enough that you may have found a key even though you didn’t recognize it as such?”

  “No, it most definitely is not.”

  “If you figured everything out for yourself, then what need would there be for me?”

  I rolled my eyes. “You are not making me feel better,” I groused. “Just leave it be and let us see what comes of this.”

  He reached over and gave my hand a quick squeeze. “This will do,” he called out to the driver, banging on the roof of the carriage with a fist. “Let us walk the rest of the way and have a look around,” he said to me. “Perhaps you can coax this driver into waiting for us?”

  “Of course.” It hardly took any coaxing when I only gave them half their fare. Such was a perk of Colin’s reputation; they always knew we would be good for it.

  Colin did not wait while I made arrangements with the driver, so I hurried to catch up to him as he strolled down Liverpool Road toward Paradise Park with a white linen tea towel filled with the baked goods Colin had coerced Mrs. Behmoth into giving us dangling from his right hand.

  “I have such hopes,” he said as I drew up alongside him.

  “I know you do.” And it occurred to me that if his supposition did not pan out as he expected, we would be in dire straits indeed.

  “It is sound reasoning,” he went on, and I suspected he was trying to convince himself as much as me. “Speaking strictly in terms of opportunity, the only people who had access to spirit a child into and out of that cupboard are Mr. Nettle and Miss Whit. Even that upstairs maid was off her post by then.”

  “Miss Britten.”

  He glanced at me. “What?”

  “The upstairs maid . . . her name is Winifred Britten.”

  “How lovely for her. . . .” he answered in a way that assured me he did not care in the least. “And who are the two people with the likeliest access to the ladders in the stable?”

  “Mr. McPherson and Mr. Fischer,” I answered dutifully.

  “Indeed. And we know from Mrs. Denholm’s files that Mr. Fischer and Miss Whit were acquainted prior to her and Miss Bromley going to work for Adelaide Endicott.”

  “Yes, because of his accident. They met at the hospital.”

  “Which would appear to suggest some sort of prior relationship between Miss Whit and Mr. Fischer, and yet neither of them ever mentioned any such thing.” He turned to me with a scowl. “I find that curious.” He glanced down the row of brick buildings smeared with the same soot and grime that colored the evening air. “It does not sit well with me, and this evening we shall find out if there is good reason for it.”

  It all sounded conceivable in its pieces, but the whole of it failed to reveal the crux of what Colin had been calculating Mr. Nettle’s innocence against: Whatever would their motive have been for conspiring against Miss Adelaide? I did not voice my concern, however, but quietly shadowed him up the steps to the door of the building where Vivian Whit and her family lived. He swung the door open and I followed him into the vestibule, a sparse but well-tended space that nevertheless showed its years with its yellowed paint and the blackened grout between the tiny grayish-white hexagonal tiles beneath our feet.

  He started up to the second floor without bothering to check the mailboxes, turning back once to hiss, “I had rather hoped to find a group of small children running about.”

  “Children? Whatever for?”

  He cast a frown in my direction as he rounded the top of the stairs and headed down the hallway as though he knew precisely where he was going, and not a second later came to a stop directly in front of a darkly varnished wood door that still managed to show its age in spite of its nearly blac
kened patina. The number 23 was marked at the center of the door, the 2 bent out of some thin metal and the 3 painted next to it in white paint.

  Colin knocked on the door before tugging at the bottom of his vest and straightening his tie. “Stay on your toes,” he whispered, though what I was keeping myself thusly prepared for he did not have time to explain before the door drew inward to reveal a tiny elderly woman with a swirl of gray curls on her head and a face as heavily lined as a map.

  “We ain’t int’rested in whatever it is yer sellin’,” she announced, revealing a mouth with nary a tooth in it.

  “’Oo is it, Mater?” a woman called from somewhere behind her.

  The elderly woman turned her face and glanced back over her shoulder and called back, “A couple a natty rogues wot thinks we got money ta spend.”

  “Excuse me . . .” Colin started to say.

  “Natty? They ain’t solicitors, are they?” the woman asked, both concern and curiosity coloring her words.

  Our aged assessor turned back to us. “Ya ain’t solicitors, is ya?”

  “Perish the thought. . . .” Colin answered.

  Before he could explain who we were, the door was abruptly yanked open to reveal an ample woman of middle years with short, curly brown hair that was quite unruly in spite of the ribbon she had tied into it in an obvious effort to keep it out of her face. She had round, rosy cheeks that bloomed the instant her eyes settled on Colin, her lips stretching into a full, if tightly sealed, smile.

  “Yer Colin Pendragon,” she squealed, her eyes remaining fixed solely on Colin, as though I were a part of her dilapidated door. “Viv told us she met you, but I never dreamt you’d come ta our ’ouse.” She quickly elbowed the older woman out of the way. “Come on, Mater, let ’em in, for ’eaven’s sake.”

  She ushered us inside a small flat that, while it showed the same wear present in the rest of the building, was immaculate in its upkeep. The furnishings, a sofa and two mismatched chairs, were worn and sagged precipitously, but there wasn’t a speck of dust to be found and everything looked precisely in its place. A razor-thin man of middle age looked like he had been dozing on the sofa as he hurriedly ran a hand through his thinning hair even as he struggled to re-button his shirt with his other. Two rangy-looking boys and a pretty young girl of fifteen or sixteen were each studying books in front of the fireplace, and a younger boy of probably about ten was leaning up against the man on the couch, but there were no young children here. No little girl who would fit inside of a cupboard.

  “I’m Viv’s mum,” the woman explained as she urged us inside, introducing us first to her husband and then the four children, none of whom seemed even the slightest bit interested in who we were or why we might be there. “And ya met me mum.” She gestured dismissively toward the elderly woman, who was still standing by the front door. “Ya must forgive ’er manners, but we don’t get a lot a visitors.”

  “There is nothing to forgive her for,” I spoke up, certain Colin would not bother to do so. “At least she had the kindness to refer to us as natty,” I added with a chuckle, which only Mrs. Whit appeared to find even remotely amusing.

  “I’m sorry ta tell ya that Viv ain’t ’ere jest now. She’s off at her new job. But I’ve got some water boilin’ if ya’d like ta stay for some tea.”

  I was positive Colin would beg off, so I thought I had misheard when he answered, “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble. . . .”

  “Trouble . . . ?!” she scoffed as if Colin had said something patently comical. “It would be a pleasure.” She hurried into the adjoining kitchen, which, from what I could see, looked far too small for a family of this size. “I’m sorry I’ve not got any biscuits ta give ya, but me boys eat everything I make, sometimes before it’s even finished.” She gave a soft chuckle that sounded as weary as it did mirthful.

  “Then you have nothing to worry about,” Colin said as he held up the small linen bundle he’d been carrying, “for we have brought some biscuits with us.”

  “Oh, Mr. Pendragon,” Mrs. Whit gasped as she returned to the sitting room carrying a battered tray with a large worn and chipped teapot in the shape of a laying hen and four mismatched cups and saucers beside it. “You do us an honor comin’ to our home. You needn’t offer us a thing,” she continued as she shooed the children out of the room before setting the tray down.

  “We insist,” I answered with a smile, finally understanding why Colin had been disheartened not to see a bevy of children playing about in front of the flat.

  The two of us delicately lowered ourselves onto the wilted chairs while Mrs. Whit and her mum sat down on the sofa next to Mr. Whit.

  “You are both so very kind,” Mrs. Whit enthused as she began to prepare the tea for all of us.

  “I can see why your Vivian is such a genuine person,” Colin said. “You must be very proud of her.”

  “Indeed we are,” Mrs. Whit beamed, though she still managed to keep her lips sealed together. “Our Viv is the first person in the family who’s ever finished school.”

  “Pardon?” Colin said with the innocence of one who has misheard, although I was quite certain he had not.

  “Didn’t ya know? Our best girl got ’erself inta the first nursin’ class at . . .” She suddenly paused and turned to her husband. “What were the name a that school?”

  “Tredegar ’ouse,” he supplied, his voice soft and innocuous.

  “That’s right. I don’t know why I can’t remember that name. That’s ’ow come she ’as ta work at night. She goes ta nursin’ school most days.”

  “Is that right?” Colin gave a generous smile and nod of his head, glancing over to me long enough to make sure I’d caught the lie Vivian Whit had told her family. Though whether it added up to anything greater than an invention meant to save her dignity was impossible to say.

  “Why’d ya come ta see ’er?” Mrs. Whit’s mum suddenly asked.

  “Mater!” Mrs. Whit gasped.

  “It’s a fair question,” Colin responded, holding his smile as he accepted his tea from Mrs. Whit. “We wanted to ask her a few questions about her time working for Adelaide Endicott.”

  “Oh . . .” Mrs. Whit sagged slightly. “. . . That poor woman. A reg’lar tragedy that is.”

  “She were old,” Mrs. Whit’s mother piped up again. “Weren’t no more of a tragedy than if it were me.”

  “Mater!”

  Colin allowed a chuckle, though I managed to swallow mine. “I am sure you are not alone in your thinking, dear lady,” he said, “but Mr. Pruitt and I believe that any murder, no matter the age of the victim, demands a just and swift conclusion.”

  “Murder?!” Mrs. Whit cringed. “I thought she . . .” Her face reddened as she struggled to find a suitable way to describe what it was she thought.

  “That she was the cause of her own demise?” Colin supplied. “And you are hardly alone in that supposition, which explains why Scotland Yard has yet to make any arrests. Mr. Pruitt and I have been retained to ferret out the truth. And I believe the truth to be a much darker thing.”

  “Oh dear . . .” Mrs. Whit shook her head.

  “Wot’s ’e sayin’?” her mother asked.

  “Quiet, Mater,” she scolded again before turning back to Colin. “I just don’t see ’ow our Viv could be any ’elp.”

  “She tended to Miss Endicott and was familiar with her state of mind,” Colin explained. “And she was also there the night of Miss Endicott’s death.”

  “Terrible, that.” Mrs. Whit nodded. “Our Viv came ’ome later than usual that mornin’. Said the Yard ’ad been called ta speak ta everyone, but as ya say, they didn’t arrest nobody. Didn’t seem like there were no one to arrest,” she added with a shrug to her husband.

  “I presume she told you what had happened . . . ?”

  “She told me and Mum.” She hooked a thumb toward her mother, who was gumming one of the biscuits we had brought. “Me ’usband were at work already.”

  “And
what exactly did she tell you?”

  “The old lady jumped,” Mrs. Whit’s mum answered first, a mischievous glint in her eyes.

  “Mater!” Mrs. Whit admonished for the third time. “I’ll not tell ya again. Ya gotta mind yerself.” She looked back at us with a flush in her cheeks, but did not correct what her mum had said. “We were sorry ta hear it, is all.”

  “Do you know how it was Vivian came by that job?”

  “That cheeky beau a ’ers . . .” Mrs. Whit’s mum answered first yet again before she fished the biscuit out of her tea where she had dropped it a moment before, popping it into her mouth.

  “That is the last time, Mater. Ya got manners worse ’n the kids.” Mrs. Whit handed a spoon to her mum, but the older woman only set it, unused, on her lap. “Viv’s been seein’ a young man fer about a year now. ’E got ’er the job tendin’ ta Miss Endicott. Got it fer ’er and one a ’er friends.”

  “Miss Brownley . . . ?” Colin started to ask.

  “Bromley,” I corrected. “Philippa Bromley.”

  “Yeah, that’s ’er . . . !” Mrs. Whit giggled behind one of her hands. “Ya really are a detective, ain’t ya?”

  “And your daughter’s beau . . . ?” Colin pushed ahead. “Would that happen to be Mr. Fischer?”

  “Mr. Pendragon . . . !” Mrs. Whit’s eyes looked ready to burst from their sockets and even her benign husband appeared momentarily shocked. “Now how could ya possibly know that?”

  “It is my business to know such things,” he answered cryptically. “Do you see much of Mr. Fischer?”