The Endicott Evil Page 30

  Mr. Fischer looked momentarily startled before a benign smile slowly edged onto his face. “Well, a course I did. But I don’t get invited into houses like Mr. Nettle. I’m left ta tend ta the simpler creatures.”

  “Come, come, Mr. Fischer,” Colin chided. “Did you never once need to avail yourself of the WC or perhaps request a touch of water to clear our insipid fog from your throat?”

  “Such a thing would hardly be proper,” he answered, his smile replaced with a staunch sort of distaste. “There are standards.. . .”

  Colin turned back to Lady Stuart, blasting right over Mr. Fischer. “Would you mind if we ring up your Mr. Evers to see whether he might corroborate Mr. Fischer’s contention that he never set foot inside your home?”

  Lady Stuart hesitated no more than an instant, which was remarkable given that she had no telephone to ring, before answering, “Most definitely. I am certain he will be available. . . .”

  “I never said I didn’t go inside a time or two,” Mr. Fischer interrupted, his spine stiff and his expression wary. “I prob’ly did. But I can hardly be accused of pilfering the lady’s tonics.”

  “I have made no such accusation,” Colin responded offhandedly. “I sought only to reveal opportunity. You mustn’t perceive anything further,” he hastened to add, though I well knew that was precisely what he wished Mr. Fischer to do. “Which brings us back to the night of Miss Adelaide’s murder when Mr. Nettle admits to having seen what he ascribed as a spectral vision but which, in reality, we now know was phosphorus powder that had been set afire and blown in through the window.”

  “How could you know such a thing?” Lord Endicott interrupted with evident confusion.

  “There were traces of unburnt powder on the floor and wall just beneath the window Miss Adelaide fell from. Nothing the least bit spectral about it and yet, as you have all seen, highly effective just the same. Beyond that, there are two worn divots in the sill just outside that same window, which precisely fit the vertical stiles of the ladder that Mr. McPherson keeps in the stable. Mr. McPherson helped me discover that.” He glanced back at Mr. McPherson, who suddenly looked as uneasy as Mr. Fischer seated beside him.

  “I don’t understand. . . .” the older man said, his sun-mottled face knit with concern as he glanced about the room. “I didn’t have nothin’ ta do with Miss Adelaide . . .”

  Colin quickly shook his head. “Opportunity, Mr. McPherson. I am only talking about opportunity here. And the only other person with access to the stable and all of its contents is, once again, our notable friend Mr. Fischer.”

  “Now just a ruddy minute . . .” Mr. Fischer blurted as he began to stand up before abruptly seeming to think better of it and sinking back into his seat. “Plenty of people have access to the stable. We don’t lock it. It’s never locked. Ain’t that right, Denny?” He looked to Mr. McPherson for validation.

  “You miss the point,” Colin spoke up before Mr. McPherson could answer. “How many people have access to the stable and the pantry at Lady Stuart’s home?”

  Mr. Fischer sputtered for only an instant before flinging an arm out and pointing an accusatory finger. “Mr. Nettle!” he protested. “He had more opportunity than me. Why are you protectin’ him?”

  “He was in the room at the time of Miss Adelaide’s death. He could not also have been standing at the top of a ladder blowing burning phosphorus powder in through the window.” Colin turned his back on Mr. Fischer and strode past Mr. Nettle. “Why don’t you tell us what else you witnessed that night?”

  “There was a child’s voice. . . .” Mr. Nettle’s own voice was soft and hesitant, and I could sense his embarrassment as he started to confess the tale. “She was crying and calling out, and I thought surely I must be going mad. . . .”

  Colin let the man’s words hang in the air for a minute as he slowly made his way back to the fireplace, crossing behind Lord Endicott and his sister. “And so we return to the ghostly young girl. Is there anyone here who would deny any knowledge of the fact that Miss Adelaide had complained for some time of being plagued by this apparition?”

  I let my gaze slide around the room before settling on Lord Endicott, the only person with an expression of confusion on his face.

  “What is this . . . ?” He turned to his sister. “Why didn’t I know about this?”

  Eugenia Endicott looked pained as she avoided meeting her brother’s eyes. “I assumed it a reflection of her increasingly addled state,” she answered quietly. “I did not know that someone. . .” She did not bother to finish her sentence, and I felt her regret like it was a living thing.

  “And I will tell you that the little girl who stalked Miss Adelaide is as real as the phosphorous powder and the divots in the windowsill,” Colin said flatly. “Can you imagine who she is, Miss Bromley?” He shifted his eyes toward Miss Adelaide’s day nurse sitting in the far corner of the room.

  “Me?!” She looked aghast. “Why ever would you think I have any knowledge of such a thing?”

  “Because, Miss Bromley, I do not believe you to be a frivolous woman.”

  And then she did exactly what I knew Colin had expected her to do: She flicked her gaze for the briefest instant to her former coworker, Vivian Whit, before snapping her eyes back to Colin. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Now, Miss Bromley,” Colin responded in a tone that was edged with condescension. “We are talking about access. Who might have access to such a child . . . ?” Miss Bromley did not answer, and her eyes quickly drifted to the floor by her feet. “Let me be more specific,” Colin continued more ardently. “Who amongst our collective members here knows of such a child and would have had the access to bring her into Miss Adelaide’s room the night of her death, secreting the child in a cubby near the window?”

  “What?!” Miss Eugenia gasped. But she said nothing more and the room fell quiet, only the sound of the crackling fire filling in the awkward silence.

  Colin slid his eyes over to Vivian Whit. “Perhaps you can assist Miss Bromley with her memory. . . .” he said.

  Miss Whit frowned deeply with a look that seemed somehow heedless and disjointed. “Well, Mr. Nettle—” she began after a minute’s consideration.

  “Mr. Nettle,” Colin cut her off, repeating his name with a quick, tight glance at the young man. “He did most certainly have access to bring a child into the room that night, but then so did you,” he added as though it was no more than a passing idea. “Yet Mr. Nettle has no association with a child of any sort. And that”—he pursed his lips and tapped his chin with a finger as if deep in consideration—“that is where you and Mr. Nettle diverge. You have a young sister, do you not, Miss Whit?”

  “What . . . ?” She sucked in a sudden breath as if Colin had just asked something confounding.

  “A sister,” Colin repeated with immense patience. “You have a young sister who is fond of ginger biscuits and doing her older sibling’s bidding. You hid her in that cubby the night of Miss Adelaide’s death and at a signal from you had her start crying and calling out. Mr. Nettle heard her but in all the confusion could not discern where the voice was coming from.”

  “That’s absurd,” she snapped. “Is Mr. Nettle paying you to concoct such things to protect him?”

  Colin laughed, the sound coming out dry and mirthless. “Mr. Nettle can ill afford a decent place to live. Do you really believe my services can be so cheaply gained? And to what end?”

  She looked around the room, her eyes imploring everyone but me and Lady Stuart. “It isn’t true,” she said emphatically. “It’s simply not true!”

  “Very well.” Colin looked back at the other nurse, whose shoulders were now hunched toward the ground in concert with her eyes. “Then can you tell me of anyone else who had the sort of access that your friend here had?”

  Miss Bromley did not utter a sound, but her head shifted subtly from side to side just once.

  “You see.” Colin flashed a tight smile. “It is all about access, Miss
Whit,” he repeated again to the former night nurse.

  “But why . . . ?” Lord Endicott spoke up with a note of something in his voice that I could not place.

  “Ah . . .” Colin stepped away from the fireplace again, passing behind Lord Endicott and his sister. “Do you have an answer for His Lordship, Miss Whit, or will you insist on continuing your charade?”

  Colin was not far from Miss Whit as he posed his question, and while she did not respond to him neither did she meet his gaze. She looked unable to do so as she kept staring toward the fireplace with an almost desperate raptness that made her appear very much on the verge of shattering.

  “Very well,” Colin sighed, and I did not miss the tinge of disappointment in his response even though I could not imagine he had really supposed she might so easily abandon her resolve. “Perhaps you yourself do not know the answer. We shall know in due time.” He let his voice fall silent, his unsubstantiated claim hanging in the air like some scurrilous indictment.

  “Mr. Pendragon . . .” Lord Endicott warned, his lips pressed so thin they looked about to disappear. His great bushy eyebrows had collapsed forward, making a singular line across his forehead that accentuated his displeasure.

  Colin held a hand up toward him without bothering to shift his gaze, which, I noticed, had shifted back to Philippa Bromley. “Your honesty is appreciated, Miss Bromley, but I must impose upon you for one more answer.”

  As before, she neither looked at Colin nor anyone else in the room, keeping her eyes locked on her fingers, which she had begun to fidget as though they were sore and troublesome.

  “How is it that you and Miss Whit came to work for the Endicott sisters?”

  “We were both studying nursing at Royal London and working part-time while trying to get into the Tredegar House nursing program. Mr. Fischer suffered an accident and was brought in for treatment, and Vivian . . . Miss Whit . . . assisted in attending him. He told us about Mrs. Denholm. She’s the one who placed us with Miss Adelaide. . . .” She let her voice fade out, not finishing her thought as the pieces of what had ultimately transpired seemed to finally bring her up short.

  “Did you believe Miss Whit had grown rather fond of Mr. Fischer by the time you both came to work here?”

  “What does this have to do with anything?” Mr. Fischer asked, his tone respectful and yet somehow foreboding.

  I thought Colin would be the one to answer the question, but it was Eugenia Endicott who spoke up first. “Carry on, Mr. Pendragon,” she said concisely. “I should very much like to hear what it is you are poking at.”

  “Miss Bromley . . . ?” Colin pressed.

  “They had been courting. . . .” the young nurse answered after a moment, and even though there was hesitation in her voice, there was also something else, something confused and questioning. “I knew that she had an interest in Mr. Fischer and he in her.” She finally shifted her gaze directly over to Miss Whit and her forehead flinched with the slightest grimace. “Is that what you mean, Mr. Pendragon?”

  “It is precisely what I mean. And tell me, Miss Bromley, are you familiar with Miss Whit’s youngest sister?”

  “Emmy . . . ?” she said at once. “Vivian, what is he talking about? Is any of this true?”

  “Hush up, Philippa,” Mr. Fischer growled, but it was far too late.

  Colin stepped toward Mr. Fischer for the second time, placing himself between the coachman and Philippa Bromley. “Thank you, Miss Bromley. Your honesty has been refreshing amongst the layers of deception at work here. I had thought to find you innocent and I am pleased to see that you are.”

  “I don’t understand. . . .” Miss Bromley mumbled, stabbing a sleeve at her eyes and I realized that she had begun crying. I gently moved off the sofa and handed her my handkerchief, and as I stepped back, I found Colin looking at me with the faintest hint of a smile.

  “Mr. Pruitt . . .” he said, his tone all grim authority. “Will you be so kind as to open my valise and extract its contents.”

  Valise? I had not even noticed a valise when I’d come in and so was forced to move around to the front of the sofa before I caught sight of the small, black leather satchel tucked beneath. “Of course,” I answered. I seized it from where he had placed it and flicked open the latch, stuffing my hand inside.

  “The paper first, if you please,” he said, and I could tell that he had come up behind me, his anticipation as keen as that of everyone else in the room.

  I pulled out a thin piece of paper that was laid atop something small and hard wrapped inside tissue paper. With my heart beginning to gallop and my stomach lurching for reasons I could hardly fathom since I had no idea what I held in my hand, I carefully unfolded the paper and stared down at what was written there. After a minute I glanced back at Colin and was about to ask what he wanted me to do with it when he said. “Would you read it for us, please?”

  My throat was already dry as I felt the eyes of everyone in the room fall upon me. “It is a certificate of live birth,” I began, “for Devlin Fischer. The date is April twenty-fourth, 1865. The father is Bertram Fischer, listed here as deceased, and the mother . . .” My voice faltered as I quickly cleared it again. “The mother is Margaret Helen Fischer, nee Hardiston.”

  “And what else is in the valise, Mr. Pruitt . . . ?” Colin asked quickly before anyone could even react to the name.

  I thrust my hand back inside and grasped the hard, pointed object wrapped within. Holding my hands as steady as possible I unwrapped the small object, revealing a woman’s hairpin in the shape of a butterfly, covered with tiny diamond chips all along the delicate wings. I lifted it up for everyone to see, and as I did so, something on the back of it caught my eye.

  “That’s mine. . . .” Mr. Fischer protested, jumping to his feet. “That belonged to me mum.”

  “There are initials on the back,” I continued as I suddenly realized what I was looking at. “A.E.,” I read before letting my gaze slide over to Eugenia Endicott.

  “I happened to find this in your flat this morning, Mr. Fischer,” Colin spoke up into the abrupt silence. “Regrettably, you weren’t there, so I had to let myself in. I’m afraid Miss Whit’s grandmother does not regard you well and was only too pleased to tell me of this astonishing lady’s pin she claimed you liked to show about that she was quite sure did not belong to you.” He gave a small shrug. “You say this was your mother’s and yet the name Margaret Hardiston does not carry the initials A. E.”

  Mr. Fischer’s eyes narrowed and his face went rigid. “You lot are not fit to say me mum’s name,” he seethed, his face red and his demeanor menacing even though Colin had him shielded in the corner. “She was a kind woman, a good woman, who spent the whole a ’er life sickly and frail because she’d been cast out by the Endicott family before she were even born as a shame and an embarrassment. She ’eld on to that bloody pin as though it were a point a pride, but it weren’t nothin’ ’cause we had nothin’. . . nothin’ . . . and none a you lot ever cared a shite. I tried ta get ’er ta sell it, we coulda lived off it fer a year, but she wouldn’t do it. Made me swear not ta sell it after she were gone. Told me it were a reminder that we come from noble people even though she didn’t even know ’oo the bloody ’ell A.E. was. But I found out after me mum died. I were only a lad, but I swore I’d spend the rest a me life findin’ these people and makin’ ’em pay fer wot they did ta ’er. Ta me.” His eyes were filled with hatred as he glared at Lord Endicott and his sister. “Every one of ’em.”

  “That’s enough, Mr. Fischer,” Colin warned. “You have had your say and I have heard quite enough of your murderous excuses.” To punctuate his words he sucked in a breath that puffed out his chest in a display of the muscles he so carefully tended. It appeared to have the intended effect, as Mr. Fischer rocked on his heels a moment before dropping back onto the settee next to Mr. McPherson.

  Colin turned his gaze to Miss Eugenia. “This pin once belonged to your sister, didn’t it?” Colin pressed he
r. “Miss Adelaide could not bear the thought of that child being left to the world’s caprices, even though you could.”

  “You will stop now, Mr. Pendragon,” Lord Endicott snapped, shuffling in his seat, though he did not stand up.

  Colin glanced back at Mr. Fischer, his eyes boring into the younger man’s. “I’m afraid you made a terrible mistake, Mr. Fischer. You may have intended to make Adelaide Endicott pay for the ills of your birth and those of your mother, but Miss Adelaide was innocent. She was simply a woman with a kind heart who tried to assuage the grievances of her father”—he swung his eyes to Miss Eugenia, who looked sallow and near to fainting—“and her sister Eugenia, who is, in fact, your grandmother. Margaret Hardiston was your child, wasn’t she, Miss Eugenia? There was no scullery maid. You are the one who nearly lost your life at the hands of your father. You were the one forced to give up a child you could never keep. That was why your sister could not let it be. She knew—”

  “That is an abomination and a lie,” Lord Endicott howled as he forced himself to his feet, his face fouled with anger.

  “Then I invite you to prove me wrong,” Colin tossed off in the simplest of tones. “Reveal your back to us, Miss Eugenia. Show me that it bears no scars from a beating that almost took your life and that of your unborn child sixty years ago.”

  If a group of people can hold their collective breath, then that is surely what happened before Lord Endicott seemed to recover himself and roar, “She will do no such thing!”

  It hardly came as a surprise, given the unseemliness of Colin’s suggestion, and yet I was startled when the grimmest sort of smirk bolted across his face as he stared back at Lord Endicott. “I presumed you would object to such a display.” He turned to Emily Wilton, still seated next to Philippa Bromley, taking a single step to the side so that the young woman could no longer see her mistress. “Miss Wilton,” he said, “I know you attend to Miss Eugenia and must now ask you to divulge whether you have observed these egregious scars that are upon your mistress’s back?”