Authors: Evelyn Hervey
At once she turned and hurried back across the room. Cousin Cornelia said nothing. No doubt the intrusion, unexpected as it was, had considerably discomposed her. Miss Unwin seized the doorknob, turned it.
And as she did so, she saw on a small console table up against the wall beside the door, which she had not noticed on entering, a pair of Captain Fulcher’s gloves with beside them a little black leather-bound book. From its scuffed appearance and a trace of yellow mud running across it, it looked like an object frequently taken out-of-doors. Captain Fulcher’s betting book. It could be nothing else.
Could she put out a hand and snatch it up? But, no, although she could not see Miss Fulcher, and indeed did not dare turn and give her another opportunity of observing her features, she knew almost for certain that that lady must be looking at her with surprised intent. No, there was no way in which she could pluck up the little scuffed black book she needed so much to peruse.
So near and yet so far.
Hastily she stepped out on to the landing, pulling the door of the rooms firmly closed behind her. Quickly she made for the stairs and went down them.
If suddenly Cousin Cornelia felt she did after all know this intruder, she might easily come out and call to her. Only in the street would it be really safe, since the lady happily was by no means dressed to show herself to the world.
But at the open house-door the down-at-heel little servant girl was standing looking out at the passing scene, leaning on her broom and scratching with skirt half-uplifted at a dirty knee,
y
Miss Unwin felt a sharp flame of fury. Why hadn’t the
creature told her that Miss Fulcher was in the Captain’s rooms? Had it not been for Cousin Cornelia’s inability to recognise a person from a lower social sphere out of her correct place, she herself would have been caught in a situation she would have found it impossible to extricate herself from without a humiliating confession.
‘Why, you wretch,’ she exclaimed, before more reasonable thoughts intervened. ‘You never told me Captain Fulcher’s sister was there. Why not? What possessed you?’
‘Forgot, Miss,’ said the girl, bursting into tears.
Or rather, Miss Unwin thought not without a certain remaining fury, she trickled into tears, sniffing and sobbing in a manner more repulsive than pathetic.
‘Stop that,’ she said to her. ‘Stop it at once.’
The poor creature gave one last sucking sniff and stopped it.
And it occurred then to Miss Unwin that while she had her thus under her thumb there might be information to be got out of her.
‘Tell me,’ she said, without preliminary or excuse, ‘does Captain Fulcher pay his bills?’
‘That he don’t, Miss, that he don’t.’
‘But he did pay them some little time ago? Didn’t he pay off what he owed a little while ago?’
Perhaps this evidence would be as good as that in the untouchable, unseeable betting book. If the girl knew that the Captain had suddenly become flush with money, as she was likely enough to have gathered from her employer, then she could in her turn tell Inspector Redderman, or her employer could tell him with yet more authority. Then the Inspector would see that the ‘supposition’ which had been put to him by Richard Partington’s governess was more substantial than he had chosen to credit. Then he would see that the case against Richard Partington, which he evidently thought so
obvious, was not as firm as he believed. And then perhaps he would begin to see the justice of releasing Richard from his endless questioning.
‘Oh, no, Miss,’ the snivelling girl said. ‘The Capting ain’t hardly never paid what he owes. Me mistress says he’ll ‘ave to go. She’s said it a thousand times. But she can’t shift ‘im. He stays an’ he stays.’
‘What is this? You must have misunderstood. I tell you, not so long ago Captain Fulcher was suddenly well in funds. He must have paid off something at least.’
‘No, ‘e did not, Miss. An’ I’m the one what’s likely to know. I’m the one, ain’t I, what hears the mistress telling an’ telling the master to get ‘im out, an’ the master makin’ excuses ‘cos he gets tips off of ‘im for the hosses.’
Miss Unwin felt her rage, and her hopes, slowly sink.
‘You’re quite, quite sure of all this?’ she asked.
But she knew even as she spoke that the girl could hardly be mistaken.
‘Oh, yes, Miss. I knows all about ‘im, I do. I got ears in me ’ead, ain’t I? An’ if gennelmen will talk an’ rant in their loud voices, I’m going to ‘ear, ain’t I?’
‘Yes, I suppose you are.’
Miss Unwin, somewhere in the well-behaved part of her mind, thought she ought to rebuke this little eavesdropper. But she lacked the heart to do it.
‘Yes,’ the girl went on, in a voice that whined unpleasantly from one single note to another. ‘Yes, the Captain’s sister ‘as gone an’ give ‘im every penny what she’s got. Rented off a big ‘ouse what was leff ‘er in a Will she did, to give ‘im money for ‘is betting an’ ‘is gaming. Which is why she lives ‘ere and complains about us every day of ‘er life. An’ he’s ‘ad every pound of her ‘heritance. That I do know. But she don’t blame ‘im for it. Not never. Oh, Jack, she says, what terrible, terrible luck you do ‘ave.’
But now Miss Unwin’s conscience was aroused.
‘Listen to me, my girl,’ she said. ‘You have no business
to tittle-tattle about your betters like that. If ever I hear of you doing it again, I shall tell your mistress.’
But the awful girl just put out her tongue then.
‘An’ she’d tell the master to take a stick to me,’ she said. ‘An’ he’d never do nothing about it, ‘cos he’s too lazy to move hisself.’
Miss Unwin lifted her head at that and swept off down the street.
But her renewed spasm of rage scarcely lasted till she had reached the nearest corner. It was replaced by sweeping feelings of doubt.
Captain Fulcher had not, it seemed almost certain, had that sudden access of funds which would have resulted from his discovery of one of old Mr Partington’s gold hoards. So it was probable indeed that he had not stolen from the old miser, that he was not in fear of the theft being discovered and attributed to him. So, then, he had no reason to take the old man’s life.
And now, Miss Unwin thought, as she mounted the steep steps of a brightly placarded omnibus, there is no one whom I can propose to Inspector Redderman as a more likely murderer than Richard. My Richard.
The very idea suffocated rational thought in her head. The rest of her journey home, the change from one omnibus to a second, the congested traffic in the streets round her, the shouts and yells of the drivers, the neighings of their horses, the crack of carters’ whips, the shouting of newsboys with their bundles of midday editions, all passed by her in a blur of unthinking misery.
Her state of anaesthetised nothingness persisted when she reached the house. The twins needed attention. They had abandoned the tasks they had been set, and Vilkins had not been able to persuade them to go back to them.
But Miss Unwin knew she had dealt with them mechanically. Indeed, next day she could not remember what punishment task she had given them, though she was
pleased to find she had retained in her misery enough authority to have made them carry it out.
It was not until the evening even that she had spirit enough to tell her confederate what had happened on her visit to Captain Fulcher’s rooms and the sad conclusion she had been forced to draw.
‘Yerss, you’re right,’ Vilkins said in a voice reeking with gloom. That old Captain ain’t the one. You can be sure o’ that.’
‘Oh, sure of it I am,’ Miss Unwin replied, hardly less depressed. ‘But what I am not sure of at all is, if Captain Fulcher is not the person who administered that arsenic, then who is? It can’t be Richard. It cannot be.’
‘If you says so, Unwin. If you says so.’
‘Then who can it be? It must have been someone in the house, if not living here then a visitor. Old Mr Partington never went out and when he was over at the pin works he never ate except what Mrs Meggs took across to him.’
‘I reckon she must be the one then,’ Vilkins said. ‘Pity I never saw ‘er. I could of told then. One look at ‘er an ’ I could of told.’
Miss Unwin smiled.
‘Oh, she may be the person we’re looking for,’ she said. ‘In logic she could be. But only as much as anyone else in the house, myself, Richard, the twins even. But, I cannot go to Inspector Redderman again after he has derided what I told him before unless I take with me a piece of evidence even he cannot ignore.’
‘What’s evidence?’ Vilkins asked.
‘Oh, my dear, it’s a fact so strong that it cannot be gainsaid. Something like that is what I need at this moment.’
‘Well, that old Meggs is your best ‘ope, far as I can see.’
‘Yet she liked old Mr Partington, Vilkins. If ever she did anyone a good turn it was him. He was the one who got a helping at dinner that was more than barely enough to keep body and soul together. He was the one who got the
big teacup in the evenings. No, Mrs Meggs for some reason or another had a soft spot for that old miser. You remember I told you what a demon she was when I showed Richard where that gold was hidden?’
‘Yerss. Spiteful old witch. Wish I could get a good look at ’er.’
It was then that an idea came to Miss Unwin, and with it revivified hope.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, yes.’
‘Yes, what? You gone off your ’ead or something?’
‘Yes, you shall get a look at Mrs Meggs, my dear. Not that I expect you to see anything that provides convincing proof –’
‘I might,’ Vilkins said. ‘Don’t see why I shouldn’t. I got eyes in me ‘ead, ain’t I?’
‘Yes, yes, my dear, you have. And I would not be at all surprised if you did see something that would help. But that’s not what I have most in mind.’
‘Well, what do you ’ave then?’
‘That she must be questioned. It is plain that the police have no intention of even going near her. Inspector Redderman is going to go on and on questioning Richard, and can think of nothing else. In a way I scarcely blame him. It’s his nearest road to a solution.’
‘Yeh. But the nearest road ain’t always the best.’
‘No. No, you’re right. So what I propose is that we two go somehow and see Mrs Meggs. That we put questions to her in the same way that Inspector Redderman is putting questions to Richard.’
‘Well, it’ll ’ave to be you as does that, Unwin. I don’t know one question from another.’
‘Well, perhaps it would be best. But I shall have your eyes with me, Vilkins dear. And they may be what brings us to a good end at the last.’
‘Yer. Well, where’s she gone then, this Mrs Meggs o’ yours?’
Miss Unwin’s heart plummeted.
‘Vilkins, I don’t know,’ she said.
Indeed, the old housekeeper had left so abruptly and in such a rage that there had been no question of asking her where she was going, and she had done nothing about reclaiming such possessions as she had left behind.
‘Vilkins, what shall I do?’ Miss Unwin went on, sounding for once plaintive and feebly feminine.
‘I could ask that old rabbit-skin man,’ Vilkins said. ‘He was telling me the day before yesterday ‘ow he used to call ‘ere regular, even though he got a skin only once in a blue moon. And then the old skinflint wanted a penny more for it than any other customer. But he talked to ‘er all right, and he could of ‘eard something about ‘er that’d tell us where to look. He’s a regular chatterbox, that one. Not that I mind, in course.’
So Miss Unwin had to be patient. Patience was something she usually found within her grasp, even though her nature urged her always to find out anything she wanted to know as soon as she could. Now, however, she discovered that self-imposed patience was another thing that had deserted her when the dazzlement of love had so unexpectedly invaded her inner world.
The rabbit-skin man called only twice a week. So it could not be until the afternoon of the next day that there would be the least hope of learning where old Mrs Meggs had gone. But during the night – Miss Unwin slept little and restlessly – one other way forward did come into her mind. If old Mr Partington had been poisoned, she thought, then it would be as well to find out as much as she could about the arsenic that had killed him. Then when she came to tackle the old housekeeper, if she ever did, she would be in a better position to put a question that might make her betray herself without realising it.
So in the morning, as soon as the shops in the West End would be open, she once more set the poor twins an exercise to do, promising herself that when Richard was
back she would make up in extra zeal for all the time of hers they had lost. Then she put on bonnet, gloves and mantle and stepped boldly out. She was lucky in seeing a cab, a four-wheeler, slowly making its way along the road without a fare. She hailed it.
‘Oxford Street,’ she said. ‘Stop at the largest bookshop you see.’
And there in the bookshop she asked for a volume on poisons. The assistant could not refrain from giving her a look of intense curiosity.
Spiritedly she invented.
‘My father is Professor Unwin,’ she said. ‘He requires a comprehensive volume immediately.’
‘Yes, madam, of course. I believe we have just the article.’
The assistant hurried away and returned in a very few minutes with a large book. Miss Unwin looked at the title.
Potherton on Poisons
.
‘I think my father will find that just what he requires,’ she said.
It was all she could do to wait while the assistant wrapped her purchase in brown paper and neatly tied it with a loop of string for her to carry it by. In the cab, a hansom, in which she returned she tore off the paper and eagerly turned to the stout volume’s index. There was a satisfying number of entries under ‘Arsenic’.
But, she said to herself, as with the book again open in front of her, she supervised the rest of the twins’ morning lessons, learning about arsenic will be only half the battle. It is finding Mrs Meggs that is the first task, and for that I have to wait upon the whim of a wretched rabbit-skin chatterbox.
At last, however, when Miss Unwin returned with the girls from their afternoon walk, Vilkins, who had opened the front door for them, whispered in a frank shower of spit into her ear.