Page 10 of Mrs. Holloway's Christmas Pudding

As I hastened past the house where Mrs. Cullen worked, hoping she would not emerge to engage me in long conversation, a plain black carriage halted at the Whitakers’ doorway.

A man in a dark coat and tall hat descended, a large valise clutched in his hand. From his dress and nondescript carriage, I guessed he was the doctor. Dr. Burnley, Cynthia had said his name was.

The door opened before Dr. Burnley could rap upon it. A footman let him inside, but calmly, without agitation. This must be a routine visit, not an urgent summons.

I slowed my steps to watch, but there was little more to see. The footman shut the door and the carriage creaked away, the coachman heading to the mews to tend the horses until the doctor was ready to leave.

“I know you are there, James,” I said to the air. “Come out here where I can speak to you.”

A moment later, a tall lad materialized from the shadows of a stairwell across the street, beaming at me. “Sorry, Mrs. H.,” he said as he jogged to me. “Dad told me to keep an eye on you. You don’t always take care, he says.”

Chapter 4

James admitted this to me without shame, his warm smile so like his father’s.

“I take plenty of care,” I said impatiently. “I am off to meet him and Mr. Thanos, in any case, not walking about alone in Seven Dials.” I forced my annoyance to recede. “It is fortunate you are here, no matter what the reason. Will you go to Brooks’s Mews and strike up a conversation with the driver of the doctor’s coach? It’s the one that stopped here a moment ago.”

“Aye, the doctor comes and goes a good deal at this house. Poor gent is very ill, ain’t he?”

I ought to have known James had already grasped what was going on. I also liked his compassion.

“He is indeed,” I said. “I have no excuse for chatting with the doctor, but maybe his coachman will gossip. Right now, information is what I need, and I believe I can walk all the way to Regent Street without you watching over me.”

James nodded readily. “I’ll have a chat with the coachman, never you worry. Also, the other grooms and coachmen there. They always know much about the families they work for.”

Probably more than the family knew themselves. The Bywaters’ coachman, Henry, enjoyed talking about the family to all and sundry. Particularly to me when he had reason to come into the kitchen or when I took food to the coach house. Henry had concluded he had no chance to woo me, but that did not stop him from trying to buttonhole me every time I came nigh him.

“Don’t tell Dad,” James added in sudden trepidation.

“It will be our secret,” I assured him.

James saluted me and dashed off, his long legs carrying him around the corner in a flash. I continued on toward Hanover Square and emerged into Regent Street a few steps from the fine building that housed Mr. Thanos’s rooms. He’d been provided them by the Polytechnic, which was not far up the road in Cavendish Square.

The landlady of this building knew me from my previous visits. She bade me a cordial good morning as I climbed the wide staircase to Mr. Thanos’s floor.

The house, built more than sixty years ago, had grand columns and high ceilings, black-and-white tiled floors, and polished marble banisters. I skimmed my fingers along the railing, liking the smooth feeling of the stone, and arrived at a tall black door on an upper floor.

It opened as I approached, Daniel framed in the opening. Behind him, Mr. Thanos was rising, and Cynthia, in a man’s coat, came forward to greet me.

Friends were wonderful things, I decided as I settled into an armchair before Mr. Thanos’s fire. Cynthia insisted on pouring the tea the landlady had brought, and she spilled only a little.

“The doctor is calling on Mr. Whitaker as we speak,” I said, and recounted how I’d seen him. I omitted that I’d asked James to follow his coachman. Daniel did not need to know his ploy to have me watched had not worked—I didn’t want him admonishing the boy.

“I have heard of Dr. Burnley.” Mr. Thanos took the teacup Cynthia handed him and sloshed even more into the saucer as she smiled at him. “A chappie I know at the Polytechnic knows him, or knows of him. Says he’s quite good. His patients generally get well, apart from Mr. Whitaker, that is. But some illnesses can’t be healed, sadly.”

That was true. Certain maladies could send a person into a long decline, from which there was no recovery. I was always grateful for my own robust constitution.

“Mr. Whitaker’s symptoms are natural, then?” I asked.

I both hoped so and didn’t. If Mr. Whitaker was truly ill, then my reputation was clear, but I did not wish a serious illness on anyone. On the other hand, if poison was the culprit, an antidote might be found to help him.

“I have been reading up,” Mr. Thanos said. “Medicine is not my forte, except for electrical impulses of the brain and nerves, which are most fascinating. His symptoms Cyn—erm, Lady Cynthia—tells me her friend said are tiredness, a rapid heartbeat even when he’s resting, an inability to catch his breath, and pain when he needs to, erm, relieve himself.”

Mr. Thanos’s smooth face went very red, but I jotted this down in the notebook I’d slid into my handbag before I’d left the kitchen.

“Are these the same symptoms arsenic causes?” I asked him.

“No.” Mr. Thanos said the word sharply then looked apologetic.

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