Page 24 of A Moveable Feast
Chapter 9
I stepped out of the kitchen to find Sergeant Scott at the door of the housekeeper’s parlor, a look of resignation on his face. He made no move to pursue Mary or make an arrest.
“Send in the other kitchen maid,” the sergeant instructed me, then disappeared back into the room.
Jane, her face wan, quietly moved around me and down the hall. She rapped once on the door, then entered, her body stiff.
I returned to the kitchen once Jane was safely inside. I knew Sergeant Scott would not let me in there with her, and I only hoped my admonition to be sensible and say little helped her.
“Sit down, Mary,” I told the weeping girl. I fetched another teacup, poured the hot beverage into it, and set the cup on the table next to her. “You were wrong to run upstairs when we were so busy, but you did, and there’s no use breaking down over it. If Sergeant Scott believed you’d gone up to murder the young master, he’d have arrested you on the spot.”
“I didn’t,” Mary wailed. “I just wanted to catch sight of him, like.”
“Of course you did.” I remained firm but put some sympathy in my tone. “The important point, Mary, is whether you saw anyone else when you were hoping for a glimpse of Lord Alfred.”
“I never did see him.” Mary sniffled. “Saw everyone else milling about, drifting to the dining room, but not his young lordship.”
“When you say everyone else, who do you mean, exactly?”
“His sister and stepmum, with their stepmum’s aunt.” Mary pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and swiped at her nose. “His dad and cousin. Your ladyship friend and her beau. They took their time going in, chattering to one another as they wandered down the hall. The rest was already in the dining room. Mrs. Seabrook was there too, clearing up the drawing room behind them. I was ever so afraid she’d see me.”
“What about Lord Alfred?” I asked. “Had he gone into the dining room? Or back into the drawing room? Perhaps he spoke with Mrs. Seabrook?”
Mary shook her head vehemently. “I told you, I never saw him. Don’t know where he was.”
This was interesting. If Lord Alfred hadn’t been with either the group in the dining room or those in the hall, where had he been? And why?
“Did you tell Sergeant Scott this?” I asked.
Mary nodded. “He made me go over it and over it, but I know he thought I did it.” Her sobs renewed.
I had not imagined the weariness in Sergeant Scott’s expression when he’d watched Mary run to the kitchen. Her histrionics must have worn down even his stoicism.
“Have a cake and drink that tea,” I ordered. “You will feel better. Then continue putting away the food. Tess, help me with the trays.”
My crisp instructions cut through Mary’s weeping. She nodded and obediently lifted the teacup to her lips.
Tess rolled her eyes behind Mary’s back but seized the heaviest tray and moved off toward the backstairs. I picked up the second tray and followed her.
When we reached the main floor, we found the house very quiet. The dining room and drawing room doors were both closed, Inspector McGregor presumably interviewing the guests behind one of them.
I asked a footman, who was now diligently watching the front door, where the ladies of the household were. He regarded me sullenly and pointed upward with a stiff finger. I sent him a sharp frown then bade Tess continue up the main stairs.
The large first floor held only a sitting room and a library, so on we went to the next floor, where the mistress’s boudoir was likely to be. A maid who was nipping from bedroom to bedroom, linens in her hands, guided us to Lady Babcock’s chamber.
“Thank you,” I said to the maid.
She paused to whisper to me. “The breakfast you cooked for us was ever so nice. Wish you could stay here.”
I nodded at her compliment, though all I wanted to do after this day was return to my familiar demesne of Mount Street.
The maid opened the door for us, and Tess and I strode inside with our burdens.
Lady Cynthia rose from a settee she shared with the young woman I assumed was Lady Margaret, the deceased’s man’s sister. Lady Babcock sat on a chair at her dressing table, removed from them, wearing a bewildered expression.
An older woman with a thin face and graying hair reposed on a delicate chair in the corner near the window, as though not wanting to be noticed. I deduced she was Miss Jordan, Lady Babcock’s aunt.
Miss Jordan flashed a look at me as I entered that told me she saw more than her passive way of carrying herself indicated.
