A Death by Any Other Name Read online

  “Mrs. Armitage, I think it would be a good idea to begin at the beginning. Start with the day Mr. Bartholomew died and go on from there, if you wouldn’t mind.” And she sat back to listen.

  Mrs. Armitage breathed out her thanks in a gust of relief and visibly pulled herself together by squaring her shoulders. Then she took a deep breath and began her story.

  “There were just five guests staying at Hyde Castle in March. All of them belong to Mrs. Haldane’s little club. They call themselves the Hyde Rose Society, it’s a sort of hobby they have. They get together every three months or so and talk about their roses. They have all been coming to the house now for at least ten years. Mr. Bartholomew was part of this group and a very nice man he was, too. He liked his food, and particularly enjoyed a good breakfast. Whenever he came to stay I always made sure to include a kedgeree on the breakfast sideboard as it was one of his favorites.” Mrs. Armitage almost smiled. “On this particular morning I ate a small portion of the kedgeree before it went up. It was a good one, nice and spicy with smoky flavors. Mr. Bartholomew was always first in the dining room, and the footman said that on that morning he made a good breakfast and enjoyed a full plateful of the kedgeree, and that when he finished his first plate, he had taken a second helping but had not finished it. Halfway through his second helping, so the footman told me, Mr. Bartholomew said he felt in need of some fresh air and decided to go for a morning’s constitutional before the group got together for their first talk of the day.

  “Well, just as I was getting luncheon together there was such a commotion. The butler, Mr. Evans, came running down the back stairs and said that there had been an accident and that one of the guests was in the orangery, unconscious, and that the doctor had been called. It was that poor Mr. Bartholomew. Of course I didn’t hear the details until later that afternoon. He had been found a few hours after breakfast by one of the head gardener’s boys, Johnny Masters; he’d only been with us about a year, poor little lad, as he’s only fourteen. Anyway, Johnny went into the orangery to sweep up dead leaves and water the trees in there, and in the corner he found Mr. Bartholomew.” Mrs. Armitage stopped and sipped a little water. She took a handkerchief from her coat pocket, wiped her forehead, and dabbed her upper lip. Catching Mrs. Jackson’s eye, she said, “It still gives me the shivers to remember this part.” She recovered herself with another sip of water before she continued.

  “Mr. Bartholomew was out cold when poor Johnny found him. He was lying in a pool … of…” Mrs. Jackson closed her eyes and shook her head. “Well, he had been very ill, very ill indeed. Poor Johnny was horrified. He cried out for help, and Pete Wainwright, who was working outside, came running in, that’s how loud the lad’s cry had been—Pete later told me that Johnny’s face was ashen and he could barely speak, he just pointed to the far corner of the orangery to where the body was lying.” Another sip of water.

  “Pete said that he had never seen such a mess in all his life. He said the smell was awful. And that the gentleman…” Mrs. Jackson put a hand on the older woman’s arm. “There is no need to describe every little thing, Mrs. Armitage, it will only distress you.”

  “Yes, you are right about that, Mrs. Jackson, you certainly are. It was distressing; is distressing still, the poor man. Well, Pete and Johnny turned Mr. Bartholomew over, he was lying facedown in … And they said the look on his face made their blood run cold. It was quite clear to both of them that he was dead, and had died in the most terrible agony.”

  “And then the doctor was called?” Mrs. Jackson gently prodded, as Mrs. Armitage had gone very quiet and was staring into her empty water glass as if at a loss as to how to continue.

  “Yes, Dr. Arbuthnot arrived about an hour later. Made his examination and then went into Mr. Haldane’s study, where he wrote up a death certificate. He said Mr. Bartholomew had died of food poisoning because the haddock I used in the kedgeree was off. As if I would use tainted fish.” The worst of her story over, Mrs. Armitage allowed herself to be affronted.

  “The following day there was an inquest and they agreed with the doctor’s report. That afternoon, Mrs. Haldane sent for me and Mr. Evans, the butler. She was in a terrible state as Mr. Bartholomew had been an old and close friend. She handed me an envelope with two weeks’ wages and told me to pack my bags and be gone by the next morning, and that until I left the house I was not to go into the kitchen. Nor was I to talk to any of the other servants, except the butler. Mr. Evans was as horrified as I was. We both pleaded with Mrs. Haldane to reconsider. Mr. Evans stood up for me wonderfully he did, said I was reliable and responsible and very careful with the storing of perishables such as fish. But it was no good. Mr. Haldane came into the room and shouted at me to get out. He was very upset; he shouted at all of us: Mrs. Haldane, Mr. Evans, and of course me. Mr. Bartholomew was his greatest and oldest friend, he said, and I had as good as killed him.”

  The cook bent her head and applied her already damp hanky to her eyes. Mrs. Jackson gave her a minute or two and then asked, “You felt no ill effects at all from eating the kedgeree? Did you tell them you had sampled a portion?”

  “No ill effects whatsoever. Mind you, I certainly didn’t eat a huge plate and a half of the stuff—Mr. Bartholomew was a great trencherman, loved his food, especially his breakfast. And yes, Mrs. Jackson, I told them at the inquest quite plainly that I had eaten some of the kedgeree with no ill effects, and I also told them that two pigs had eaten the remainder of Mr. Bartholmew’s portion, left on his plate and scraped into the kitchen slop bucket, and had also died … both of them.”

  “And there was no kedgeree left in the chafing dish on the sideboard?”

  “No, there was none left at all, just a few grains of rice, which of course went down the drain when the dish was washed.”

  Mrs. Jackson considered as she sat quietly upright on the bench, her hands folded in her lap.

  “How can I help you, Mrs. Armitage? Unfortunately, we have no need of a cook here, as we already have one. I could perhaps make some inquiries.” She was playing for time because she knew what was coming next.

  “No one will take me on, Mrs. Jackson, not without a reference. I gave up a good position to go to Hyde Castle, and even after many years there I do not have enough put by for my old age quite yet. I don’t know what is to become of me.” She bent her head and held her breath until she had mastered her emotions. “I have to clear my good name, you see, to regain my reputation, it’s the only way. I have to prove that Mr. Bartholomew was poisoned on purpose—murdered.”

  The red flag was waving frantically now as Mrs. Jackson waited for the inevitable. “And then I bumped into Mr. Stafford at Market Wingley last week, what a nice sympathetic gentleman he is. He said that you are a very clever woman and that you had got to the bottom of a very nasty situation here at Iyntwood that involved the death of someone at the house, and that Lady Montfort had saved the life of an important gentleman in the government. He said that you and her ladyship worked together and I should ask you both to help me. I thought about what he said all last night and decided to take a chance. That is why I am here.” Mrs. Armitage sat back on the bench, her upturned palms in front of her in the age-old gesture, I am in your hands, please help me, a gesture that made Mrs. Jackson feel quite uncomfortable.

  “I am not sure what you mean, Mrs. Armitage. Or what Mr. Stafford could have been thinking of to say such a thing. Lady Montfort is not a private detective, as you seem to think she is. It is out of the question for her to become involved in an inquiry into the death of someone who was a perfect stranger to her, especially since there has been an inquest.” Glancing at Mrs. Armitage, she saw the despair in her eyes and added, “But she might speak to the Market Wingley constabulary on your behalf and help you in that way. They will listen to you if Lady Montfort is prepared to speak to them.” She was thinking of Colonel Valentine, the chief constable for the county, who was a personal friend of both Lord and Lady Montfort.

  “Mrs. Jacks
on, I am begging you, please ask her ladyship to intervene. If I don’t clear my name I don’t know what will become of me. I can’t stay with my brother and his family for much longer, his cottage only has two bedrooms and they have five children. I am running through my savings, and I had hoped to work for at least another twelve years for my retirement. The way things are going I will be destitute by the time I’m sixty. I am begging you to at least talk to Lady Montfort. Mr. Stafford said she was a kind woman.”

  Meaning I suppose that I am not, thought Mrs. Jackson, feeling quite horribly trapped.

  She stood up. “You are staying in the village, Mrs. Armitage?”

  “Yes I am, on Green Lane, 12 Green Lane.”

  “Very well. I will talk to Lady Montfort, but only on the condition that you promise me that you will abide by her decision, no matter what it is.”

  And with tears of gratitude running down her face, Mrs. Armitage grasped Mrs. Jackson’s right hand in her two large hot ones and said she would do anything Lady Montfort suggested—anything at all.

  Chapter Three

  “Poor creature,” said Lady Montfort when Mrs. Jackson finished her account of Mrs. Armitage’s visit. “It sounds a little bit like this Mr. Bartholomew died of a surfeit of lampreys.”

  “Lampreys, m’lady?”

  “King Henry I, Jackson, was a reasonably healthy monarch who died one night after he had overindulged at the dinner table; he ate an entire dish of lampreys or what we would call eels. His sudden death, leaving his daughter Mathilda to inherit the throne, was the start of a civil war in England called the Anarchy.”

  “I see, m’lady.” Mrs. Jackson decided to let this one go, as she had no wish to bog things down with a history lesson.

  “And what is she like, this Mrs. Armitage?”

  “She is a respectable woman, m’lady. Neatly dressed, spoke nicely, and was respectful.” Mrs. Jackson thought of Mrs. Thwaite bashing pots and pans around downstairs in Iyntwood’s kitchen and wished that their cook had as much self-restraint as Mrs. Armitage had. “She is the sister of Mr. Armitage, the dairyman, and is staying with his family in Green Lane. I told her that I would ask you for your advice on how she should proceed. But I think,” she tried not to sound too emphatic, as her opinion had not been asked for, “that she should go directly to the police with her story. Clearly something was not right about what happened at the castle.”

  “Do you, Jackson? Think she should go to the police, I mean. Why should she do that? I wonder. It is five months since the death of Mr. Bartholomew. There was a death certificate and the inquest clearly agreed on a verdict of accidental death. I can’t imagine the police being enthusiastic about going round and banging on Mr. Haldane’s door and asking him about murder. Do you believe her story? Yes, I can see you do.”

  What Mrs. Jackson was thinking, and what she most certainly would not say, was that this was Mrs. Armitage’s business and not theirs. The whole situation smacked of interfering and meddling as far as she was concerned. She could see where they were headed and was careful not to encourage anything that might lead to their involvement in what looked like the worst sort of a muddle. She had so many reasons why they should not involve themselves that if she had been asked—and she wouldn’t be—she would have been hard pressed to know where to start. But an answer was required of her and so she said, “If Mrs. Armitage feels that an injustice has been done, then she has a duty to go to the police, m’lady. She has no other choice.” She thought perhaps that sounded a bit too hard on a woman who had been dealt an unfair blow and now stood to lose everything, so she reluctantly added, “And perhaps we might help her find a new situation in London.”

  “Yes, I had thought of that too, Jackson, and of course we should most certainly look into that, at the very least. But I think Mrs. Armitage was asking for something else. She said she wanted her name cleared. The poor woman has lost all respect and she naturally wants her reputation as a cook to remain unblemished. I can hardly blame her. And I also have a duty, if there has been an injustice, to do what I can to help.”

  This is a new one, Mrs. Jackson thought. We never took the moral high ground with the other two investigations. Now people were turning up at Iyntwood’s scullery door requesting help, as if Lady Montfort and Mrs. Jackson were a couple of private investigators who had just put a well-worded advertisement in the local newspaper.

  “I wish I knew more about these Haldanes. Do you know anything about them, Jackson? No? They are new to the county, aren’t they?” She meant of course that they were not an old family. And if we don’t know who these Haldanes are, all the more reason not to get involved, thought Mrs. Jackson.

  She was determined to say nothing more on the subject. She had fulfilled her promise to Mrs. Armitage. But a feeling of unease was beginning to build within her upright body, and even though her handsome face betrayed nothing of the kind, she felt distinct consternation as she observed her ladyship sitting on the edge of her chair looking eager.

  When she had come into the room earlier, her ladyship had been delighted to welcome her home and to hear all about her walking tour in Derbyshire with the old Talbot nanny’s niece, Emily Biggs. And then Mrs. Jackson had told her of Mrs. Armitage’s visit, and her eyes had positively lit up. She had leaned forward in that way she had when she was intensely interested in something. Too interested by far, Mrs. Jackson thought as she scanned her ladyship’s intent face.

  “I wonder if I should have a little talk with Mrs. Armitage.” It wasn’t a question; her ladyship was halfway to making a decision.

  Mrs. Jackson’s heart sank. Oh Lord help us all, she said to herself, as she dropped her eyes to stare in dismay at the central medallion of the oriental carpet in Lady Montfort’s sitting room. She can’t possibly be thinking…?

  But her ladyship was thinking, and thinking hard. It was evident from the frown on her face and the lightly tapping fingers on the arm of her chair. And then, having come to some sort of conclusion, she clapped her hands lightly together. “Here is what we will do. I think it would be a good idea for me to have a little talk with this Mrs. Armitage, so ask her to come back after luncheon this afternoon. And in the meantime I will do what I can to find out a bit more about the Haldanes. I think Mr. Haldane bought Hyde Castle several years ago. What does he do for a living? Someone did tell me. I think I heard he is a manufacturer of some sort with pots of money. And I think I met Mrs. Haldane briefly, about a year ago at the Bishop’s Hever vicarage tea party, and for the life of me I can’t remember much about the woman, other than she was tall and she loves to garden. And now it would seem that our old friend Mr. Stafford has taken a commission to do some garden design for the Haldanes. Oh good heavens!” A bright smile transformed Lady Montfort’s lovely face from frowning concentration to elation no doubt at her own brilliance, and she jumped to her feet. “I expect Miss Jekyll knows something about them, especially if Mrs. Haldane has engaged Miss Jekyll’s old student Mr. Stafford. Yes, I will sound out Miss Jekyll. But before anything else I think I might just write and reintroduce myself to this keen gardener, Mrs. Haldane, and let her know that Miss Jekyll is staying with us.”

  Mrs. Jackson left Lady Montfort busily writing away at her desk and went downstairs to send the hall boy over to the village to bring back Hyde Castle’s erstwhile cook, and to come to terms with the fact that there was no doubt Mrs. Armitage would not be encouraged to go to the police with her tale of murder. I hope to goodness she doesn’t intend to make a habit of this sort of thing, she thought as she shut herself in the linen room and opened her inventory ledger, and then realized the futility of worrying about something that had already happened.

  * * *

  The following morning, Lord Montfort arrived in his wife’s bedroom as Clementine was sitting up in bed eating her breakfast. He sat down on the edge of her bed and shared a cup of tea with her as she buttered him a piece of toast.

  “No need to worry about Althea, darling. I received a reply
to my telegraph to Clarendon care of the Port of Tallinn in Estonia. They arrived there a couple of days ago. Clarendon says they are sailing for home today and they will dock at Southampton on the first of August, so we will have Althea with us a day or so after that.”

  Clementine’s shoulders came down a notch. “Thank goodness you caught them before they moved on. Absolutely no more exploring for Althea for a while I think.”

  “I don’t want you to get steamed-up about this Serbian business, darling. We will carry on as usual until we need to think otherwise. Let us not get in a state about Verity either; I am quite sure that if the situation worsens in Europe she will continue her stay with us—at least until all this fuss dies down. Etienne is a generous man about how much time his wife spends with us.”

  Her husband’s apparent lack of concern banished all anxiety and Clementine spent a most satisfactory morning with her head gardener, Mr. Thrower, as, together with Miss Jekyll, they wandered up and down the herbaceous borders that led from the west terrace down to the lake and made plans for new plantings in the autumn. After which Clementine and Miss Jekyll walked down to the new sunken garden to enjoy a picnic luncheon from a hamper brought down for them by a footman. Lord Montfort joined them, and they all reclined on cushions on a rug spread out under the shade of a rapidly maturing birch grove to enjoy the delights of a meal taken alfresco. The sunken garden was still in its infancy, and when they had all sung the praises of the marvels wrought by Mr. Stafford, who two years ago had started the business of transforming an old flint quarry into this mountain valley garden in miniature, they settled down to enjoy their picnic.

  “Mr. Stafford has always had a wonderful eye for composition.” Miss Jekyll took a sip from her glass of hock and turned to survey the scene created by her old student. She waved a chicken leg in the direction of the southwest corner of the garden. “He is a very talented young man.”