‘And I locked it before I went to my bed,’ said Mrs Hepburn, ‘like I always do. Every night without fail and afternoons too when it’s my day out or Mr Faulds’s.’
‘Because you can’t be too careful with knives,’ said Millie.
‘And the key?’ I asked. Mrs Hepburn was plucking at her collar again, her face reddening.
‘Oh, Fan!’ she said. ‘This doesn’t look good, does it? I don’t see how anyone sneaking in through a window could get into my knife cupboard.’
‘Who keeps the key?’ I insisted.
‘Well, I’ve got one,’ said Mrs Hepburn, patting her key ring, ‘and… Oh my!’
‘What?’ I asked. I could hear movement inside the parlour and I wrapped the knife up again quickly. ‘What is it?’
‘Mill,’ she said, turning to her niece. ‘You trot along back to the kitchen and get started on the carrots for me. Scrape, mind, don’t peel – they’re as fresh as fresh.’
She drew close to me as Millie disappeared and she spoke urgently.
‘Mistress could never have got that knife,’ she said. ‘There’s a spare key and as to who knows and who doesn’t, your guess beats mine – there’s a couple of they youngsters as sharp as knives themselves and not much gets past them. But there’s no way mistress would know.’
‘What happened to someone sneaking in?’ I said and got a wry look in return.
‘That was good enough for the police and the papers,’ she said. ‘I would have swore on my life to spare mistress any trouble for it – he’s no loss and no one will miss him. But if that’s the knife then-’
The door behind her began to open and she sailed away, moving very fast and remarkably silently on her wooden soles. I started forward to greet Mr Hardy.
‘The knife, Superintendent,’ I said. ‘With the doctor’s compliments. It’s one of the kitchen knives, kept in a locked cupboard with a key some of the servants knew about and some didn’t. I’ll try to find out which for you.’
‘You do that,’ he said, ‘and send me up the last maid, would you?’
‘There are two more to go actually,’ I told him. ‘You missed one earlier.’
‘Oh no, I’ve seen her,’ said Superintendent Hardy. ‘She came in while Mrs Hepburn and the girl were here. It turned into a bit of a party. She came to tell me she hadn’t done it.’
‘Eldry?’ I said. ‘A plain girl? Thin nose?’
‘She’s in quite a state. And Mrs Hepburn isn’t so calm as she’d like us to think either.’
‘I shouldn’t read anything into that, Superintendent,’ I said. ‘It’s been a great shock to everyone.’
‘No, you misunderstand me,’ said Hardy. ‘That’s perfectly natural – of course it is. It’s the other one that I’ve got my eye on. Amelia, is it? The one that’s in no kind of state at all.’
‘Millie?’ I asked, unbelieving. ‘Surely you can’t be serious? You think that sweet girl could have taken a knife and…’ But even as I spoke I felt a flicker of unease about it. She had indeed been remarkably unperturbed throughout the morning, neither fainting nor crying, and she had bent over the knife with an eager interest which did, upon reflection, strike one as unseemly.
‘I’ll ask the doctor what he thinks,’ said Hardy. ‘Whether a girl could have done it at all. I think I hear him coming.’
I took my time joining the others again, dawdling on the turn in the stairs trying to think it through. The superintendent was seeing ghosts in empty corners, I was sure, but someone had done it and it must have been someone who slept in the house, since bolted doors could not be reasoned away. I was almost sure that it was not Lollie, although I should have liked to be surer. Eldry and Phyllis had motives, and Eldry at least was far from at ease, but they would have needed Millie and Clara respectively to cover for them. Mrs Hepburn had no room-mate to outwit and was anything but sorry about the death, but she appeared to suspect her mistress, and so unless that was a ruse she could not be guilty herself. It would be a clever touch, to affect suspicion of another, and I did not know Mrs Hepburn well enough to say whether she were capable of such subtlety. Of Mr Faulds, too, I did not yet know enough to form a view; a matter I should remedy right away.
He was there in his armchair in the servants’ hall with the rest of the menfolk and Clara, who was crouched on a fender stool, busy stitching. Stanley was in Mrs Hepburn’s seat and PC Morrison sat at the furthest corner of the table from John, Harry and Mattie, staring resolutely into space.
‘You’re wanted now, dear,’ I said to Clara, who leapt to her feet as though I had fired a starting pistol. She hurried towards me and thrust her sewing into my hands.
‘About time,’ she said. ‘Can you carry on with the armbands, Miss Rossiter? I’ve done seven – five to go.’
‘Yes,’ I said, clutching ineffectually at the bundle and feeling the needle pierce my skin. ‘Now then, what stitch are you using, let me see now…’ I sank into my own chair, squinting at the tiny stitches in the black cloth. A drop of blood welled up on my pierced fingertip and I sucked it.
‘I suppose you’ll be next, Mr Faulds,’ I said, ‘and then perhaps we can all get a bit of peace and quiet to ourselves.’ I looked meaningfully at PC Morrison’s profile as I spoke. Mr Faulds, though, had clearly not forgiven me for my thrusting behaviour earlier in the day and merely inclined his head with a tight smile. I bent to my sewing again, but I saw that two more drops of blood had come and had dripped onto the strip of serge. ‘Bother it,’ I said, ‘I think I’ll need to put a dressing on this.’ I held my finger out to show Stanley. (I have often noticed the relish with which servants, like children, will describe and even exhibit any wound, swelling or rash which might befall them and I thought this a very Miss-Rossiterish touch.) Stanley, to my surprise, squeezed his eyes shut and twisted his head away from me.
‘Stanley cannae stomach the sight of blood, Miss Rossiter,’ said John, from the table. ‘Here, Harry, mind of that time I gashed my arm open working on the motor and Stanley had to take his dinner at the kitchen table to keep away from me.’
‘Have a heart,’ said Harry. ‘Don’t mind him, Stan.’
‘I do apologise,’ I said to the footman, who was trying to look haughty but not making a very impressive job of it. ‘Is there a first aid box anywhere?’
But even the thought of the first aid box, it seemed, was too much earthy reality for Stanley and it was Harry who got to his feet to show me in the end.
‘All right by you?’ he asked Morrison rather insolently as he passed. Morrison, who had perhaps been told by now that I was trusted by the superintendent and could be trusted by him, nodded curtly.
‘And bring back some smelling salts for Stan, will you no’?’ John called after us.
‘You hold your tongue,’ said Stanley. ‘Yelling like that with a corpse in the house. You’ve no idea how to behave, have you? You don’t deserve to be with decent people.’
‘Enough,’ said Mr Faulds. ‘Quit bickering, both of you.’
Harry led me to a small room, no more than a store-cupboard really, stocked with blocks of yellow scrubbing soap and jars of green soft soap, tins of floor polish and boot polish and the great stone jars of marmalade which, for some reason I never understood, always lived with the cleaning supplies.
‘Cracks beginning to show, eh?’ said Harry, when we were inside and could not be overheard.
‘It has been a very trying morning,’ I agreed, ‘and the more so for you lot, I suppose, just sitting there. At least the girls have had a chance to unburden themselves and get back to work.’ Harry nodded. He had found the first aid box – just a large tin painted white – on a high shelf and was prising its lid open.
‘We’ve got some of those sticking plasters,’ he said. ‘They’re no’ bad if you don’t wind them too tight. Master brought them back from America last time they was over.’ He gave me one of the little waxed packets and put the lid back on the tin again. I had never seen one of the things and it took a moment of fumbling before I got it unwrapped and managed to apply it to my finger.