‘Surprised you care,’ said John, saving me from having to answer. ‘Many’s the time I’ve heard you calling her and him both for sitting back on their what’s-its instead of earning a day’s pay.’
‘My poor mistress,’ said Mr Faulds, and then in the next breath. ‘Here, Fanny, what about us?’
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘There were no bequests to anyone.’
‘Not even a wee minder for any of us?’ said Clara. ‘After four years?’
‘That’s cold for you,’ said Mr Faulds, ‘but it’s not what I was getting at. I meant what about us, Number 31, the household, if mistress has been left without a penny?’
‘So where’s it all gone then?’ said Millie and the others turned to look at her. In her simplicity, she had not frittered off into questions of just deserts and repercussions, but had kept her whole mind squarely on the pot of gold.
‘Exactly,’ I said, and as one they turned back to me. ‘He has left it to a relation, by the name of George Pollard. A cousin, it seems.’
For a short moment no one spoke and then the clamour began.
‘A cousin? What cousin? He’s never been here. Pollard? I’ve never heard of him. Has mistress met him? Does the lawyer know him? Will he be running the house then? Will we still have our jobs? Who is he? Why should he come in for a fortune?’
‘So,’ I said, carefully looking around at them all, one by one. ‘No one knew?’
‘Us? Why would we know? Think we would know and not tell mistress? What are you hinting at?’
‘Simply,’ I said, ‘that Miss Abbott and Maggie witnessed the will and I thought they might have mentioned something about it. I’m sure I couldn’t have bitten my tongue if it were me.’
Harry sat forward.
‘Maggie and Jessie Abbott?’ he said. ‘Them that left. Why would that be, then?’
‘Ah, but Miss Rossiter,’ said Mr Faulds, ignoring him, ‘they needn’t have read what was in it. Probably never even saw it. I believe it’s customary to draw a blank sheet over the page and leave only the bottom portion where the signatures go.’
‘How would you know that, Mr Faulds?’ said Phyllis, rather pertly.
‘Oh, we all know Mr Faulds has led a full life,’ said John. ‘Eh, Mrs Hepburn?’ But this was going too far even for such an affable butler as Ernest Faulds and he scowled the grin off the chauffeur’s face in a way of which my very own Pallister would have been proud.
‘As for your jobs,’ I said, ‘the will was very clear. The house is to be sold.’ There was a collective gasp at that and Mrs Hepburn put her cup down hard in its saucer. ‘Everyone has to leave and the money is to be held until George Pollard comes forward to collect it.’
Harry was the first to speak.
‘Your jobs?’ he said. ‘Your jobs, Miss Rossiter? Do you think mistress will be keeping a lady’s maid then?’
I bit my lip at the blunder but said nothing as Harry continued.
‘Is that why you’re passing all this on, like so much cosy gossip? “I’m all right, Jack”? So much for solidarity, eh?’
‘Don’t be a clown, Harry,’ said Phyllis. ‘Don’t be so rude to everyone all the time.’
‘Miss Rossiter was quite right to tell us,’ said Mr Faulds, ‘if mistress asked her to. And you said something about Mr Hardy too, Fanny?’
This was the point I had been leading up to and dreading. This was the moment when below stairs at Number 31 Heriot Row would cease to be the snug little burrow where all could gather together for pronouncements about the doings of those above over buttered scones and tea.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Mr Hardy has taken me into his confidence quite remarkably.’
‘Spotted you for one of his own,’ said Harry sourly, but the others shushed him.
‘Indeed, Harry,’ I said, ‘he’s under considerable pressure with the strike and this case is exactly what he didn’t need on top of it all, so I daresay he has been less… professional than he might have. He knew that I, unlike the rest of you, had no quarrel with Mr Balfour and no reason to want him dead and so he knew he could talk to me.’
‘Now, here, wait a minute,’ said Mrs Hepburn. ‘You’ve no call to be talking that way, Fanny Rossiter, even though, mind you, it’s true enough, true enough. You carry on and finish your piece.’
‘I think everyone here felt ill disposed towards master to some extent, although some have been more discreet than others.’ I bowed in acknowledgement to Mr Faulds, who accepted the compliment with a court bow of his own. ‘And everyone said that they couldn’t care less who killed him and wouldn’t want whoever it was to be punished for it.’ My mouth was dry and I took a sip of tea. ‘But that was when you thought one of your number had struck back, had lashed out in protest, or self-defence, or revenge for some injury you could all imagine.’ They were in the palm of my hand now. ‘Only that’s not what Mr Hardy thinks happened. And I agree. What he thinks is that George Pollard got wind of his inheritance and killed Mr Balfour for it. And – here’s the rub – he thinks someone let him into the house and that can’t have happened – couldn’t have – without someone else hearing something or seeing something of what was going on.’
There was perfect silence now in the servants’ hall.
‘So,’ I went on, ‘any of you who is perhaps keeping quiet about… anything: someone not where they ought to have been, or being where they oughtn’t; a noise you couldn’t account for; a key out of place or a door that should have been locked left open… what you need to see is that you’re not protecting one of your friends who suffered as you did. You’re protecting someone who is quite happy to see you jobless, out on the street, all of you.’
Clara and Phyllis were both staring at me fixedly and did not see Mattie glance quickly between the two of them. John saw it, though, and tried to catch Harry’s eye. Stanley was drilling a look down towards the floor that could have shattered the stone flags there, and Millie and Eldry avoided looking at one another so studiedly and with such a deep pink bloom on their cheeks that they might as well have stared and pointed.
‘Well,’ said Mrs Hepburn. ‘You could cut the air in here with a knife and tile a roof with it. You’ve set the cat amongst the pigeons now, Fan.’ She cast her gaze around her staff, frowning. ‘What’s to do with you all, eh?’
‘They’re just upset, Kitty,’ said Mr Faulds. ‘Overwrought, as are we all, I’m sure. Miss Rossiter, do you really think that someone could be so lost to goodness that he – or she, of course – would protect one murderer but not another? I hardly think any of our young people is as calculating as all that.’
‘Self-preservation is a powerful force, Mr Faulds,’ I said. ‘Just to be as plain as possible and make sure everyone understands,’ – I was thinking chiefly of Millie here – ‘if George Pollard did it and he gets caught, then the will is ripped into little pieces, Mrs Balfour – as the widow – inherits, and this house carries on just as before, only better by far for the loss of master. So the choice for someone who knows something and could tell is protect one or save all. It’s as stark as that.’
There was another long silence then. The upper servants as far as Phyllis and Stanley had collected themselves, and were now wearing poker faces of admirable rectitude; well-trained in the art by their years of standing at the edge of intimate domestic scenes as untouched by what passed between master and mistress as a lamp post is by the lives of those who walk through its light. Millie, Eldry and especially Mattie were quite another proposition, never having needed to develop impassive faces in scullery, laundry and coalhole. Mattie looked close to tears and the kitchen girls were still flushed and fidgety.