Don Gutteridge - Unholy Alliance

“Well, lass, I’ll just wait till later in theday to talk to her. Meantime I can start with the others. I beentold there’s Mr. Bragg, Miss Finch, yer Tillie, an’ yerself whomake up the Elmgrove staff.”

“An’ Phyllis, the mistress’s maid, who’s offin Kingston. An’ Mr. Struthers an’ his boy Cal, out in the stables.An’ Giles, who run off after Alfred died.”

“Where are Miss Finch an’ Mr. Bragg rightnow?”

“Prissy got things set up in the dining-rooma while ago, then went to her room. She’s very upset, findin’ adead body like that.”

“Understandable. An’ Mr. Bragg?”

“He’s tendin’ to the fireplaces upstairs.He’ll be down here shortly,” she said, and flushed a brightscarlet. “Fer some food,” she added.

“Is there a place where I can interview youpeople in private?”

“You don’t think any of us did in poor Mr.Chilton?” she cried, hopping off the sink.

“No, no, not at all. But I’ve found thatservants see an’ hear things that are usually helpful to us.Nothin’ fer you to worry about.”

Looking only marginally relieved, Hetty said,“Well, there’s the big pantry over there. It’s got a table. I couldclear it for ya, an’ take in a couple of chairs from our eatin’place back there.”

“I’d be most pleased if you’d do that ferme,” Cobb said, and flashed her his most ingratiating, gap-toothedgrin.

While Hetty cleared the jars and pots off thepantry table, Cobb carried two wooden chairs into the little roomand set them up. He removed his notebook and pencil from his pocketand arranged them on the table. Hetty brought in a candle-lanternand lit a candelabrum on a nearby shelf. The door would have to bekept ajar to provide both extra light and an exit-point for thesmoke. It wasn’t the Elmgrove library, but it would do.

As Hetty turned to go, Cobb said as gently ashe could, “Hetty, lass. I’d like to start my questionin’ withyou.”

“I want ya to tell me everythin’ that happened downhere from about suppertime on.”

Hetty looked as if she wanted to ask why, butthere was enough of the authority figure in the constable seatedopposite her — despite his bristled hair, red nose and winking wart- to make her drop her eyes and do as she was bid. The question wasnot hard to answer, she informed Cobb, because last evening was arepeat of the previous one. As Chilton, Bragg and Finch served eachcourse upstairs, the soiled dishes came down via the dumb-waiterand were scrubbed clean by herself and Tillie. Mrs. Blodgett, withhelp from Cal Struthers, got the fresh food into the dumb-waiter,and generally supervised the operation. Abel Struthers, thestableman, was again conscripted to tend the fires in the northwestwing and replace chamber-pots where needed. Without the services ofthe disgruntled Giles Harkness or the regular upstairs maid, allhands were needed. But by nine-thirty the dining-room was tidied,the dishes and pots were washed and put away, and everyoneexhausted. Long before that, Mrs. Blodgett, as she had done theevening previous, collapsed in her chair and had to be helped tobed by Tillie, who decided to sleep in a cot beside her mistress.And soon after, the Struthers duo left for their cottage behind thestables.

“So everybody down here was in bed by, say,quarter to ten?” Cobb said when he was finally able to get a wordin.

“We get up before the sun, we do. There’s nolate nights fer the likes of us.”

“An’ all of you, except fer Mrs. Blodgett,have rooms off the hall at the bottom of the stairs backthere?”

“Yes. Austin an’ Prissy have their own roomsan’ Tillie an’ me share. If Giles don’t come back, I’m to move intohis place.”

“So you an’ Bragg an’ Prissy went in thereabout the same time?”

Hetty looked flustered for the first timesince she had realized she wasn’t likely to be arrested. “No. Notexactly. I mean, I went first. I barred the door that goes to thewoodshed an’ the back yard, an’ went inta my room. I just gotundressed when I heard Prissy an’ Austin come down the stairs,talkin’. Then I heard their doors open an’ close.”

Cobb pretended to scribble this down, as hehad done all along, then peered up, chewing his pencil. “What werethey talkin’ about?”

Hetty went beet-red, the blood draining downalarmingly into her tiny, vee-shaped chin. “I–I don’t eavesdropon other people’s conversations,” she stammered.

“But they definitely went to bed — separately?” Cobb felt himself begin to redden.

The scarlet chin rose up and jutted out. “Itold you, I heard two doors slam.”

“Okay, okay, you made yer point. So you’resayin’ that a little before ten o’clock, everybody down here wastucked in an’ sawin’ logs?”

Hetty paused while her pasty complexionreturned slowly, then said, “I did hear Tillie come out into thekitchen — to get a glass of water fer Mrs. Blodgett, I suppose. Ididn’t hear nothin’ after that.”

Cobb thanked her, and then asked her to seekout Austin Bragg and bring him to the pantry.

Austin Bragg, in the prime of his manhood and toohandsome for his own good, was not in the least intimidated by thecrudely uniformed constable sitting across from him in a pantrythat formed a portion of what he considered his home turf. He didnot wait for Cobb to begin.

“I suppose you think I did away with my bossbecause he dressed me down in front of the guests on Wednesday?” hesaid somewhere between a snarl and a taunt.

Cobb stared down at his notebook. “I gatheryou didn’t take to the new man?”

“How could I? Chilton was an English snob whotreated us all down here like we was dirt.”

“But yer master, Mr. Macaulay, wasn’t aboutto send him packin’, eh?”

Bragg glowered, a gesture that might havemade him appear menacingly attractive to the ladies but to anyoneelse it rendered him momentarily ugly — and repulsive. “The buggerwas efficient enough an’ knew his job. I’ll give him that much. Buthe wasn’t Alfred, was he?”

“I was gonna start off this talk Mr. Bragg,with a simple request to have you tell me what you did, what youseen an’ what you heard upstairs after supper. Could you do thatfer me? An’ I’ll try not to suppose too much.”

Bragg’s belligerence softened perceptibly,and he said in a more straightforward manner, “Prissy an’ me servedthe supper in the dining-room, tryin’ not to bump into the butlerwho never took his eyes off us an’ never once said anythin’complimentary about our work, even though we had to carry onwithout Phyllis’s help or Giles Harkness assistin’ the girls downhere.”

“Nothin’ unusual happened at supper?”

“Nothin’ that I saw. I was far too busy tonotice what any of the gentleman guests were doin’.”

“What did you do after supper?”

“I helped Prissy an’ Chilton tidy up thedining-room. I’d already stoked up the boiler in the bathroom, butI went into the master’s wing to see if old Struthers had managedthe fires in the rooms there. The fires have to be damped downproperly an’ bricks set out to warm fer Prissy, who gets the bedsready. Can’t have gentlemen gettin’ cold bottoms now, can we?”

Cobb ignored the invitation to slag hisbetters. “Did anybody use the big bathtub?”

Bragg thought about that. “I was pretty busy,but I did see the older Frenchman with the baggy eyes go in thereabout nine o’clock. He took care of himself.”

“Anybody else?”

“Somebody was splashin’ around in there a fewminutes after he left, but I don’t know who.”

“Did you see Mrs. Macaulay’s medicine bottleon the shelf in there at any time last night?”

“I know where she keeps it. We all do. Istoked the fire in the stove in there before supper, but I couldn’ttell you if it was on the shelf or not. Is that what killedChilton? We heard it was somethin’ in the wine he drank.”