Murder of the Mysterious Maid Read online

  “Mr. Earl and Teddy were setting up the dining room from half past four until we sat down for supper,” Mrs. Norris said in a brisk voice. She was a spare woman who worked too hard to allow an ounce of extra fat, not that she’d allow such a thing while she was on watch. “The gardener was with the coachman in the carriage house. The three maids were upstairs in their room. They always meet there after they finish their duties for the day.”

  “How do you know that’s where the gardener and coachman were?” I wondered skeptically.

  “They come in for their dinner at the same time and then eat in the carriage house.” Mrs. Norris explained. “They came for their tray at the usual time, didn’t they, Elsie?”

  “Like clockwork,” the cook nodded. “Those two have eaten supper together for the past five years. You could set your watch by them. Neither of them likes being in the servants’ hall or listening to the idle chatter of the young people.”

  “Mr. Dennis was in the library reading his paper and filling his pipe.” Mrs. Norris continued her recitation. “I needed to check that the lamps were lit and I saw him there at quarter ‘til five. Then I went up to see if Mrs. Dennis or Miss Paula needed anything before supper. They were playing cards.”

  “Do you do that regularly?” I sipped my tea and feeling impressed by this efficient woman.

  “Every day,” the housekeeper nodded. “I find that we have fewer interruptions if I check on the family before we sit down to eat.”

  “You didn’t mention Karl Dennis,” I noted. “Where was he?”

  The cook and housekeeper screwed up their faces in identical expressions of deep thought. My heart picked up its gait. It sounded as though every person in the house was accounted for except for the Dennis’s adult son. Had we uncovered the killer?

  “He came home with his father after work,” Mrs. Norris recalled, tapping on her chin. “I heard the pair of them talking when they came in. He wasn’t in the library with his father when I came through.”

  “Is he usually there?” I tried to keep the enthusiasm from my voice and sipped at my cup in a move that I hoped seemed nonchalant.

  “I’d say he’s there about half the time. He’s often in his room. Karl writes a fair number of letters.” The housekeeper’s eyebrows rose and she gave me a stern look. “I’ve been wondering if he has a sweetheart, though that’s nothing but speculation, mind.”

  I nodded seriously. “I see.” I glanced down the hall that led to where Flora had been killed. “Is it possible for someone to get to the laundry room without coming through the kitchen?”

  “Oh, yes,” the cook answered quickly. “There’s the back door next to it and the back stairs are there, too. If someone came in either way, I probably wouldn’t hear them. I’m always clanging pots and talking to myself too loudly to hear what happens down there.”

  “Is the back door locked during the day?”

  “Not unless the house is closed up,” Mrs. Norris said. “When the family goes for a long visit somewhere, we lock the house. Otherwise, the door is only locked at night. Mr. Earl locks it during his usual evening rounds and unlocks it first thing in the morning.”

  “How is it that no one heard the window break?”

  “It happened during supper,” the cook said as though this thoroughly answered my question.

  Mrs. Norris explained. “The servants’ dining room is on this side of the kitchen.” She pointed to a door behind me and I had to crane my neck to see it. “The laundry room is the room at the end of the hall down there.” Her finger rotated in the opposite direction. “There’s always much talking and passing of dishes during supper. It’s why the bells for upstairs have to be in that room. Otherwise we’d never hear them while we eat.”

  I had much to mull over and I thanked the ladies and went in search of Will. He and Paula were sitting in the garden and Paula was talking freely. Will had the look of long suffering and he jumped to his feet a little too enthusiastically when I came into view. We bade Paula good bye and I promised to return to see her soon.

  “What did you learn?” Will prompted as soon as we began the walk home.

  I repeated what the servants had told me, ordering everything they said in my mind as I talked. He nodded along, face intent. I finished recounting everything I’d been told and took a deep breath.

  “I think we’ve gathered some very important facts,” I said, needing to work through my thoughts out loud. “Flora had only been there a short time. She didn’t talk with the other maids, though it seems that she was a good worker. At least, no one complained about her work, which suggests to me that she did what was asked of her. She kept to herself and didn’t talk much, which is the only complaint anyone has against her.” I paused, mentally ticking these things off my mental list of facts. “I find it interesting that she was in the habit of going to the laundry room before supper.”

  “The laundry room which could be reached either by the stairs or the back door,” Will added.

  “Right,” I agreed. “She could have been meeting someone there or she might have been going for a perfectly innocent reason. It’s possible she was trying to ingratiate herself to the Dennises by doing extra work for them. Some housemaids work their way up to being a lady’s maid that way. They might do extra mending or washing or even tailoring the lady’s clothing in order to make herself invaluable to her mistress. But, regardless of why Flora was there, we learned that she was killed between 4:30 and 5:15.”

  “How do you know that for certain?” Will quizzed me.

  “She was last seen by the cook at half past four. The maids said supper always begins at the same time. In most houses, that means five o’clock which gives the staff time to eat before they have to help with final preparations for the family. The footman finished his supper quickly and was sent to find Flora. That would have been about quarter after five.” It was a guess, but I felt that it was fairly solid.

  Will nodded his agreement with my speculation.

  “All of the staff were accounted for before supper started and the inside staff were all at supper, with the exception of Flora, of course. I doubt that the gardener or stableman were guilty because they were eating together. It would have stood out if one of them left for a considerable amount of time while they were eating. We can check their alibis, but I think we can rule them out for now.”

  “All right, but what about the family? Even though the housekeeper saw them earlier, one of them could have come downstairs,” my friend challenged.

  I thought about this for a moment. “They could have, but I don’t think Paula or her parents did. Mr. Dennis was just filling his pipe when Mrs. Norris saw him. It would be twenty or thirty minutes before he was done smoking it. It’s unlikely that he filled his pipe, then put it down and went to kill the maid, then returned to light it. He was seen in the library at 4:45 and he would have been occupied until quarter after, easily.”

  “Let’s rule him out, then,” Will agreed. “And the ladies were playing cards.”

  “That’s true. If one of them stopped and left for a while, it would be simple to find out. They are also each other’s alibi. We can ask Paula when we see her next, but I find it hard to believe either of them stabbed the maid.”

  “Come now, Paula seemed deadly to me,” Will teased.

  “You’re the only one in any danger from Miss Dennis,” I shot back, then grew serious. “No, I don’t think it was either of the ladies. For one thing, they’d be covered in blood and either come back upstairs in different clothes or obviously in distress. If they wanted to kill Flora, they wouldn’t have started a game of cards and so obviously have to stop.”

  Will scratched his head then snapped his fingers. “They might have been in on it together. They could be lying for each other.”

  I shook my head. “They would have been covered in blood. We know that there was a scuffle in the laundry room because the maids had to tidy things before the police came. Paula and her mother would have n
eeded their hair fixed and a change of clothes, which they couldn’t have done on their own. None of the maids said that anything out of the ordinary happened and they would have remembered if they were called in to fix the hair of two women who were supposed to have just been playing cards.”

  Will admitted that this argument made sense.

  “The only person unaccounted for is Karl. No one saw him from the time he came home until the body was found.” I felt excited at the idea of having found a viable suspect.

  Will squinted up at the clouds lazily drifting past. “He could have gone downstairs, killed Flora, and gotten back to his room unseen since everyone was at supper. It would have been easy for him to ascertain that everyone was busy elsewhere and the back stairs would be empty. He could have changed his clothes much more easily than the ladies could have. Even without a valet to help him, he could have gotten rid of blood-stained clothing.”

  “What doesn’t make sense is the broken window,” I frowned. “If Karl killed her, he had no reason to come in through the laundry room window.”

  “It doesn’t make sense anyway you look at it,” Will pointed out. “The back door was unlocked. The killer had no reason to break the window in order to enter the house.”

  “You’re right, it doesn’t fit.” I chewed my bottom lip, racking my brain for a logical explanation. “Perhaps someone broke it to make it look like a robbery.”

  Will shrugged. “I guess that’s the best idea we’ve got, but it’s not great.”

  “Do you know Karl Dennis at all?” I asked, moving back to things that made sense. The broken window didn’t fit and it made my brain feel itchy somehow.

  “I know him some. He’s a serious fellow. He shows up at the odd social event now and then, but he isn’t a regular. I think he enjoys working at the bank.” Will pulled a face and I grinned at him. “He’s not the sort I would expect to secretly be a murderer. Of course, from the sensational novels I’ve read, it’s always the quiet ones who have the most dangerous secrets.” He waggled his eyebrows at me, making light of his assessment.

  “Why would he want to kill Flora?” I held up a hand quickly. “I know the obvious reasons. If he had a tryst with her and she was expecting his baby, he might want to make sure no one else found out about it.”

  “Or if she refused his advances. I’ve heard of men who are deviants and force themselves on all the female servants.”

  I frowned again. What a terrible thought. “I don’t know. That doesn’t seem to be happening here. The maids didn’t appear to be frightened or to have experienced trauma. They spoke of the family without any discomfort. None of them suggested that something was going on between Flora and Karl, and maids typically know those sorts of things. Even Mrs. Norris only suggested that he might be writing a letter to a sweetheart.”

  “Maybe they were very secretive about it. If they had their clandestine meetings in the laundry room when everyone else was getting ready for supper, no one would know.”

  “And Flora wasn’t talking,” I added. “But she’d only worked there such a short amount of time. It’s unlikely that she and Karl had time to strike up that sort of a relationship.”

  “Unless they’d met somewhere else before.” Will began to grow excited. “What if the two of them met wherever she worked previously and they began a relationship? The housekeeper said Karl was writing a lot of letters. He might have been writing them to Flora. Then, when the position opened up at the Dennis house, he told her and she came and got the job.”

  “I suppose it’s possible, but we don’t have any evidence that it’s true. It might just as well have been an intruder who didn’t know the back door was unlocked. It could have been her mad husband who came for revenge. It could be any madman who happened on the house, for that matter.” I tugged at the edge of my walking jacket. “No, we can’t jump to conclusions about Karl Dennis. We need to stick to the facts.”

  “I’m glad you’ve got a level head. Say, you’re pretty good at this,” Will smiled charmingly at me. “What will we investigate next? The gardener? Should we try to find where Flora worked before coming to the Dennises? Do you want me to tail Karl?”

  Despite his teasing tone, I had to say, “I don’t know if we should do any more, Will. My father would be very unhappy if he found out I was sticking my nose into police matters. Besides, there’s a real killer on the loose and I don’t want to get so close to him that I put myself in danger. I know enough now to hold my own in conversation tonight with the men. That’s what I wanted. If they mention something about the case and I know more about it than they do, they’ll have to acknowledge that I deserve to be told about the proceedings of the investigation.”

  Will groaned. “We can’t give up now! Don’t you want to be the one who finds Flora’s killer?”

  “No,” I said flatly. “It’s not worth the risk.”

  “Spoilsport.” He kicked at a rock. “Well, I’d better head on home. Father wants me at work by eleven o’clock. I’ll drop by as soon as I can. Remember everything they say at supper tonight.”

  I waved him off and continued home.

  Chapter Five

  I was already stewing by the time Harrison served the main course. In all fairness, I’d walked down the stairs in my favorite pearl gray dress, armor firmly in place. Just the sight of Calvin Lloyd made me grind my teeth and my hackles rise. He’d nodded his greeting to me without even pausing in his discussion of the benefits of purchasing new equipment for the constables’ safety. I sat through the end of this discussion without falling into a stupor and was very glad when supper was served.

  During the first course, the two moved on to reminiscing about past cases. Cal Lloyd had a way of asking my father questions that annoyed me. Father would have blustered on with his stories without the promptings from his detective. I couldn’t think why Cal had to pose each question in a way that made Father swell with conceit a little more each time. I wanted to kick our guest in the shin every time he chuckled at my father’s tired jokes or asked for clarification on a simple point that even I understood.

  It was too bad that Cal was so handsome. He was sporting a golden tan already and I could tell he was the sort who absorbed the sun and used it to his advantage. It wasn’t fashionable, but it was, unfortunately, very attractive. His deep-set blue eyes and straight brow made him seem serious, even without the carefully stern demeanor he sported at all times. I rolled my eyes at his carefully groomed mustache that was a younger, better trimmed version of my father’s. Ignoring the fact that Father parted his hair down the middle and Cal combed it back appealingly, I accused him of aping my father in my mind with much derision.

  “I understand you went to the Dennis’ house today and interviewed the servants.” Finally, Father was arriving at something of interest. My fork stilled and my eyes darted between the two men, waiting for my chance.

  “I did,” Cal said as he cut another piece of beef genteelly. Really, he was too irritating. Everyone at this table knew that he wasn’t a gentleman and his pathetic attempts to act like one were ridiculous.

  Father patted his lips with his napkin. “Were you able to discover anything of note?”

  “Flora Dobson was well liked. She worked hard and kept to herself,” Cal’s voice was dismissive.

  I snorted derisively, superiority blooming inside me. This was the moment I’d been waiting for.

  Both men’s eyes swung to mine. Father seemed surprised to find me at the table and Cal’s lowered brows spoke volumes of his opinion of me.

  “Do you have something you’d like to say?” the young detective asked in a steely voice.

  I narrowed my eyes at his tone and sat up even straighter. “I visited Paula Dennis this morning and learned that Flora Dobson was not well liked by the other maids.”

  The silence that greeted my words was somehow much less satisfying than the reaction I’d imagined. Cal was glaring at me and Father was looking like the chicken on his plate had begun to
tap dance.

  “What makes you say that?” Father asked hesitantly.

  I couldn’t tell if he believed me or not. “I spoke with one of the maids, by the name of Mary, and she told me that Flora refused to speak to anyone. No one knew anything about her because she was so unfriendly.”

  They regarded me for a few moments. Then Cal said, “It’s of little matter. The girl had only worked there a few days. Even if she’d been very talkative, no one would have known much about her anyway.”

  “They would have known a great deal if the girl had worked with any of them elsewhere previously.” I didn’t want to show another of my cards, but Cal’s dismissal had ratcheted up my annoyance another notch. “However, Flora Dobson hadn’t worked with any of the servants before.”

  “That would mean that she was either new to service or from out of town,” Father mused.

  I sat back, mollified. Even if Calvin Lloyd failed to recognize my contribution, Father did. For the first time, he looked at me with appreciation. My plan had worked.

  “How do you know this?” Cal asked with narrowed eyes.

  “I told you, I visited Paula Dennis this morning.” I ate the bite that had been waiting on my fork, refusing to meet his eyes. My voice sounded oddly high pitched, even to my own ears.

  “And Miss Dennis knew that the servants hadn’t worked with Flora before?” challenged Cal.

  I was on thin ice. The last thing I needed was Cal finding out that I’d purposely questioned the staff. I could only imagine how annoyed he’d be and I was too pleased with myself to have Calvin Lloyd ruin it by scolding me. “I spoke with the maid, Mary.”

  “You spoke with her about the investigation? You asked her questions that were a police matter?” Cal’s eyebrow rose.

  I glanced at Father and caught the beginning of parental disapproval. It would take fast work to keep myself from being forbidden to ask further questions. Despite what I’d told Will, I knew there was a very good chance that I’d continue investigating Flora’s death.