As she passed through the doorway, he called after her. “I wouldn’t argue against tea, assuming you’ve got any left after Boston. Hah! Tell him that joke again, maybe he’s got it by now!”
Mrs. Right found Cook staring at her in horrified fascination. “I know, I know,” she said. “I do not know how we are to rid the house of him, but god willing, something will come to me before the sun rises tomorrow.”
“I’ll do anything to help, Mrs. Right. Anything at all. Do you know how many times he’s told me about the tea in Boston Harbor? Get that man out of the house.”
She looked round the shelves in the kitchen. “I don’t suppose you have any poison?”
“Mrs. Right?”
“Sorry, just throwing around ideas, early days,” she said. “We’ll think of something less risky. Hopefully. For now, do send in a tea tray while I attempt to discover more information about that person.”
Cook had nodded and Mrs. Right made her way back to the butler. Mr. Klonsume was casually leaning back in his chair asif he were king of the hall. He looked exceedingly relaxed for a fellow arrived for his first day on the job. She was determined to find out more about this individual. That was the only way she could discover how to rid the house of him.
“The tea tray will be in shortly,” she said.
“Hah! So therewassome left after Boston Harbor! We called it a tea party, you know. Very funny.”
“A gentle hint, Mr. Klonsume,” Mrs. Right said, “it generally does no good to keep repeating the same joke, especially when it was not amusing the first time.”
“Ah, Lady Marchfield said you’d be wound tight over my arrival. Mrs. Right, you must not fear! Naturally, it can be startling to have a whirlwind of ingenuity whip into your house.”
Mrs. Right stared at him. A whirlwind of ingenuity?
“But welcome the new ideas coming in! The Americans have arrived!”
Her eyes drifted round the room. Had he brought other Americans? “Where do you come from, precisely?” she asked.
“The great city of New York—what a town! By the by, I cannot help noticing that everywhere I look inthistown, all I see is old. Does nobody build anything new here? Even the contents of this house are as old as the hills, it really is dreary. Lacking panache, if you will. Have you considered wallcoverings in the dining room? At my last house, we had a chartreuse and pink stripe—very striking.”
Mrs. Right imagined a chartreuse and pink striped wallcoveringwouldstrike people. Rather hard, too. That was beside the point, though. There was something else she wished to know far more than Mr. Klonsume’s taste or lack of it. “What caused you to leave that service in New York, then?”
Cook brought the tea tray in and Mr. Klonsume once more joked about Boston Harbor under his glare. Mrs. Right poured.
“A very sad case for my last employer,” Mr. Klonsume said, adding half the sugar bowl into his cup. “But that’s America for you! The land of opportunity. One minute you’re up and the next you’re down. Embezzlement, bad business.”
“Do you mean to say, then, that your employer was an embezzler?” Mrs. Right thought this would go some way to accounting for the man’s rather rough manners.
“It was a shock, I can tell you,” Mr. Klonsume said. “The gentleman embezzled from his partner, and then one of the servants embezzled from the gentleman, and then another servant embezzled from the first servant. That’s America—everybody’s always climbing the ladder, no surprise that a fellow falls off it here and there.”
Mrs. Right did not have the first idea if any of that could be true. Charlie and Thomas, having got the trunks into the hall, came in for their tea before the onerous job of getting it all upstairs. They both looked warily at Mr. Klonsume.
“There’s my boys,” Mr. Klonsume said. “Not quite as sturdy looking as what I’m used to. Jack and Richie could’ve lifted you both with their little fingers. Well, that’s English food, is it not? It doesn’t seem to grow very big people.”
Now that Mr. Klonsume had thoroughly insulted Thomas and Charlie, Mrs. Right poured the footmen their tea. Thomas looked with incredulity into the near-empty sugar bowl. She said, “Mr. Klonsume was just telling me of his history in New York. Apparently, his house was chock full of criminals.”
Thomas and Charlie did not look very surprised to hear it.
“Criminals? Now that’s going far, Mrs. Right. I won’t go into detail but rest assured, all three of those men had very pressing reasons to embezzle.”
Pressing reasons to embezzle? That was comforting. Mrs. Right did not know what ship had delivered this person to their shores, but she was determined that another ship take him backagain. She would not even mind if it sank. “Pray, Mr. Klonsume, you have still not accounted for arriving in England. Could you not find work in New York after the…embezzling…came to light?
“Ididfind work in New York, easy as you like. I saw an advertisement placed by an English viscount. That fellow looked for a valet while he was in our glorious town. We got on famously and so he brought me here with him. Funny fellow, drunk and looking like a tipped over statue more often than not—liked to have a valet that didn’t frown over it.”
“Why aren’t you there, then?” Charlie asked. “With the drunk viscount.”
Mr. Klonsume’s brow wrinkled. “Very strange, that was. His father, he holds the purse strings, owns the house, an earl, wouldn’t you know. All sorts of complaints.”
Mrs. Right could just imagine what sorts of complaints.
