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“She’s not letting me inside,” Gray murmurs under his breath. “That was my first request, obviously. I have told her that I am a doctor.”
“Bloody hell,” I mutter. I march to the woman. “This man is a doctor. He also works with the police. What if your master isn’t dead? What if he is dying, poisoned as you say, and you refused to allow medical treatment that could have saved him? How do you think that’s going to look?”
She stares at me. I try not to sigh. I’ve leaned too hard into Detective Mallory mode, but I can’t say I’d have done anything different if I’d paused to think about it. We have a presumably murdered man inside these walls, and I’m not going to stand out here and beg people to do the obvious.
I walk up the steps and past the woman, who makes a mewling noise but doesn’t try to stop me. The door is ajar. I push on it and call over my shoulder, “To everyone who wants to listen in but not get involved, this is Dr. Gray, who has come following this woman’s shouts of murder. She claims her employer is dead within, and so we are seeing whether he may be in need of medical assistance. I would appreciate it if someone could accompany us inside, to confirm that we don’t steal the silver.”
“I will,” says a soft voice. It’s a young woman on a neighboring doorstep, one who looks like a maid. “I do not think you will steal the silver, miss, but I would not wish you to be blamed for such a thing.”
As she hurries over, she shoots a look at the distraught woman, a look that might call her out for behaving poorly… or might say sheislikely to claim we stole the silver.
The maid is a couple of years younger than me, red haired with an Irish accent. She dips her head to Gray and says, “Sir,” and I decide she’ll do very well indeed. Gray walks past the housekeeper, who makes no move to stop him. After we are inside, the housekeeper closes the door and calls after us, “He is in his bedroom. On the second floor. First room on the left.”
I think she’s going to leave us to go up alone, but when we reach the next level, her footsteps sound on the stairs below. By the time we’re walking to the bedroom, she’s already climbing the next flight to us.
We enter the room. It’s huge, as if it had once been two rooms. The bed is high, with four posters and a curtain. Gray pushes back the curtain. The stink of vomit and emptied bowels rushes out, but it is not until we seethe figure on the bed that the maid gives a little cry, hands flying to her mouth.
“Mr. Ware,” she says. “Oh, poor Mr. Ware.”
On the bed lies a man about the same age as the woman at the door. The man is almost bald, with smooth plump cheeks and wild iron-gray eyebrows. His eyes are open, staring into nothing, and there is no doubt the man is dead, but Gray still checks before pronouncing that he has passed.
“I found him like that,” says the older woman, who hovers in the doorway.
“And you are?” I say, and then add a polite “Ma’am?”
“Mrs. Hamilton. The housekeeper. Mr. Ware had been poorly, but he often was—he liked his rich foods—and I intended to call the doctor in the morning.”
As Gray examines Ware’s eyes, Mrs. Hamilton steps in, past what looks like a cane oddly lying beside the wall. There’s a mark on the wall above it.
Before I can investigate that, I notice something in the man’s hand. A cord. From the curtains? I draw them back and then notice a brass object on the floor, partly hidden in the curtain folds. I bend and lift the curtain to see it’s a bell. I lift my gaze to a hanger beside the man’s bed. I glance at the cord clutched in the dead man’s hand.
“That is from the bell, is it not?” I say.
“Y-yes,” Mrs. Hamilton says. “It might have been loose.”
“Or no one was answering, and in his distress, he pulled hard enough to yank it from the wall.”
“He was often poorly,” she says, a whine touching her voice. “The doctor told him to watch his diet, and I cooked exactly what the doctor prescribed, but he would sneak in cheeses and creams and pastries, and then he would be up all night, sick to his stomach.”
“Which was his own fault, and you tired of him summoning you for nighttime stomach upsets.”
“’Twas his own fault, and he could be most disagreeable when his stomach was off. Like a child who sneaks sweets.”
“Is there no one else in the house to hear him?”
“The maids live out. Mr. Ware never married, and there was no one to rein in his indulgences, so it fell on me, and I am his housekeeper, not his wife.”
I glance at Gray. He murmurs, “Go on,” under his breath, telling me to keep up the interview while he examines the body.
“You say he liked his treats,” I say. “Did he receive any lately?”
“If they arrived at the door, I was sure to hide them.”
“Eat them, you mean,” the young maid mutters under her breath.
“What’s that?” Mrs. Hamilton says.
The maid lowers her gaze. “I was agreeing, ma’am, that you would ensure he does not receive food that is delivered to the house. Mr. Ware knew that, as I heard it, and so if he did receive food, he would do so at his office.”
