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“I certainly hope not.”
McCreadie clears his throat from the doorway. When we turn, he lifts a tiny china plate. “I believe I have found the remains of the pastry.”
He lowers the plate to show nothing but crumbs.
An hour later, I am gathering food. No, not still gathering it in Ware’s office. After we found the pastry flakes—which are almost certainly too small for Isla to analyze, especially when poison would likely be in the jam—we took what we’d found and left the officers to guard the door. We’ll come back in the morning to search further.
Right now, I’m gathering food in Gray’s kitchen. The guys are hungry. Okay, it’s not only the guys. I’m starving, so while they put Ware’s body in the examination room, I offered to get snacks. Maybe handling a dead body doesn’t make most people peckish—especially when the victim was almost certainly killed by poisoned food—but both men said a bite to eat seemed like a fine idea, so I’m running with it.
When the kitchen door opens behind me, it comes from the direction opposite the stairs, meaning it comes from Mrs. Wallace’s quarters.
“I am fixing a plate for Dr. Gray and Detective McCreadie,” I say, my head still in the icebox as I survey the options. “Might I have a bit of this cold ham?”
No answer. I turn to see Mrs. Wallace taking day-old bread from the counter and slicing it. She’s nearly as tall as Isla, and her steel-gray hairsuggests she’s at the far end of middle age, but her face suggests she hasn’t passed forty yet.
“I can do that,” I say.
She keeps cutting and then takes the platter of ham from me and begins slicing it.
“I apologize if I disturbed you,” I say.
She adds a small pot of mustard to the tray and then opens a tin of cookies.
“I know it’s very early,” I say.
“I was already getting up to start breakfast. As Dr. Gray has evidently had another night without sleep, he may not wish to dine at the usual time. Ask him that, and ask whether Detective McCreadie will be joining him.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You were out as well,” she says.
“I was with them, ma’am. Working. There was another murder.”
That gets a reaction. The barest flinch. “Not anyone else they know, I hope,” she says as she sets jam on the tray.
“No. A solicitor by the name of Ware. Poison, it seems.”
She nods, almost absently now that I’ve confirmed the deceased isn’t another family member. She cuts off a pat of butter and puts it on a tiny plate. Then she glances at the stove, where I’ve set a kettle, shakes her head and gets the stove going properly.
“You’re angry with me,” I say. “Is it because I was out with Dr. Gray again at night? It really was work.”
“I know.”
“Is it because I’ve been up all night, and Alice will need to help cover some of my chores?”
“Not only Alice.”
I wince. “You’ve been covering for me, too. I’m sorry. If Dr. Gray has no need of me, then I will only require a brief nap before I resume my duties. I know this is inconvenient. I’m supposed to be the housemaid, and if I don’t do my chores, someone has to cover for me.”
“I cannot blame you for preferring your work with Dr. Gray and Mrs. Ballantyne.” She takes a tea canister from the cupboard. “My concern, Catriona, is that better employment might not be your goal.”
Her tone is even and calm, but the use of Catriona’s name isn’t accidental.
“You think I’m still up to something,” I say as I try to take down teacups, but she elbows me aside and does it herself.
“Oh, Iknowyou’re up to something, lassie. You are trying to better your position. The question is: How?”
“HowI’m trying to better it? By becoming Dr. Gray’s assistant, of course. You think that is only a strategy—that I am feigning interest so that I might do that instead of scrubbing chamber pots. I am not, but even if I were, the important thing is only whether Iamhelping. He would not keep me on otherwise, nor would Mrs. Ballantyne allow me to waste his time.”
