Stolen Remains Read online

  It was just as Violet had requested it. Broken columns etched on either side, with the prescribed wording between them.

  Will handed her the bag. “The lock set and brass nails for the plate are in here. Is something wrong? I was still planning to come along sometime today to affix the lock to the coffin.”

  “No, nothing’s wrong. It’s just more a timing issue of attaching the lock. I’d like to do so first thing this morning, so I think I’ll just take it and the plate with me now. Have you some tools I can borrow?”

  “I don’t mind doing the work, Mrs. Harper.”

  Violet smiled. “It’s quite all right. Have a long supper with your bride this afternoon.”

  Will’s downcast expression as he handed over a hammer and screwdriver suggested he’d rather be securing a coffin’s lock than securing his wife’s affection.

  Throwing in the lock set and inscription plate, she snapped the valise closed again, and went back to join the detectives. At the door, she turned back. “Will, do you still have my old sample cases? I could also use a couple of collection bottles.” She would eventually need to deliver the bottles of Lord Raybourn’s blood to Morgan Undertaking for disposal.

  “Of course.” He went behind the shop’s antique counter, and from shelves behind it pulled out some glass-covered trays filled with selections of jet necklaces, rings, bracelets, and ear bobs—which Lord Raybourn’s daughters would be able to wear once two months had elapsed—plus black lace fans, hair brooches, and other mourning accoutrements. He disappeared briefly into another room and returned with two thick bottles.

  With the trays in hand and the bottles stowed in her bag, she went back to the carriage. She and the detectives rode silently to Park Street, Hurst refusing to say anything more about what had happened at Raybourn House.

  Upon their arrival, all was chaos. Katherine was folded in Stephen’s arms, crying in the entrance hall. The Bishops were arguing between themselves in front of the coffin inside the parlor. Dorothy sat stony-faced, watching her younger sister and Gordon quarrel.

  Everyone was still in nightclothes except for the young stranger sitting near Dorothy. Violet recognized him from his photograph. This was Nelly’s son, Tobias.

  Hurst clearly recognized him, too, for he whispered, “I told you we would eventually see him here. Must admit, I didn’t expect the mother to get so worked up as to fetch him right away.”

  Tobias drummed the fingers of his left hand on the arm of his chair. Seeing him in person, Violet realized that it wasn’t an expression of condescension the young man wore, it was more like . . . irritation. As though he found his parents insufferable.

  Stephen looked up from where he was comforting his wife. “Detectives, Violet, good of you to come so quickly. Please excuse our appearance. Everything has just gone so wrong. This way, please.”

  Violet set her trays down on a table in the hallway, while Mr. Pratt laid her undertaking bag on the floor beneath the table, then she and the detectives went down the servants’ staircase to which Stephen pointed. Violet gasped at what awaited them.

  Mrs. Peet, her face red and bloated, dangled from a rope attached to an exposed water pipe running across the ceiling. She wore the same dress and apron she’d had on yesterday. Her once-arresting eyes were dull and faded, staring blankly.

  “What happened?” Violet said.

  “Yes, someone explain what happened to this poor woman,” Hurst said, as Stephen, Gordon, and Tobias came down the stairs and into the kitchen.

  Stephen spoke for the group. “We don’t know. Dorothy says she woke during the night and wanted some tea and a little snack, so she rang and rang for Mrs. Peet, who never showed. Eventually, Dorothy came downstairs, figuring to chastise the housekeeper, but found her . . . as such. We’ve all been in such shock, as you might imagine.”

  “Where do you want her?” Hurst asked Violet.

  “Here on the worktable,” she replied. It was the same table where she’d met with an overcome Mrs. Peet just hours ago.

  Stephen found a ladder in the larder, and the men worked together to cut the poor woman down. The rope around her neck was thick and required a great deal of cutting to free it from the pipe. With Hurst on the ladder sawing through the rope with a knife, Pratt, Stephen, and Gordon held on to the woman’s body to capture her once she was freed. Once Mrs. Peet was down, they carried her to the kitchen worktable and laid her unceremoniously on it, with Hurst commenting insensitively that this was becoming a second profession for him. Only Tobias refrained from assisting, instead standing back to watch the proceedings, his lips moving but no sound coming out.

  “First the old man, now this. What is happening to our family?” Gordon said, pulling out his cigarette case from his jacket. “Anyone care for one of these?”

  “Mr. Bishop, please. There will be no smoking here while I work on Mrs. Peet,” Violet said.

  “Oh, right you are.” He put the case back. “Although I doubt she’d notice.”

  “Might I have a word upstairs?” Mr. Pratt asked Gordon. “I was wondering if you might be able to show me something among His Lordship’s belongings.”

  The two men went back up the staircase, leaving Violet, Hurst, Stephen, and Tobias behind.

  “I can’t understand why Mrs. Peet would do this to herself,” Stephen said. “She had a good home with the family. I know she was overcome by Father’s loss, as we all are, but I can’t imagine it would have caused her to do this.” He glanced at her body and grimaced. “I had no idea she was so devoted to my father.”

  Hurst nodded thoughtfully. “Did you know any of Mrs. Peet’s friends? Did she have any questionable associations? Were you aware of anyone new she may have met?”

  Stephen shook his head. “She was our housekeeper. I have no idea how she spent her free time or whom she met.”

  “Right. Well, neither of you need remain down here,” Hurst said. “A terrible tragedy for the family to have to witness. Scotland Yard extends its condolences.”

  “Thank you, Detective,” Stephen said. “Toby, come.”

  Tobias Bishop obediently followed his uncle up the stairs, leaving just Hurst and Violet with Mrs. Peet’s body.

  “So, Lady Undertaker, what do you think happened here? Unfortunate suicide or do we have an unrestrained killer on the loose, intent on persecuting this house?” He smiled as he leaned against the wall and crossed his arms, as though testing her intelligence.

  “Mrs. Peet wouldn’t have done this to herself.”

  “How do you come to that conclusion?”

  “Because I promised yesterday that I would open the coffin this morning for her to say a final, private good-bye to her employer.”

  Hurst shot up, erect. “Why would you do that?”

  “She helped me carry lilies upstairs, and afterward spoke with me at this very table about her affection for Lord Raybourn. She begged me to let her clip a lock of hair.”

  “And you agreed to this?”

  “She was quite melancholic about it.”

  Hurst rolled his eyes. “A woman’s sensibilities. So we have an agitated housekeeper. Not the first one I’ve seen. You can hardly blame her—the master of the house had just died. I doubt it’s of any significance. However, I must chastise you, Mrs. Harper. You planned to let this miserable woman view her employer’s disintegrated face for one last moment of reverence? If she hadn’t killed herself beforehand, she might have done so afterward.”

  “You mischaracterize what happened, sir.”

  “I know that you promised to do something dubious for the Fairmont family housekeeper.”

  “Well, Mr. Hurst, since you find my actions so questionable, I must suppose you are not interested in what I found out about the other servants.”

  “Which servants?”

  “Madame Brusse and Mr. Larkin, the elder Lord Raybourn’s cook and valet, whom he brought with him from Sussex to London. Stephen said he reported to you that they were missing, and that you questi
oned him at length about it.”

  “You have no business conducting your own interviews, but what of it? How do two servants benefit from the death of their employer?”

  “You are the detective, sir, so I am sure you realize that Lord Raybourn’s French cook was taken along to maintain the quality of Lord Raybourn’s table, so it would be understandable if she stopped in France on the return to visit relatives, but why did His Lordship return without his valet, a critical member of a lord’s household?”

  “Mrs. Peet told you this? That the cook was French?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was there a relationship between the cook and the valet?”

  “She didn’t say.”

  “For what possible reason would you have withheld this information from me?”

  “I hardly did so intentionally. You may recall that you roused me from slumber not two hours ago, and insisted on quiet during the ride over here.”

  “Well . . . perhaps I was a bit forceful earlier.”

  “I am not your enemy, Mr. Hurst. Doesn’t it seem as though we need to discover what happened to these two servants? Either they may have had something to do with Lord Raybourn’s death, or are in great peril, or may have met with their own unfortunate ends.”

  Hurst nodded gravely. “It pains me to admit that I was wrong to overlook that bit about the cook and valet, although I can’t see how two servants would benefit from the death of their master. If anything, they would be anxious to keep him from pulling the trigger on himself. Mr. Pratt and I will look into it right away. I guess we’ll have to interview the neighbors and their servants. God, here comes the press. I was hoping to avoid having Scotland Yard excoriated in The Times.” Hurst started for the stairs.

  “And I shall take care of Mrs. Peet. Mr. Hurst. . . .” Violet said.

  He turned as he reached the bottom step.

  “There’s one more thing. There was a noise at the top of the stairs as Mrs. Peet and I spoke. She seemed very frightened of being overheard. I don’t know if that might be important.”

  He sighed. “Try not to hold back anything else from me, Mrs. Harper. And kindly don’t leave the premises once you’re done with Mrs. Peet. I’ll see to the coroner. If he thought Lord Raybourn’s death was a suicide, he won’t put any extra effort into a housekeeper’s death.”

  Once she was alone with Mrs. Peet, Violet took a deep breath and patted the woman’s face. “Oh dear, what happened? I don’t believe for one moment that you did this to yourself.”

  Violet took a pair of snips from her bag and went after the individual fibers of the rope’s coil, slowly digging and clipping her way through until she finally broke through and removed the thick cord from around the woman’s neck.

  “Much better.” She tossed the rope to the floor and kicked it out of sight beneath the table.

  “I’m sorry you didn’t get to say good-bye to Lord Raybourn, but hopefully you are with him now.” Violet felt the woman’s limbs. Rigor mortis was setting in quickly. She patted Mrs. Peet’s shoulder.

  “I’m going to find something clean and cheerful in your room for you to wear. I’ll be back later, once this stiffening has passed, to dress you, arrange your hair, and perhaps we can do something about your coloring.”

  Mrs. Peet’s face was scarlet from the pooling of blood caused by the cessation of air and blood flow through her head. There was no cosmetic massage color dark enough to mask the resulting flush and swelling to the housekeeper’s face.

  Violet took the servants’ staircase all the way to the fourth floor, containing the staff living spaces. She found Mrs. Peet’s room, made obvious by being the largest of the servants’ quarters. Two dresses hung on hooks, one an alternate uniform and the other what must be her only day dress. Violet examined the dress, which had a light brown checkered pattern. Perfectly acceptable. She removed the bodice and skirt from the hook and went to Mrs. Peet’s small chest of drawers to retrieve undergarments. As she was ready to gather everything up to take to the basement, she noticed a large trunk in the corner. It was brand new, wrapped in fine red Moroccan leather and missing none of its gleaming brass studs.

  An interesting contrast to the rest of Mrs. Peet’s surroundings. Overcome by curiosity, Violet knelt before the trunk. It wasn’t locked. She lifted the lid. Inside were several exquisite dresses of velvet-edged satin and fine silks, separated by tissue. Beneath the gowns were three pairs of gloves, a beaded reticule, and a flat jeweler’s box containing a multistrand jade necklace and matching ear bobs. The necklace must have been spectacular, resting on the woman’s neck and complementing her green eyes.

  How would a housekeeper, even one of a fine household such as this one, be able to afford such finery? She couldn’t have afforded even one of these dresses on her annual salary. The only way she could have come into possession of them was if she were stealing them or being kept by a wealthy benefac—

  Oh!

  Violet rapidly worked it out in her mind. The widowed Lord Raybourn must have been having a secret affair with Mrs. Peet. Were the clothing and jewelry intended as gifts for his beloved or as bribes for her to keep their relationship a secret?

  Many a servant had fallen in love with her master, only to discover that he was not constant in return.

  Violet realized now that Mrs. Peet had been very much in love with Lord Raybourn. Had she done away with herself, Shakespearean style? Although hanging was not particularly romantic. Plus, a housekeeper would have reasonably easy access to poisonous substances, arsenic and the like, making a hanging a bit . . . dramatic.

  Of course, Mrs. Peet probably wouldn’t have realized how much damage she would do to herself through hanging.

  Violet closed the trunk, gathered up the day dress and undergarments from the bed where she’d dropped them, and returned to the basement. Mrs. Peet was visibly stiff now. Violet draped the clothing on the back of a chair. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” she whispered. “It must have been very hard on you to carry your secret and not be able to grieve openly when Lord Raybourn died. I do wonder, though, did he love you as well as you loved him?”

  Violet retrieved the drawstring bag containing the locking kit, inscription plate, and tools from her undertaking bag and went up to the first floor. Toby sat morosely in the drawing room, idly thumbing through a copy of Punch.

  “Mr. Bishop, excuse my interruption, but I need to affix a lock to your grandfather’s coffin,” Violet said.

  Toby waved a hand toward the coffin.

  “Are Mr. Hurst and Mr. Pratt still here?”

  Without looking up, Toby replied, “No, they left together on important business, I’m sure.”

  “What of your parents?”

  “They’ve gone off to see their solicitor about something. Uncle Stephen and Aunt Katherine took Aunt Dorothy with them to see a service about getting some temporary help. They went through your trays and left a list of which pieces they wanted. I’ve been left alone.”

  Violet noticed that the coffin lid was slightly ajar. Had morbid desire and desperate longing gotten the best of Mrs. Peet, and she had taken it upon herself to lament her loss outside of Violet’s presence? Perhaps seeing Lord Raybourn in such a state was too much for her to handle, as Hurst had suggested? Violet had a sickening feeling of guilt, but cast it aside, since such action seemed uncharacteristic of Mrs. Peet. Or was it?

  Violet shook off all thoughts and worked as quickly as she could to attach the latch and hasp, sliding the lock through and firmly clicking it shut.

  What maid would want to work in a home with corpses located on two floors?

  She pocketed the key for herself, having a strange feeling that she shouldn’t give it to anyone in the family unless they demanded it.

  Standing on tiptoe, she aligned the silver plate to the center of the widest point of the coffin, where Lord Raybourn’s shoulders lay, and gently tapped the brass nails into it. With this finished, she put her tools into the cloth bag and turned to leave
, only to find Toby staring steadily at her, the magazine tossed onto a table.

  “You aren’t the family undertaker. What happened to him?”

  “I am here on behalf of the queen, who regarded your grandfather highly and wished to provide undertaking services as a gift to the family.”

  Toby’s expression was inscrutable. “I see.”

  “May I sit down?”

  Toby waved a hand again, this time at a chair covered in a green fabric decorated with an airy peacock feather print.

  “You must be quite affected by your grandfather’s death.”

  Toby shrugged. “I didn’t know him that well.”

  “Surely you visited regularly with him?”

  “My parents trotted me out for display during school term breaks and at Christmas, but I never spent any real time with him. Mums didn’t care for the old man much.”

  “Why not?”

  Another shrug. “Why does she do anything she does? Mums is a rather pent-up piece, in case you hadn’t noticed. Always hysterical about something. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if she did off with my grandfather because he took her to task over her fits. I do my best to avoid her, a near impossibility, believe me. Father dotes on her every outburst. I’m in London looking for a wife, or so my parents tell me. My hope is to find one who is not only the opposite of my mother, but is a girl that my mother detests. I couldn’t be completely happy otherwise. Actually, the qualities I really want in a wife are . . . but it’s not my tribulations you care about, is it?”

  Toby looked directly at Violet, his gaze steady and sad.

  “May I ask you some more questions?” she said.

  “Do you know how many times I’ve heard that? Every curiosity seeker masquerading as a mourner accosts me in the streets and has dozens of questions about my grandfather’s death.” He shook his head. “But you’re not a curiosity seeker, are you, Mrs. Harper? Go ahead. I suppose it helps pass the time until I can leave this tomb and get to more important things. Really, can’t we just bury the old man and be done with it? And now Mrs. Peet is downstairs.” He shuddered. “I just want to get back to my own activities and away from all of . . . this.”