Page 7 of Murder at the Dinner Party
“I’m also unable to answer your questions,” she went on.
“Why?” I asked.
“Well, I don’t know anything, do I?” She picked up a large knife and sliced through a potato with more aggression than the humble vegetable deserved. “I knew nothing about Mr. Hardy or the dinner guests.” She pointed the knife at the ceiling. “They all ate the same thing upstairs, and we ate the same thing, too, well beforehand, so it wasn’t my food that done him in.”
“You believe he was poisoned, too?”
“I suppose he must have been. He was hale and hearty, but he wasn’t himself lately. Not ill, just…different. Almost like he was thinking something through, ever since the night of that dinner party with the Whitchurches.” She scooped up potato pieces and placed them into a large pot. “Fill this with water, Birdy, and place it on the range.”
The footman snatched a slice of uncooked carrot from the pot before the assistant, Birdy, removed it. He winked at her and she giggled.
“Leave the girl alone, Davey,” Mrs. Cook chided.
Davey popped the carrot into his mouth. “You’ll want to question me, Miss Fox. I was in the dining room the night Mr. Hardy died. He fell right into me, and I was carrying the soup tureen. Made a real mess, it did. All over the carpet. Betty here can’t get the stain out, can you, Bet?”
The maid named Betty shook her head without looking up from her feet.
“Did he clutch his chest or throat before he fell?” I asked. “Did he vomit?”
Betty gulped loudly, then covered her mouth and ran from the room.
Mrs. Turner clicked her tongue. “Sensitive girl. Go on, Davey, answer Miss Fox.”
Davey scratched the side of his face where many young men his age grew sideburns. As with most household footmen and butlers, however, he was clean-shaven. He was tall and quite good-looking, which seemed to be other features common amongst footmen. “His face went a little red just before he collapsed,” Davey went on. “He seemed confused, too, like he didn’t know where he was. But it was over in a blink. Then he just crumpled to the floor and sort of shook all over before going still.”
“Did the seizure last long?”
Davey shrugged. “I’m not sure. One of the ladies started screaming, the men were shouting at each other and me, the soup was all over the carpet…it was chaotic.”
I jotted notes in my book. I wasn’t very familiar with the symptoms of different poisons, but disorientation and seizures were certainly symptoms of some, but could also point to natural causes, too. “How well did you know Mr. Hardy, Davey?”
“Not at all. He gave the orders and I followed them. We never discussed anything other than work, but I liked him. He didn’t often get cross, unlike the butler before him.” He pulled a face.
Mrs. Cook pointed her knife at him. “That’s not true. I heard you two arguing in his office. The day before he died, it would have been.”
“We weren’t arguing. He was scolding me.” Davey rolled his eyes. “I lost a button. He found it and gave me a talking-to about how I had to maintain standards, that my missing button was a poor reflection on Sir Ian and Lady Campbell and that I needed to do better in future. It was the only time he scolded me. Most of the time we got along fine.”
Being scolded for a missing button sounded a little excessive to me. I tried to imagine Mr. Hobart getting cross with one of the porters for poor presentation, but couldn’t. He would take them aside and tell them quietly to fix their attire at the earliest opportunity. He wouldn’t raise his voice. Mr. Chapman, on the other hand, would certainly have stern words with his waiters in front of the other staff, so perhaps Mr. Hardy’s scolding wasn’t all that unusual, after all.
“Tell me about the night Lord and Lady Whitchurch dined here,” I said to Davey. “Did you notice Mr. Hardy acting oddly after meeting them?”
“Before.”
“Pardon?”
“He started acting strangelybeforemeeting them. I don’t know how long before, but it was definitely before. When I asked him what was wrong, he told me to mind my own business. Then when they came, he seemed tense. He always acted stiff when speaking to Sir Ian and Lady Campbell, but that night he was stiffer, not making eye contact with anyone. Buttheycouldn’t stop staring athim. Both Lord and Lady Whitchurch seemed to recognize him, but I reckon they couldn’t place him. They kept frowning as if they were searching their memories.”
“Did they speak to him?”
“No.”
Betty re-entered the kitchen. She looked pale, drawn, and Mrs. Turner ordered her to sit on the stool in the corner. She signaled to the young cook’s assistant, Birdy, to make her a cup of tea.
“Buck up, Child,” Mrs. Turner chided. “You’ve got floors to scrub.”
Betty nodded quickly. “Yes, Mrs. Turner. I’ll be all right. It was thinking about poor Mr. Hardy that made my stomach turn. I can’t believe he’s gone.” She pressed a hand to her middle, but fortunately didn’t need to rush off again. “Why would that lord and lady poison him?”
“We don’t know if they did,” I assured her.
