settled over the city in earnest. The gaslights cast puddles of gold in the gloom, making little impact on it and doing nothing to alleviate the numbing cold. He hunkered in his overcoat, hands shoved deep into his pockets, as he waited for someone to answer his knock at the kitchen door.
The scullery maid opened it, peering out suspiciously, then taking a step back when she recognized him. “It’s that policeman again,” she reported to someone over her shoulder.
Frank could have easily pushed his way inside, the way he had at Miss English’s house, but here he waited, showing respect for the servants until forced to do otherwise.
“What’s he want now?” a woman asked. He recognized the cook’s voice.
“I’d like to see Roderick again, if he’s available.”
The girl smirked and stepped aside to admit him. He wiped his feet ostentatiously before entering, showing consideration for those who’d have to clean up after him if he didn’t.
“Tess, go fetch Roderick,” Mrs. O’Brien said. She was sitting at the kitchen table, her feet up on another chair and a plate with the remnants of her own dinner in front of her. “Have you eaten, Mr. Malloy?”
“Yes, thank you, although I’m sure it wasn’t as good as I’d have gotten here.”
“You’re right about that,” she said. “Sit yourself down. Roderick won’t be in no hurry to see you, I’m sure. Tell me, do you think he’s the one what did for Old Devries?”
Frank pulled out a chair and sat. “I doubt it. I’m thinking the old man would’ve raised an alarm if his valet stuck him with something.”
“You’re right there. He’d have called the coppers if Roderick had nicked him shaving.”
They both laughed at that.
“Who do
She sobered instantly. “I wouldn’t like to guess.”
“I understand. You don’t want to get anybody in trouble.”
“No, I don’t want to see no one punished for it. Whoever stuck the old man done us all a service.”
Before Frank could manage a reply, the sound of running feet on the back stairs distracted them.
The scullery maid burst out of the stairway, breathless. “Roderick’s taken sick. We’d best send for a doctor!”
“He couldn’t be that sick,” the cook said, swinging her feet to the floor. “He was just fine at supper.”
“He’s taken real bad, I tell you!”
“Let me see him,” Frank said.
At a nod from the cook, the girl started up the stairs again, with Frank at her heels. The servants’ rooms were on the top floor, and Frank was panting by the time they reached it. The warmth of the other floors had only seeped up here and could barely cut the winter chill. The girl stopped outside an opened door and gestured helplessly. Frank could hear the man moaning before he even reached the door.
Roderick lay on his bed, fully clothed and curled in a ball, writhing in pain. The chamber pot held a malodorous stew of vomit and excrement.
“How long since he ate supper?” he asked the girl.
“I don’t know!” she cried.
“Think! It’s important.”
“I…an hour maybe. No more than that.”
“Did he come straight upstairs after that?”
“I…I think so.”
Frank glanced around the Spartan room. Besides the plain iron bedstead, there was a wooden chair, a washstand with an enamel bowl and pitcher, and a small table. On the table sat a crystal decanter nearly full of amber liquid and an empty glass tumbler. Frank picked up the decanter and sniffed. Whiskey.
“Where’d this come from?” he asked.
“It was Mr. Devries’s,” the girl said. “He must’ve pinched it.”
“No!” Roderick cried between groans.
“Where’d you get it then?”
“Gave it …”
“When?” Frank asked.
“Tonight,” he gasped as another spasm shook him.
“What in heaven’s name?” Mrs. O’Brien cried, having just arrived.
“Get a doctor here, right away,” Frank said. “Tell them he might’ve been poisoned.”
“Poisoned! I won’t say no such thing!”
“Do you want him to die?”
The girl cried out. Other doors in the hallway were opening as the rest of the servants came to see what the commotion was.
“Somebody send for a doctor,” Frank said. “Tell him Roderick will need his stomach pumped.”
“I’ll go,” a young man said and hurried off.
“I never heard of such a thing,” Mrs. O’Brien muttered.
“Get rid of this and bring in a clean one,” Frank said, gesturing to the chamber pot. “And tell everybody to get back to their rooms.”
The scullery maid reluctantly took charge of the chamber pot, and the cook started ushering the rest of the staff downstairs as they muttered and murmured their many questions.
When they were gone, Frank stood over the writhing man. “Who gave you the whiskey?”
Roderick looked up, his face twisted in agony. His lips moved, trying to form words, but no sound came out.
Frank leaned closer. “Tell me, man. Who gave it to you?”
Roderick’s eyes glittered with rage, but as Frank waited, silently willing him to speak the name of his killer, the glitter faded and flickered out. The eyes rolled back. Roderick was dead.
FRANK USED THE DEVRIESES’ TELEPHONE TO CALL THE medical examiner and Felix Decker. Decker arrived first. By then, Frank had enlisted the cooperation of all the servants to keep the death a secret from the Devrieses for the time being, and the maid showed Decker into the receiving room where Frank was waiting for him, without announcing his arrival to the family.
“How in God’s name did something like this happen?” Decker demanded as soon as the door closed behind him.
“This afternoon, Mrs. Brandt let it slip to Mrs. Devries that I knew her husband was naked when he was stabbed.”
“How would that result in a servant getting poisoned?”
“The three people who were with Devries when he was undressed were the valet, Paul, and Mrs. Devries. She would know that, too, which means either Paul or his mother stabbed him, and they must have been afraid Roderick knew it.”
Decker scowled. Frank could see how little he liked this. “But didn’t you also think the mistress might have done it?”
“I did, but if she was the killer, why would anyone need to get rid of Roderick?”
Decker muttered a very ungentlemanly curse. “But are you absolutely sure he was poisoned? Could it have been unintentional?”
“You mean something he ate? Not likely. All the other servants ate the same food he did for supper, and none of them are sick.”
“Then how…?”
“I found a decanter of whiskey in his room, and he’d apparently been drinking out of it. He could barely speak when I found him, but he managed to say someone had given it to him.”
“No servant would have done that.”
“No.”
Decker sighed. “How did Paul and Lucretia behave when you told them?”
