“Yes – it’s like an egg gone bad, or like the sewers.”
“Sewer gas is much the same thing. And now watch this. Have you a copper coin?”
Brodie dug into his pocket and spun one across the table rather dramatically. Theodore stopped it with the flat of his hand. He used the long tongs to lift the coin and hold it above the neck of the flask.
“I see it! It is tarnishing!” said Brodie in delight.
“It is, indeed. I have heard of cases where men have died in sewers and one of the remarkable features that emerges from the horrible event is the discolouration of the copper in the coins in their pockets. Here, then, we can see that the body of Hartley Knight was exposed to the same thing.”
Brodie nodded. “The drains here are so very bad. So the death was not suspicious, was it? He slipped and fell, and was simply overcome with the fumes from the sewers. Well done, sir! You will set all our minds at rest. Lady Buckshaw in particular,” he added.
Theodore shook his head. “Yet when I went into the ice house, I could smell nothing out of the ordinary beyond the usual pervasive smell of high summer which is cloaking this castle.”
“Perhaps it comes and goes? Might it not ebb and flow like a tide?” Brodie suggested. “It is carried on the waters, after all. Some days I notice it, and other days I do not.”
“I have considered that, yes.” Theodore had already decided to place copper coins around the ice house to monitor their tarnishing over time. He kept that information to himself. “But if it were strong enough to kill a fit man like Knight, it would be more than enough to kill us all. There must be another explanation.”
“What?” Brodie asked.
Theodore looked at the eager young man’s face and simply shook his head. “I have more research to conduct.”
“Let me help! I should love to be part of this. Maybe this is the direction my life ought to take?” His voice took on a fawning, pleading tone. “I have been thinking about what you have said to me. You are quite right, of course. I need to decide what to do and how to live a life of value and purpose. Using the science of chemicals to discover things about the world, this excites me! Perhaps this is the answer, this is my calling, and I owe the discovery of it all to you. Do let me help! You can hardly say no.”
Theodore had almost been swayed until Brodie’s final sentence which over-egged his manipulation and made Theodore recoil against him. However, he did not want to upset or antagonise the young man. So he smiled, and said, “When it comes time for me to conduct an experiment, I shall let you know.” He began to line things up on the table.
Brodie looked disappointed. “So you’re not about to do anything now?”
“Not immediately. There are more things I need to organise.”
“I can help!” The young man was bursting with energy. He was impulsive, he was bored, and – something more? Theodore was not sure.
“Indeed, I am sure you can help and I should be grateful for it. The backbone of any experiment is the hours and days of research and reading that precedes it. Please make use of the library and ensure you are up to date with all the latest thinking in science.”
The look on Brodie’s face was priceless. He wanted to do things, active things, exciting things and here was Theodore, telling him to go away and read books. He flared his nostrils and left the room without arguing back. Theodore smiled to himself. It was the reaction of a boy of fifteen, sullen and unwilling, not a mature man. The lad needed to be put into the army, perhaps, and forced to grow up.
Theodore worked for a little while longer, cataloguing the instruments and making notes of things he might need. He then took up a few untarnished copper coins and headed out. Brodie was not in the study as he passed through. Theodore didn’t spot him anywhere on his way to and from the ice house.
As he came back into Tavy Castle, Theodore saw Adelia talking to one of the maids at the back of the great hall. She came over when she saw her husband.
“Word has come back from the chapel that Mrs Rush attends,” Adelia told him. “The pastor there has returned from his trip – he had been called away for a few days immediately after last Sunday’s service – but he readily admits to having seen Mrs Rush there as always. Her alibi cannot be more unshakable than that, can it?”
“It cannot. And I too have news. I strongly suspect that Hartley Knight was hit on the head and then poisoned by gases.”
Adelia’s eyes widened. “But if not by Mrs Rush, then by whom?”
Ten
Adelia found herself restless on Wednesday morning. Mrs Carstairs had summoned her to the At Home day and the calling hours did not start until three at the earliest. There were things that Adelia had to do that morning, of course; there was plenty to occupy her before she had to leave. But while her hands were busy, her mind was wandering. Theodore had told her about his experiments and she had agreed with his conclusion.
Poison.
They had amended their list of suspects, removing Mrs Rush entirely due to her unshakable alibi, putting the deaths of her previous lovers down to rumour and gossip and unfortunate coincidence.
Adelia had made a second list of every member of the household including the servants and she had gone through it, accounting for each person’s whereabouts on the morning
