On a Desert Shore Read online

  Chapter Seven

  Velvet curtains had been drawn back to expose a centrally mounted trellis. Penelope could see what everyone had been looking at: a tangle of thick vines that snaked around the lattice, climbing fully eight feet. The tip of each vine bore great white flowers at least a hand’s breadth across with stamens of bright yellow. Perhaps a dozen of these flowers glowed like a cluster of jewels on the vine, and an intense scent wafted toward her as she approached. Hauntingly fragrant, it was both innocent and cunning in the way it teased her senses, initially strong and then slipping away.

  “This plant blooms only once each year during the full moon of high summer.” Hugo Garrod’s outstretched finger hovered close to the white petals but did not touch them. Softly, he recited, “Queen of the dark, whose tender glories fade / In the grey radiance of the noon-tide hours.” He smiled at her evident admiration, adding, “Night-blooming cereus. It will bloom a few hours and wither at first light.”

  Tallboys said, “In Jamaica it is thought that the strong odor of this plant may attract spirits or, as the slaves call them, the duppies. Some say it should not be placed too close to a house.”

  Obviously much moved, Garrod paid scant heed to this remark. After a moment he said in a more natural voice, “I have a special blend of Pekoe and Congo to share with my guests of honor.” He looked around peevishly. “Where has my daughter got to? She was to help me serve.”

  Mrs. Yates seemed unconcerned. “I believe she conducts Mr. Durant on a tour of the orangery. Ned has gone to fetch her and will bring her along shortly, Hugo.”

  “We won’t wait for them.” He smiled at his sister. “You won’t object, my dear, if I call upon Mrs. Wolfe to assist me? I know you are already familiar with my teapoy. I think it would amuse her to view its interior.”

  Mrs. Yates acquiesced graciously, but Penelope, enduring another glance from Tallboys as well as an indrawn breath from Buckler, tried to think of an excuse to refuse. None presented itself. With extreme reluctance, she went to stand next to a three-legged mahogany table, which was topped by a built-in tea caddy. Garrod used the key from his watch fob to unlock the caddy. As he lifted the lid, a painting on the interior was visible, showing Roman captives with cropped hair, kneeling. Penelope saw that the cut-glass bowls of the velvet-lined tray held a miniature sugarloaf wrapped in blue paper next to a pair of sugar nippers. A second glass bowl contained a larger loaf of a slightly darker variety, unwrapped. On another table next to the teapoy, a teapot, a dish of lemon slices, a cream jug, an urn of hot water, and a slop basin waited.

  Finished blending the tea, Garrod warmed the pot, then poured water over the leaves, as Mrs. Yates supervised the footman to arrange the chairs and set up at each guest’s side simpler teapoys with octagonal tops, each designed to hold an individual service. As she busied herself, Penelope found that Garrod compelled her attention strangely: his tall and elegant figure; his ruddy skin that glistened in the lamplight; his prominent nose and wide-set, glittering eyes.

  She forced herself to attend to her task. Finally, Garrod broke off in the middle of a humorous story about Jamaican duppies to demand, “Where can your brother be, Mrs. Wolfe?”

  “He’ll be here shortly. He’ll want his tea.”

  About to add sugar to the cups, Penelope hesitated over the two varieties. Seeing her difficulty, Garrod said, “Use the sugar wrapped in blue paper. It is royal sugar, Mrs. Wolfe, the finest grade available. It has been melted with weak limewater and clarified three times, passing it through a cloth coated with the very best clay. The result is a sugar whiter than snow. Hold up your hand to the thickest part of the loaf. It is so transparent you can see your fingers on the other side.”

  “Not for me, thank you, sir,” put in Tallboys. “You know I always take the refined instead. The royal is far too rich for a clergyman, sir. The refined will do well enough for me.”

  “Your principles do you honor, sir,” said Beatrice Honeycutt.

  “Nonsense, Tallboys,” said Garrod. “I’ll not indulge your beggarly whims on this occasion. Take your tea and be thankful. Now to work, Mrs. Wolfe.”

  Two spoons of sugar went into Garrod’s tea; one into Miss Honeycutt’s, Tallboys’, and Buckler’s. Into her own, Penelope put a dollop of cream. She handed Buckler his cup without a word, avoiding his eyes. She also looked inquiringly at Anne Yates, who smiled her thanks but approached the teapoy to add her own sugar and cream. Feeling unhappily self-conscious, Penelope carried around the rest of the cups.

  Later she would tell Chase that Hugo Garrod had drunk his tea to the bottom, as if so thirsty he could not wait for the liquid to reach a more comfortable temperature. Tallboys, too, seemed to relish his but drank only about half, as he consumed several cakes. Beatrice Honeycutt took a few sips, folded her hands in her lap, and put aside her cup to engage Penelope in a stilted conversation. Still feeling anxious about Lewis, Penelope nibbled a cake and drank her own tea to the dregs. She noticed that Mrs. Yates, who had moved away to attend to one of the other guests, did not drink her tea, nor did Buckler, still absorbed in contemplation of the night-blooming cereus that seemed to have caught his imagination. After a while, without asking, she took his first cup away, emptied it in the slop basin, and used the tea strainer to fix him a fresh one. He smiled his thanks.

  Penelope felt her nerves stretch almost to the breaking point. Finally, she said, “Mr. Buckler, will you find Lewis and tell him I’m waiting for him?”

  Buckler bowed. “Of course, Mrs. Wolfe.” His eyes began to scan the crowd.

  Hugo Garrod glanced up, seemed as though he meant to speak, and vomited over the side of the stage, the liquid striking one of the shepherdesses. The maid jumped and emitted an involuntary sound of disgust. Quickly, Mrs. Yates moved from her position by the urn to help her brother, who was bent over, clutching his gut. She wrapped an arm around his shoulders to support him. “You are ill, Hugo,” she cried in a high, frightened voice. “Come, we’ll return to the house.”

  Tallboys clutched at his throat, choking on a morsel of cake. Appalled, Penelope looked at Buckler. His attention still focused on the crowd, he hadn’t noticed anything wrong.

  “I see Lewis and Miss Garrod. They’re in that alcove over there,” he said. “I’ll fetch them.” Buckler got to his feet and raised his cup to his lips, about to take a hurried sip. Obeying an instinct, Penelope jerked out of her chair to leap toward him. She dashed the cup from his hand, and liquid spilled down his shirtfront. He gave a yelp as it scalded him. “Penelope!”

  She shook her head and went to kneel by the Reverend Tallboys’ chair. “What’s wrong? Can you speak, sir?”

  “I don’t know. I feel so strange. The tea—it tasted too hot, like pepper, maybe.” His eyes seemed to bulge. He gripped her arm so hard she winced.

  Penelope looked around wildly. “Someone help us, please,” she called. She approached Miss Honeycutt, who sat in her seat, moaning and pressing her hands against her abdomen. The woman’s face was so white it seemed she must faint, but, though she slumped, she managed to keep her seat.

  Around them the voices stilled and erupted again, louder. Spectators surrounded the dais, holding their hands to their mouths, radiating incredulity and dismay. For a moment no one moved. Then Lewis was there with Marina, their faces perfect pictures of horror.

  Buckler’s terrified eyes searched Penelope’s. “What is it?”

  “There’s something very wrong here, Edward.”

  Groaning in pain, Hugo Garrod looked up at them piteously while the Queen of the Night continued to breathe its sweet scent over them all.

  ***

  A cacophony of voices met John Chase when he entered the hothouse. A string of faces suspended in the murky air flashed by his eyes as his feet pounded down the walk. He stepped around a turbaned woman sitting on the gravel next to a toppled cane chair and paused briefly by a round-faced, pimply
boy emitting spasmodic screams. Maids dressed as shepherdesses huddled under an archway bursting with flowers. Ladies and gentlemen streamed past, heading toward the exit; other guests blocked Chase’s way, goggling at the illumined stage where figures milled about. Someone shoved at him with both hands, and Chase’s arm snaked out to steady a hollow-eyed man.

  “Out of my way,” snarled the man. He yanked his arm out of Chase’s grip.

  Garrod’s butler, whose name was Niven, lingered nearby, wearing a look of utter bemusement. “No one is to leave,” Chase told him. “Station someone at the door. Gather all the manservants to assist me.”

  The butler blinked. “Yes, sir.” He hurried off.

  Ned Honeycutt was suddenly at Chase’s elbow. “What the deuce? What’s happened here?”

  “I am about to find out.” Chase ignored the steps to the dais, which were congested, and jumped up the side, his knee giving a protesting twinge. He went to Penelope, who held a clergyman’s head over a basin, her hands wrapped over his cravat to shield it from the vomit. She looked up.

  “You’re not hurt?” He felt a tug at his heart when he saw her look of fear fade to be replaced by trust and relief.

  “I’m fine, John. But Mr. Garrod, Miss Honeycutt, and Mr. Tallboys have taken ill.”

  Buckler approached them. “I don’t like this, Chase. You’d better call a doctor, and get these people out of here.”

  Ned Honeycutt was helping his sister toward the stairs. Mrs. Yates crouched over Hugo Garrod’s prostrate form, guarding him. A few feet away Marina Garrod stood, irresolute, under a guttering lamp that cloaked her expression. Then she moved out of the shadows, and Chase glimpsed a gem-like hardness that jarred him. But as she knelt at her father’s side, her face crumpled with distress.

  Chase faced Buckler. “Escort Penelope and Miss Garrod to the house. Lewis must go with you. Take statements from the guests. Have the footmen help you.”

  “Consider it done,” said Buckler grimly.

  Chase moved to the edge of the dais, pitching his voice to carry over the hubbub. “Is there a doctor here?”

  A man bending over the hysterical boy straightened. “Here, sir.” He made his way to Chase’s side, a gaunt, balding figure in an old-fashioned black coat. “I am Aurelius Caldwell, surgeon.”

  “What’s wrong with that boy?”

  “Nothing, so far as I can tell. Thinks he’s been poisoned.”

  “Leave him. What must we do to help the sufferers?”

  Caldwell had already gone to support Tallboys, who was racked with nausea, his eyes rolling in his head as he tried to speak. The surgeon said, “We must get these patients to bed so that I can examine them. Send a servant to my house in the village to fetch my bag.”

  “Is it a poisoning?”

  Somber gray eyes met his. “That would be my guess with several people taken so violently all at once. That is unless they have all been struck down by tainted food.” He threw a glance at the teapoy and tables and the litter of abandoned cups. “Do not allow anybody to clear the debris. I must collect samples.”

  “You attend to the patients. I’ll get your samples.”

  Caldwell seemed to assess Chase but gave a curt nod.

  A row of sturdy footmen and several gardeners had assembled in front of the stage. Chase sent a footman to fetch the surgeon’s kit and instructed others to start urging the guests back up the path toward the house.

  “They call for their carriages, sir,” said a servant.

  “No carriages yet,” said Chase. “Take the guests into the drawing room with the overflow to wait in the library.”

  He took possession of the teapoy, instructing Niven to lock it up in the pantry along with the plates of cakes, the saturated tea leaves, the urn, the waste basin filled with vomit, and all the crockery. Next, he accompanied Mrs. Yates and Niven to confront the tearful cook in the basement kitchen. The cook had retrieved the household’s stores of sugar and flour, which were added to the stash of suspect items. More than half convinced she was under suspicion and would be hauled off to prison forthwith, the cook sobbed, crying out repeatedly that there was nothing wrong with the food when it left her kitchen. Finally, Chase rapped out an exasperated rebuke, and the sobs subsided into gulps.

  “Anyone else been ill recently? Any food that had turned or spoiled?”

  “No, sir,” she said, sniffling.

  “What poisons do you have on the property?” Chase asked. “Arsenic? Corrosive sublimate?”

  “None in the kitchen,” said the cook.

  “Shall I inquire of the head gardener?” asked the butler.

  “Do that.” Chase reached into his pocket for the hastily written note he had prepared. “Have this delivered to Bow Street. I have requested the assistance of additional constables. When they arrive, they will need to search the house and account for every medicine vial, pill box, and cosmetic bottle.”

  Niven took the letter and bowed. “Sir.”

  The next few hours were a blur. Further consultation with the surgeon brought little reassurance. Had there been only one sick person, Caldwell said, they might suspect an attack of the English cholera, common in the summertime, or perhaps a bloody flux, but for three people to fall into sudden and severe affliction pointed to a contaminating agent. “An irritant poison administered either accidentally or deliberately, most likely arsenic,” he said.

  “What’s the name of the local magistrate?” said Chase.

  “Why, it’s the Reverend Tallboys. He’s in no condition to speak to you now, sir.”

  “Will he survive?”

  “I think he will, he and Miss Honeycutt both. I understand that neither of them drank all their tea. As for Mr. Garrod, that, sir, seems much less certain. He is advanced in years, which must make a difference.”

  When Chase went to check on Edward Buckler, he found that his friend had followed his instructions. The guests waited in the drawing room with footmen helping Buckler keep order while he conducted interviews. It would be wise to release these people, Chase decided, for their complaints and lamentations grew to deafening levels. He couldn’t blame them. It was getting late, and everyone was tired.

  Buckler shook his head in response to Chase’s terse questions. No one had seen anything in particular, no stranger lurking, no convenient solution to the problem of who could have tampered with the tea, the sugar, or perhaps the cakes. “You must seal up Garrod’s papers for the lawyers,” Buckler said.

  Chase nodded; it was a timely reminder. “The rest of the staff awaits you in the servants’ hall, Buckler. Start with them and I’ll take over shortly. The shepherdesses are girls from the village. I’ve asked them to stay until you can speak to them.”

  “Garrod?”

  “Vilely ill. Penelope helps tend him until nurses and a physician can arrive to assist the surgeon.”

  Buckler lowered his head to flip idly through the pages of his pocketbook. He spoke quietly. “I could easily have drunk that tea if Penelope hadn’t stopped me. She leapt up and swept the cup from my hand. My God, she had drunk the tea herself.”

  The thought of Penelope and Buckler and that tea had been a thorn at the back of Chase’s mind that pricked him with his own incompetence, his lack of foresight, which might have brought him a terrible loss he couldn’t bear to think of even now. But he said merely, “That’s why I think the poison was in the sugar.”

  “You may be right. Penelope doesn’t take sugar. And I saw her eating one of the cakes. Nothing wrong with them, it seems.”

  Suddenly Chase’s anger erupted. “I should have been there. Instead I was running that girl to earth and playing games with Garrod’s nephew.”

  Buckler’s forehead creased with concern. “Not your fault, John. Poison is an ugly, sneaky attack. I had a word with Lewis, and he deeply regrets causing trouble for you. I told him what I�
��ll tell you too. You couldn’t have prevented what happened.” Changing the subject, he asked, “How is Miss Garrod?”

  “Deeply shocked. Mrs. Yates is with her. I’ve asked Lewis to remain within reach. Honeycutt is in his room, drinking himself under the hatches from all accounts. Best he stay there for the present.”

  “Just as you say. Don’t worry.”

  One of the guests came up, breaking into bitter complaint, and the two friends separated.

  Chapter Eight

  Buckler saw off the last of the carriages before going upstairs to check on Penelope. A servant having directed him to the bedchamber where the Reverend Samuel Tallboys lay, Buckler rapped at the door.

  It edged open, and Penelope stepped into the corridor, a rank smell compounded of sweat, feces, and vomit following in her wake. Buckler’s hands reached out for hers. She was swathed in an apron far too large for her and stiff in patches. There was a yellow streak on her forearm. Her hair confined in a tight bun, she looked at him with eyes that were huge in her strained face, but she seemed calm. It occurred to him that she was like a soldier ranged for battle.

  “Tallboys?” he asked, squeezing her hands gently and drawing her a little closer so that she could rest against him.

  She spoke into his shoulder. “The vomiting has eased, though he has burning pains in his stomach. I must go back. We are giving him castor oil and a solution of egg whites in cold water every few minutes.”

  “Is there anything I can get for you?”

  Reaching into her apron pocket, she retrieved a crumpled sheet of paper. “Send this letter to the vicarage. It’s a note for Mr. Tallboys’ housekeeper. Oh and Edward, send word to Maggie. I don’t want her to read the news in the papers tomorrow.”

  He took the note from her and used his handkerchief to dab the vomit or whatever it was from her arm. “Don’t worry about Maggie and the children. Take care of yourself,” he said, feeling helpless. With a brief smile for him, she vanished, closing the door with a click.