Enter Pale Death(74)

“Is that allowed, locking up?”

Ben shrugged. “Mrs. B. and Gracie are like that.” He crossed two of his fingers. “Her ladyship picked Gracie for her personal maid and she liked to keep her close by. Huh! Lucky to have a room of her own—and down here on the nobs’ floor. She should try roughing it with the rest of us under the tiles …”

“That’s ladies’ maids for you,” Joe said easily. “Spoilt. Goes with the position.”

“You said it, m—Commissioner. Still, she deserved a bit of something, did Gracie, what with having to deal with her ladyship day in, day out. Our Gracie,” he spoke with a look of affectionate indulgence, “isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer if you know what I mean, but that suited her ladyship. Anyone smarter wouldn’t have lasted a week with her. She sacked her first three maids for what she called ‘impertinence.’ ” Ben rolled his eyes. “Grace never complained. Kept the mistress off everyone else’s back, though I’m speaking out of turn saying so …”

“Speak no ill of the dead, eh? That’s a load of codswallop. Ben, I’ve always found that the dead were quite often less than angelic when they were alive. Which often accounts for their demised condition.” He spoke this nonsense in a knowing, confidential voice.

“Know what you mean, sir. I expect you get a lot of that in your line of work.” Ben stopped in front of a three-quarter-sized brown-painted door and nodded. “This is where the old mistress put me to keep watch, sir.”

“This” was a disused slops cupboard which had once, before the introduction of bathrooms on every floor, been used to house chamber pots on their way down to and back from the sluice room. It was conveniently at the angle between two corridors. It was cramped but sufficient room had been found to insert a small upright chair. Not much chance of Ben’s falling asleep on the job in this musty little space on that hard chair, Joe calculated and, for a moment, had a bleak thought of the sleepless, tedious hours of the night, watching over someone you didn’t care for, unsure as to why the surveillance was necessary and with no distraction from the darkness but your own thoughts.

He looked about him. From this point, the footman had a view over Lavinia’s door, James’s door, Grace’s door and also a clear sight of the corridor leading down the east guest wing and away to the north. Cecily was running a spy system—spying on the members of her own family and her guests.

“You must have been dying for a smoke! How often did they lumber you with that duty?”

“Not often, thank God! Once, twice a month. More often when there’s company. She likes to know where everyone is,” he added with a knowing look. “And why not?” he said loyally. “Sometimes they fetch up where they’re not supposed to be. It helps the old mistress to know what’s going on in her own house. She has a right, I reckon.”

Joe grinned. “Thanks for the warning. I’ll lock my door tonight. Wouldn’t want to risk any illicit nocturnal visits. Not from the present company anyway.”

Ben blinked and then grinned back. “This is the way to the Old Nursery. It’s quite a hike. I think in the old days when there were little ones about they used to like to keep their noise well away from the rest of the house. Funny that, don’t you think, sir? That she should have put someone right away down here when there were at least two guest rooms unoccupied down this corridor?” His question was clearly meant to raise an informative or speculative remark from Joe.

Joe instinctively put his own gentling techniques into operation. “I expect you can think your way through that, Ben, as well as I can. Better. You were on the spot after all and from what Cecily tells me …”

Ben nodded again eagerly and quickened his pace. Silently thanking Hunnyton for his plan of the house, Joe managed to keep a handle on their progress and knew they’d arrived when they reached a short corridor off at an angle. A run of four doors made up the deserted nursery suite. Day nursery, night nursery, a room for Nanny and a room for Nanny’s assistant, no doubt.

“Disused, I take it?” Joe asked.

“Ever since Master Alexander went away to school, they say,” Ben told him. “Though—and this is a bit weird—it’s been kept as it was. In fact redecorated every year. Living in hope, I expect. Anyhow, this was where her ladyship chose to put the young woman.”

“Miss Joliffe?”

“That’s her. No love lost between her and the mistress. Nasty argument over dinner. The young lady stood up for herself something fine but it ended in tears.”