Page 51 of The Masterful Mr. Montague

“Aye, sir.”

Stokes headed back through the house to the kitchen. Montague had been on the doorstep when he’d arrived, and he’d been glad to leave the other man to calm Miss Matcham and the volatile cook while he took care of business upstairs. Before he’d left the Yard, he’d sent a message to Barnaby, conveying the news and suggesting he join him at Lowndes Street—and having escorted Griselda to the Albemarle Street house on his way into work that morning, he’d extended the invitation to Penelope and Griselda, too.

Given how much the pair had learned yesterday, and accepting that they approached most situations from a different perspective, and therefore saw things neither he nor Barnaby did, he’d swallowed his natural resistance and included them . . . because he knew he’d have been a fool not to.

And not just in a professional sense.

He walked into the kitchen, and six pairs of eyes swung to fix on him. They’d all gathered in chairs about the kitchen table.

“So?” Barnaby prompted as Stokes lifted a chair from beside the fireplace and carried it to the table.

Setting the chair beside the one Griselda occupied, Stokes sat, met Barnaby’s gaze, then looked at Violet—Miss Matcham—and the cook. “As you’ve no doubt guessed, she—Tilly Westcott, Lady Halstead’s maid—was killed in the same way her ladyship was, smothered by a pillow placed over her face while she slept.”

“Was anything different?” Barnaby asked.

“Not in the murderer’s modus operandi, but there was one significant difference, one Pemberton—the police surgeon—just confirmed.” Stokes glanced at Violet and the cook. “Was Miss Westcott in good health?”

“She was fit as a fiddle yesterday,” Cook said.

Violet nodded. “She was entirely well as far as we knew.”

“Would you say she was a strong woman?” Stokes asked.

“Strong as a horse, she was,” Cook averred. “She could lift and carry things that’d make my back ache.”

Violet glanced around the table. “Tilly was taller than me, strapping and rather raw-boned. So, yes”—Violet looked back at Stokes—“she was quite strong.”

Stokes inclined his head. “So Tilly was much stronger than Lady Halstead, and she fought back—that much is obvious. But the murderer still successfully smothered her.”

“So the murderer couldn’t have been a woman—not in this case.” Penelope glanced at Barnaby, then looked down the table at Stokes. “How likely is it that Lady Halstead’s murderer and Tilly’s murderer are not the same person?”

“Not very likely at all.” Stokes paused, then said, “So the murderer is a man, one strong enough to overpower a strong woman.”

“Any guess as to when it happened?” Barnaby asked.

“Pemberton says in the very early hours.” Noise reached them from the front hall. Stokes rose. “That will be more constables. I’ll send them to ask around the neighborhood in case anyone saw anything, but given the time and the weather last night, I’m not expecting that we’ll have any luck.” He walked out of the kitchen, leaving everyone else thinking; he returned two minutes later and resumed his seat.

“So how did he get in?” Penelope looked from Stokes, to Barnaby, to Montague, and Violet beside him. “Any ideas?”

Barnaby straightened. “That was one issue we never resolved about her ladyship’s death—how the murderer got into the house.” He met Stokes’s eyes. “There was heavy rain last night, just before midnight. If we search now, we might get lucky and find some sign.”

The winds that had whipped through the city the previous evening had been the harbingers of a storm with attendant downpour, and it was October; there were leaves everywhere. Stokes looked at Violet. “When you first approached the front door this morning, did you notice any dampness or leaves, any sort of detritus, in the front hall?”

Violet shook her head. “The first time I went that way was when I let you and Mr. Montague in, but I wasn’t looking all that closely—I’m not sure I would have noticed.”

“And we’ve had too many people come in and out of the front door since to bother checking now,” Stokes said.

“But coming in via the front door—that would be a truly arrogant act.” Penelope looked at the cook. “Where’s the back door?”

The cook swiveled to point. “Over there. But”—she looked up at Stokes as he rose to his feet—“I’ve been through it this morning to fetch the boys to take Violet’s notes.”

“That’s all right.” Stokes headed for the archway into the back hall. “Barnaby? The rest of you, please stay here.”

Together with Stokes, Barnaby searched, but there was no sign of anyone with damp shoes going deeper into the house from the back door. Not even the cook had left any visible trace.

As they returned to the kitchen, Stokes grimaced. “No luck, so that’s the doors ruled out—”

“No—there’s a side door.” When they all looked at her, Violet explained, “There’s a door to a narrow alley that runs between the street and the mews.” She pushed back her chair. “I’ll show you.”