It might help him judge the differing degrees of rapports among the servants.
“Nobody came and told me. Mrs. Cornish looked all shaken when she walked past the kitchen. So I followed her and asked what was the matter. She told me. It was such awful news that I asked both Mr. Hodges and Tommy Dunn, too, because I didn’t want to believe it.”
She stared at Treadles, as if still hoping that he would reassure her otherwise.
“It is true,” he said softly.
Immediately her gaze shifted to Sergeant MacDonald. The latter nodded, closing the last avenue of denial.
Mrs. Meek slowly sank into a chair. “But that’s evil. Evil.”
Treadles gave her a moment to collect herself. “According to the answers you provided last time, when you reached Mr. Sackville’s bedroom, one of the first things you did was to open the curtains. Is that correct?”
She looked at him in bafflement. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Please answer the question. Did you open the curtains?”
“I did.”
“You are sure they weren’t already open?”
Mrs. Meek sat up straighter—she bristled with the injured dignity of someone about to defend her integrity. “I am completely sure, Inspector. We all rushed to Mr. Sackville’s bedside. ‘Feel him, feel him,’ Becky was yelling. So I did, and his temperature was all wrong. I looked up at Mrs. Cornish. But she wasn’t looking at him. She was looking at the curtains. I remember this very clearly. It was still dim inside the room, but light was already seeping in around the edges of the drapes, halolike, if you will. Then Mrs. Cornish pulled open the curtains on her side and I did the same on the window closer to me.”
There was an innocence to Mrs. Meek’s reply, a resolute lack of insinuation.
Treadles was reminded of his own obliviousness to the significance of the curtains. A thought occurred to him. “Have you ever worked in any other position in a household, Mrs. Meek?”
“No, Inspector. I was always the cook. Cook’s assistant early on, and then the cook.”
Perhaps she truly was plainly stating the facts. Perhaps she herself didn’t understand the import of what she had revealed.
“How would you describe Becky Birtle?”
“Becky? She’s a bit of a handful. I don’t mind a high-spirited girl myself but I think Mrs. Cornish was frustrated with her.”
“Is she an attractive girl?”
“Not beautiful, but most girls that age are rather pretty—first bloom of youth.”
“Is there a picture of her anywhere in the house?”
Mrs. Meek frowned. “N—oh, wait, I remember now. A traveling photographer came through recently. Mr. Hodges said that Mr. Sackville had paid for a photograph for the servants only the year before and wouldn’t pay for another one so soon. But Mrs. Cornish said she’d pay for one herself. So we dragged some chairs outside and sat for the photographer and he came back a few days later with a copy for Mrs. Cornish.”
“Was Becky Birtle in the picture?”
“Yes she was. Standing right behind me.”
And yet Mrs. Cornish had been firm that there was no photograph of the girl in the house. Treadles made a note to speak to the housekeeper again before he left.
“Mr. Hodges tells me that a whisky decanter went missing. Have you heard about it?”
A knock came on the door. Even before Treadles answered, Constable Perkins, who had been assigned to accompany the detectives from Scotland Yard and facilitate matters for them, peeked in. The young man’s face was flush with excitement.
“Inspector, Sergeant, a word please.”
Treadles raised a brow. For the constable to interrupt an interview, it had better be important. He murmured a word of apology and left the room, MacDonald in his wake.
“Inspector, the name Sergeant told me to check—”
“What name, Sergeant?”
“When I was searching Mrs. Meek’s room, sir,” said Sergeant MacDonald, “I found letters addressed to a Nancy Monk. The name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t quite remember. So I asked Constable Perkins to see if he could find out something more.”
“One of the men at the station remembered right away,” said Perkins. “But we didn’t want to rush, so we sent a cable on the Wheatstone machine to Scotland Yard. And they cabled back and confirmed our suspicions.
“Nancy Monk was the defendant in an arsenic poisoning trial twenty-five years ago. Everyone in the family died, except the master of the house, who was away on business. She took the stand to testify on her own behalf and the jury came away convinced that she cared a great deal for the little children. And since there was never any evidence of anything between the cook and the master—she had a young greengrocer she was planning to marry—she was acquitted.”
And a quarter of a century later, she turned up in another case of arsenic poisoning.
When Inspector Treadles returned, Mrs. Meek was rocking back and forth on her seat, her fingers clutched tightly around the armrests.