The Book of the Dead by Richardson Robert

Author:Richardson, Robert [Richardson, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Endeavour Press
Published: 2014-10-12T16:00:00+00:00

THE MELDRED HALL STAFF

After luncheon, I joined Holmes as he interviewed the remainder of the household, beginning with Mrs Broom, the plump and excitable cook.

‘‘Tis the Firewitch!’ she interrupted immediately Holmes began. ‘Margaret Seymour has come back again!’

‘Again?’ Holmes queried mildly. ‘Have there been previous visits by this apparition, then?’

‘Of course there have, sir. Anyone born and bred round here knows about her wicked ghost.’

‘Most fascinating,’ Holmes said, giving me a secret wink. ‘However, I wish to know about your involvement the evening Miss Eleanor was attacked.’

‘I was just giving Bates the gamekeeper a bite to eat,’ she replied. ‘He’d called on his way home to see Alice McGregor—I think there’ll be news from that quarter soon—but she’d begged me to let her go to Kendal to visit a friend of hers. There was little to do, Mr Braithwaite being away, so I let her leave when she’d finished the washing-up.

‘Bates and me were chatting in the kitchen when we heard a horse gallop into the stable yard. We thought it strange Miss Eleanor should ride it so hard, but before we had time to see what was amiss, the stable lad ran in, saying it had returned alone. Mr Painter and Bates went off with the lad.

‘I was in such a state while I waited! They carried her in to the kitchen and I cleaned those wounds on her poor face with my own hands. The doctor said I’d done well.’

Mrs Broom folded her arms, indicating her story was complete.

‘At what time had you last seen Johnson the groom that day?’ Holmes asked. The cook’s brow furrowed thoughtfully.

‘He came in for his midday meal which he always has at the Hall. Then I saw him in the afternoon when I went out into the yard for a breath of air. I can’t recall after that.’

Before dismissing her, Holmes asked if Bates was expected at the Hall again that evening. Mrs Broom confirmed it was his regular practice to call after completing his duties. Holmes then asked her to send in the two kitchen maids. Both were greatly distressed, with Alice McGregor still lamenting her absence when she might have assisted in attending to Miss Braithwaite and her colleague Janet Hemsdale, a local girl, almost hysterical.

‘People say the bird breathes fire!’ she insisted at one point. ‘Lord save us all from the Firewitch!’

‘If you avoid the area around the woods, no harm will come to you,’ Holmes assured her.

‘We are safe nowhere!’ she protested. ‘There is a curse on the Hall!’

‘This is the first I have been told of it. What has happened?’

‘Ill luck.’ Hemsdale shuddered as she replied. ‘Alice cut her hand when she fell out walking the other week. Cook dropped a whole set of plates in the kitchen. And Simpkins broke one of Miss Eleanor’s favourite pieces of china while she was dusting.’

‘A series of minor household mishaps do not amount to a curse,’ Holmes told the girl sternly. ‘Such nonsense can be of no assistance to anyone.

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