Felicity Carrol and the Murderous Menace Read online

  On this occasion, Felicity didn’t reject her offer to help. In the room, Helen took shifts watching the apothecary while Felicity slept or vice versa. One Sunday afternoon while Felicity napped in the rented room, Helen woke her. “Miss, Miss. They’re both leaving,” she whispered.

  Felicity rushed to the window. Dressed in another flamboyant outfit, Denner, accompanied by Simons, was leaving down Warwick Road, laughing as she went. He had on a nice suit.

  “Looks like they’re going out on the town,” Helen said.

  “Then I’m going over there to find more evidence for Scotland Yard. Please watch for them. When they’re returning to the shop, hang a white cloth in the window and I’ll hurry out.”

  Helen wished her good luck.

  In her past exploration of the apothecary, Felicity had spotted a back door, which faced an alley. She went to work on the locked door. When she had begun her investigations into crime, she’d learned from a grizzled locksmith how to get past a lock. Obviously, there would be needed clues behind secured doors. Initially Felicity had been bothered about illegally entering private premises, but if suspected wrongdoing could be stopped by doing so, she didn’t believe Scotland Yard would mind. Then again, she didn’t always mention that the evidence she discovered had required a skeleton key to obtain.

  Once through the door, she stepped into a back room filled with supplies and Denner’s signature scent of lavender and vanilla. Not knowing how long Denner and Simons would be gone, Felicity quickened her search for the ceramic Simons Ointment pots. Without trying to disturb anything, she glanced in boxes and drawers in the back room. Nothing.

  She couldn’t search the shop itself in case someone saw her through the windows. She looked up at the ceiling while she considered where to look next.

  Their flat upstairs. Of course. She hurried up the stairs.

  The door was unlocked. She had anticipated an ostentatious room of inequity, but instead saw a well-ordered parlor and kitchen with pricey furniture probably bought at the expense of three dead men.

  Felicity stood in the middle of the room. Denner and Simons had no motive for murder other than money. She swore she felt their greed crawling up her arms and legs like stinging insects. The couple, and Denner in particular, had thrown away human life to live more comfortably. An impulse to smash every item in the room out of rage for the victims flashed through Felicity’s mind. She let it pass and breathed in calmly.

  Think.

  Judging from their overt actions, these people clearly had no remorse. They had been so obvious in their scheming, so Felicity looked in an obvious place. She rushed to the bedroom, located toward the back of the building. There, on top of a small dresser, sat ten small white ceramic ointment pots, all looking like a set of vertebrae. The words SIMONS OINTMENT were printed on each. She opened one and smelled. Beeswax, paraffin, and peppermint. With her skeleton tool, she scooped out a bit and placed it in one of the envelopes she always carried to store evidence. She smoothed over the mixture in the pot with her gloved hand to erase any sign of disturbance. Then she returned to the parlor. Glancing out the window, she spotted Helen waving a white cloth frantically. Daring to spy outside, Felicity saw the couple a few shops down from the apothecary.

  Time to leave. Felicity rushed down the stairs and out the back door at almost the exact moment she heard the couple enter through the front.

  At her London home on Grosvenor Square where she and Helen had been staying during the investigation, Felicity had avoided any experiments that might start a fire. At Carrol Manor in Surrey, an experiment with a voltaic battery had gone more than wrong, resulting in a fire that had burned down the east wing of the mansion along with some of her father’s valuable art pieces. She had rebuilt her new laboratory a safe distance from the house this time.

  With utmost care and a bucket of water nearby, Felicity conducted the test for arsenic in the ointment sample. The result revealed the presence of the poison.

  Her next visit: Scotland Yard.

  * * *

  Inspector Stuart Marshal was all muscle in crumpled tweed. He sat at his desk at Four Whitehall Place, headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, better known as Scotland Yard. The better-known moniker came from the building’s situation. It backed up to a court and street named Great Scotland Yard, supposedly called that because the land had once been owned by a man named Scott sometime during the Middle Ages.

  Inspector Marshal didn’t appear to care about history. Judging by his dress, he didn’t care about fashion, either. He cared only about solving crimes. His dense fingers intertwined as Felicity went through the details leading to the discovery of Bessie Denner’s whereabouts. Felicity had originally asked to see her friend Inspector Jackson Davies but had been told he was ill that day. The answer troubled her, because she hadn’t seen Davies for a while, but she didn’t have time to explore his absence. Still, she had talked with Inspector Marshal previously and liked his slow-burning strength.

  Since the King Arthur Affair, Scotland Yard inspectors had listened to Felicity and taken her theories seriously. Most of the time, at any rate. The police were also discreet, which she appreciated. Felicity had asked to stay in the background, and the police accommodated her request. She referred to herself as a private citizen who just happened to help unravel mysteries and find murderers. She assumed another reason Scotland Yard inspectors kept her name out of the newspapers was to save themselves embarrassment. The police probably didn’t want to give too much credit to a young woman for solving what they couldn’t. No matter, the recognition and cooperation were gratifying, albeit covertly so.

  “In conclusion, Inspector Marshal, I believe Bessie Denner is working with Alfred Simons, who runs Simons Apothecary.” Felicity wrapped up her account.

  “You really saw Bessie’s nine fingers, eh?” Marshal said in a voice that sounded filled with pebbles.

  “I counted them myself.” She liked teasing the police. It was a vice, she had to admit.

  The inspector placed his huge hands on the desk.

  “The neighbor of her latest victim will tell you about the Simons Ointment,” Felicity said. “You will also find arsenic mixed in with similar ointments in their flat above the shop.” She didn’t mention how she had learned that particular fact. “And we must hurry, Inspector Marshal. I believe Bessie Denner is planning to wed husband number four very soon.”

  “Know the man’s name?”

  “Not at this time, but give me twenty-four hours and I’ll find out.” She said this a bit too eagerly.

  “Not necessary. We’ll get officers together and go down there today.”

  Felicity smiled. “I expected no less, Inspector.”

  “Miss Carrol, your tips have proven very helpful in the past in apprehending criminals, and I’m sure this one will be the same.”

  When men complimented her beauty, she usually disregarded the praise. But this praise Felicity accepted heartily.

  “Can I ask why you’re doing all this, Miss Carrol?” His head slanted as if he was taking a closer look at her.

  “Because it must be done, Inspector,” she said with such seriousness, his eyes fluttered trying to think of a response.

  “Can’t fault you there.” He threaded his fingers again. “But you’re a very strange young woman. Anyone ever tell you that?”

  “Frequently.”

  Inspector Stuart Marshal kept to his word. At three that afternoon, the Metropolitan Police appeared at Simons Apothecary. With swift action, two officers brought out a cursing and screaming Bessie Denner and placed her in back of the police carriage. Her accessory, Alfred Simons, on the other hand, cried like an infant and had to be dragged along.

  From the window across the street, Felicity and Helen watched.

  “Miss Felicity, you probably saved lives today—again.” Helen placed a hand on her shoulder.

  Felicity tried not to be so delighted with the outcome. As she had told Inspector Marshal, the work was nec
essary. Still, she felt light with accomplishment.

  “Hellie, let’s go to tea.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Felicity rode through the color blue. Bluebells spread over the ground, giving her the feeling of galloping through an upside-down sky. Her horse kicked up dirt and flowers as she traveled through spring in the woodlands of Carrol Manor.

  She breathed in the season, the days of buds and renewal. Her favorite time of the year, when the earth got a second chance at life. She believed in second chances. She had received one and, just like the earth, welcomed it. As she rode, her braid slapped her back and the breeze skimmed her cheeks. The air carried the fragrance of grass and nectar. Ah, springtime.

  She promptly sneezed so hard she had to grasp the reins. She laughed. Ah, springtime pollen.

  With its huge house and thousands of acres, the estate had been her place of respite and rejuvenation ever since her father died more than one year ago. A dreadful thought, but true. When her father lived, Carrol Manor had been his house more than hers. The same had been true of their London home. He had rarely visited the manor during her childhood, and when he had, he’d hardly spoken to her. Usually he had walked past as if she were another piece of expensive furniture, albeit one with dents. Then she would rush to her room and cry. Somewhere along the way, she had stopped crying and stopped trying to please him, substituting education for a father’s love. Yet she had always hoped her father would start acting like the kind of parent she had always dreamed of. Warmhearted and open. Accepting of her. She’d never stopped dreaming right until the day he passed away.

  After an argument at their London house, her father had died due to a heart condition he’d refused to talk about. They had fought over her first murder investigation, which he found unladylike. She’d confronted him about his neglect. He had won the quarrel by dying.

  Logic had told her she wasn’t to blame, but she continued to claim fault for what had happened. She suffered from guilt over how their relationship had ended. The mood tailed her like a spy, ducking in darkness and not daring to come into the light. Some days she eluded it. Other days the shame came so close she swore she could feel its heady breath on her neck.

  After he died, Helen tried to comfort Felicity. Helen swore her father did love her but wasn’t the type to bare his emotions. Felicity just kissed her former nanny’s cheek and thanked her for the well-meaning falsehood.

  In truth, Felicity had gained a satisfying sense of freedom after his death, which in turn generated more guilt. She was freer because she no longer had to work hard to win his love or approval. With such thoughts came to mind the writings of Publius Cornelius Tacitus, a senator and historian of the Roman Empire. “To show resentment at a reproach is to acknowledge that one may have deserved it,” Tacitus wrote. He should have known what he was talking about. If anyone should feel guilty about what they did, it was the Romans.

  Guiding her horse over a hedge, Felicity hoped the guilt she carried would fall off along the way. But it clung to her. She rode back toward Carrol Manor. After years of feeling like a visitor there, she had grown to love the place because of the people who lived there. The people who raised her, like Helen and the other servants. They were her home and family now.

  * * *

  John Ryan met Felicity as she rode up to the stables. “The contraption’s been acting wild again.”

  “How many dishes this time?”

  “Just a few. Well, maybe more.”

  Felicity got down off her horse and led him into the stable. Then she and Ryan, the head groundskeeper, headed to the workshop located in a separate building behind the manor. Ryan and other workers were assembling a dish-washing machine.

  Felicity had read about the device in the Times. Josephine Cochrane had designed the machine in a shed behind her house in a town called Shelbyville, Illinois, in the United States. With help from a mechanic, Cochrane had come up with the idea of using water pressure to clean plates, cups, and saucers. She placed the dishes in wire compartments, which went inside a copper boiler. Hot water shot out from the bottom and cleaned the contents. Cochrane, who obtained a patent in late 1886, claimed she had invented the machine to help women who faced washing dishes after making a meal for their family. She also had to deal with debt after her husband died. Felicity respected how the American had recognized a need and met it.

  Felicity had written to Josephine Cochran and paid well for a copy of her plans for the device. She wanted to save the servants of Carrol Manor time and work with the machine.

  From the look on John Ryan’s face, the kindly and extremely competent Irishman had taken great pleasure in building the dish machine, although he and the others had had a mishap or two, not to mention several dozen broken dishes.

  The machine was smoking when Felicity and Ryan entered the workshop.

  “Bloody hell,” Ryan hissed in his Irish brogue, then apologized to Felicity.

  “The same words crossed my mind.”

  After allowing the smoke to clear, Felicity studied the machine. Still in her riding clothes, she got down on her hands and knees on the dirty wooden floor of the workshop. Even if she had been wearing an expensive gown, she would have done the same thing to decipher the problem. “Mr. Ryan, I believe one of the wires in the dish compartments has come loose and stopped up the motor.” She pointed to the trouble spot.

  Ryan gazed at it and shook his head in agreement. “Good eye, Miss Felicity. We’ll fix it and have another go.”

  “Excellent. After we get this running, I’d like to discuss constructing a windmill to generate power.”

  “Sounds interesting, Miss.”

  They both coughed from the still-present smoke.

  The dish-wash machine was just one of the modernizations Felicity planned to bring to Carrol Manor.

  The installation of electric lights throughout the manor, including in the servant rooms, had been completed the previous fall. Although some of the workers had confessed a scare at light blazing on with a switch, within a month there were no complaints. Many even confessed they enjoyed no longer having to go about the house lighting and then extinguishing candles and lamps, as well as not having to stumble about in a dark room. In the evening, the manor’s windows glowed white with the electricity in place of the yellow from the candles. Felicity thought it looked like progress from afar.

  But her proudest achievement was bringing education to the manor. She had hired a young teacher to instruct the servants’ children, and any adult servant, for that matter, on how to read and write. A schoolroom had been set up in one corner of the manor’s ballroom. Many of the employees attended, which pleased her immensely. Once they did learn to read, the servants were invited to borrow any of the books in the manor’s extensive library. Felicity considered adding another teacher to include lessons in history, mathematics, and art and planned to put similar schools in place at the family mills and shipping line.

  She loved to learn and had spent four years studying an array of subjects from chemistry to literature at the University of London and gaining degrees in medicine and history. Her father, however, had disapproved of her education and wanted her married off. When she was old enough, he requested that she attend balls and other social events to meet a suitable young man—the only times he did talk with her. Felicity hated the balls, teas, and galas. The other young women in attendance were vacant as empty palaces, the men solely interested in her fortune. Felicity soon grew bored with their simple conversations about fashion, home, and other social activities. In turn, the women eyed her with suspicion. She wasn’t one of them, but something else entirely. Turning the manor’s ballroom into a school was an infinitely better use for the space than swirling gowns, dress coats, and hollow conversations.

  Yet Felicity’s main preoccupation was crime. Located away from the manor, her new crime laboratory held the latest scientific equipment. There she also kept files on the murder cases she had solved and the ones still requiring attention,
as well as books on the oldest and newest methods of criminal investigation.

  She imagined her grandfather Anthony Carrol, who had built the grand place, whirling in his grave at all the changes. Good thing she didn’t believe in that sort of thing.

  After leaving the workshop, Felicity traveled through the kitchen, greeted the staff, and picked up an apple from a bowl on a counter. She headed upstairs to her room to read books on crime detection, which was one of her favorite pastimes when she wasn’t busy with her own investigations. Felicity prepared to continue reading the works of French chemistry professor Mathieu Orfila, who had started publishing in 1814. Among his many achievements, he had studied the way a body decomposed and the effects of asphyxiation and was credited as the first person to utilize a microscope to evaluate blood and semen stains. He appeared regularly as a medical expert in criminal cases.

  As she started to read, a knock sounded on the door. “Come in.”

  “Sorry to bother you, but this note was delivered and marked urgent.” Helen held the paper out for Felicity.

  “Thank you, Hellie.”

  “Ring if you need me.” Helen left quietly. Felicity had already started to read the note.

  Written on plain white paper, the handwriting was neat but almost childlike.

  To Miss Felicity Carrol, Carrol Manor, Surrey,

  I have heard Jackson speak of you fondly and often. My son is a proud man and would not ask for your help, but I am not too proud to ask. I love my son very much and he does need your assistance.

  Please come visit him.

  It is a matter of life or death.

  With all the best,

  Mrs. Joanna Davies

  Life or death.

  Felicity set down the book, bolted out of her chair, and began to change her clothes. The note seemed to burn in her hand from its desperation.