CORNERING A KILLER
Chapter 10.Dangling the Bait
Morning Musings
Mrs. Carson was upstairs, as she usually was mid-morning, checking on the work of the maids, when she heard the car pull up out front. Her attention shifted abruptly from the tightly folded sheet corners of the bed - good work by Grace - to Mr. Barrow's mission, and she moved over to the long windows and looked out. Lady Mary, dressed for an outing, was speaking with Her Ladyship. Mr. Stark stood waiting by the car door. And on the far side of the vehicle there was Mr. Barrow, looking almost foreign in his grey suit. She did not often see him out of his livery.
Even in her concentration, she heard a familiar soft tread in the passage and knew, before he spoke, that her husband had come up behind her. He was a big man, but he moved so lightly, a consequence perhaps of a lifetime's consideration for the family. She didn't turn to greet him, but did lean back into him as he reached her side. Marriage had brought a welcome change to many of the ways in which they interacted, but she counted the smallest of intimacies, like this one, among those she treasured the most.
"He's off then," Mr. Carson said, as the doors slammed below and the car rolled slowly down the drive.
"We're starting something with this," she said gravely, "and no matter which way it goes, it'll take on a momentum of its own. I hope we've done the right thing."
"We have," he said, with confidence. "For Anna and for justice as well."
"I worry that Edna is even more capable than we know her to be," she admitted.
To her surprise, her husband slipped his arms around her and held her closely for a long moment. In his embrace it was almost possible to let the low-level sense of dread that had enveloped her all morning slip away.
"Well, she'll hardly try to kill him today," he said.
In the Lion's Den
Lady Mary said nothing to him about why he was to accompany her to Cross Harbour. It was neither his place nor his inclination to discuss the matter with her. He didn't even know how much she knew. And he didn't care either. Like the Carsons, her primary concern was Anna and lifting the veil of shadow that seemed perpetually to fall on the Bateses.
Thomas had other concerns. Avenging Christopher, whether the young footmen ever even knew about it, was certainly among them. But he'd begun to appreciate that Christopher was only part of a larger animating force. Cornering Edna was an opportunity to strike back on behalf of all men 'like that,' himself included. They operated of necessity in the shadows which made them inherently vulnerable to exploitation or coercion by others, putting them in the passive role of victims to be acted upon. It was an insidious position that Thomas had resented and resisted all his life. This venture was one more battle that he might wage in this all but silent war. That the enemy, in this instance, was someone he considered reprehensible made the operation only that much sweeter. And to think that Mr. and Mrs. Carson, and even Lady Mary, were allies in his cause!
Lady Mary did put it to him that he would have to find his own way back, but that didn't trouble him. He would see Edna sometime in the early afternoon - it was a relatively flexible part of the day for a lady's maid - and then walk into town, catch the bus to Durham, and be in time for the evening train to York. Once there, he hoped that Mr. Carson would send a car for him, although he wasn't going to hold his breath on that one.
They'd given some thought, the three of them, as to how best to approach Edna, about whether to give her advance notice or just to appear out of nowhere, and concluded unanimously that taking her by surprise was to their advantage. She was a shrewd shrew and they had to play every card they had in this dangerous game.
That it was dangerous was an assumption clearly on everyone's mind. Thomas acknowledged this as readily as did the Carsons, but it did not much worry him. He had been terrified every minute he had spent in the trenches during the war, and every minute he'd been anywhere else, too, in those hellish years in anticipation of having to go back. In theory, any threat to one's life ought to inspire the same level of dread, but it didn't work that way. In the trenches, death was brutally arbitrary and all the survival skills he had cultivated meant nothing there. His confrontation with Edna Braithwaite, on the other hand, would be a battle of wit and nerve, and Thomas had never met his match in either.
He lost a measure of surprise when he did not find her in the servants' hall at Cross Harbour and she had to be summoned. Thomas affected a pose of nonchalance among the other servants who cast curious looks at him. Perhaps it was the idea of Edna having a visitor that interested them. Or perhaps strangers were rare at Cross Harbour. He had to give his name, so she would have at least a few moments to prepare herself, but he hoped that she would be rattled all the same.
At length, she appeared.
Edna Braithwaite was a small, slight woman, not unlike Anna in build. She was, to Thomas's mind, very ordinary-looking, with hair a nondescript shade of brown and without waves or curls to enliven it. Her face, like her hair, was very plain and her eyes, too, were unremarkable. Edna had drawn his interest, during her brief interval as a lady's maid at Downton, only because of her sharp mind and capacity for intrigue. Whatever other charms she had - and she must have some, for she had mesmerized the ill-fated Lord Bracken and wooed Tom Branson - these escaped Thomas. Or perhaps it was that he was impervious to her skills of manipulation.
She wasn't pleased to see him. He knew that at a glance. Their last exchange had been a cutting one, involving an exchange of insults in which he had gotten the better of her. She could have no inkling of why he was here and this made her vulnerable. But she knew how to mislead an audience, so she pasted a smile on her face and greeted him cordially, if not warmly. He replied in kind and invited her for a walk. She accepted, no doubt with a view of sending him on his way at the earliest opportunity, and they made their way out the coal yard door and then onto one of the gravel paths of the estate beyond it. She did not want anyone to overhear their conversation, which was just as well, because neither did he.
"Lady's maid," Thomas mused, looking about him as they walked. Cross Harbour was in good order. Estates were falling like nine pins these days, but they were doing all right here. Well, this would have to be so in order to attract Edna. "You're nicely placed here."
She nodded. "It's a good post." Like Thomas, Edna gave away as little as possible.
"I wish I was so secure."
Edna laughed. "Finally caught on to you, have they?"
Thomas smiled humourlessly. "No," he said lightly. "It's more mundane than that. They're tightening the belt, looking to make cuts. Who needs an underbutler these days? I heard His Lordship say so himself."
That Edna was not at all interested in making conversation with him was obvious. But until he showed his colours, she had to play along. "I thought you were angling for butler," she said.
"So I was," Thomas admitted gloomily. "Mr. Carson should retire. He's old enough. Instead," he paused to add more drama to the moment, "he's gotten married. To Mrs. Hughes."
He had astonished her. She stared at him in shock. When at Downton, Edna had had little regard for the housekeeper, and even less for the butler. Now she threw back her head and laughed aloud. "Those two old fogeys! How ridiculous!" Her laughter was laced with contempt.
It was only what Thomas himself had thought at first, but the scorn in her voice got his back up all the same. Downton was, for better or for worse, like a family. His own family had not been pleasant so he did not necessarily associate love and warmth with such a relation. Family rules allowed him, as a member in good standing, to criticize the Carsons and anyone else, but did extend this privilege to outsiders. He resented her presumption. But he had to maintain his focus here.
"Yes," he said aggressively. "He's old and then he gets married - good reasons for retiring twice over - and then I'd have gotten the job." That there was a real sense of grievance here allowed him to play the part effectively. "Instead, everyone cheered them on. His Lordship even paid for their wedding and reception. And served as best man, if you can believe it. And I'm shortly to be out on my ear. Depressing, really. Mr. Carson keeps urging me to find work." Again the real sense of precariousness in his position at Downton added a genuine bitterness to his remarks.
"How terrible," Edna said, with evident insincerity.
Thomas let a few seconds of silence tick by. "Which is why I've dropped in on you," he said, his voice suddenly quiet but calculating.
"Well, there's no work here," she said bluntly.
"I wasn't thinking of work."
She sniffed indignantly. "I'm hardly in a position to make you a loan, nor would I if I could."
He would have expected no less in any situation. Edna wasn't the friendly sort.
"I'm not looking for a loan," he went on, maintaining a muted tone. "More of a goodwill offering, on a regular basis, to encourage me to ... forget ... things I know."
She stopped and turned to face him. They had passed through a thicket and were now standing in a glade, well screened from the house some distance behind them.
"What are you on about?" She affected a tone of irritated bewilderment and he had to hand it to her, she was good. It was something an innocent person might say.
"The day after the house party, I was standing in the Great Hall when you spoke to Mr. Branson," he said evenly. "I heard what you said."
She did not blink. "So?"
"I know about your ... pregnancy...charade," he added.
Her eyes searched his for a long moment. "You know nought," she said dismissively, and turned away.
Thomas wasn't discouraged. "Thing is," he continued, "I've been to Chesley Park."
A less capable liar would have given herself away with a double-take, but Edna held her own counsel and did not even flinch. Only after a few seconds elapsed did she slowly look his way again.
Once more he was impressed with her poise. She gave nothing away. And yet there was something, must be something, else she would have turned on her heel and left.
"That means nothing to me," she said dispassionately.
"It may mean something to your current employer," he persisted, "even if you've lowered your sights from the heir to a visiting viscount or a boring baronet. No one wants a scheming maid with aspirations above her station around vulnerable men."
Her nose crinkled in disgust as though she had suddenly caught wind of him and found him smelling foul. "It's all rot what you're saying."
"We could let the Edgertons hear your story and make up their mind for themselves, shall we? I've got nothing to lose." He spoke in an airy tone. It was one of the pleasures of his life to put people in uncomfortable positions and watch how they fared.
She made a dismissive sound. "Don't you. Telling tales like that about Tom Branson. You wouldn't embarrass the Crawleys like that."
Thomas laughed. "You've mistaken me for Mr. Carson. Mr. Branson is gone to America and they're going to sack me anyway. What do I care for them? And I never knew Lord Bracken in the first place, so his reputation doesn't matter to me either."
"You are an oily, repulsive man!" She was trying for indignation.
It was difficult for him to suppress a smug smile. It was almost like playing a fish on a hook. "Just trying to secure my future," he said lightly.
"By using lies to extort money from a lady's maid? Do you know how little there is to steal?"
Her claims to victimhood glanced off of him. "A little better than a footman's wages," he said coldly. He wanted her to know that he knew about Christopher. "Anyway." He shook his head, not wanting to fog his brain with useless distractions. "I have confidence that you'll strike it rich for both of us, and soon, if we can just keep past indiscretions quiet." The allusion to her future was deliberate. He wanted her to know that this was not a one-time thing. If she felt the millstone tightening about her neck forever, she might be prompted to a foolish act.
It was interesting, Thomas mused, to watch someone think. He'd had opportunity in recent weeks to observe Mrs. Carson at it and come to appreciate the inner workings of her mind as something akin to a finely-made clock. There was a precision there, and a complexity as there was with all perfectly tuned instruments. He had watched her weigh up the advantages and disadvantages of confiding in him almost as though she were solving a mathematical equation. He saw a similar process unfolding now behind Edna's eyes, although the mechanisms there were somewhat cruder.
"I had nought to do with Lord Bracken." For all the consternation his words must have caused her, she spoke calmly. "There was a maid he was involved with. Surely Michael Hambly told you that."
So he had, Thomas thought, remembering the sour first footman. But then, Michael had been wrong.
"And Mr. Branson seduced me," Edna went on boldly, "and Mrs. Hughes sacked me for it. She has more regard for the family than you do, apparently. That's how those people work. You've just said it yourself."
Thomas nodded appreciatively. "Cheeky," he said. "You are clever. I'm glad you brought up the maid. Leah Close," he added. "That was her name. You see, that reminds me of the other strand in this complicated web of yours. Mr. Green."
A little line creased her forehead. Once more it might have been a natural reaction of confusion in the face of an innocent person. Here though ... was it the concern of someone implicated?
"Who?"
He laughed sharply and ignored her question. "Did you know about Mr. Green and his predilection for assaulting women? Or was the knowledge of ill-doings all on his side?"
"What are you on about?"
They stared at each for a long moment. Thomas hesitated. It was at least possible that she was genuinely bewildered on this point.
"No," he decided. "If you'd known, it'd have been him in the tight position, not you." She was looking at him as though he were a sideshow attraction. "Your friend Mr. Green," he reiterated.
She scoffed. "He wasn't my friend."
"I've been to Chesley Park. Remember?" he chided her. "I know better. Well, he attacked women, Mr. Green did. Leah Close at Chesley Park. Anna Bates at Downton. And a few others besides. He was a nasty piece of work in more ways than one. A rapist. A blackmailer." He paused. "See, I know about that, too."
"And he wasn't just blackmailing a hapless footman for his paltry pennies a week, was he?" Thomas went on relentlessly, though he maintained a solemn tone. "He knew about you and Lord Bracken. And about Mr. Branson. I know that because I ran into him when I was listening in on you, too, that morning in the Great Hall."
Was that a telltale flicker in her eyes? Her impassive countenance was giving way to an impatient sullenness. She shifted in irritation.
"And then there was his strange death, falling into the street from a crowded pavement in Piccadilly."
"Really." She was beginning to bristle.
"Yeah. An accident. So they thought at first. Only then witnesses came forward. Now the police are interested. They think it's murder. Fortunately - for you - they think it's our Anna who did it." He snorted derisively at that. "Anna. Thing is, I'm not unhappy to let them continue to think it's her. I've never liked her. And it would be a right pleasure to see Bates destroyed by it." He smiled knowingly at her. They had come together over a little conspiracy against the Bateses, so she would accept his sentiments here as genuine. "All I'm interested in is my own welfare," he added. "We could help each other." He smiled ingratiatingly.
Her face contorted in contempt. "I've had enough. More than enough. You know what I think of you."
He was not discouraged by her reaction. If she'd crumpled before his attack, he would have been disappointed. But he wasn't quite finished and he grabbed her arm before she could storm off, and leaned in to speak into her ear.
"You're angry. It's disconcerting to have your secrets unearthed, your well-laid plans threatened. You need time to think about it. I'll give you one week. If I don't have the first payment in my hands by Thursday morning, then there will be a letter in the afternoon post to Lord and Lady Edgerton. And once I've mailed it, I'll drop in on Downton's constable and tell him everything I know about Mr. Green."
She wrenched her arm from his grasp even as he was half-flinging her from him.
"Don't test me," he called after her.
She paused only long enough to spit out, "I hope they do sack you!"
"One week, Miss Braithwaite," he called after her.
Thomas watched her go. Then he drew out his cigarettes, carefully extracted one from the package and lit it. For a long moment he inhaled and blew artistic smoke rings, one of his lesser talents.
He'd made sure to get his bearings earlier as they'd driven out to Cross Harbour and now he took a moment to orient himself and then set out for town. As he walked, his mind drifted to the Carsons. They'd done a good job - she'd done a good job, he corrected himself - in putting the pieces together, at least as far as identifying Edna as the culprit. But they'd have gotten no farther without him. Now they were poised on the edge of success.
"I might have missed my calling," he said aloud to himself. And then smiled at his own humour.
Ahead of him the sky was grey. He wondered absently if he could escape getting wet and why it was he hadn't thought to bring an umbrella.
On the Platform*
He was in a pub in Durham when the rain began. Glancing at his watch, he decided he had time for another pint. Evenings off were a rare thing for a servant and he'd only end up standing in the wet at the station. He welcomed the soothing brew, an antidote to the restlessness that had begun to settle on him. Although Cross Harbour was well behind him, he'd felt a heightened sense of alertness enveloping him. It was a measure of his success.
Ever since his trip to Chesley Park he had been convinced of Edna's guilt. The pieces fit together precisely. The little grey cells, as Hercules Poirot might have said (for Thomas read detective novels, too), had done their work. But thus far they had been working on the outside of this puzzle and it had had the feel of an abstract exercise, however intellectually sound it seemed. The conversation with Edna had taken him inside the heart of the problem, though, and now he knew they were right. She had lingered with him too long, listened to his allegations too carefully, played the role of the outraged innocent too perfectly. They could move forward now in certainty.
How they were to do that remained as yet a mystery all its own, but Thomas was not unduly worried. It was his experience that if you let something turn over in your mind long enough, then ideas eventually emerged. And his was not the only brain at work. He did not doubt that Mrs. Carson had long been considering this next stage.
He paid the bill and set out for the station, turning the collar of his jacket up against the elements, though it was a futile effort. The sky was dark with rain clouds and as he approached the platform, the downpour intensified. The few dozen people already there were much better prepared for the weather, almost all of them wearing rain slickers and huddled under umbrellas. The drabness of their clothing - it seemed that all was as grey as the sky - and of the dark shells of their umbrellas made Thomas think of pictures of ancient hulking stone monuments that he'd seen in a geographical magazine, unmoving and indistinct. The only exception were three young men at the far end who appeared oblivious to the weather and who were jostling and jeering at each other in a manner that made it clear they'd spent much of the afternoon in a pub.
Thomas made his way to that end of the platform that he might board the train immediately after it stopped. He wanted to get out of the wet as fast as possible and he peered down the tracks, willing the train to arrive. His timing was sound. Within a few minutes, the gratifying clanking and chuffing of the great iron horse reached his ears and in his eagerness, he stepped closer to the platform edge and stared down the line, as though urging it to hurry its approach, not that it would do him much good. He was soaked through by this point. Other impatient travellers began to crowd the line as well, filling in on either side of him and obliging the inebriated revellers to crowd him, elbows bumping his.
He cast them a disapproving look - not that any of them noticed it for they were now engaged in a shoving contest - and he turned away. Hardly had he turned his back when one of them slammed into him. Angry now he whirled around, turning too sharply in his disdain, and suddenly found himself off balance and pitching forward ... into the way of the oncoming train.
His limbs were flailing madly and then it was as though he were frozen in mid-air, crystallized by the cold light of the train's blinding headlamps. He could see nothing. But he knew he was about to die.
And then rough hands grabbed him and dragged him back, and the light passed him by with a stream of steaming steel that seemed to miss him by inches.
"What're ye thinkin', mate?"
"Had one too many, didja?"
"Ye might've been killed!"
He had recoiled from their touch only a moment ago and now clung to them, speechless in the magnitude of his hair's-breadth escape.
They bundled him into the first compartment and then got in with him. And there, in these close quarters, inhaling the fumes of their evening indulgence, their words swirled around them, their rescue exploit rousing them to boisterous claims and cheers of their own valour. Occasionally they remembered him, too, and pounded him on the shoulder and slapped him affectionately on the side of the head, calling him out for his foolishness, but proud of themselves nonetheless.
It was the kind of situation he normally abhorred, this close contact with these calloused youths who, in other circumstances, might have turned on him. But in this moment he could only be grateful to them. Grateful. They had saved his life! He had trod train platforms hundreds of times in his life and never given a thought to the potential hazard. He could have been killed!
Someone thrust a flask into his hands and he drank deeply from it. The whisky had a calming effect on his fraught nerves and helped to stave off the chill that swept him as a returning awareness of his physical state reminded him that he was soaked through.
With his senses recovering, the terror of what must have been only a split second of peril receded somewhat and his mind began to clear. He returned to the moment on the platform, to the foolish impatience that had led him to stray too close to the track, to his reflex recoil from these very men, to the momentary imbalance caused by a shoulder slamming into him when the leg on which he had been balancing gave way...
But it hadn't given way.
This came to him quite abruptly and he grasped through the haze for the memory of that instant just before his terrifying plunge. No, it hadn't given way, he realized. It was pulled out from under him.
Thomas spent the remainder of the journey to York in silence, smiling automatically but without any investment in the gesture at his eager rescuers who occasionally tried to corral him into a celebration of their heroic feat. At their destination, Thomas found himself oddly impatient at the slowness with which the train pulled up to the platform and almost abrupt in response to the good-natured warnings of his guardians about repeating his misadventure. He remembered himself enough to thank them again, but shook off their helping hands and bid them goodbye with relief.
He would not be falling again from the platform into the path of a train because he had not done so in the first place. With this knowledge pounding inside his head, he looked around madly for a telephone box and was more than relieved when he finally sighted one, and hastily put a call through to Downton. He hoped to catch Mr. Carson before he went upstairs for the family's dinner. If not, there would be no car sent for him and it would be ages before he reached the Abbey and he was, uncharacteristically, bursting with a compulsion to confide his news, if only in part.
"Downton Abbey. Mr. Carson speaking."
Oh! He was glad to hear that familiar baritone!
"Mr. Carson!"
He did not realize the extent of the maelstrom of emotion to which the incident in Durham had had given rise until he heard his own overwrought tone reflected back to him in the butler's response.
"Mr. Barrow! Are you all right?"
"More than all right," Thomas said, almost breathlessly. "We've got her, Mr. Carson!"
There was a long pause at the other end of the telephone.
"I'll send a car."
*Author's Note: With apologies to Agatha Christie for this. Let's call is an hommage and accept that it is indeed consistent with Edna Braithwaite's methods.
