CORNERING A KILLER

Chapter 13 The Calm Before the Storm

At Breakfast

The Carsons occasionally ate breakfast alone together at the cottage. He had come to prefer it that way, though he accepted the necessity of presiding over the servants' table most of the time. She was more ambivalent. In the past an early morning at the Abbey had allowed her to get some work done before breakfast. These days she appreciated more than ever not having to prepare the food. This Saturday morning, however, they were both determined to be on hand. That there were guests in the house gave them a formal reason. But neither wanted to forego a moment of oversight when Edna was around.

"I hope the special food requirements aren't too much of a burden for you," Carson said to Mrs. Patmore as she delivered a plate of sausages to the table.

"I've fed the Sinderbys before," Mrs. Patmore replied, not at all perturbed.

"Mind you get his tea right," said Lord Sinderby's valet. "He has his own blend."

"I know," Mrs. Patmore said acridly. "You mentioned it yesterday."

"If it isn't brewed just right, it will be hell on earth for all concerned."

Mrs. Patmore might have responded with a more cutting remark, but was distracted by the Edgerton's valet who was putting away copious amounts of eggs and sausage and toast and... "I'd rather pay his board than feed him," she murmured, to no one in particular and without much of an effort at muting her words. Mrs. Carson cast a reproving look her way, but Mrs. Patmore only smiled impudently in response before retiring to the kitchen.

The housekeeper turned her attention to the man beside her. "You look tired, Mr. Barrow." He did. And she didn't wonder. The Carsons had had each other for comfort and had managed to sleep at last. But they had not had to worry for their own security. Out of the corner of her eye, Mrs. Carson saw Edna Braithwaite go very still at these words, though her gaze remained fixed on the food before her. It was a tricky business trying to decide whether or not to acknowledge or play up Mr. Barrow's vulnerability, but they had all concluded that they must behave in ways that might induce Edna to act.

"I'm all right," Barrow said curtly. He had slept fitfully, roused to consciousness at frequent intervals by some internal conviction that the string on his finger had tightened. Every time he had found himself alone in the darkness of his room and struggled to sleep again.

A bell rang and Anna immediately got up. "That's Lady Mary," she said superfluously.

The Carsons glanced at each other. Lady Mary had wanted to do her part. Keeping Anna occupied and out of the way had seemed an appropriate task.

Mr. Carson sought out the underbutler. "Mr. Barrow, I want you to make Lord Sinderby your particular concern this weekend. We want all our guests to leave Downton believing they have been attended to with care."

Barrow gave a stiff nod but he was not at all pleased. Sinderby was never satisfied with anything and Barrow had had the displeasure of falling afoul of him - inadvertently - more than once.

"And don't forget that there's the wine to shelve this morning. I expect that will keep you occupied until lunch."

"Yes, Mr. Carson."

When Mr. Carson stood up everyone else at the table stood with him, the meal at an end. Once more the butler's gaze fell on his immediate subordinate. "I've set aside the morning papers for you, Mr. Barrow. They're on my desk. You might give them a look through, see if you find anything interesting." Then the butler's eyes swept the table. "There is much to do this morning. Let us begin." He turned away abruptly, more to avoid any possibility of an exchange with Edna Braithwaite than anything else, and busied himself with the diary for the day.

The Sinderby's valet caught Barrow's eye. "He's not half kicking you out the door, is he?"

Barrow gave him a cold look. "That's his idea of being helpful," he said with a sarcastic tone. In other circumstances he might have responded that Mr. Carson was several cuts above the Sinderbys' butler, Mr. Stowell, but in the moment he could not with honesty say that.

The Edgerton's valet had also paused. "What does an underbutler do, anyway?"

"Everything a butler wants to avoid it looks like," the Sinderby valet quipped. Perhaps he felt he was pushing Barrow too far with that for he quickly disappeared up the passage.

Mrs. Carson affected to have some interest in the house diary and so went to stand close by her husband.

"You're keeping him busy," she murmured.

"We're all busy," he replied, as quietly. "I am trying to create opportunities. The stairs to the wine cellar are deep and made of stone. Prime conditions for an accident." He glanced over his shoulder, but the room had cleared but for the kitchen staff clearing the table. Now he met his wife's gaze. "And we'll know where he is this morning, at least. It'll be easier to keep an eye on that door."

"You didn't have to saddle him with Lord Sinderby."

"We still have a job to do and who else am I going to saddle with him? Molesley?"

He had a point.

"Where is she anyway?" he asked, speaking sotto voce.

"Upstairs for a while. Attending to Lady Edgerton."

"In the cold hard light of day, I'm wondering what we're trying to do," he said, his eyes reflecting the apprehensions that had made sleep difficult for her hours before. "I'll do what I can this morning, but I've got to be upstairs most of the time."

They were agreed on the difficulty of the situation. "I'll keep watch."

The Morning Unfolds

After supervising the clearing up of breakfast upstairs, Barrow descended to the servants' floor once more and unexpectedly put his head in the housekeeper's door.

"I'll be in the wine cellar," he announced, jangling the key as he spoke.

"You are tired," she said again and this did worry her.

He shrugged and made to go.

"Thomas." It slipped out, the familiar address, and showed the strain she felt, too, for the hierarchy of the downstairs was as clearly etched in her mind as in that of her husband who more conscientiously adhered to formal social structures.

It was this lapse into familiarity that made him pause and he waited for her to speak.

"Mr. Carson isn't quite as heartless as he comes across," she said. She'd winced at her husband's artless remarks with regard to the underbutler's employment prospects at the breakfast table. She might have said more on the subject, but this wasn't the time. Only she wanted to give Mr. Barrow a little encouragement. He was putting his life on the line here and deserved some assurance in the bargain.

Not surprisingly, he was unconvinced. "Really."

With a bit of a sigh, Mrs. Carson watched him go. Her eyes dropped to the accounting ledger before her on the desk, but her mind was still with Mr. Barrow. Ordinarily she sat with her back to the door of her office, the better to ignore the mundane goings-on of a morning at Downton, but in anticipation of this weekend, she had shifted things about a bit, so that movement in the passage might reside within her peripheral vision. Her wisdom in doing so was vindicated only a moment later as a shadow just beyond her door caught her eye. There was something not there as well - sound. Whatever - whoever - had flitted by had done so without the usual tell-tale sounds.

She got to her feet and poked her head into the corridor in time to see Edna Braithwaite disappearing at the end of the passage.

Elsie's heart thumped in her chest and suddenly she found herself breathing hard. Was this it? Was Edna about to take the opportunity created by Thomas's descent into the wine cellar to make an attempt on his life? It was a prime location for a nefarious act, accessible from a side passage off the kitchen which led to the larder off one side and the cellar off the other, with the coal bin door at the end. It was possible to slip in and out of it without notice and the thick stone walls of the cellar itself, a remnant from the ancient days of the pre-Reformation era when the Abbey had served the Church, muffled any sound. Furthermore, no one but Mr. Carson and Mr. Barrow had any business there and so interruptions were unlikely.

What was she supposed to do?

It took all the self-possession in her nature to keep from dashing down the passage. Instead she moved with a deliberate calm, emulating the lady's maid in her stealth. She'd had occasion to want to move as quietly as a cat herself and knew that it could be done, even in work shoes and on the stone surface of the corridor.

And then she heard voices in the kitchen and relief swept over her. That was Edna and she was speaking to Daisy. Had her chance at Mr. Barrow been inadvertently thwarted?

Elsie paused only so long as it took to restore her breathing and then crept forward until she stood just outside the kitchen. She knew the best spot to take for listening in on conversations there. She'd done it before.

"...still hard at it in the Downton kitchens, I see."

"I'm an assistant cook now." Daisy's words contained a justifiable measure of pride, as well they might. Though she still had to do much of the cleaning up and maintenance chores that had fallen to a kitchen maid, her new position had at least given her more responsibilities, the opportunity occasionally to exercise control over a meal, and six shillings more a week, which was nothing to sneeze at.

Clearly Daisy had heard something critical in the lady's maid's tone and so countered with her own challenge. "You left here in a hurry. Just to be a lady's maid somewhere else? They're all the same."

"No," Edna said lightly. "Not quite. Some houses are more pleasant than others."

"You'll not find better conditions than at Downton," Daisy said emphatically. She did sometimes chafe under the unfairness of the system, but there was much that was agreeable at Downton. "We all get on."

"Well...not all of you. Look at poor Mr. Barrow."

"Why 'poor'?"

In her mind's eye, Elsie could see the look of bewilderment that would be on Daisy's face at Edna's remark.

"He's not likely to be here much longer, is he? You can't be happy when you don't know when you'll be sacked."

"They'll not turn him out on his ear," Daisy said, though there was a little hesitation in her voice. She'd heard Mr. Carson's hard words, after all. "Not when he's been here that long," she added hopefully.

Edna Braithwaite snorted dismissively. "There's no loyalty to him upstairs and he's not popular downstairs, is he?"

"I wouldn't say that." But Daisy sounded uncertain now.

"I think he's close to the breaking point," Edna went on. "I've only been here a day and I can see he's not at all himself."

"Well, he has been edgy recently," Daisy admitted.

"That's just what I said. How much of that can a man take, I wonder."

Elsie rolled her eyes at this. Mr. Barrow was far more resilient than Edna gave him credit for. But she could see what the woman was doing here, sowing seeds of doubt about the underbutler's mental health. Suicide - or a death that looked like suicide - would strike others as believable if they'd already been primed for it.

She was distracted by footsteps behind her, coming down the stairs two at a time, and she moved swiftly into the boot room so as to avoid having to greet and be greeted by Master George Crawley. Though he only ever came downstairs in search of Mr. Barrow, Master George was, like his father before him, unfailingly polite and he would have given away her presence.

"Good morning, Miss Daisy!" he said brightly as he burst into the kitchen. Then there was a pause. He didn't know Edna Braithwaite.

"Good morning, Master George!" There was an unfamiliar sing-song quality in Daisy's response. The fair-haired little boy with a sunny disposition brought out the best in all of them, not only in the underbutler.

"I suppose you're looking for Mr. Barrow," Daisy said. It wasn't a real question. "He's in the wine cellar."

"Thank you!" The little boy went tripping away to the back passage.

"Isn't that Lady Mary's son?" For the first time possibly in their acquaintance, Elsie heard surprise in Edna's voice.

"Yes."

"What's he doing down here?"

"He likes to visit in the kitchen," Daisy said. "But Mr. Barrow is his particular friend."

"Mr. Barrow?" Surprise shifted to astonishment.

"Mr. Barrow plays with him," Daisy explained. "They have grand long walks and talks. And Mr. Barrow is teaching him how to play cricket out on the lawn, when it's nice."

Though Edna said nothing, Daisy was prompted to add, "It's not that strange. Lady Mary was Mr. Carson's pet. Master George is Mr. Barrow's." Daisy conveyed this information with a casualness that bespoke the widespread acceptance of this upstairs-downstairs confluence between senior servants and upstairs children. Elsie recalled that she had not always been so supportive of this dynamic as it was manifested in the relationship between Mr. Carson and Lady Mary, thinking it an indulgence of an already indulged child. But over time she had come to appreciate how much the connection meant to both parties concerned. No one, Mr. Carson least of all, would begrudge a like friendship between Master George and Thomas Barrow.

Edna's next words shattered Elsie's nostalgic reverie.

"I can't see how two men with no kindness in them could draw children," Edna said waspishly. "I didn't think Mr. Barrow cared for anyone."

"Well, he cares for Master George," Daisy said with an air of finality.

The rattle of the child's footsteps interrupted them again and Master George erupted into the kitchen once more.

"What? Did you not find him?"

"Mr. Barrow can't come out and play Saint George and the Dragon," Master George declared, obviously disappointed.

"How about a biscuit instead?"

"Yes, please!"

"Do you play with Mr. Barrow often?"

To anyone else this might have seemed an innocuous and natural question to pose to the boy, but Elsie heard something sinister in every utterance of Edna's.

"He's my best friend!" Master George declared.

"Isn't that lovely. Well, I must get on. Lady Edgerton likes to change for lunch."

An eavesdropper had to be nimble. As Edna Braithwaite moved into the passage, this time without trying to do so silently, Elsie made to stride by her into the kitchen. She nodded in passing to the lady's maid and then said, more stridently than she would normally have done, "Is Mrs. Patmore not back yet?"

She only half-listened to Daisy's response. Relief had flooded her. Mr. Barrow would be in the wine cellar until he had to attend at lunch and in the meantime Edna Braithwaite was on her way upstairs. For the moment she could breathe easily again.

In the Courtyard

"I wish you'd told me she'd been in the kitchen before I had my lunch," Mr. Carson told his wife. "I'd have found some reason to skip the meal altogether."

It was early afternoon, the least hectic time of day for the servants, and they were standing in the yard. There they could see all about them and ensure that they were not being overheard. There was no secure place within the house.

"You couldn't do that," she said. It was important that the staff, especially the male staff, were properly fed. There was nothing so gauche as the sound of a growling stomach at a formal meal upstairs and nothing so unforgivable as that the sound might emanate from a hungry servant.

"Are you considering the poison possibility now then?" she asked, a little acerbically. He'd dismissed it as too dangerous when she'd raised it.

"As you said, the reality of her being right here puts a different perspective on things," he conceded.

"Mmm. Where is he now?"

"Making sure that all the silver is properly polished for the grand dinner tonight. Where is she?"

"Upstairs. Allegedly attending to Lady Edgerton's evening dress. I'm about to go up and make sure of that." She told him of the morning's events. "Nothing came of it and I was still trembling for several minutes after I returned to my office. I can't imagine how Mr. Barrow is coping with the constant threat." She crossed her arms and ran her hands up and down as though chilled. "What a weekend."

"Let us hope that she acts, we catch her, Mr. Barrow survives, and we can all go back to our normal lives," he said rapidly, under his breath, and then added, "I'm not an adventurer, you know."

She laughed aloud. He imparted this last confidence as though it might come as a shock to her. Of course it was no such thing. The last thing anyone would call her Mr. Carson was an adventurer. "Oh my," she gasped, trying to contain herself.

He frowned at her levity. She was quick to laugh at what she regarded as his pomposity. It had always been thus. But this was hardly an appropriate moment to indulge in it. He stood stiffly, helpless before her mirth as was also always the case. And then, his best defense, he ignored her, his eyes shifting uneasily along the row of windows on the gallery.

"We'd best go in. We've no business out here and it might look suspicious were she to look out and see us conferring."

It was true enough that the butler and the housekeeper had no reason to seek any privacy more absolute than that which they might find in their respective offices. But they were no longer just the butler and the housekeeper of Downton Abbey.

Impulsively Elsie reached up and kissed her husband.

His eyes went wide in shock and his over-developed sense of propriety had him blustering the second her lips ceased to press against his. But she only smiled mischievously and said, "Sometimes Mr. and Mrs. Carson have business that must be addressed beyond the walls of Downton Abbey."

Despite himself, he returned her smile. She had a way with her, his Elsie did.

The Wrong Door

Mrs. Carson strode along the gallery with a confident air. This was her domain and she could without any hesitation or need for excuses ensure that Edna Braithwaite was where she said she'd be. At this time of day it was unusual to find any of the family or their guests in their rooms and so the doors were all open. Privacy and service did not coexist for either servants or the family.

So she marched purposefully into the room occupied by the Edgertons - it was Herbert - and looked around, prepared to offer, if challenged, that old standby of about checking up on the maids' work.*

But the room was empty. Edna Braithwaite was not where she had said she'd be.

This was a puzzlement. Edna wasn't downstairs. Nor would she be on the main floor. And Mrs. Carson had not passed her on the stairs. Perhaps she had gone upstairs to her own room. Well, that was easy enough to verify.

Mrs. Carson had hardly started up the flight of the servants' stairs when she heard a door closing above. She hurried on and on the landing where the stairs divided so as to give separate access to the men's and women's quarters, she met Edna, who looked surprised to see her, though she quickly recovered her poise.

"Mrs. Carson." Edna had easily adjusted to the housekeeper's change of status. She would. People who were up to no good were in the business of adapting quickly to changed circumstances so as not to draw undue attention to themselves.

Mrs. Carson herself hesitated. There was something awkward about the way Edna stood, as though she had in haste re-positioned herself. It was as if she were trying to disguise the direction from which she had come. It took some presence of mind on Mrs. Carson's part not to glance at the men's staircase from which, she was now certain, Edna had just emerged.

"Miss Braithwaite."

"I didn't expect to see you up here," Edna said with admirable aplomb. "I thought you lived out."

It was this boldness of manner that had put Mrs. Carson off long before Edna had given any real cause for concern. "I am the housekeeper, Miss Braithwaite," she said evenly. "And when we have guests, upstairs and down, I am responsible for their comfort. How are your accommodations?"

"Entirely satisfactory," Edna said, her eyes boring steadily into the housekeeper's. Edna knew the value of an imperturbable facade.

Mrs. Carson was pondering whether or not she ought to challenge Edna on where she had been when the lady's maid spoke first.

"Mr. Barrow came to visit me recently," she announced. "Did you know that?"

For a fleeting moment, Mrs. Carson thought the game was up. But she had learned to keep her own counsel until the other side showed their hand. "I beg your pardon?"

Edna took a step closer and Mrs. Carson had consciously to remain where she was, though it was an effort. The stairs were uncomfortably close by.

"At Cross Harbour. The Edgertons' estate."

Mrs. Carson breathed again. That Edna felt she had to identify her place of work was an assurance that she believed the housekeeper would never have heard of it. "He was looking for a position."

"Was he now."

"He gave me to believe that his position at Downton was not secure and from what Mr. Carson said this morning, it seems he may have been right." She paused. "He pleaded with me to help him. He seemed quite depressed."

"Indeed." Mrs. Carson could hardly get the word out for wanting to spit at Edna. The bare-faced liar. "Well. I'm sure Mr. Barrow can handle his own affairs."

"I thought you should know," Edna went on, in a manner of faux solicitousness. "You were always one to look out for the staff." Before the housekeeper could respond to that, Edna slipped by her and headed downstairs.

Now she's playing her games on me! Alone now, Mrs. Carson allowed herself a snort of exasperation. She would have to go down herself to keep an eye on things. But in the moment she swallowed her anger and considered. At the top of the men's staircase there were three doors - one to the attic proper, one to a stairwell leading up to the roof, and the third to the men's rooms. The first two were always locked, the last never. Edna must have been scouting out Mr. Barrow's room.

She would know now where it was and how it was set up so that she might better navigate it in the dark. Mr. Barrow wouldn't be up here again until bed-time, but he would be here all night. Edna hadn't had time for this reconnaissance work last night, but tonight she would be prepared. And so must they be.

Ultimatum

"What if someone sees him?" The question was Barrow's and his tone was alarmed, almost belligerent.

It has been on the tip of Mr. Carson's tongue to ask What if someone sees me?, but Barrow had preempted him and he recoiled indignantly. "What do you mean by that?" he demanded of the underbutler. "What've you to worry about?"

Mrs. Carson had provoked the exchange by more vigorously repeating her suggestion of the previous night, that her husband spend the night in Barrow's room. Their reactions were predictable, but tonight she had no time for them.

The three of them were locked in the butler's pantry and it was past eleven. Everyone else had gone up. Despite this, they were crowded together around Mr. Carson's desk, standing this time, and whispering, albeit in a rather animated fashion.

"She's been upstairs," Mrs. Carson said emphatically. "In the men's quarters." She'd told them this already, but still they balked at her concerns for security. "She's most likely to strike during the night and she's only the one night left. And now she's got the lay of the land."

Barrow opened his mouth again but Mrs. Carson cut him off. "Our purpose, you may remember Mr. Barrow, is to catch her in the act. We can hardly do so if we're tucked up in our cottage."

Barrow was deflected in the moment by an image of the Carsons in their cozy cottage and Mr. Carson seized his opportunity to speak.

"I don't like it!" he declared.

His wife turned on him with some exasperation. "I don't like it either," she snapped. "We're dealing with a killer who has no scruples. Well, as if any killer does," she added as an aside. "So long as she's at liberty, anyone who crosses her is at risk. We are pledged to put an end to that." She whirled on Barrow once more. "I'll not have your blood on my conscience, Mr. Barrow," she said grimly. "Either you accept Mr. Carson's oversight tonight, or you will have mine!"

She ignored her husband's outraged rumblings, instead fixing Mr. Barrow with a cool blue stare. His lower lip protruded in that surly manner he adopted when thwarted by someone to whom he was obliged to defer. After a long moment, his dropped his gaze from hers, looking away in defeat.

"Could you please leave us, Mr. Barrow?" The calm civility of her tone was a contrast to the boldness of her ultimatum. "We won't be long."

He left.

And as the door closed after him, Mrs. Carson turned again to her husband.

"I will not..."

"Charlie."

His outburst was arrested mid-sentence by the disarming appeal in her voice.

"Edna has been making plans," she went on, not bothering to conceal a note of desperation. Edna had as yet made no attempt on Barrow at Downton, but Mrs. Carson had not yet recovered from the apprehension that had gripped her when the woman's shadow had crossed her doorway earlier in the day. They must, these men, come to grips with the reality of the danger that encompassed them. "And she doesn't have much time," she added. "We can't ignore the next seven hours because it may be inconvenient for us. We must be more, not less, vigilant."

He knew it to be the truth. She could see this in his eyes, though his resignation was clouded in a deep unhappiness. She reached out for his hands and the scowl on his face diminished somewhat.

"The cheek of him!" he said, glowering at the door through which Barrow had just disappeared. "Concerned what others might think of him should I be spotted going into or coming out of his room! I'm the one who would suffer from that!"

His gaze settled on her and she could see his unease.

"How will we explain it?" he demanded.

But she only shook her head. "Be discreet and we won't have to." He rolled his eyes, but she went on. "And if someone does see you, then we'll explain later. It will make sense when we can say what we were up to."

"But there are two strange men upstairs!" he protested. "And there's no guarantee that she'll act, and if she doesn't we won't be able to explain because we'll expose our scheme."

Mrs. Carson sighed a little. "I don't have the answers," she admitted. "I only know that we can't take a chance. Not with Mr. Barrow's life. You know that."

It seemed he did, for his shoulders slumped. He had given up. Then his eyes came up to hers again and he spoke in a controlled calm. "Just at what point do I intercede, should Edna come calling tonight? When she raises her hand with the dagger in it or after she's plunged it in?"

His graphic reference elicited a frown of disapproval from her, but she responded without reproof. "It's a decision you'll have to make in the moment."

Neither of them drew any satisfaction from that. But they were not wholly without resources for comfort. In the same instant they moved together, arms entwining about the other, she pressing a cheek into his chest, he burying his face in her hair.

"I'll miss you," he said softly.

"No more than I will you."

*A/N. There is a "Herbert" room in Highclere Castle. Herbert is the family name of the Carnarvons.