CORNERING A KILLER
Chapter 14 The Overlooked Achilles' Heel
The Morning After
"Ohhhhh!"
Though Mr. Carson thought of himself as unrivalled in his professional demeanour, there were few at Downton Abbey who could not read his temper from the look on his face. It was his wife whose imperturbability left them all wondering. But there was no doubting the relief that swept over her as her eyes fell on her husband on Sunday morning.
She had come to the Abbey before dawn and was pacing the passage that led from the kitchen to the servants' staircase when the scullery maid descended to collect her bucket and get on about the business of lighting the house fires for the morning. The girl did not question the housekeeper as to why she was haunting the Abbey at this hour, only nodding politely and scurrying off. This was just as well. In the moment, Mrs. Carson was so distracted that the girl's name completely slipped her mind.
It gave her more relief than she could have imagined that Mr. Carson was the next person down the stairs and at the sight of him, all rumpled and drawn, she abandoned all restraint and with a moan that voiced her pent-up anxiety, flung herself at him as he reached the bottom stair.
It was a measure of his exhaustion that he did not pull away. Instead he patted her back in a comforting way and guided her down the passage to the butler's pantry. Cloistered behind those doors, he folded her in his arms. And so they stood for a long moment.
And then she pulled away and looked into his face, reaching up to caress his rough cheek. He had not, of course, had an opportunity to shave. He met her gaze and answered the question in her eyes with a glum shake of his head.
"Nothing happened," he said, with a resigned shrug.
He was so tired he could hardly stand. She could see it plainly in his face, in his whole bearing. He'd stayed up whole nights before, but they always took it out of him. And he was getting a bit old for that sort of thing. And he was her husband now and she could make more of a fuss over him for it.
"Sit down." She guided him to his chair and that he did not resist in the least only confirmed the state of him.
"I'll make you some coffee," she said. Mrs. Patmore didn't like anyone fussing in the kitchen, but to hell with that.
"Elsie?"
She turned back at the door.
His frustration was plain to see. "I don't know what we're doing," he said. "What we thought we were doing."
"I'll get you some coffee and then we can discuss it."
She assumed that "nothing happened" meant that both he and Mr. Barrow had survived the night and Mr. Carson confirmed this for her as they took a few minutes, before beginning their official day, to get caught up.
In response to her explicit query, Mr. Carson snapped. "Of course he's all right." And then had the wherewithal to be contrite. "Beg pardon, love. I spent a night - the most uncomfortable night of my life - in ... with ..." He dropped his voice. "In Mr. Barrow's room." He glanced apprehensively at the pantry doors, though both were firmly closed. "Neither of us slept at all. And nothing happened."
Mrs. Carson was perplexed and perturbed. Edna Braithwaite, it seemed, was not about to be caught up in anything so clumsily arranged as their awkwardly laid plot. She was a clever one. It would not end this weekend and they would have to start all over and with less chance of success.
"Why didn't either of you sleep?" she asked, looking for some topic that might yield a concrete response.
"He's only got a hard upright chair in his room...," Mr. Carson shuddered and his wife knew it was just the idea of having been in Thomas's room that brought it on, "...and I couldn't get comfortable."
"Why didn't you take turns sleeping in the bed?" It was a foolish question from all sorts of perspectives, and she knew it as soon as the words were out.
Mr. Carson drew himself up indignantly. "I'm not going to lie down in his bed!" He shook himself as though casting off a soiled coat. "I might have been killed in his stead, had she come! Or been wounded. But I'd not have slept there for all the treasure in the Tower in any circumstnace."
Well, he hadn't lost his overdrawn distaste for all things associated with Mr. Barrow.
"Why didn't he sleep, then?"
"Well. He was rather tense," Mr. Carson admitted. "And understandably so. And ... I'm not quite sure he trusted me to stay awake, Elsie." He sighed and held out a hand to her and she, now seated in a chair next to his desk, eagerly took it up. "We've failed," he said flatly. "And we've got a house party to manage today where both butler and underbutler will be hardly fit to be seen."
The problem of Edna might elude them, but a house party was a different ball of wax. The sleuth Mrs. Carson gave way to the housekeeper of Downton Abbey, who always knew what she was about. She straightened up.
"I've brought you a crisp shirt and your alternate livery," she said, pointing to where they were hanging by the far door. "And I brought your shaving kit as well. You can step into the washroom down here and take care of that. I've polished up your second best pair of shoes and have set out your other things over there." Her clear blue eyes roamed over him in a critical examination. "You'll clean up perfectly well. Well enough to see you through breakfast, anyway. And then, when they're all at church, you and Mr. Barrow can retire have a lie down - in separate rooms upstairs..." She had seen him marshalling forces of resistance. "...with the doors locked against her - and each other - and that will be enough, must be enough, to carry you through the day."
Though he was tired and frustrated and more than a little irritable, he smiled through it all. "You're a wonder, Elsie. Where have you been all my life?"
She favoured him with an indulgent smile. "Right here, Charlie Carson. At your side. Always." And she leaned forward to kiss him. He might have lingered over this, but she pulled back. "Now, come on. Let's get you properly done up." She stretched out her fingers so that she might unbutton his vest.
"Elsie!" His great dark eyes were round with shock. "I have miraculously escaped the servants' quarters without anyone aware of the fact that I spent a night with ... in... Well, you know. I will not be changing my clothes in the butler's pantry with you here."
"We're married, Mr. Carson," she said, laughing at him a little.
"It's not right," he said resolutely.
She left him to it, then, and could only shake her head when she heard the lock clicking firmly into place behind her.
Alone in the passage for a moment, her mind returned to the great matter before them. Mr. Carson was right. They had failed. The Edgertons were taking the late train to Birmingham on Sunday night and their servants would go with them. Edna might act in broad daylight on a busy London street, but opportunities for accidental death at Downton were few enough by night, almost non-existent by day. They would have to begin again and she didn't have a clue as to where they would start.
Barrow's Perspective
The underbutler, when he appeared, was in no better shape than Mr. Carson. Oh, he was a much younger man and might be expected to weather the loss of a few hours' sleep more easily, but he'd had the added weight of being the target for what action they might have anticipated.
And he'd had Mr. Carson in his room.
This was no small thing. The room of one in domestic service was not sacrosanct. The junior staff saw to the domestic needs of the senior staff. Hall boys routinely polished the butler's shoes. Maids made up the beds of those senior staff who desired it. So far as Barrow knew, Mr. Carson hadn't made his own bed in thirty years. As underbutler, Barrow himself might have claimed a few such benefits, but he did not want anyone in his room. And, on the other side, the butler and the housekeeper, in their respective domains, had the authority to enter any room in the servants' quarters, for any reason whatsoever. Mr. Carson had never acted on this authority. Indeed, Barrow couldn't even recall him darkening the door of this room, at least. So to have Mr. Carson right there, ensconced in a chair only a few feet from the bed in which Barrow slept every night was unsettling indeed.
It was no surprise at all that Mr. Carson had taken the room's chair and situated it as far away from the bed as possible. Fortunately this conformed to their strategic needs, as this spot was also behind the door. But it had irked Barrow. After all, it was his privacy that had been invaded, not Mr. Carson's. And Barrow stood by the discomfort he had vocalized at Mrs. Carson's suggestion earlier in the evening: he had his own reputation to think of when it came to suspicions about why Mr. Carson was there.
And then it had all been in vain. Edna had not acted. Barrow had underestimated her. And would have to live with the Damoclean sword of Edna's vengeful nature hanging over him now for an indeterminate length of time.
And on top of it all, there was still another twenty-four hours of house party to go. Edna and the Edgertons were leaving Sunday evening, but the Sinderbys were lingering on into tomorrow. And still Barrow could not let his guard down, though like Mrs. Carson he doubted Edna would act now. She had scoped out the territory for future opportunities. So long as she made her monthly payments, she could afford to bide her time.
The day was going to be interminable.
Barrow Alarmed
Barrow did not like Lord Sinderby. Who did? It was one of the most irritating things in life that disagreeable men like Sinderby - and less disagreeable but still undeserving men like Mr. Carson - were married to very nice women. Sinderby even had a lovely young mistress. Barrow couldn't fathom it.
And when something went wrong - for either of these men - those around them felt the heat of their ire. Barrow had known Mr. Carson's wrath on occasion and experienced Lord Sinderby's everyday abrasiveness as well as his anger. The underbutler had skillfully turned the tables on the latter man and enjoyed doing so. He'd hoped, rather than believed, that Sinderby might behave better as a guest at Downton than he did in his own home, but this was not to be.
They'd all taken great care - Mrs. Patmore and Daisy with his food and drink, and Barrow with its delivery - so that everything was exactly as the demanding man would have it. And things had gone smoothly this weekend up to this moment. And then, at the late afternoon gathering, Sinderby sipped his tea and all but spat it onto the floor of the Library.
"What is this muck!" he demanded, a glower descending on his features as he clattered the tea cup onto its saucer and thrust the offending thing away from himself. "This isn't my blend!"
The Edgertons did not seem disturbed by this outburst. Friends of the Sinderbys, they had no doubt witnessed such scenes before. The Crawleys were not unfamiliar with the man's rudeness either but although none of them were impressed with his temper, they held their own counsel.
"Carson?" Lady Grantham said delicately.
Carson had already advanced at Lord Sinderby's explosion, but at Her Ladyship's word, he glanced in the direction of the underbutler. "Mr. Barrow?" He spoke so quietly that only those listening for his words would have heard him, but there was no mistaking the tone nonetheless.
Barrow ignored the butler's glare and his withering tone. Yes, it was his responsibility to see that all was right for Lord Sinderby but he had been meticulous in ensuring that everything was just so. Somehow something had gone wrong. In the moment, however, his conscientiousness did not matter, for something was wrong. Barrow hastened forward and held out a hand to catch the cup and saucer Lord Sinderby shoved at him.
"Get it right this time, you bloody fool."
Barrow had been steeling himself all weekend for an outburst of abuse, but the words electrified the room. The underbutler was marginally gratified to see Mr. Carson's glacial stare shift to their guest. He was too much a master of his own behaviour to let loose, but his overall demeanour reflected his deep disapproval of the way Barrow had been addressed.
It did not, however, take much of an edge off the rebuke for Barrow who was glad enough to hurry off to the kitchen, however briefly. He charged down the stairs, not caring whether he spilled any of the tea - although he didn't, because he was practiced at this - wondering how this mistake had occurred. He'd checked with Daisy as she was preparing it. Then he'd dashed upstairs briefly to coordinate timing with Mr. Carson and come down with the footmen to collect the tea and cake.
Daisy was in the kitchen when he stormed in and almost slammed the tea cup down on the worktable. "It's the wrong bloody tea!" he snapped.
The assistant cook was understandably taken aback at this, but she stood her ground. "No it isn't."
Before he could tell her otherwise, another voice came from behind him.
"It certainly is not the wrong tea!" Mrs. Patmore declared. "And I'll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head in my kitchen, Mr. Barrow!" It happened that the only person who did not have to comply with that rule was Mrs. Patmore herself and she seemed prepared to prove it.
Barrow took a deep breath, pausing to call on the reserves of self-control that he had developed over the years. "He says it is," he said more quietly. "And he about threw it at me."
Perhaps Mrs. Patmore recalled that they were talking about Lord Sinderby after all. "We've got the tea right here," she said, moderating her own voice, and pointing to a tin.
"That's what I used," Daisy reiterated "I made it up right."
"Well,... we'll figure it out later," Mrs. Patmore said, "and I'm not blaming you, Daisy. It's been a little hectic down here as well, with all these people in and about. I'll put another kettle on, Mr. Barrow, and we'll make it up again."
"I'll do it," Daisy declared, taking the kettle from the cook.
Mrs. Patmore looked as though she might like to manage this herself this time, but she'd been trying to relax her complete control of the kitchen in favour of her assistant cook. So she relinquished the responsibility and retired to the larder from whence she had come.
"I did it right," Daisy said again, almost but not quite under her breath and casting a reproachful look at Barrow.
He didn't see how that could be, but in the warmer environs of the kitchen he could acknowledge to himself that his own temper had been ignited by the scene upstairs. It was just a cup of tea, after all. So he nodded to Daisy and said, "All right."
There was a pause.
"I've a message for you," Daisy said at length and in her regular voice once more.
Barrow looked up sharply. The incident in the library had driven from his mind the larger concerns of this weekend. "Go on."
"From Master George," Daisy said. "I told him you were busy and couldn't do it, but he insisted I tell you when you came down. I said you wouldn't be down until after tea and even then..."
"What is it?"
"He asked if you wouldn't come along and join them in their game."
That was cryptic. "What game? Why was he even down here at this time of day? Wait a minute." His brain was swirling with the details. "Who's them?" This was bewildering from every angle.
"What are you talking about?" All the aggravation stirred by the tea mix-up came to the surface again.
Daisy gave him a baleful look. "Master George and Miss Braithwaite, of course."
If Barrow had still been holding the tea cup he would have dropped it. "What?! What's she to do with him?" He was almost shouting.
"You're not his only friend, you know," Daisy responded. "After you brushed him off yesterday, Miss Braithwaite got him a biscuit and made a fuss over him. And then she took him back up to the nursery. She said she were fond of children, but that they weren't any at Cross Harbour and..."
"What game?" he demanded. "Where are they?" He was seized with a panic he had not known since the trenches. He could see Daisy thought him a little mad, but he didn't care. "Where?"
"Mr. Barrow!" It was Mrs. Patmore again. "You're shouting in my..."
"WHERE?" He would have Daisy by the throat in a minute.
"The attic," Daisy said. "They were playing hide and..."
Barrow turned and ran. Edna was playing a game all right, but it was nothing so innocent as hide-and-seek. Master George! Why hadn't they thought of that, in all their ruminations? He ran pell mell down the corridor, not even hearing Mrs. Carson calling after him.
Mrs. Carson Alarmed
Daisy and Mrs. Patmore didn't have time to ask each other what had possessed Mr. Barrow before the housekeeper descended as precipitously as the underbutler had departed from them.
"What has happened? Why is Mr. Barrow running?"
Had either of them ever seen Mrs. Carson so distraught?
"He came in to fetch Lord Sinderby's tea," Mrs. Patmore replied.
"Then I told him Master George wanted him to come and play hide-and-seek in the attic with him and Miss Braithwaite and..."
"What?" Mrs. Carson blanched as Barrow had done only seconds ago. "Miss Braithwaite with Master George?' She turned on her heel and tore down the passage after Barrow.
Mr. Barrow. Miss Braithwaite. Master George! In the attic! She couldn't put the pieces together coherently - not consciously anyway, not in this grave moment - but innately she just knew. This was it.
She bolted up the stairs so single-mindedly that she almost collided with her husband as he stepped through the green baize door off the main floor.
"What...? Where's Mr. Barrow?" he demanded before she could gasp out a word. And then he saw the look on her face. "Elsie... What is it?"
"The roof!"
The terror she felt was suddenly mirrored in his eyes but there was confusion there, too.
"What?"
"Edna! Thomas! She's lured him to the roof! With Master George!"
Like her, he did not have to think that through. To her immense relief, the cares of the library that he had left behind him fell away in an instant and though the look on his face told her that he was as frightened as she was by the implications, he tore away from her and raced upwards.
She almost followed. She could have - possibly she should have - gone with him. But a different wave of urgency swept over her and instead she pushed her way through the green baize door and headed for the library. Master George was involved in this and Lady Mary had to know, no matter what the consequences to any of them.
In the seconds it took her to cross the Great Hall, her own words to Mr. Carson came clear in her mind. Daisy had said the attic. But she, and likely Mr. Barrow, too, had known intuitively that whatever Edna - or Master George on her prompting - had said, the roof was the point of danger. Had the boy said the roof, Daisy and Mrs. Patmore would have been alarmed. But the attic was within bounds. The doors to each were only a few feet apart at the top of the men's staircase. And there was repair work in progress on the battlements, though all would be quiet there today, on a Sunday. Oh, it was perfect for Edna's purposes!
Such was the critical nature of the moment that she did not hesitate on reaching the library door that Mr. Carson had carefully closed behind himself. Though she had never done it before, now she grasped the handle and pushed in uninvited.
She crossed the threshold into the room and at once all eyes turned to her. But she sought ought only one person. "My lady," she said, when her gaze fell on Lady Mary.
She saw an expression of consternation on Lord Grantham's face and in any other circumstances she might have acknowledged his right to look so. His underbutler had disappeared, his butler had vanished. He might be wondering if some great plague had swept through the downstairs, taking with it most of the servants. And now his housekeeper had broken one of the most conventional of rules.
But it was Lady Mary who reacted. She pressed a reassuring hand to her father's arm and then strode toward Mrs. Carson and the library door. Lady Mary was the only person upstairs who knew what they were about and though she hardly looked pleased at this unprecedented interruption, there would be no need to explain to her.
Mrs. Carson stepped backwards into the hall and Lady Mary followed her, Andrew stepping forward swiftly to close the door behind them from within.
"What is it?" Lady Mary wasted no words.
"Mr. Barrow's gone up to the roof after Miss Braithwaite," Mrs. Carson said. "We can't be sure, my lady, but ... Master George may be with her."
"Oh, my God!"
The pieces were settling fast for Mrs. Carson. "He is the best lure for Mr. Barrow," she said, realizing as she spoke the words that of course this was so. Why hadn't it occurred to them?
On the Roof
Barrow took the steps to the roof three at a time. At the top of the stairs leading to the men's quarters, he ignored the doors to the rooms and to the attic proper and threw himself at the one leading up to the roof. It was always locked, but now it stood ajar and there, on the second step, was a small shoe. One of Master George's. Fear - not for himself, but for the small boy who was his only real friend at Downton Abbey - convulsed Barrow and he propelled himself up the narrow line of steps, howling madly as he did so. It did not matter that she would hear him. He wanted her to hear him and to know that he was coming. He wanted her to hesitate before she did anything to Master George.
How dare she! Barrow knew that Edna Braithwaite had no scruples. He knew that she revelled in the exploitation of the weak. But Master George was a child!
The door at the top of the steps was partly open, but not enough for Barrow to see anything of consequence beyond it. He crashed into it, flinging it wide open so that it clanged into the wall adjacent and bounced back. He slipped out of its way and burst onto the flat square of the roof, his gaze racing about wildly, trying to find her. Them.
Barrow knew all about the roof. The servants were not permitted up here. There was too much potential for mischief in Mr. Carson's view. Mr. Carson anticipated so many ways that a servant might fall astray that someone not well acquainted with him might have thought he must have had a particularly dissolute youth. Barrow dismissed that possibility. No. The butler was a Puritan - squeaky clean in his behaviour, but apparently so acutely attuned to the dark recesses of his own psyche that he saw licentiousness in every corner.
Of course Barrow had been on the roof often, at least in part just to flout Mr. Carson's unreasonable directives, but also because it offered solitude in a world where there was little to be had and it was a convenient place to smoke. He had met other rule-breakers up here, Edna Braithwaite among them.
There had been traffic up here recently. The fact of the matter was that the stone and mortar of Downton Abbey might look solid and sturdy at a glance, but it was almost always in need of repair in one place or another. The outside roof and walls, and the ceilings of the great rooms within were great drains on His Lordship's pocketbook.
This time it was a section of the perimeter wall on the east side. There were, fortunately, no doors opening on this side of the house for crumbling stone to collapse upon an unsuspecting visitor. Such work was beyond the expertise of the estate men and His Lordship had employed a firm of masons from York, who came highly recommended by the Archbishop as a result of their work on York Cathedral. They had torn out the disintegrating section and done some preliminary reinforcement work, but had to leave off until the the stone could be cut. Mr. Carson had grumbled about their beginning a project without having the appropriate materials.
He had obviously not been up here to chart their progress or he'd have grumbled even more about the state in which they'd left the workspace. It was a hazardous wasteland of the stones they had removed, whole and broken, and crumbling mortar and tools. Perhaps they'd taken seriously Mr. Carson's assurances that no one came up here. They had cordoned off the area with a flimsy rope, but that was the extent of their precautions. Barrow's frantic gaze went immediately to this area and he began picking his way toward it.
The roof was a nightmare of danger for a small boy, even at its best. The bulk of the parapets were too high for a child to see over and it would be just too tempting to scramble onto one of the wide stone depressions - made so for easy defense, though there had been no invasions or uprisings to speak of since the Granthams had come into possession of the remnants of the Abbey and transformed it into the castle it now was. But of course the great gap where the repairs were in progress were the most dangerous spot. The rope, which had served as nothing but a warning in any case, was gone. Barrow didn't notice this, not consciously anyway, for his eyes were riveted on the two figures within the perimeter close by the gaping edge.
A yelp of fear died in his throat.
Edna had her back to him and stood almost bent over on the far side of the gap. All Barrow could see of George were his two outstretched arms, his hands clutched in Edna's. The cuffs of his starched white shirt were visible from the sleeves of his blue wool jumper. They were standing right on the decaying edge of the battlements!
Barrow pitched forward, scrambling through the debris, crying out incoherently as he went. Edna heard him, as he had hoped she would. She looked over her shoulder at him, her body still blocking him from a clear view of Master George. A wicked grin spread across her face as Barrow charged at her. He was perhaps only a dozen feet from her when suddenly she thrust her arms forward.
"NO!" Tears stung his eyes, desperation clutched at his heart. He heard the anguish cries of his own voice.
Without conscious thought it was his impulse to throw himself prostrate on the roof's edge, hoping to catch a corner of Master George's clothing so as to haul him once more to safety. But before he could act, deliberately or not, he was falling and not of his own volition. His foot had caught on something and such was the momentum of his approach that he felt hard and flat on his face and his body skidded forward, his cheek scraping painfully in the rubble. And then he was looking over the line at the horrifying fragments on the lawn below. At the blue jumper and ... But there was something odd about the form that lay within it.
Even as he struggled to make sense of the scene so far below, other scraps of knowledge were pounding inside his brain.
He had thrown himself at the lip of the roof in a vain attempt to catch Master George.
No. He hadn't had the chance to do so. He'd tripped.
And Edna had pulled back, out of his way. Where was she?
And then, as he lay on his chest, his arms splayed out uselessly in front of him grasping into the emptiness, his palms tingling painfully from sliding on the gravel, he felt surprisingly strong hands grip him by the waist of his trousers and the collar at the back of his neck and propel him forward.
She's trying to throw me off the roof!
He was suddenly alive with resistance, his limbs flailing wildly, his hands scrabbling for something - anything, looking for some purchase that might stay his imminent death. He tried to grasp her ankle. If he was going down, so was she. But the angle was wrong, and she kicked his elbow, paralyzing it in the instant.
And then he was sliding face-first over the eroded edge.
