In a Gilded Cage - By Rhys Bowen Page 0,85

Ned and his mother. Nobody could have slipped in here and poisoned anything. It just isn’t possible.”

I smoothed back her hair. “You may be right and maybe I’m overreacting again. Perhaps it is just a nasty flu. Here, the broth is still warm. Can I feed you a little?”

She sighed. “All right. I’ll try, I suppose.” She attempted to sit up. I put my hand behind her head and helped her. She managed a couple of sips, then turned her head away. “I really don’t feel like anything,” she said. “Why don’t you go? I do worry about you. Catching what I have.”

“I’ll be fine,” I said. “Really, I’ll stay if you need me.”

She lay back and closed her eyes. “Molly,” she asked after a while, “do you think we were right about our suppositions? Do you think that Anson killed Fanny, and then Dorcas, and now he’s trying to kill me?”

“It hardly seems possible,” I said. “I met him this morning and he seemed such an affable sort of man. But I understand that some murderers are extremely pleasant in their manner. And he has now achieved what he wanted, hasn’t he? Fanny’s money and his freedom.”

“So it would seem. But if he’s tried to poison me, how did he do it? He hasn’t been anywhere near me and I keep my room locked when I’m out.”

“A challenge, to be sure. Look, Emily, I think you should see a doctor—a good doctor—and tell him what you suspect.”

“He’d think I was an hysterical female.”

“I could ask Daniel for you. I know they have physicians who work with the police and he would certainly know how to test for poisons.”

“But what could it be?” She asked. “The symptoms resemble nothing I can think of. The gastric upset and the flushed skin might indicate arsenic, but we know that Fanny’s hair tested negative and she didn’t look at all flushed in the end, did she?”

“I’ll go and seek out Daniel,” I said. “I’ll make him listen to me and then I’ll be back.”

“All right.” She lay back and closed her eyes. “I think I’ll just sleep a little,” she whispered.

I closed the door quietly behind me and tiptoed down the stairs. As I came out of that dark stairwell into the sunlight I looked down at my arm and noticed something: my light beige costume had black hairs all over it.

Twenty-seven

I went to Daniel’s residence but of course he wasn’t there in the middle of the afternoon. However, I left a note for him, telling him that I’d be at home and needed to see him as soon as he had a free moment. I bought some groceries on my way home. Among them were barley to make barley water for Emily and bones and vegetables to make her more soup. I put the barley and the soup on to boil and then all I could do was wait. I paced impatiently around my kitchen, down the hall, around the living room, looked out of the front window and then back again. I knew there were things I could be doing but I found it impossible to settle. For once I didn’t even want Sid and Gus’s company.

If Daniel doesn’t come this evening, I’m going to police headquarters to root him out in the morning, I decided. And I’m calling a doctor for Emily myself. But about seven o’clock, just as it was starting to get dark, there was a knock on my front door and Daniel himself was standing there.

“Thank God,” I said and flung myself into his arms.

“What is it?” he asked, holding me away from him so that he could look at my face. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s Emily, the girl whose family I have been investigating,” I said. “She was the friend of Fanny Poindexter who died, and now she has come down with similar symptoms. I’m really afraid that she has been poisoned too.”

“Hold on,” Daniel said, his big hands gripping my shoulders. “Let’s not jump to any conclusions, shall we?”

“But I’ve seen her, Daniel. She was fine yesterday and now she’s very sick.”

“This kind of flu will do that to you,” he said. “You should know. You came down with it yourself.”

“But I wasn’t vomiting and I’m sure I didn’t look as awful as Emily now does. And you’ve now had the tests administered, haven’t you? You now know what killed them?”

“I do have the answer for you,” he said, leading me across the room and seating me