would have to have been completely removed. Finding anything to indicate that someone had been in the kitchen at night, or that a saucepan had been used by someone other than the cook, would be helpful but probably give no indication as to by whom.
Lady Wellborough had already answered him and was waiting for his next question.
"Thank you," he said, rising to his feet. "I think I will speak to the cook and the kitchen staff."
She paled and almost lurched forward, grasping his arm.
"Please do be careful what you say, Mr. Monk! Good cooks are fearfully hard to come by, and they take offense easily. If you imply she was in even the remotest way possible ..."
"I shan't," he assured her. He smiled fleetingly. What a totally different world it was where the loss of a cook could create such anxiety and almost terror. But then he did not know Lord Wellborough, and how Lady Wellborough's happiness depended upon his temper, and how that in turn was dependent upon the good cook's remaining. Perhaps she had cause for her fear.
"I shall not insult her," he promised more decidedly.
And he kept his word. He found Mrs. Bagshot, far from his conception of the average cook, standing at the large, scrubbed, wooden kitchen table with the rolling pin in her hand. She was a tall, thin woman with gray hair screwed back into a tight knot. The orderliness of her kitchen spoke much of her nature. Its warm smells were delicious.
"Well?" she demanded, looking him up and down. "So you think that foreign prince was poisoned in this house, do you?" Her voice already bristled with anger.
"Yes, Mrs. Bagshot, I think it is possible," he replied, looking at her steadily. "I think most likely it was done by one of his own countrymen for political reasons."
"Oh." Already she was somewhat mollified, though still on her guard. "Do you, indeed. And how did they do that, may I ask?"
"I don't know," he admitted, governing his voice and his expression. This was a woman more than ready to take umbrage. "My guess would be by someone adding something to his food as it was taken upstairs to his bedroom."
"Then what are you doing here in my kitchen?" Her chin came up. She had an unarguable point, and she knew it. "It weren't one o' my girls. We don't have no truck wi' foreigners, 'ceptin' as guests, an' we serve all guests alike."
Monk glanced around at the huge room with its spotlessly blacked cooking range, big enough to roast half a sheep and boil enough vegetables or bake enough pies and pastries to feed fifty people at a sitting. Beyond it were rows of copper saucepans hung in order of size, every one shining clean. Dressers held services of crockery. He knew that beyond the kitchen there were sculleries, larders ... one specifically for game; small rooms for the keeping of fish, ice, coal, ashes; a bake house; a lamp room; a room for knives; the entire laundry wing; a pantry; a pastry room; a stillroom and a general storeroom. And that was without trespassing into the butler's domain.
"A very orderly household," he observed. "Everything in its place."
"O' course." She bristled. "I don't know what you're used to, but in a big house like this, if you don' keep order you'd never turn out a dinner party for people what come 'ere."
"I can imagine - "
"No, you can't," she contradicted him with contempt. "No idea, you 'aven't." She swung around to catch sight of a maid. " 'Ere, Nell, you get them six dozen eggs I sent for? We'll need them fer tomorrow. An' the salmon. Where's that fish boy? Don't know what day it is, 'e don't Fool, if ever I saw one. Brought me plaice the other day w'en I asked fer sole! Not got the wits 'e were born with."
"Yes, Mrs. Bagshot," Nell said dutifully. "Six dozen 'en's eggs like you said, an' two dozen duck eggs in the larder. An' I got ten pounds o' new butter an' three o' them cheeses."
"All right then, off with yer about yer business. Don't stand there gawpin' just 'cos we got a stranger in the kitchen. It isn't nothing to do with you!"
"Yes, Mrs. Bagshot!"
"So what is it you want from me, young man?" Mrs. Bagshot looked back at Monk. "I got dinner to get. Put the pheasant in the larder, George. Don't hang 'em in 'ere for 'eaven's sake!"
"Thought you might want to