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“Your timing could have been better,” grumbled the first.

“Oh, no,” the second speaker smirked. “My timing was perfect. How else to make Rudge look incompetent?”

“No names here,” the first speaker reminded. “Nor is incompetent exactly the target. Besides, since when did a tumble down cellar steps indicate incompetence?”

“A failure to pay attention, or perhaps making too great haste on unstable footing,” suggested the second speaker.

“Perhaps. But how does this further my goals? My principle is expecting to have his problem removed, disposed of in some manner. Either frightened off or destroyed.”

“Best destroyed,” said the second speaker. “Scaring off is like putting a scarecrow in the fields and thinking that it will keep your crop safe.”

“Indeed. So how does your ploy further my goal, I ask again?”

“This is just the softening up stage. Just you wait and see. Your subject will be just as happy to disappear by the time I am through, and you’ll have no murder charge to withstand.”

“Murder?”

“What else do you call it? Death by mischance? Succumbing to evil circumstance? As well to call a spade what it is rather than a digging implement.”

“I suppose,” sighed the first speaker. “It just seems so sordid when you put it like that.”

“Do you not find the whole thing more than a little sordid?”

“Enough!” said the first with authority. “The pace on this needs to pick up. Soon that young constable will be suspicious.”

“All the more reason to go quiet and easy,” said the second speaker. “But suit yourself. I’ll see to it that my hands are clean of the very least of it.”

“I’m sure you will. But I want it done and over before All Hallows so that we might enjoy the Christmas season without any trace of unease.”

The second speaker just laughed.

Chapter 33

Mayson sat on a tall-backed chair with his broken foot propped on another chair while Jemmy and Mr. McElroy scurried about the kitchen following his directions. Evelyn had just gone back upstairs to see to the Duchess.

Mayson blinked his eyes, forcing himself not to rub them, then returned to the interminable job of shelling dry peas. The hard, pebble-like things would be stored in sealed jars and used to make soups and stews throughout the winter.

Ordinarily, this would be a job given to a low-level kitchen worker or a staff member from some other part of the house. But Mayson found that forced inactivity wore on him. Relegated to a supervisory position, he found that shelling peas or peeling vegetables at least kept his hands busy.

“Jemmy, have a care there. I can smell those cakes,” Mayson fretted.

“Yessir, Mr. Rudge. I was just about to check them.”

Jemmy carefully opened small oven beside the big fireplace. Sure enough, the cakes were done to a turn. The young cook carefully pulled them out, one at a time, being careful not to jostle them lest they fall. This was his second try of the day, and the dinner hour was fast approaching.

It was almost as if everyone in the kitchen was holding their breath as the cakes landed safely on the table and held their shape as they started to cool.

Jemmy was just turning back to close the oven door, when the metal rack above the big cooling table made a strange groaning sound and fell directly upon the cooling table, narrowly missing Mayson where he sat with the bowl full of peas.

Mr. McElroy came rushing in from the washing bench. “Thunder and lightning!” he shouted. “What the tarnation!”

“Jemmy,” Mayson called. “Are you hurt?”

“I am all right, Mr. Rudge,” Jemmy said, his voice wobbling up into a boy’s falsetto for just a moment. Then he swallowed audibly and asked, “What about you Mr. Mayson?”

“It missed me, but only just. Jemmy, I’m afraid your beautiful cakes are a casualty, however.”

“Don’t that just take all,” Jemmy growled.