A Dangerous Collaboration (A Veronica Speedwell Mystery) Deanna Raybourn (books to read for self improvement .TXT) đź“–
- Author: Deanna Raybourn
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The letter stopped there, the following pages not to be found. “This is fascinating,” I breathed. I read the letter to Stoker as he poked about the bottles upon the shelf.
“A genteel bit of extortion,” he said when I had finished. I thrust the page back into the book and replaced it where I had found it.
“I feel rather sorry for her. She was clearly dreading her next post in India. Her prospects were grim.”
“Not as grim as this,” he told me as he scrutinized a bottle plucked from the shelf.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Henbane,” he told me. “Used to treat rheumatics or breathing troubles, but even a drop too much is fatal. There’s any number of deadly things here—jimsonweed, nicotiana, poppy—each with medicinal properties as well as toxic. She has taken great care to mark them as dangerous.” He gestured towards the row of bottles. Beware the sister, Mother Nance had cautioned. I went to the bottles and inspected them.
On each, Mertensia had listed the ingredients beside a tiny black skull, inked in lines so fine they might have been silken threads laid upon the label. I pursed my lips in a soundless whistle. “So, not just the odd broken bone or spot of indigestion for Mertensia,” I murmured. “She has administered life and death to the people of this island.”
“Nothing so sinister as that,” Mertensia said as she moved into the room on noiseless feet. She was carrying a basket of wood and Stoker hastened to take it from her. “Thank you. Another small log to keep the stove hot, I think,” she told him. He did her bidding, stirring up the fire with a poker before placing the wood atop. She wore a pinafore over her clothes, a long affair that reached from shoulders to hem, and her sleeves were rolled back, her hair tucked haphazardly into a snood.
“I made up the foxglove for Mother Nance. Her heart gives her trouble from time to time, and I ensured the preparation was approved by her doctor on the mainland. The others have their uses as well,” she told me as she went to pluck a dried assortment of herbs from the bundles tied to the beams overhead. “More arnica, for your bruising,” she added with a glance at Stoker. “And for Tiberius’. The pair of you have managed to use up my entire store cupboard of the stuff.”
She smiled a little when she said it, but she could not sustain it. “You are worried about Malcolm,” Stoker suggested.
“It isn’t like him to be so irresponsible,” she said, collecting the rest of her ingredients. “Trenny said I should keep busy. No doubt he will turn up by sundown as Tiberius says and have a good laugh at us all for being so worried.” Her tone was light but her eyes were shadowed.
“We have searched the castle and found no sign of him,” I told her. “But we have uncovered evidence that Helen is a fraud as a medium.”
She snorted. “I could have told you that. She spent an entire summer here without even a hint that she might have sensitivities. Then as soon as she left here, she set herself up as Madame Helena. It’s a grotesque joke.” She broke the dried arnica into smaller bits, dropping them into a shallow stone mortar. She took up a pestle of the same material and began to grind the brittle leaves slowly.
“Helen said she had to provide for herself and for Caspian,” I told her.
“She has a small annuity from St. Maddern’s that Malcolm arranged after Lucian’s death. If she needed more, Helen had only to ask and Malcolm would have given them a home,” she retorted. “Lucian’s widow and child would never have been turned out in the cold.”
“Perhaps,” I mused. “But it seems a hard thing to one’s pride to have to come cap in hand to one’s relations to ask for money. I seem to have overheard Malcolm refusing Caspian a request for a loan only yesterday. The discussion grew quite heated.”
Mertensia’s hand stilled for a moment, but she went on, doggedly. “I do not know anything about that.”
“Then perhaps you would like to tell us about your quarrel with Rosamund the night before she disappeared,”
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