“Of course I did. As did Cynthia and Harriet. Erica’s and my brother’s illnesses could have nothing to do with the luncheon.” She sounded very positive.
“Then it was something they took after they arrived at the Crystal Palace,” I said. “Perhaps nothing to do with your illnesses at all.”
“The symptoms are the same,” Lady Covington said. “Only much worse in Erica’s case. What my brother described is exactly how I have felt on occasion.”
“Clumsy to do it here,” Cynthia remarked. “When every person attending took things from trays and drank out of the same teapots.”
“Unless they ate something different from the others.” I stared out at the night, the glass reflecting a ghost of my face. “Perhaps apart, in secret.”
“In secret?” Lady Covington’s tone snapped my attention to her. “What absolute nonsense. Why would Erica consume food in secret?”
“Perhaps not food.” I strove to retain my patience. “A medicine or potion, either for digestion, or the complexion, or some such.”
“Erica is a vain thing,” Harriet said decidedly. “Always looking for lotions or creams to put on her face. She’s getting long in the tooth.”
“I know Arthur has no worries about his complexion,” Lady Covington said. “He and Erica would hardly take the same concoctions.”
I fell silent. True, the only connection between Erica and her step-uncle was the fact that he had taken luncheon with the family, and they’d attended the gathering at the Crystal Palace tonight.
My mind went back to Miss Townsend producing a box in our first-class coach and handing around glasses of brandy.
“They could have eaten something on the journey,” I said. “Did you have refreshments along the way?”
Harriet sat forward. “Oh yes. I’d forgotten. Cook packed a hamper. It was supposed to be for Mama, so she wouldn’t have to risk eating at the lectures. But Mama did not want anything, and the rest of us nibbled. Erica ate rather a lot.”
I came alert. “What became of the hamper?”
Harriet scowled. “I’m not to know. I’m not a servant.”
“Harriet.” Lady Covington’s sharp word had Harriet flouncing back into her seat. “I will find out. When Cook makes things for me, they’re always all right. No one should have taken ill.”
“That is so.” I groped for words, trying to put things delicately, but Cynthia had no such qualms.
“Then the poisoner jolly well had a go at the hamper,” she said. “When your back was turned, they bunged in the poison, but Erica and Sir Arthur ate it instead of you.”
“I do not know how they could have done so,” Lady Covington said.
“Did you have your eye on the hamper the entire time?” I asked, glancing to Harriet to include her in the question.
Spots of red appeared on Lady Covington’s cheeks, burnished by the lamplight inside the coach. “Of course not. Forgive my brusqueness, Mrs. Holloway. I am quite worried about Erica.”
“I et some of the strawberries,” Harriet said. “And I feel quite fit. No, I did not watch the hamper at all times. It was passed around, wasn’t it? We ladies shared one compartment, and a porter came and took it to the gentlemen once we’d had our fill. As I say, Erica ate much of it, greedy thing.”
“Then it was out of your sight in the corridor,” I said.
“My brother’s compartment was the next one along,” Lady Covington said. “But I see what you mean. The porter brought in the hamper, which had been loaded alongside our small amount of baggage. Arthur insisted on carrying a change of clothes in case his suit became soiled, and we always bring cushions and things to make train compartments more comfortable. Anyone could have tampered with the food between the time it left our coach at the railway station and the time it appeared in our compartment.”
“Or before it even entered the carriage from your house,” Cynthia said. “Did you see anyone with the hamper before you departed?”
“It came straight up from the kitchen,” Harriet said. “I watched Peter—he’s one of our footmen—bring it up the back stairs and shove it into the coach.”
“Then anyone could have introduced poison at any time,” I said glumly.
“Not Erica, obviously,” Lady Covington said.
“I would not be so certain, Mama.” Harriet made a sour face. “She is beastly to everyone. She might have decided she’d take a dose of the poison to show she wasn’t trying to harm you. But miscalculated the amount.”
“I highly doubt that,” Lady Covington said crisply. “She’d be very foolish to do so. She would never think of such a thing, in any case.”
“No, she’s not very clever.” Harriet’s face softened. “I’m not fond of Erica, but I do not wish to see her so ill. She looked horrible, poor thing.”
“What exactly did she eat?” I asked. “Did either of you notice?”
“I had the strawberries, as I said,” Harriet answered. “Not many of them. I wasn’t very hungry, and they were a bit tasteless.”
“Too early in the season,” I said.
Harriet clearly had no idea why this mattered. “Erica ate about a dozen of the things, along with cream, a scone with currants, and two slices of your excellent lemon cake—the one whose recipe you brought Mama. I told you Erica was greedy. I am surprised there was anything left when the hamper reached the gentlemen.”
“Please ask Sir Arthur what he had,” I said to Lady Covington. “Mr. Morris and Lord Covington did not seem to be ill at all.”
“Jonathan never takes sick,” Harriet said, waving her brother away. “Neither does George, but that’s because he’s too pompous.”
Lady Covington frowned but did not reprimand her. “Jonathan was good to help.”
I recalled Jonathan’s stark worry as he lifted his stepsister and carried her from the Pompeian house. I wondered—did he have a tendresse for her? They were not related, after all, and their respective parents had married when they’d already been adults, or near to it.
Or was Jonathan the poisoner, and his concern for Erica remorse that he’d poisoned the wrong woman?
And who had been the gentleman Harriet had met in the dark? Did he have anything to do with trying to harm Lady Covington, and why? The man might be a suitor Lady Covington disapproved of, and with her death, the path might be clear for him to marry Harriet. I glanced at Harriet in speculation. She caught my eye and resolutely turned to look out of the window.