Free The Scent of Murder by Felicity Young Page A

Desmond in the dining room yesterday evening, he was snoring by the kitchen fire.’
    Then which dog had Dody seen? A sudden chill bored into the skin at the nape of her neck. Her shiver did not go unnoticed by the intractable housekeeper.
    ‘Is there anything else, Doctor McCleland?’
    Mrs Hutton stared down at Dody — trying to intimidate her, Dody thought. She knew all about these kinds of tactics, albeit this woman was surely even worse than Dody’s superior at the mortuary, Doctor Spilsbury.
    She glared back, holding the housekeeper’s eye with her own. ‘Yes. I’m obliged to tell your mistress about the brutal way you shaved that girl’s hair.’
    ‘As you wish, Doctor McCleland,’ Mrs Hutton said, calmly turning to head back inside, Dody’s statement having apparently not worried her at all. ‘And it was another dog that you saw,’ she added as she closed the scullery door behind her.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    In the small attic bedroom, Edith slipped out of her scullery maid’s uniform and hung it on the peg on the door, ready for when she returned to the Hall the following week. Wearing nothing but a thin cotton chemise, she poured cold water from the washstand jug, washed the day’s grime from her face and hands, then changed into her workhouse uniform. She stepped into the grey worsted skirt, tighter already after three days at the Hall, fastened the buttons on her matching blouse and tucked it in. The feel of the fabric against her skin was like hessian compared with her scullery maid’s uniform. Over her blouse and skirt she put on her blue smock, shawl and, lastly, a cambric cap to cover her cut head.
    She wanted to leave Annie a note saying goodbye; she liked the posh London maid, but she was slow with her letters and didn’t dare keep the head groom, grumpy-faced Mr Philips, waiting. Hurrying down the back stairs, she peered anxiously around the yard to make sure there was no sign of the dog, then scampered into the paved area on the other side of the gate where the tradesmen made their deliveries.
    ‘’Bout bloody time too,’ Philips complained as she climbed into the cart. The head groom was a small, weedy man with skin as rough as pork crackling. Word was that once, in a temper, he’d broken a stable boy’s arm.
    ‘Be raining stair rods soon.’ He pointed a twig-like finger towards Uckfield, where ominous black clouds billowed against the grey sky, then curled his whip across the pony’s back.
    He said nothing more to Edie until they reached the Green Witch in Piltdown. As he pulled up outside the public house, he told her to stay where she was.
    A damp wind slapped at Edie’s cheek and made the pub’s sign — a green-faced witch in a pointy black hat — groan on its hinges. Edie hunched into her shawl and wished Philips hadn’t left. Even being with him was better than being left outside alone in the gathering dark. She tried to imagine what it must be like inside. She’d never been in a pub, nor tasted a beer, neither. Despite the pub’s horrid name, it’d be a warm, jolly place if the laughing voices spilling from its glowing windows were anything to go by.
    Within minutes Philips reappeared with a couple of lads, who relieved him of some heavy crates from under a canvas sheet in the back of the cart. One of the lads chucked Edith under the chin and said something to Philips she didn’t understand — must have been cheeky, she thought, ’cos they all laughed and made rude signs with their fingers.
    When they took off again, Philips was swigging from a bottle and before long he broke into song:
    Hush-a-bye baby in the tree top,
    When you grow old your wages will stop,
    When you have spent the little you made,
    First to the poorhouse, then to the grave.
    ‘Not for me that ’orrible place, no sir-ee,’ he said when he’d finished singing. A sharp finger dug into Edie’s ribs. She wasn’t expecting it and nearly jumped from her skin. ‘What you so jumpy about anyhow — guilty