Page 54 of Secrets of the Heart

“I was hoping for a trifle more detail.”

The man sighed. “She must of ate something wot made ’er feel bad. She just started sickin’ up ’er food one night. Wasn’t the first time, I can tell you. She took bad like that often enough. Only that time she didn’t stop. That’s when they started sending ’er food on trays. She didn’t feel like getting out o’ bed, see.”

“Do you remember what you took her?”

“Soup, mostly. It was covered up, like. I didn’t take off the covers and look.” He shrugged.

“And did you carry it to her door and leave it there, or did you carry it into the room?”

“Usually knocked on the door and that snooty maid of ’ers took it from me.”

“And this was both before and after Mr. Birkshaw returned home?”

“Yeah. Wot of it? I didn’t do nothin’ wrong, just carried it to her door.”

“Right, then, let’s say you didn’t do nothing wrong.” Rachel noticed that Hobson’s speech was rougher and more heavily accented when he talked to this man than it was with her. Now that she thought about it, it occurred to her that his speech had been rougher when she first met him. He was, she thought, something of a reverse snob, wanting others to think that he was harder and more unrefined than he was. “What about the others? Maybe you saw somebody else put something into Mrs. Birkshaw’s food. Downstairs, maybe, before you took the tray, or upstairs after you handed the soup over to Martha.”

“No. Course not,” he replied, his face set. ‘’Oo’d be puttin’ somethin’ in the missus’ food?”

“It could have been medicine,” Rachel suggested.

“Someone could have poured something out of a little vial or scattered something atop her food.”

Hargreaves narrowed his eyes at her. “Now, why would anybody do that?”

Rachel did not answer, merely raised her eyebrows and looked at him until he shifted nervously and turned away.

“Who you workin’ for now?” Hobson asked.

“Nobody.” The man seemed relieved to change the subject. “I’m me own man.”

“Mmm.” James glanced around the room. “Nice room you got. Big.”

“I like it.” He crossed his arms and glared at James. “Wot’s it to you?”

“Nothin’.” James shrugged and touched Rachel lightly on the shoulder. “I guess we’ll go now.”

Hargreaves frowned. “’Oo are you, anyway? Wot you doin’ ’ere?”

“Earnin’ a livin’, same as you,” Hobson replied.

Rachel walked with James out of the room, but once the door was closed behind them, she turned to him, saying in protest, “Why did we leave? Why didn’t you ask him anything else?”

“Such as what? ‘Did you kill Mrs. Birkshaw?”’ James suggested. “He would not have told us.” They had reached the bottom of the stairs, and he turned right.

“You could have asked where he got the money to live, since he is not employed,” Rachel suggested.

He shrugged. “He would not have told us the truth.”

“What shall we do now then?”

“Well, I thought we might go back to the inn we visited the other day for some luncheon.”

Rachel chuckled. “That sounds very nice,” she said, ignoring the little voice inside her that warned that another secluded luncheon in a private room with this man was not the wisest course she could take. “But what I meant was what was the next stop in the investigation?”

“Oh. Well, I shall come back here and spend a few evenings in that tavern down the street, see what his neighbors have to say about him, find out how freely he has been spending money and for how long. Then, I think, Bow Street might be interested in talking to him.”

Rachel started to speak, but he forestalled her, holding up a hand and saying, “No.”