A Sinister Service

Book 6: Lady and Lady's Maid Mystery

by Alyssa Maxwell

Genres: Historical Mysteries; Private Investigators

Synopsis

In the Alyssa Maxwell's sixth delightful A Lady and Lady's Maid Mystery set after World War I, a trip to Staffordshire for Lady Phoebe Renshaw and her lady's maid, Eva Huntford, leads to murder in a famed pottery works...
Following the devastation of the Great War, England's noble class takes comfort in honoring tradition. To celebrate their grandparents' wedding anniversary, Lady Phoebe Renshaw and her siblings travel to Staffordshire to commission a china service bearing the Wroxly coat of arms from the venerated Crown Lily Potteries, a favorite of Queen Mary.
The two leading designers at the illustrious china manufacturer offer competing patterns. But when one of them is found dead--his body crushed in a grinding pan and his design pattern book missing--his rival is immediately suspected. The police are also suspicious of the dead designer's resentful young son, a schoolmate of Phoebe's fifteen-year-old brother Fox. When Fox gets involved to help his friend, Phoebe begins to investigate the rival artist.
At the same time, Eva is enlisted to go undercover at the works so she can gain the confidence of the female employees, who are only allowed to paint, not design, which may have led to a grudge against the victim. Pursuing a killer who has no compunction about using a kiln as a coffin, Phoebe and Eva take their lives into their hands to discover the shattering truth...

Release date: January 26, 2021

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 304

Sample

November 1920

The Rolls-Royce took the bend in the road sharply, sending Phoebe Renshaw and her three siblings hard to the right. Amelia, several years younger than Phoebe, took the brunt of their collective weight against her and let out a yelp. As the motorcar righted itself, the eldest, Julia, assumed a cross look and leaned forward to speak to the driver. “Really, Fenton, do you wish me to have my child two months early?”

That elicited a gasp from Amelia, a smirk from their youngest sibling—and only brother—Fox, and a shake of Phoebe’s head. Julia was seven months along and not due until after the holidays, but that didn’t stop her from threatening the imminent arrival of her child whenever it suited her purposes. From the front seat, poor Fenton, their new chauffeur, stuttered a mortified apology. Julia sighed and leaned back against the pomegranate-red leather seat.

Anyone peeking into the motorcar windows would surely guess they were siblings, with their varying shades of blond hair, ranging from Julia’s bright flaxen curls to Amelia’s darker honey tones, to Fox’s dusky wheat color, and Phoebe’s reddish gold. They resembled one another in their features as well, though in varying ways. Julia rivaled the most glamorous film star, Amelia might have stepped right out of a portrait by John Singer Sargent, and Fox showed promise of becoming handsome in a distinctly patrician manner. Phoebe had no choice but to acknowledge being the plain one of the family, the one who could blend into a crowd and move through a room without being noticed.

They resettled themselves. Why the four of them had had to squeeze into the motorcar was beyond Phoebe. Another perfectly roomy touring car followed them, its boot crammed with the luggage that hadn’t fit in the Rolls-Royce, while their two lady’s maids, Eva and Hetta, enjoyed the backseat all to themselves. Personally, Phoebe would have appreciated spending the hours with Eva for company, but Julia wouldn’t have it. One does not travel in the servants’ motorcar, she had admonished, much to their grandmother’s agreement. There simply had been no arguing the point.

They’d been driving for hours now, having left Little Barlow before the sun had shone properly, stopping for lunch outside of Worcester, and then continuing relentlessly northward toward their destination: the small town of Langston in the county of Staffordshire.

Phoebe’s attention drifted once more beyond the motorcar window. Mid-November had stripped the waning colors from the fields and bordering forests and left the world a drab, lifeless gray. Other than a few halfhearted flurries earlier in the month, there had been no sign yet of snow, which always lifted Phoebe’s spirits from their late-fall doldrums.

The Rolls-Royce soon left behind hilly countryside prone to steep, if not overly high, slopes and rugged promontories. They entered a wide valley, the center of which played host to a crowded jumble of homes and industry, the tall stacks belching smoke and turning the sky a rather sickly yellow-gray.

“Is that Langston? Not very appealing,” Fox commented as he leaned past Phoebe to see out the window. “And to think I’m missing the most important rugby game of the season tomorrow. We’re playing Harrow, you know.” He said this last with all the wounded dignity a fifteen-year-old could muster, which was considerable.

Julia shrugged one shoulder in her habitual way and smoothed a hand over the belly that protruded like an overripe melon beneath her cashmere cape. “What’s more important, some silly rugby game or our grandparents’ anniversary?”

Fox let out a sound somewhere between a pish and an oath that would have had him simmering in his room for two whole days, had their grandfather heard him. “What do I know about teacups anyway?” he mumbled into his shirt collar. “Don’t see why I had to come.”

Phoebe hid a grin. She had nothing but sympathy for him, really, and had it been up to her, she’d have spared him the trouble of this outing. But Julia had insisted, and in her delicate condition there was simply no debating with her. She had become rather like Grams that way.

“It’s not just teacups,” Julia announced with a sniff. “It’s an entire set of china by the very same company favored by Queen Mary. And Grams and Grampapa have not had a new set of china since long before the war.”

“I doubt Grampapa very much cares either way,” Fox retorted once more to his collar. Julia pretended not to hear him, and paid no mind when he added, “Who cares what Her Majesty favors? It’s not like she’s coming to take tea at Foxwood Hall anytime soon.”

“Well, I think it’s a perfectly lovely idea and will make a splendid anniversary gift,” Amelia announced in a bright voice.

“You think everything is a perfectly lovely idea,” their brother murmured with no small sarcasm and sank lower in the seat. His knees hit the back of the seat in front of them, revealing how much taller he had grown over the summer months.

Amelia shook her head in resignation. “Really, Fox, can’t you make even the smallest effort to be cheerful and enter into the spirit of the occasion?” When Fox raised his chin to respond, Amelia didn’t give him the chance. “This is the first time the four of us are on our own, our very own, you understand, and wouldn’t it be jolly if we could simply get along and accomplish something worthwhile as a family? Don’t Grams and Grampapa deserve that from us? I’m not speaking merely of the china, but of showing our gratitude to them for raising us by assuring them they’ve turned out four thoughtful, responsible, and sensible individuals rather than a pack of squabbling geese.”

“I . . . er . . .” Fox swallowed whatever he was going to say, or perhaps he couldn’t find the words at all. A surge of color engulfed his face. He stared back at Amelia, his eyes, so like Julia’s dark blue ones, swimming with surprise and perhaps a smidgeon of shame.

And no wonder. This Amelia, the one able to gather her courage to say whatever she felt needed saying, and do it eloquently, had emerged only recently, to the surprise of them all. She was no longer a little girl, and the truth of that startled even Phoebe at times.

Fox finally pushed out, “Sorry.”

Amelia turned her attention out the window. “There! Is that it? Is that the factory?”

The driver had rounded another bend—more gently this time. The view revealed a collection of redbrick buildings huddled in the snaking curve of a river. They formed a large quadrangle with several smaller enclosures within. Scattered among the buildings were rows of towering, bottle-shaped structures that sent out spirals of smoke. Beyond the factory precincts, row houses fanned out in all directions. Phoebe supposed many of Crown Lily’s workers lived in those houses.

Fox leaned to see around Amelia’s and Julia’s shoulders. “Good grief, it looks like a prison. I hope we’re not going there.”

Ah. His contrition had proven all too brief. But in fairness, he wasn’t far off. Even from a distance, Phoebe found the place grim to the extreme, and she couldn’t imagine some of the country’s finest, most delicate china being fashioned within its bleak walls.

“What did you expect?” Julia didn’t bother glancing out the window, but sat examining the manicure she’d had the day before. “Did you think china was made in fields of wildflowers? It’s an industry, and is manufactured much like anything else. Phoebe should know all about manufacturing from her many conversations with Owen.” She injected subtle yet unmistakable innuendo when she spoke of Owen Seabright, who owned textile mills in Yorkshire, and whom they all considered Phoebe’s beau.

They weren’t entirely mistaken, at least generally speaking. She and Owen did have a special regard for each other, yet the traditional meaning of beau no longer applied when it came to them. Did they wish to marry? They had discussed it, yes. But as to when, Phoebe couldn’t say. She didn’t wish to rush into being a wife and mother—as Julia had done last spring when she’d married Gilbert Townsend, Viscount Annondale. Look where that had gotten her. Yes, Julia had become the Viscountess Annondale, but she was also widowed and soon to give birth to a fatherless child.

Phoebe simply wished to do a thing or two first, achieve merits of her own, which she could bring with her into marriage and motherhood, but would always remain hers. Hers alone.

The rim of the valley fell away as they entered the precincts of the town of Langston. Here, two-story edifices, many of brick, others wood-framed, lined the main thoroughfare on either side while side streets disappeared into the distance. Signs and shop windows rushed by in a blur. Their driver had to move far to the left, practically onto the pavement, as a trolley rolled past on its rails. Motorcars and lorries weaved in and out among horse-drawn carriages and pony carts, while overcoat-clad pedestrians hurried along on their errands.

The sight of uniformed children filing from a school prompted Phoebe to consult her wristwatch, an accessory Grams had termed thoroughly modern, which Phoebe knew translated to decidedly unladylike. Wristwatches had become popular during the war—pilots had worn them to keep time without having to remove their hands from the controls. Phoebe liked the modern touch, and perhaps even the slightly unladylike touch it lent her.

“It’s noon already,” she said. “It feels like we’ve been traveling for days.”

“Not you, too.” Julia fussed impatiently with the strap of her handbag. “Honestly, is complaining all you and Fox can do?”

“I wasn’t . . .” Phoebe didn’t bother. She and Julia had been getting along fairly well in recent weeks, and she understood her sister’s present tetchiness had more to do with the worries on her mind than any real displeasure in her siblings. Julia wanted this anniversary gift to be perfect and had thought of little else lately, except for impending motherhood. But that wasn’t all. This trip would entail more than choosing china patterns for their grandparents. Julia planned to assert her rights among her deceased husband’s family for what would be, really, the first time since her marriage. And that set her nerves very much on edge. Yes, Phoebe thought with a sigh, their day was only going to become more stressful.

Eva Huntford, lady’s maid to Phoebe and Amelia, watched as the Rolls-Royce carrying her beloved ladies—and their often taxing younger brother—passed beneath an arching sign that proudly announced CROWN LILY POTTERIES, in a script Eva found entirely familiar from seeing it on the bottom of countless pieces of china at home.

The motorcar she and Hetta Brauer, Lady Annondale’s maid, were riding in followed close behind, driven by Douglas, one of Foxwood Hall’s footmen, who doubled as a secondary driver whenever needed. Both cars stopped at the gate. The watchman made his inquiry of the first motorcar and waved them both in. Sooty buildings closed around them, cutting off the outside world. Eva could see little else but endless walls of brick filling the motorcar windows.

An instant later she stepped out onto a paved enclosure, the cobbles rough and uneven beneath the soles of her low-heeled pumps. The Crown Lily factory had been in this precise location for nearly two hundred years, a fact that drew Eva’s admiration. Simply surviving the war years without spiraling into bankruptcy could be considered quite a feat, never mind maintaining solvency generation after generation.

She hurried over to the Renshaws’ Rolls-Royce to assist the passengers out. Hetta did likewise, her face a mask of bewilderment. Eva suspected Hetta had little or no experience with industrial towns in her home country of Switzerland, a hunch bolstered by Lady Annondale’s having spoken of Hetta’s nerve-ridden perplexity whenever they visited London.

Eva made a quick mental assessment of her surroundings as she smoothed the wrinkles from her ladies’ overcoats. The sense of being closed in persisted, a sensation past experience had taught her to distrust.

A low building sprawled beside the two motorcars, every window radiating the yellow glow of the electric lights inside. Three other, taller buildings formed the rest of the enclosure, but for two wide openings—the one they had driven through and a second leading to another part of the factory complex.

A stillness pervaded the immediate area, but the air just beyond the enclosure pulsated with the dull rumble of the factory’s workings. The breezes carried eddies of heat and brought ash floating around them like drab snowflakes. Eva brushed her hands across the shoulders of both Lady Phoebe’s and Lady Amelia’s coats and inwardly sighed. If they spent much more time outside, the soot would be embedded in their clothing. A fortunate thing, then, that among her luggage was her case of garment brushes.

“Well, Fox, I suppose you were right.” Lady Annondale emerged from the rear seat of the Rolls-Royce with a critical frown. “Quite prisonlike. Ah, well. We have to be here only long enough to meet with the designers and choose a pattern. That shouldn’t be too difficult.”

Two men presently came bustling around a corner. They wore dark business suits, were hatless, and appeared somewhat out of breath, as if they had been very busy, but suddenly realized they had visitors—important ones. The taller of the two buttoned his suit coat and smoothed his peppered hair as he approached. The other, a pale man with hollow cheeks and wisps of hair pomaded across a balding pate, pulled a pair of spectacles from his breast pocket and carefully set them on his aquiline nose.

“Welcome, welcome. You must be the Renshaws.” The first man extended his hand, then snatched it back and bobbed his head as if he were meeting royalty.

Eva judged him to be older than the second man, yet in better health generally, his shoulders straight, his hair still thick, his complexion robust.

“I’m Mr. Tremaine. Mr. Jeffrey Tremaine.” A breathy laugh tumbled from his lips. “The owner of Crown Lily. You are most, most welcome to my establishment. I . . . er . . . trust you had a pleasant trip?”

Eva pressed her lips together. Poor man seemed to be battling a case of nerves. And while Phoebe and Amelia would strive to put him at his ease, Eva knew Lady Annondale would enjoy playing the part of imperious viscountess. What had begun years ago as a defense mechanism had quickly become second nature to Julia Renshaw, and later, Eva suspected, a source of amusement for her.

“Oh, dear me,” Mr. Tremaine blurted as if startled by some development none of the rest of them perceived. Two spots of color stained his cheekbones. He gestured to the man waiting silently beside him. But patiently? No, Eva had caught several clipped sighs and the tapping of his shoe on the cobbles. “May I introduce Ronald Mercer. He’s the head of our design department, responsible for the majority of our most successful patterns.”

“Goodness, then you’re the man we most wish to speak with.” Lady Annondale extended a hand first to Mr. Tremaine, then turned her attention fully to Mr. Mercer. “You received my letter?”

“Indeed, Lady Annondale, and I’ve worked up some preliminary ideas for your perusal.” While Mr. Mercer might have been Mr. Tremaine’s inferior in terms of rank within the business, he displayed none of his employer’s agitation. “They all incorporate the Wroxly coat of arms. I think you’ll be delighted with what you see.”

“And tell me,” Lady Annondale said with an inquisitive lift of her eyebrow, “have you designed anything lately for Her Majesty?”

Eva understood the question was meant to detect whether Crown Lily still enjoyed being the favored pottery of the Royal Household. She and the four Renshaws turned their faces toward the designer.

He smiled pleasantly. “Of course. I designed a luncheon set for the Princess Royal’s birthday last spring. She was quite enamored of it, as was the queen.”

“Splendid.” Lady Annondale cast a significant glance at her brother. “You see, Fox, this shan’t take long at all.” She received, in response, a half-hearted shrug.

“Yes, well . . . While it’s . . . er . . . true that Mr. Mercer here has been working on patterns for you, Lady Annondale, another of our artists has been doing so as well.” Mr. Tremaine’s cheekbones glowed with color. “He’s quite talented as well, and eager to take up the project, and, well, you understand, I don’t wish to play favorites. Especially when your ladyship”—he raised his gaze to take in the other Renshaw siblings—“and the rest of your charming family should have the very best of choices to consider.”

The balding art director compressed his lips, then sighed again and nodded. “Indeed. Our Percy Bateman does fine work, if sometimes a bit overly bold in line and color. He’s young, of course, and at times could use some reining in. Raw talent, you understand. We’re very glad he joined our art department.”

“Yes. Yes, we are.” Mr. Tremaine stressed the word we.

Eva narrowed her eyes and studied this Mr. Mercer. He didn’t seem at all glad the younger man had joined what he obviously considered his art department. She allowed herself a small smile, knowing each young Renshaw to be of strong opinions and unafraid to express them. They would soon see for themselves which artist embodied their vision for their grandparents’ anniversary gift.

But would they be able to agree? She had her doubts that it would be as easy or quick an endeavor as Lady Annondale believed.

“All right, then.” Lady Annondale glanced at the nearest building. “Shall we go and meet this Percy . . . ?”

“Bateman, ma’am,” Mr. Tremaine was quick to offer.

Lady Annondale nodded distractedly. “Go and meet him and see what our choices are?”

“Of course, ma’am. Right away.” The owner of Crown Lily half stumbled as he led them around a building and into another enclosure. Eva no longer felt an urge to grin at the man’s jitters. Perhaps meeting nobility had unnerved him, but he won Eva’s respect by seeming disinclined to allow his art director to take on the project without giving the younger artist an equal chance. “We’ve arranged a tour of the factory,” he said as he held a door open for them. “This is our main administrative building, where we house our designers, accountants, clerks, and salesmen, and where we entertain prospective clients, like yourselves. Let’s begin in the showroom.”

“A tour won’t be necessary.” Lady Annondale breezed by him through the doorway.

The man looked crestfallen, until Lady Phoebe spoke up. “I would love to see the facilities. Amelia?”

“Oh, yes, I’m very curious to see how the china is made.”

Fox added his consensus with a shrug. “Count me in.”

“Phoebe,” Lady Annondale murmured, but Mr. Tremaine came to the rescue. He stole a quick glance down at her rounded belly.

“If you’d care to wait in our conference room, Lady Annondale, I’ll . . . er . . . have tea served and you can look over the various shapes of our teacups. They’re already laid out on the table. It’s those shapes, you realize, that will determine the look of the rest of the service. In fact, that was part of the plan. A tour, followed by tea and refreshments served in a variety of cup shapes and sizes.”

“Oh, what a wonderful idea!” Amelia exclaimed. She pulled the pin from her hat and removed it, allowing her honey-golden hair to fall forward around her shoulders. “Thank you, Mr. Tremaine. Julia, you can wait here with Hetta while the rest of us take the tour. It won’t take very long, Mr. Tremaine, will it?”

“Not at all,” he assured them.

“Very well.” Lady Annondale pulled off her gloves. Hetta went to her side to help her off with her overcoat and smoothed the sleeves of her frock “Perhaps Mr. Mercer will keep me company and tell me about his ideas for the design?”

“Nothing would give me greater pleasure, Lady Annondale,” the designer said. “Truly, there is nothing like holding each shape in your hand, and actually sampling tea from it, for helping to find the exact right product.”

Lady Annondale turned to her maid. “Hetta, would you care to join the others? I’ll be fine here with Mr. Mercer, I’m quite sure.”

Hetta shook her head vigorously. “I stay with Madame,” she said with a possessiveness that ended the matter. She also issued Mr. Mercer a stern look from under her blond brows. Not that she had any reason to distrust the designer. Hetta merely assumed that manner with any individual new to her lady’s acquaintance.

After a brief word to a young man Eva supposed was his secretary, Mr. Tremaine led them along the main hallway. Sounds of typing, of telephones ringing, and muted conversation reached her ears from behind closed doors. He opened a set of double, frosted glass-paned doors. Unmistakable pride brought a renewed flush to his cheeks. “This is our showroom.”

Good heavens. Eva gasped as she peered over Phoebe and Amelia’s shoulders. Bright electric lights and the sunlight pouring through a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows illuminated china of every shape, pattern, and color—florals, geometric designs, crests, and picturesque scenes. Porcelain gleamed and glimmered everywhere Eva looked. She had never seen so many cups, saucers, and dishes in one place, not even in the china department at Harrods. There were porcelain teapots that ranged from short and round to tall and tapering, creamers and sugar bowls, serving bowls and platters of many different sizes on stands to display their designs.

“And through here is our conference room, where we’ve set up an exclusive display based on your initial thoughts on what you might like.” Mr. Tremaine opened another door into a well-appointed room, with a long mahogany table and at least a dozen leather chairs ranged around it.

Lady Annondale, the first to enter, approached the table. She reached out a fingertip to stroke the graceful line of the nearest vessel, a fluted teacup sporting a bright burst of flowers. She raised the cup by its delicate pink handle and held it to the light from the windows. Even from where Eva stood in the hallway, she could see the transparency of the porcelain, which rivaled an eggshell in its thinness. Hetta followed her mistress inside a good deal more timidly.

“Ach du meine Güte,” the Swiss woman murmured. Eva had spent enough time in Hetta’s company to know this loosely translated to good gracious. Eva nodded her agreement.

Once Mr. Tremaine saw Lady Annondale and Mr. Mercer settled with a pot of tea and plate of biscuits, he gestured to Phoebe and the others. “This way, if you please.”

He preceded them to another, heavier door. They stepped outside to an expansive enclosure between buildings that stood several stories tall. Directly behind a row of them, the tapering stacks of those odd structures Eva had seen on the way here poked against the sky. Lorries lumbered slowly across the open space, jostling over crisscrossing rail tracks that connected one building to another. Men were methodically loading and unloading barrels from railcars.

Eva helped Lady Amelia back on with her hat to prevent the bits of floating ash from settling in her hair. They crossed the quadrangle and entered a building. The industrial humming Eva had noticed earlier grew stronger now, seeming to vibrate up through the linoleum floor and radiate from the tiled walls. The first room they came to reminded Eva of the cellars back home at Foxwood Hall, with their stone walls and floor and utter lack of adornment. Ranged about the room were several wide, round vats made of steel. They were at least a dozen feet in diameter and nearly met Eva’s shoulders; she was just able to peer into the interior of the nearest one. Curved blades fanned out from a center axle. There was no one working here, and. . .