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“You got him fromhighly incensedto drinks-at-nine in less than twenty-four hours. You’re good. I hope you won’t mind if I run a background check on him.”

It was not a question, and Ellery chuckled.

“In other news, I found Eudora’s lost journal.”

“You’re on a roll.”

“I didn’t have a chance to do more than glance at it, but it seems like she and Vernon definitely talked about getting married. She thought it was for real. Who knows what was really going on with him?”

“Well, I think maybe he thought it was for real too. This jibes with what I was able to learn from the navy. One reason they weren’t immediately concerned when Vernon didn’t turn up was because he’d applied for a couple of extra days’ leave to get married.”

“You contacted the navy?”

He could hear the shrug in Jack’s voice. “Eudora is family. If the truth about what happened between her and Vernon is important to you, it’s important to me.”

Why that brought a lump to Ellery’s throat, he had no idea. But he said, a little huskily, “Thank you, Jack.”

“Of course.” The next minute Jack was back to business. “Remember to keep your phone with you at all times. I’ll see you tonight.”

Chapter Eighteen

I gave the doubloons to Vera today.

I think the little fool thought it was an admission of guilt.

It doesn’t matter. I know Vernon would want his family looked after, and this is the best I can do, given that they apparently believe me capable of murder. I suppose it’s my own fault for wanting our marriage kept secret.

It was seven o’clock. The wind had picked up around four thirty, and it rustled around the rafters and knocked on the attic door of his office. Ellery had been reading Eudora’s journal for most of the afternoon, and at that point he had a pretty good idea of what had happened to Vernon.

Or at least, Eudora had had a pretty good idea.

He’d had some bad moments, though. Moments when he’d been convinced Eudora had indeed killed her betrothed.

Starting with the fact that there were no journal entries from July fourth through the twenty-fifth. Eudora was a woman who had not missed a day of writing in her diary for over a decade, so that complete and absolute silence was hair-raising.

When she did resume her diary, it was as if Vernon had never existed.

There was no mention of him. None. Zero.

And then, in September, a haunting entry.

How could he do it? How? After everything. My dearest friend. My only love. I’ll never understand. I lie awake night after night, trying to make sense of it. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I can’t think of anything but why, why, why?

Father used to say, “A man is lucky if he is the first love of a woman. A woman is lucky if she is the last love of a man.”

I thought he was so wrong. Now I know he was so right.

That was when Ellery became certain Eudora had killed Vernon. And while he was never going to be okay with that, her anguish was so intense and consuming, he couldn’t help grieving with her.

But then came the entry of November 11. The entry that changed everything.

Vernon is dead.

I know that now.

How could I not know it before? What a fool. It’s as though a fever broke and I can see clearly, think coolly again. Of course he’s dead. Vernon would never leave me any more than I could leave him. If this terrible war couldn’t separate us for long, nothing else could. Certainly, no other woman. I’m ashamed for ever thinking such a thing.

Was it easier to believe he’d run away than to accept he was dead?