Page 24 of Word of the Wicked (Murder in Moonlight #5)

So David had still to earn Jenks’s trust. As Solomon had to earn David’s. He smiled crookedly, took the letters, and went in search of his brother.

David was already on his feet in the middle of the room, facing him like a mirror image. “I thought I heard your voice. Do you want your house back?”

Solomon glanced around the room. His brother had not brought many changes, apart from several pieces of paper strewn across the sofa and the floor around it.

“Not yet,” Solomon said, walking forward and bending to pick up the nearest sheet of paper. “The case in Surrey is not yet concluded. I came back to be sure all was well.”

“Did you think I might have bolted?”

“Yes.”

To his surprise, David’s eyes lightened. “I almost did. The walls were pressing in on me. I went out, meaning to lose myself in London and take the first ship that would have me on its crew.”

“What changed your mind?”

“You. Me. Fear, probably. And…and the fact that I remembered a name.”

Jenks appeared then with a tray of breakfast and coffee. While David hastily gathered up the strewn papers, which showed drawings rather than writing, Solomon glanced at the one in his hand.

Constance gazed up at him, her expression of both humor and challenge so familiar that it caused his heart to jolt.

Her enigmatic smile glinted in her eyes and curved those fascinating lips so that he almost touched them.

The artist, who could only have been David, had caught the extra little upward quirk of her mouth, the precise tilt of her head…

“She told me you have talent,” Solomon said, dragging his gaze back to David, who was watching him tensely. The last time David had been in London, she had gone to his lodgings to persuade him to see Solomon.

David grimaced. “It passed the time on long voyages.”

And in effective house arrest, no doubt.

“Will that be all, sir?” Jenks asked.

“Yes. Thank you, Jenks.”

Solomon, who had not yet broken his fast, heard his stomach rumble. He set the sketch of Constance on top of the pile David had gathered on the sofa, and he and his brother sat down at the dining table.

“You remembered a name,” Solomon reminded him. “Whose?”

“The captain of the ship where I saw the merchant die. He was Captain Blake. Jordan Blake, I think, and his ship was the Mary Anne . Does that help?”

“It should do. Well done. There’s been nothing in any of the newspapers I’ve seen about Chase’s murder, let alone about identifying a culprit, so we should still have time to find out enough to clear you.”

Deep in thought, it took Solomon most of his substantial breakfast to realize that he did not feel remotely uncomfortable in his brother’s presence. He was glad he had come.

*

As Constance walked away from the church, deep in thought, she suddenly became aware of Miss Fernie marching along toward her on the other side of the street. The shock was enough to snap her back to the present, for after last night and the stairs, she could not afford to let her attention slip.

She had to think herself back to the old days, to childhood, when she had to be aware of everyone around her, every movement, every sound.

Though her breath froze and her stomach lurched, she managed not to miss a step, and even to lift her hand in a friendly wave.

But Miss Fernie marched on, apparently not noticing her, though Constance was sure she did.

The woman had her nose in the air and wore an expression of contempt that was almost… hatred.

Constance felt it like a slap, the echo of those hands striking her full in the back, hurling her into the abyss. Shaken, she actually looked over her shoulder to make sure Miss Fernie was still walking away from her.

This was more than a moment’s malice in return for too many questions. This was utter hatred.

What did I do or say to her?

Nothing to inspire such contempt. And yet an upright, godly woman would hold her in contempt—many already did. She saw it in the eyes of reformers and other respectable women who believed themselves to be so superior to her and the girls she cared for.

Was that it? Did she recognize Constance’s name?

She had spoken of family in London with whom she corresponded, but ladies were not meant to acknowledge the existence of women like Constance, let alone write to each other about them.

Still, something had caused that hatred, whether Constance’s profession or the questions she had been asking—had she come too close to the truth?

Was Miss Fernie indeed responsible for the letters? Or someone Miss Fernie loved?

Who did Miss Fernie love?

On impulse, Constance turned in at the doctor’s gate and rang the bell. Recognizing her, Nora the maid let her in at once and showed her into the parlor. “I’ll just tell Mrs. Chadwick you’re here.”

The wait gave Constance a couple of minutes to pull herself together. She wasn’t sure why she felt quite so shaken. After all, in the grand scheme of things, Miss Fernie was not the scariest human being she had ever encountered.

Emmeline Chadwick swept into the room, wiping her hands on her apron, which she quickly threw off and tossed over the arm of a chair. “Good morning, Mrs. Silver. Forgive me, I was just in the still room, mixing some herbal potions for Charles. Would you care for some tea?”

Constance found she was glad of it, though she had to wait for the ritual to take its course before she could ask the questions she needed to.

Eventually, with the door closed behind the maid, she said, “Tell me about Miss Fernie.”

“Miss Fernie? She’s a stuck-up old thing, but mostly harmless. Why?” Emmeline’s eyes widened. “You don’t suspect her , do you? Of sending the letters?”

“It crossed my mind, though not from evidence or any real motive that I can distinguish. Just…ill nature.”

Emmeline passed her a cup of tea. “I confess I have not seen that side of her. Sophie and Edgar never cared for her much as a teacher—she did not actually teach them much they didn’t already know—but I never found her ill natured.”

“Perhaps it is just me she dislikes… Though you clearly have nothing against her, is it possible she bears a grudge against you?”

“I can’t think why. She is Charles’s patient, of course, but she is very rarely ill, and I can’t think of any occasion on which I neglected her or made her wait…”

“Made her wait?” Constance repeated, distracted by the oddity of the phrase.

Emmeline looked down at her tea. She looked suddenly very tired, as if all the lines around her eyes had deepened and let her skin sag.

“I have to do that sometimes. For Charles’s sake.

If he drops dead of exhaustion, there is no doctor to make anyone well.

Sometimes I have to make difficult decisions, and sometimes I make the wrong one. ”

Constance set down her cup. “Are we talking about Jenny Gimlet?”

“Richard came to the house, desperate for the doctor. His mother had sent him. I said Charles would come in the evening or the following morning. Richard shouted at me that it had to be today or Jenny would be dead. But when Charles came back from delivering the Lance baby…he was utterly exhausted, asleep on his feet. I couldn’t send him out again.

I fed him and made him go to bed instead.

And in the morning, he went up to Dravenhoe—the Gimlets’ farm.

Jenny was not quite dead, but she didn’t live much longer. ”

And Emmeline had been living with the guilt ever since.

“If the girl was so very ill,” Constance said gently, “would she not have died anyway?”

“I will never know. And neither will any of the Gimlets.” Emmeline swallowed and shook her head. “Charles said no one could have saved her, but he would say that to me, wouldn’t he? Someone else thinks differently, knows it was my unkindness.”

“Your kindness to your husband,” Constance corrected her. “We all look after our own first. It’s human nature. Would Miss Fernie have known about this?”

“Not at the time. The Gimlets are rather beneath her notice, except when Richard mimics her, which he does rather well. I suppose word would have got around the village, though. Nothing is secret here. But if she cared at all, I can more easily imagine her defending me, not sending me glued-on, anonymous letters.”

Constance shook her head. “Something has bitten her, but it might not be the subjects of those letters. Who are her friends in the village?”

“Miss Mortimer and Miss Jenson, I suppose. And the vicar and his wife. Everyone else is beneath her, even Charles and me. She only tolerates us.”

“Then the Keatons are not her friends? Nor Mr. Nolan the blacksmith?”

“Hardly.”

Then certainly not the Gimlets nor the Dickies, Constance thought. “Is she defensive of the children she once taught?”

“More critical. She will not have it that Mr. Ogden is more learned or a better teacher.”

“Because he comes from a lower class? She does not regard that as a mark of his success, his strength of character?”

A hint of color seeped into Emmeline’s face. “No one could deny his scholastic achievements. Nor should they try.”

“But you do not approve of his friendship with your daughter?”

Mrs. Chadwick waved one impatient hand. “It is not really a friendship. She is fascinated, besotted, because she has never met anyone like him. That is not a basis for lasting love and marriage.”

“Forgive me, but neither is cheating at cards and raking around the country.”

“Of course not! Who on earth behaves so?” Constance held the other woman’s gaze until Emmeline laughed uneasily. “Mr. Mortimer? I feel sure you are wrong!”

“He most certainly cheats. For the rest, he is young yet, but I would not leave my daughter alone with him. May I ask you about another village scandal?”

“Which one?”

“Miss Mortimer’s father and her mother’s maid?”

“Oh, that must have been before our time.”

Constance left it there, wary of stirring up a scandal that had quietened to all but the older residents.

*

Solomon entered the Silver and Grey offices to find Janey grinning at him.

“Ha! Welcome back! Where’s herself?”

“Thank you. In Surrey still. I can’t stay long. Have you anything to report?”

“Well, according to the constable forced to stand outside the Crown and Anchor, poor sod, there were two men seen running away from there after the murder. One sounds like your double, the other’s another sailor, but no one knows who he is.

The peelers’ve been asking around for someone called Johnny. ”

Solomon swore beneath his breath—Janey’s language could be catching—for Johnny was the name David had gone by before he remembered his own identity. Someone in the Crown and Anchor must have recognized him and given the police that name.

“I can’t find anything about the other sailor,” Janey continued.

“None of the working girls can help me. Lenny’s been looking into Herbert Chase, the dead cove.

He left a list of his investments, going back ten years.

Seems he was the up-and-coming man for a while, and then began to lose it all through bad investments—whatever that means. ”

Solomon went to his desk and snatched up the closely written paper on his desk.

“This is good,” he said. “The sailor and the list.”

“Can we get more money, then?” Janey asked cheekily.

“Probably,” Solomon said, without paying much attention, for a handful of words on the list of Chase’s past investments jumped up at him. The Mary Anne, cargo vessel, London, 1842-1850 .

The Mary Anne was the ship David had been on when he had seen Chase “die” the first time. And if Chase had been the owner, or part owner, it certainly explained his presence on board.

“I’m going to St. Catherine’s,” he said, stuffing the list into his pocket, “to see what else I can dig up. I might have something more for you and Lenny to do before I go back to Surrey.”

“You got other letters,” Janey growled. “I only leave you the ones you have to deal with.”

“So you do,” Solomon agreed, sitting down at his desk, more to pacify her for a few moments than because the letters interested him.

His mind was already dashing ahead to his own records at St. Catherine’s, and to who among his staff and acquaintances might have relevant information.

He rifled through the letters at high speed, took one out and told her to mark the appointment in the book, then came across one from his man of business that brought him to a halt.

It was about a house for sale that the solicitor felt sure would suit.

Solomon blinked at it. Had he really forgotten that he and Constance needed somewhere to live together? Far too much had been pushed out of the way to accommodate cases recently. Or to avoid the appearance of overeagerness or unwanted pressure. And it was not making them happy.

He folded that letter and stuffed it in his pocket, too. “The rest can wait,” he told Janey. “All else is well?”

“Course it is.”

“Then I’ll see you in an hour or two.”