Not a Creature Was Stirring(100)

He leaned forward. He didn’t know if multiple sclerosis affected the hearing, but he didn’t want to take any chances. “Mrs. Hannaford,” he said, “I know you sent for me, but if you’re not feeling up to it—”

“Stay.”

It was one word, but it was clear enough. Gregor relaxed a little. “I’m very happy to stay. I know this must be frightening for you. If I can do anything at all to help you—”

Cordelia’s head jerked, back and forth. The movement was so swift and violent, Gregor thought at first it had been involuntary. It wasn’t. Cordelia was shaking her head no.

She closed her eyes and sat very still. She sat that way for a long time, second after second going by with no sound in the room but her labored breathing. Then she sucked in as much breath as she could, stiffened her arms against the arms of her chair, and said,

“Help—you.”

“You want to help me?” Gregor said. “Do you mean you want to help the police? Because of the—the deaths?”

There really wasn’t anything wrong with Cordelia’s eyes. She shot him a look as imperious as that of any able-bodied duchess.

“Murder,” she said.

Gregor nodded an apology, embarrassed. After Elizabeth, he should have known better. Especially because this woman reminded him so much of Elizabeth.

“That’s right,” he told her, “murder. Three murders, to be exact.”

“Yessss.”

“If you think you know something that will help, I’ll be glad to hear it. We’ll all be glad to hear it. Your children are very disturbed.”

Cordelia seemed to smile, although it was hard to tell for sure. She didn’t have much control of the muscles around her mouth. She let her beautiful eyes wander around the room and then stop.

“Table,” she said.

Gregor followed her gaze. This was a sitting room, not a bedroom—Cordelia had a suite—but on the other side of it, under a window, was a writing table much like the one in Emma’s room. Its surface was clean and polished, its drawers were tightly shut. It looked as if it hadn’t been used in decades.

“Draw-er,” Cordelia said.

“There’s something in the writing table drawer?”

“Yessss.”

“All right.”

Gregor got up and went over to it, shivering a little in the draft from the window above it. It had four drawers, one in the center under the writing surface and three down the side, like a desk—but no one in his right mind would have called it a desk. It didn’t look like one. Gregor opened the center drawer first, because it seemed the easiest one to get to. It was empty.

He tried the first of the smaller drawers on the side, but it was empty, too. He tried the center one. Empty. He looked at the one on the bottom and then up at Cordelia, questioning.

“Yessss,” she said.

Gregor tried not to wonder how she’d managed to get whatever it was into that bottom drawer, in her condition. Anne Marie could have put it there for her—but if Anne Marie had, it would make more sense for Cordelia to get Anne Marie to bring it to him. He opened the drawer. Inside, there was a small brown accordion folder and a manila file. He took them out.

“A folder and a file,” he said. “Which one?”

“Both.”

Both. Gregor shut the drawer and went back to his chair. Cordelia had lost much of her anxiousness. She was still watching him, but without the urgency she’d brought to it when he first came into the room. Whatever she wanted to tell him must be substantially contained in what he now had.

The manila file was flat, the accordion folder thick. Gregor thought the file would take less time to get through. He wedged the folder between his leg and the chair to get it out of the way.

The file was full of small blue sheets of note paper, the kind supplied to all the writing tables at Engine House, each scribbled over in dark blue ink. He picked up the first one and read:

Dear Bennis: I keep starting this letter and starting this letter, and just not knowing how to go on.

That was it. He dropped it back into the file and looked up at Cordelia. She seemed to be trying to smile again.

“Emma,” she said.

“Emma wrote these?”

“Yessss.” She thought about it. “False—starts,” she said.

“False starts.” Gregor looked at the note again. “False starts of suicide notes?”

“No.”

“Of letters to Bennis? About something else?”

“Yes.” This time she made an effort, and bit off the “s” before it could become a hiss.

Gregor nodded. “You’re saying the first suicide note wasn’t a suicide note at all. It came from this file.”