The Vanishing Thief(80)

I walked around the village and returned to the inn in time for my dinner. I needn’t have hurried. I was served, alone, by the hatchet-faced proprietress in the parlor bar while men’s raucous laughter could be heard from the main bar. I was certain no one in the other room was eating overboiled potatoes, mushy greens, and stringy mutton, or they wouldn’t have been laughing.

I had nearly abandoned the effort of struggling through eating deliberately bad cooking when the manageress returned with an equally grim-looking woman. “You have a visitor.”

Smiling, I said, “Won’t you sit down?”

The two women stood looking down at me. “Why are you here?” scowling woman number two said.

“I didn’t realize it was your business.”

“I’m His Grace’s housekeeper. You came to the castle. That makes it my business.”

“I came to see Lady Margaret.”

“She’s dead.”

“Yes. I saw her gravestone.” This conversation was almost as unpalatable as the dinner.

“And then you spoke to the Carters.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I was bringing their daughter’s regards.”

“You know Anne?”

“I also know His Grace.” I expected her to threaten me with telling Blackford I’d been there. I thought I’d better nip that nonsense in the bud, and then maybe I’d find out what she really wanted.

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Then don’t.”

“If you’ve finished with your business with Lady Margaret, I suggest you leave in the morning.”

I saw a chance and decided to take it. “Not quite finished. Perhaps you can help me. What’s the truth behind the drowning of puppies and kittens in this village?”

The two women looked at each other and the room grew quiet. Even the noise from the bar lessened, as if the men were waiting for a reply. “You know about that?”

“Yes.”

“’Twasn’t Lady Margaret.”

I patted the back of the chair next to me. “Tell me.”

The proprietress nodded to her, and the woman sat. “There’s a young man in the village who wasn’t born with all his wits. He followed Lady Margaret around, and she always had a puppy or kitten with her. She drowned one kitten herself, while carrying the creature when she was trying to climb into a boat. She slipped and nearly fell in herself. The young man was there and saw what happened.”

She shook her head. “After that, her pets would be found drowned after a few weeks or a few months. No one understood why, and for a long time Lady Margaret was suspected, despite that she was upset at their deaths. It was finally discovered that the young man was to blame.”

“Was there evidence against him?”

The woman nodded. “Caught in the act. However, Lady Margaret was fanciful, temperamental, spoiled. She was feared in the village because if something didn’t go her way, someone would pay.”

“Pay?” That didn’t sound good.

“Outsiders would get sacked, but not without a good reference and a month’s wages. Villagers would be warned to stay away for a few weeks or shifted to another post. This didn’t happen as often as folks will tell you now that she’s gone.”

The woman stared at the fire for a moment and then continued. “Lady Margaret spent most of the little time she had with her family alone with the duke, and a duke has real power. Her idea of what was normal was warped. Especially after her mother’s death. Until then, her mother was her whole world. After that, no one had the heart to say no to her.”

“What happened to her mother?”

“You know the duke. Ask him.”

I planned to as soon as I reached London.


*


TWO DAYS LATER, I arrived back home to find Sir Broderick had called a meeting of the Archivist Society for that night. Proclaiming that I couldn’t face another hour with the grime and soot of travel on me, I left Frances Atterby helping Emma in the bookshop while I heated water in the gas geyser and poured myself a bath.

After four days of smoking railway engines, bouncing horse carts on dusty roads, crowded train cars, and lumpy beds, sinking into a tub of steaming hot water was glorious. While my body reveled in the twin pleasures of heat and soap, my mind studied what I’d learned on the trip. The locals appeared to suspect Lady Margaret of killing herself that night two years before and I was left wondering why. Did guilt drag her into the water?

And that led me back to Victoria Dutton-Cox’s puzzling death. I had no answers there. After letting my thoughts run in circles a few times, I picked up the sponge and rubbed down my skin.