Chapter 15 Setting the Trap
The afternoon light had begun its slow retreat from the windows of The Yarn & Needle by the time I settled myself at the workbench in the back room.
I had closed the shop at half past twelve, as I had done every day since the buttons were taken, and the silence that followed the turning of the lock was no longer the comfortable quiet of my old life.
It was a waiting silence now, a held breath, and I had grown accustomed to working inside it.
I retrieved my box of knitting supplies from the shelf and set it on the bench, and then I reached into the pocket of my cardigan and drew out the mother-of-pearl button.
It lay in my palm like a small, luminous secret, its delicate floral engraving catching the thin afternoon light.
I had examined it a dozen times since I had found it beneath the loose floorboard at the bookshop, and I knew every curve of its pattern the way I knew the stitches of my oldest cardigan.
The petals radiated outward from a central point, six of them, each one tapering to a fine point, and between them lay smaller leaves worked in a shallower cut that gave the whole design a sense of depth.
It was the work of a skilled hand, and I was about to attempt to match it with my own.
I opened the box and selected a piece of mother-of-pearl from the small collection I kept for special projects.
It was not an exact match in colour, the one from the bookshop had a warmer cast, more cream than silver, but the thickness was right and the surface took a mark cleanly.
I laid it on the bench beside the original and studied the two side by side.
The differences were plain enough when they sat together, but I was not making a copy that would pass close inspection.
I was making something that would catch the eye of a woman who had already lost one button and would recognise its twin.
I chose my finest needle file and began to work.
The first petal took the better part of an hour.
I traced the outline with the file's narrow tip, following the curve I had memorised, and then I deepened the groove with a series of careful passes.
The shell dust gathered in a fine white powder on the bench, and I paused every few minutes to brush it away and compare my work to the original.
The rhythm of the filing steadied me, the way knitting always had, and I found that my hands were calmer than my mind.
Gareth's words from the morning were still turning over in my thoughts, the timeline of Florence's financial ruin slotting into place beside the coded ledger entries and the trampled hedge beneath the apartment window.
She had needed money, and Silas Blackwood had possessed a book worth a great deal of it.
The connection was clear enough to satisfy me, but it would not satisfy a constable, and it would not bring Florence Albright to admit what she had done.
I finished the second petal and set the file down to flex my fingers.
The work required a steadiness I had not needed since the early days of the shop, when I had spent long evenings assembling display pieces for the window, and I discovered that the old patience was still there, waiting to be called upon.
I picked up the file again and began the third petal.
As I worked, I thought about Constable Finch.
He had been at the old parish hall when I had last seen him, three days ago, and his frustration with the case had been plain in every line of his face.
The investigation had stalled after Julian Blackwood's alibi was confirmed, and I knew from Eleanor that her nephew had been spending long hours reviewing the same thin evidence without finding anything new.
He would be receptive to a lead, any lead, and he would not question its source too closely if it came from someone he trusted.
Eleanor had vouched for me often enough that my name carried a certain weight with him, and I intended to use that weight now.
The fourth petal was the most difficult, the one that curved inward toward the centre in a tighter arc than the others, and I had to set the file aside twice to rest my eyes before I was satisfied with the depth of the cut.
The original button had a slight irregularity at that point, a place where the carver's hand had wavered just enough to leave a small ridge in the groove, and I reproduced it as carefully as I could.
It was the kind of detail that Florence would notice, because she had examined the original as closely as I had, and the presence of that tiny flaw would make the replica convincing in a way that a perfect copy would not.
I finished the fifth and sixth petals as the light outside the window shifted from pale gold to a deeper amber, and then I set to work on the smaller leaves between them.
These were shallower cuts, more suggestion than statement, and they went faster than the petals had.
By the time I set the file down for the last time, my neck was stiff and my fingertips were white with shell dust, but the button that lay on the bench beside the original was a credible piece of work.
I held the two up to the light together, turning them slowly, and I allowed myself a small nod of satisfaction.
The replica would not deceive a jeweller, but it would deceive a woman who wanted to believe it was real.
I cleaned the bench with a damp cloth and put away my tools, and then I carried the replica button to the front of the shop and set it on the counter where I could see it.
The plan I had been forming since my conversation with Gareth had taken shape while my hands were busy, and I turned it over in my mind now, testing its weight.
I would tell Constable Finch that a witness had come forward, someone who had seen a figure near the bookshop around the time of Silas's death.
I would not give him a name, because there was no name to give, and I would not give him a description too precise, because a description that was too precise would be too easy to disprove.
I would tell him only that the witness had seen someone in a distinctive coat, someone who had seemed to be in a hurry, and that I was trying to learn more before I brought the matter to him officially.
He would press me for details, and I would deflect, and he would leave the shop frustrated but curious. And then he would talk.
Constable Finch was not a gossip, but he was a young man who wanted very much to be seen as competent, and the pressure of an unsolved case had worn on him.
He would mention the new lead to someone, perhaps to Arthur Penhaligon when he stopped by the parish hall to deliver the records Arthur had been asking about, or to one of the village elders who made a point of checking on his progress.
The rumor would spread from there, as rumors did in Meadowbrook, and within a day or two it would reach Florence Albright.
She would hear that there was a witness, and she would wonder what that witness had seen, and she would begin to worry.
A woman who had killed once and stolen evidence twice was a woman who would not sit still while a noose tightened around her.
She would act, and when she acted, I would be ready.
I looked at the telephone on the counter and considered calling Eleanor to tell her what I intended to do.
She had been my partner in the investigation from the beginning, and I owed her the courtesy of a warning.
But I also knew that Eleanor would try to talk me out of it, or worse, she would insist on being present when I spoke to Finch, and her presence would complicate a conversation that needed to seem casual.
I decided to wait until afterward, when the plan was already in motion and there was nothing she could do but help me manage the consequences.
I picked up the replica button and turned it over in my fingers. The back was plain, unpolished, and I had not attempted to reproduce the small manufacturer's mark that was stamped into the original. It did not matter. The front was what Florence would see, and the front was enough.
The clock on the wall showed a quarter past four.
Constable Finch usually made his rounds through the village in the late afternoon, and if I walked to the parish hall now I would likely meet him on the way.
I slipped the replica button into the pocket of my cardigan, beside the original, and I felt the two small discs settle against each other with a faint click.
One was evidence and one was bait, and I was about to set them both in motion.
I locked the shop behind me and stepped out into the cool air of the late afternoon.
The street was quiet, the way it always was at that hour, and the windows of the other shops were beginning to glow with the first lights of evening.
I walked toward the parish hall with my hands in my pockets and my fingers resting on the two buttons, and I felt the determination that had been building in me all afternoon settle into something steady and sure.
I was no longer waiting for the truth to reveal itself. I was going to pull it into the light.