Chapter Twenty-Three
TWENTY-THREE
When we extricate Rose from the bushes, she gibbers in fear, looking about wildly, as I reassure her that no one else is here, that if anyone shows up, Gray can deal with them.
I suppose that’s less reassuring than it sounds.
He’s a doctor. A gentleman. How could he protect her?
He also happens to be a very good bare-knuckle fighter, but that information might not be incredibly reassuring at the moment either.
We escort her out of the passage and to the Adler stables and then through their side door, where we’re met by Isla and Miss Emerson. Then Rose seems to remember what happened to her, and instead of collapsing in relief at being home, she’s worried that she’ll be in trouble for “causing a fuss.”
I let Isla take over while I fetch Mrs. Loomis. When I return, Rose is in a sitting room, with Gray examining her while Isla holds her hand and Miss Emerson speaks soothingly. Rose casts one guilty glance up at the housekeeper, who only walks over and pats her shoulder.
“You’re safe, child,” Mrs. Loomis says. “You are safe now.”
“I went out of doors,” Rose says. “While I was supposed to be on duty.”
“Because you heard a voice, yes?” Mrs. Loomis says. “Someone in the yard?”
Rose nods, her gaze down.
“Next time you think you hear someone lurking about, tell Mr. Loomis. Confronting intruders is no job for young women, but I understand that you thought you were protecting the mistress and master from interruption—or worse.”
Rose looks up, and it takes a moment for that to penetrate the shock of her ordeal. When she realizes she’s not in trouble, she nods and whispers, “I will not do it again, ma’am.”
“See that you don’t. Now, I will get you a nice cup of tea while the doctor here looks after you. Then I believe he will have questions.”
Rose has fabric burns on her knees and shins, as if she fell.
Her palms are scraped, and her hair has been pulled, but those are all the wounds Gray can find.
Her dress protected her knees and shins, so I only need to clean her hands of dirt and gravel.
Then it’s time for the questioning, and Miss Emerson withdraws, saying she is going home and will be available tomorrow if needed.
That leaves Gray and me with Rose. Isla offers to leave, but I can tell Rose appreciates having her there, so I ask her to stay.
“Miss Mitchell will be the one asking the questions,” Gray says. “We each have our own specialties. This is hers.”
Rose nods and glances my way.
“We’re going to start easy,” I say. “I want to know what happened, from the moment you heard a noise until Dr. Gray and I found you. And…” I lower my voice. “We know you were in the library with Polly, listening to the séance, and that you thought you heard Nellie.”
“I—”
“If that is untrue, please correct us. However, if it is true, please understand that we have told no one and will tell no one. Why you were in the library and why you went out is unimportant. What matters is what you heard and saw, and what you did.”
She swallows. “I heard a whisper. It didn’t sound like Nellie, but it was too soft and raspy for me to be sure.”
“But it was a whisper? Not a rustle.”
I’m giving her a chance to revise her story, but she firmly says, “It was a whisper. I was closer to the open window than Polly, and I know what I heard.”
I eye her. I don’t do it overtly. Just a pause as if I’m thinking of the next question, while I assess her expression. Her jaw is set, her eyes a little wide. Not outright lying, but telling herself a story, a story where she heard a ghost and not a stranger in the yard.
“And then?” I ask.
“I thought it might be Nellie. Or another ghost, drawn to the séance.” She pauses, and now she’s the one eyeing me. “Polly didn’t think it sounded like a whisper because no one in her family has the Sight.”
“The Sight being the second sight, the ability to see ghosts.”
“Spirits, yes,” she says. “Also demons and the fair folk. My gran could see them all. I only see spirits. Sometimes I hear whispers and catch glimpses of people when no one is there.”
“So when you heard a whisper outside, you thought it was a ghost.”
“The séance was to summon Nellie. If it was her, I could speak to her better than that woman.” There’s a slight twist to her words, faint derision.
“That woman being Madame Paix.”
“She did not know Nellie, and I do not think…” She lowers her voice. “I do not think she truly has the Sight.”
“So you believed Nellie might answer you instead.”
She nods. “I wanted to know who killed her, and I did not think she would tell the medium. So I went out.”
“Through which door?”
“The side one. I hurried along the house and around the corner. At first, I saw nothing. So I whispered for Nellie. I said it was me. And then something moved by the window.”
When she glances my way, I nod for her to continue.
“It was a man,” she says. “He heard my voice and turned. I didn’t recognize him, so I asked what he was doing there.
His face … turned angry.” She wraps her arms around herself.
“I cannot describe it better. I only know that he had a look that frightened me. I went to run, but he grabbed me by the hair. I let out a cry, and then he clapped his hand over my mouth and—”
She blinks, as if holding back tears. “It all happened so fast, miss. I did not even truly understand what had happened before he’d pushed me clear out of the yard.
I heard voices from the house. As if someone had heard me cry out.
That gave me hope, and I struggled. His hold on me broke, and I raced down the path behind the neighbor’s stable. ”
She looks at me. “He did not expect that. He thought I’d head for the house, and so he ran that way, while I hid in the bushes.
I heard boot steps, and I was so afraid he’d find me.
But he never came close. Then there were voices, and I thought I should go out, but I was too afraid.
I could hear footsteps, and I could not tell whether they were his or someone else’s so I stayed in the bushes, and I decided I’d remain there until morning.
Then, after a very long time, you bumped into me. ”
She pauses, and then quickly adds, “I was glad not to spend the whole night out there,” as if she might have sounded uncharitable about her rescue.
“You said the person who grabbed you was a man, yes?” I say.
She nods.
“Did he say anything?”
“Not a word.”
“When you first saw him, you said he was at the window?”
“The parlor window,” she says. “He was beside it, crouched by the bush, and I did not see him at first, which is why I thought to hide in a bush myself.”
“Did he seem to be looking in the window?”
She shakes her head. “He was too far from it, and the curtains were drawn. I think he was listening.”
“You did not recognize him?”
“No, miss. But he was nicely dressed, which surprised me. Not well dressed, like Dr. Gray, but properly.”
“Properly?”
“His clothing fit. That is what I noticed first, which is why I spoke out. If he wore raggedy, ill-fitting clothing, I would have run back in straightaway and told Mr. Loomis. But he looked like a student, and there are many students about. That is what I mistook him for. A curious student from the college, perhaps a little in his cups.”
“He was young, then?”
“Not as young as I thought. I saw that when he turned. Maybe five-and-twenty, but he could still have been a student.”
“Can you tell me more about the man?”
She nods. “He was very tall. I noticed that when he straightened. Very thin, too. Clean-shaven. Dark hair. And his eyes. I remember his eyes from when he looked so angry. They were brown, miss.”
I glance at Gray, whose own eyes are narrowing as the description unfolds. Very tall and very slender with dark hair and eyes. Decently but not richly dressed. Midtwenties. Has the look of a student.
Or a schoolmaster.
Grantham MacNiven.
Someone was lurking outside the séance for a murdered maid.
That person seems to have been trying to eavesdrop while a medium asked Nellie’s ghost who killed her.
A second maid accidentally confronts the eavesdropper, and he tries to take her hostage.
The description she gives matches that of a man who knew the dead girl …
and her dead friend. Clearly, we should now be rushing off to …
Arrest him? We aren’t police.
Tell the police? They don’t believe Nellie was murdered. As for the kidnapping, well, Rose got away, didn’t she? Maybe it was a misunderstanding.
I don’t know what the police would say about Rose’s abduction, but I do know we can’t do anything about Grantham MacNiven tonight.
We have no authority, and if we show up at his boardinghouse to question him in the middle of the night, we aren’t getting in without that authority. Plus, we’ll tip him off.
So it’s time to go home and get some sleep. We were up all night and only dozed during the day. We need rest, whether we want it or not.
Gray, Isla, and I don’t talk much on the ride home. There’s plenty to say, but once we’re in the coach, exhaustion seems to hit, and we collectively put the investigation on hold. We get home and stumble off to bed, and I’m asleep the moment I lie down.
I get five hours of deep and uninterrupted slumber. Then I wake up with a start—because there’s a cat on my chest.
“Trying to steal my breath?” I say to Freya. The wildcat kitten only stares down at me, but a voice across the room says, “That’s an old wives’ tale. Dr. Gray says they lie on sleeping people for warmth. It is only a danger with infants.”
I turn to find Alice pouring steaming water into my basin. I groan. “If Mrs. Wallace said to wake me up—”
“She did not. Dr. Gray is awake and having breakfast, and he said not to bother you, but he keeps checking his pocket watch.”
I reach for my own watch. It’s just past eight. I could get another hour of sleep, but now that I’m awake, I doubt I’d drift off. Gray is being patient, but we do have business. The business of interviewing a schoolmaster.
I give Freya a quick cuddle, which she tolerates, and then I’m rising and ready for that warm-water washup.