Chapter Thirty-Four
THIRTY-FOUR
I like to think I am a compassionate person, but that’s not why I’d defended Sully. I’d been laying the framework for Lady Adler to reassure her that she’s not a suspect—how could I think she was, when I defended her actions? What I’m really interested in, though, are those letters.
Sully said she knew nothing in regards to Nellie …
before I said there was anything to know.
Then, when I said something happened to the young maid, the malicious gleam in Sully’s eye told me two things.
She was not surprised to hear it … nor was she displeased.
She had, however, seemed shocked to hear that the “something” was Nellie’s death.
Sully expected something bad to happen to Nellie in her absence, something that was not murder but did lead to Lady Adler retaining a detective.
My gut says she did something. The question is what?
I think it has something to do with Lady Adler’s correspondence.
Sully was surprised to hear that Lady Adler had been allowing her mail to pile up in Sully’s absence.
She didn’t expect that, and when she discovered it unopened, she wanted to “sort” the letters and did so even after being told not to.
Then, before she runs off to avoid me, she takes the time to check with Mrs. Loomis and see whether she needs anything picked up, which Lady Adler considered uncharacteristically thoughtful.
I head straight for the kitchen, which is empty. There’s a roast cooking, but Mrs. Loomis isn’t there.
“Hello?” I say.
Polly pops her head out from the scullery. She smiles, seeming genuinely pleased to see me, and curtsies. “Good day, miss.”
“Is Mrs. Loomis around?”
Polly shakes her head. “She is in her quarters, doing some mending. Shall I fetch her?”
“Not yet. Did you see Miss Sullivan here, perhaps half an hour ago?”
The parlormaid fails to hide a nose wrinkle.
“Yes, miss. She was checking the roast, and she did not know I was in the pantry. I asked what she was doing, and she jumped like a scalded cat and told me to mind my own business. I was only trying to warn her, in case Mrs. Loomis caught her opening the door and letting out the heat.”
I look at the kitchen range. “Was she opening the door for the roast? Or for the firebox?”
A pause. “I thought the one for the roast—perhaps to sneak a piece. But it could have been for the firebox. She snapped it shut as soon as I stepped into the room.”
I warn her that I’m going to check it, and she doesn’t argue—in fact, she offers to stand guard, which isn’t necessary, but she seems so eager to do it that I agree.
While she watches the hall, I open the firebox section of the oven.
Then I take the tongs and pull out exactly what I expected to find: the charred remains of a letter.
Polly sees what I have and lets out a squeal of delight before slapping a hand to her mouth. Her eyes round, she whispers, “Miss Sullivan was burning a letter. Is it from a beau?”
I very much doubt it, but I only whisper, “I shall need to find out. Hopefully it is not too badly burned. Can I ask you to keep this a secret, though?”
She grins at me. “Yes, miss.”
The letter is half burned, and the remainder is scorched so badly that I can only make out the words along the edge.
The letter has been printed in block letters, not written in cursive, which is very unusual for this period.
Normally, it would suggest that the sender doesn’t know cursive—perhaps being only partly literate.
In this case, given how perfectly each letter has been formed, I’m going to guess that the sender was printing to disguise their handwriting, meaning Lady Adler might recognize it.
And whose handwriting would she almost certainly recognize?
That of the person who pens her own correspondence—her lady’s maid.
So what can I make out? Not much, as I said, but there’s enough for me to have a very good idea what this letter said, on account of three of the words I can distinguish.
Friend. Death. Bog.
I think I know what Sully was up to with this letter, but I tuck that away until I can speak to her, and for now, I move on to address the second purpose of my visit.
Find who cleared out Nellie’s belongings.
Either that person killed her or they’re working with whoever did.
The obvious culprit would be one of the staff.
The female staff would top that list, since no one would question them being in the maids’ bedroom.
The male staff come next, followed by the possibility of someone from outside slipping in.
I swing my thoughts back to the séance. Whoever tapped out that message knew Nellie was dead.
Could Stella or her husband or brother have snuck in and taken Nellie’s things?
Or paid a staff member to do it? What about Miss Emerson?
The missing Miss Sullivan is less of a suspect here, as she was already gone to Glasgow.
Two more people are both members of this household and were at the séance: Lord and Lady Adler.
Is there any reason for Lord and Lady Adler to murder Nellie? Within a household, there are always motives. But if I think Nellie is connected to Mary’s death, how does that fit with the Adlers?
Unless Nellie’s death is not connected to Mary, beyond the fact that someone followed Nellie—who was investigating her friend’s death—and found her in a convenient location for murder.
I do my rounds of the staff, returning to my queries about the morning Nellie was found missing. I want everyone’s exact movements from the time they got up until they discovered Nellie was gone.
That doesn’t get me nearly as far as I might have hoped. Only one member of the household’s time is fully accounted for between rising and discovering Nellie gone. Sully was sent on an early errand. She went by coach to the New Town to pick up a dress, and the coach driver confirms the timing.
Sully’s alibi also means Lady Adler doesn’t have one—normally, Sully would have been with her all morning.
As for everyone else, they can account for their time, but not in a way that eliminates them from suspicion.
Too often, they were on solo tasks for long enough that they could have emptied that trunk.
From there, I head out to speak to Art again.
He’s found several spots for me, and I spend as much time as I can examining them, while he watches with great interest and peppers me with questions.
None of them contain anything, though, and I thank him with a few coins for his efforts.
Then I rescue Isla from her social visit, and our time at the Adler house is at an end.
It’s early evening. Isla is out with McCreadie, and I’m alone with Gray, which would be far better if I weren’t consumed by this investigation, my brain struggling to sort and connect the clues.
Gray has confirmed that Kate’s landlady saw her retire the night of Nellie’s murder and heard her rise the next morning.
The landlady complained about Kate’s early shifts, saying it didn’t matter how quiet the girl was, she still heard her getting up before dawn.
That suggests the landlord is a light sleeper and likely would have heard Kate slip out in the night to murder Nellie, but of course, it’s not conclusive.
“I’m having trouble sorting the wheat from the chaff,” I say to Gray as I pace in the library.
“I don’t like Kate’s involvement in Mary’s death, but I don’t think she killed anyone.
I don’t like Lady Adler blocking our experiment, but I don’t see her—or Lord Adler—drowning Nellie in a bog.
I don’t like Miss Sullivan being conveniently out of town right after Nellie’s death, but she has a good reason. ”
“Would you like to go downstairs?” Gray asks.
“Hmm?”
He lowers his voice. “We have more privacy in the funerary parlor.”
He gets to his feet and puts out his hand. “Come.”
I take his hand, his fingers warm around mine, and we slip into the silent hall.
He keeps moving, on alert, though no one is on this level.
In the stairwell, he releases my hand and we descend to the funerary parlor.
He locks the door behind us and then we head into the front room, where he pulls the curtains before settling onto the settee.
“Come,” he says again, reaching for me.
When I go to him, he settles me on his lap, arms around me.
“Now breathe,” he says.
I laugh under my breath. “I seem stressed?”
“A wee bit.”
I curl into him, and my eyes well with tears at the sensation of warmth and comfort, his arms going around me, my cheek on his chest.
“Hugh will handle Kate,” he says. “Strike her from your list of concerns. Miss Sullivan will speak to us, as soon as we are ready for her. As for Lady Adler, she is happy to help … until that help becomes even mildly inconvenient, and then it is as if she is humoring a young friend rather than cooperating with a murder investigation. That is, sadly, typical behavior for a woman of her age and class.”
I sigh. “Okay.”
“Let us put suspects aside and return to the question of Madame Paix contacting the ghost of a young woman who was not yet known to be dead. Do we think it is possible the ghost of Nellie Carmichael actually spoke to her?”
I hesitate, remembering what McCreadie said, but Gray’s smile says he’s joking.
“Then who tapped out the message?” he says. “And was it the same person who always does so during her séances?”
I take a deep breath and straighten in his lap. “My money is on Freddie.”
“Discuss.”
I shake my head at that, but I know what he means.
Lay it out for him. “Okay, so our three suspects for the tapping are Stella, her husband, and her brother. It’s possible there’s a fourth person who hides and taps, but that’d be awkward when they’re conducting the séances in the clients’ homes.
Even with checking out the location in advance, they couldn’t always find a place for someone to hide. ”