Chapter Thirty-Five
THIRTY-FIVE
Freddie Home didn’t show up for dinner with his sister and brother-in-law.
Stella was concerned; her husband was not.
When her worry grew, Parsons agreed to go looking for him.
He didn’t find Freddie, so when Simon showed up with a message from Gray, Stella jumped on the chance to pull in a professional.
Her husband argued … and Stella took off to ask us directly.
By the time we’ve gotten that explanation, Parsons has joined us, having followed his wife at a more measured pace.
“I understand you are worried, Stella,” Parsons says, as he settles into the parlor with us. “But I see no need to pull Dr. Gray into this. Freddie has simply lost track of time again. He gets talking to someone and then…” Parsons throws up his hands.
“For three hours?” Stella says.
“He is not a child. If he chooses to miss dinner, then while a message would be appreciated, the lack of one is not a sign of catastrophe. It isn’t even dark. He will come home soon, telling us how he met someone on the street and they went for a drink. You know how he is.”
I look at Stella. “Is this unusual behavior?”
“Yes,” she says, as her husband says a firm “No.”
Stella glowers at Parsons before turning back to me. “Freddie can be forgetful. He can lose track of time. He can get talking to a stranger and join him for a pint. But lately he has been staying in. I fear he has suffered a romantic disappointment—”
“He wanders,” Parsons says flatly. “He is easily distracted, and that is all that has happened.”
“You mentioned a romantic—” I begin.
“It was nothing,” Parsons says.
“I am speaking to your wife, sir.”
His jaw sets, and Gray tenses, ready to leap in, but Parsons only snaps, “The boy has many romantic entanglements, and they invariably end up with him cutting himself free from some poor girl who mistook his cheerful enthusiasm for undying devotion. My wife says he is quick to strike up conversations with strangers. That is true. And when the stranger is a young woman, he miscalculates. He sees a lovely lass who wants a few kisses, and she sees a dangling wedding ring.”
“And that happened recently?”
Parsons’s gaze locks with mine. He’s clever enough to realize what I’m asking—that I want to know whether this might be connected to the death of a certain maid.
“Stella?” he says. “We have taken enough of Dr. Gray’s time.”
“Not at all,” Gray says. “Your wife has reason to be concerned. While it is entirely possible that young Mr. Home is simply enjoying a pint with a new friend, we are happy to come back to your rooms, see whether we can find any clues.”
“You will not,” Parsons says.
Gray smiles, white teeth flashing. “Perhaps, but as we are the detectives, you should allow us to make that determination.”
Parsons hesitates. He could refuse. I’m sure Parsons is paying for Freddie’s hotel room and therefore he can decide whether or not to let us search it. But in that hesitation, he looks to his wife and sees her pleading and her fear, and he cannot refuse her.
“Fine,” he says. “It is your time to waste.”
We all take the coach back to the hotel. On the way, Stella asks what we’ll be looking for.
I shrug. “It’s hard to say. Mostly, we’re trying to determine whether your brother expected to return.”
“Expected to return?” she says, frowning. “Why would he not?”
I glance meaningfully at Parsons, but he’s keeping his attention on the window.
“I do not know your brother well enough to say,” I murmur.
“But in such a case, we are looking for any signs. Is there a note that summoned the missing person to a meeting? Did they pack an overnight bag? Did they take their valuables? Of course, even if they did, it does not always mean they have left of their own accord.”
“Oh!” she says. “Like with poor Nellie. I heard all her belongings were gone.”
Parsons turns sharply. “What’s this?”
Stella lays a hand on his. “I was talking about Nellie—the poor maid who died. All her belongings were missing, which suggested she had left on her own. But it appears someone removed them so it would only look that way.” She turns to me. “Her killer, I presume?”
“We do not know.”
I watch Parsons, gauging his reaction. Something in that revelation had startled him. But his eyes have shuttered again and he’s turned back to the window. My attention moves to Stella. She’s the one who’d changed the subject, swinging it back to Nellie’s death.
She’s watching me with guileless interest, as if this is just idle conversation. Is it?
“Well, my brother has not left on his own,” she says. “That much I know for certain. He would not, and I fear something has happened.”
We search Freddie’s room, and it seems like he did leave.
Fled, in fact. While he left plenty behind, his bedroom safe is open and empty.
There are shirts, most of them draped over furniture, but there isn’t a single shirt stud or cravat pin.
His sister said he traveled with a steamer trunk and a carpetbag.
The former is there and the latter is not.
I have no idea how much clothing he’d have brought to Edinburgh, but it looks as if he stuffed a few days’ worth into that carpetbag—along with every belonging of value—and bolted.
Or someone wanted us to think he did.
Is that why Parsons had startled in the coach when Stella mentioned Nellie’s things being gone?
Imagine Parsons is responsible for Freddie’s sudden disappearance.
When his wife gets worried, he brushes it off.
He doesn’t want anyone investigating too quickly.
But when they do investigate, they’ll find all Freddie’s valuables gone, because Parsons is a clever man.
He knows how to stage his brother-in-law’s hasty departure.
Unless we’ve already encountered a fake voluntary departure for Nellie and will see right through this one …
and might even suspect her killer also cleaned out Freddie’s things.
Why would Parsons get rid of his brother-in-law?
Because I believe he suspects him of more than just faking his sister’s powers. If Freddie did kill Nellie, then Parsons will have one overriding concern.
Protecting Stella.
We decide to leave Simon behind to secretly watch the Parsonses and let us know what they do. He offered to do it, pointing out that he has experience following people. And I pointed out that I caught him. To which he replied that Isla never has, and I need to grant him that.
Gray used to send Simon to shadow-protect Isla whenever she ventured into the Old Town alone, and he later did the same to me. I told Gray that I understood he meant well, but if he didn’t think we should be there alone, say so and let everyone come to a reasonable agreement.
Still, Simon does have tracking experience, and he’s also far more invisible than Gray or me. Just another young white Scot, with the sort of average face that you might not recognize even if you’ve met him before.
We let Simon drive our coach around the corner. When he hops out, Gray takes the reins, and Simon returns to stand watch at the hotel while Gray and I go home for some much-needed sleep.
Before I even wake the next morning, Gray has already checked in with Simon.
There’s been no sign of Freddie Home or the Parsonses.
The couple seem to have stayed inside all night.
While Gray was talking to Simon, the Parsonses emerged for breakfast, and from his vantage point he could tell Stella was upset, which means Freddie didn’t sneak in through a back entrance.
If Parsons did something to Freddie, I don’t believe it was murder. I think he’d stash the young man somewhere while he worked on a solution. Not even kidnapping so much as moving Freddie aside, maybe sending him on an “errand” out of town.
If that’s the case, though, eventually Parsons will need to go and meet with him. Decide on a more permanent solution.
Simon will remain on watch with Jack joining him to relay messages. We’ll give Parsons time to think we’ve backed off, and then if he doesn’t make a move, we will.
We’ve barely finished breakfast when someone knocks on the door. With Jack gone, Alice answers. We hear a brief muffled exchange. Then she comes into the dining room.
“It is a boy,” she says with obvious disdain. “He says he must speak to you and will not leave a message with me.”
“Did he give a name?”
She sniffs. “Art.”