Chapter 22
T hey followed Mr. Howe as he raced through the house. Even in his panicked state, he wouldn’t do anything so uncouth as running, which Alfie’s leg appreciated, but he wasn’t exactly strolling either.
“What do you mean, James is missing?” The words didn’t make any sense to Alfie. James couldn’t be missing. He was an infant. He couldn’t even crawl yet, could he? And where would he go?
“Just that, sir,” replied Mr. Howe as they descended the stairs to the kitchen. “He was with his great-grandmother as she prepared breakfast. She says between one moment and the next, he was gone. It’s just like what happened to Captain McConnell.”
“Steady,” Alfie said. He wouldn’t acknowledge that he’d been thinking the same thing, or how that story had ended. “We don’t know anything yet.
“And don’t be spreading that around,” Dominick added.
They heard the kitchen before they saw it, a sound that Alfie shouldn’t be able to identify at all, but had become uncomfortably familiar—the sound of Mrs. Hirkins sobbing.
She was sitting at the table when they entered, her face buried in her handkerchief. Agnes sat motionless in the other chair, her eyes staring dully ahead. Mrs. Finley had her hands on Agnes’ shoulders, patting her gently and talking in a soft voice. If Agnes even heard her, she gave no sign of it. Alfie followed her gaze to the crib tucked into the corner of the kitchen. It was empty.
“What happened?”
“Master Alfie!” Mrs. Hirkins cried. “It’s all my fault! Oh Agnes, I’m so sorry. Oh James!”
She broke into another fit of sobbing then, and Alfie couldn’t stop himself from going to her and taking her hands in his own. Her skin was papery and there was a fine tremor running through her hands. He squeezed them tighter, trying to make it stop.
“Mrs. Hirkins,” he said around the knot in his throat. “Please, we need to know what happened.”
It took her several tries, but she was finally able to get more than a few words out at a time.
“James was… he was fussing this morning. I could hear him through the wall. I was already awake, but it was early, before sun up, so I took him so Agnes could sleep in a bit. I brought him down to the kitchen with me, thought I’d show him how to make my Bath buns. We had the dough all ready, me showing him how to knead it properly, him babbling away to himself in the crib. But I’d forgotten to get out the currants. He seemed happy enough, so I went to the storeroom to go fetch some more…”
At this, she started crying again and Alfie had to release one of her hands so she could wipe her eyes.
“When I came back, he was gone. Oh James!”
“We’ll find him,” Alfie said, praying it was true. “We’ll find him, but I need your help now. You came back and James wasn’t in his crib. Is there anything else you remember? Did you see anyone? Was anything out of place?”
Mrs. Hirkins shook her head, but she seemed hesitant. Dominick spotted it too.
“What was it?” he prodded gently. “Even if you think it's nothing or you were imagining it, we’ll believe you.”
She cleared her throat. “It was cold. I thought it was just me, but no, it was cold.”
Dominick nodded. “Like someone opened the door?”
There was a door that led from the kitchen to outside to take deliveries and make fetching water easier. It was where he and Dominick had seen Janie setting out her bread and milk for the broonies a lifetime ago. Alfie looked over at it now.
In the top of the door was a small window, like a porthole on a ship. In the pre-dawn hours, it would’ve been dark outside, but the interior of the kitchen would’ve been brightly lit with lamps and the stove fire—and the shared joy of James and Mrs. Hirkins. No one inside would have been able to see out, but someone watching from just outside the door would have been able to see everything. Including Mrs. Hirkins stepping out for currants, leaving James all alone.
Dominick went and tried the door. “Unlocked.”
That seemed to snap Agnes out of her daze.
“What does that mean?” she whispered. Then she asked again, her voice growing louder with every word. “What does that mean? Did someone take him? Who? James! Who took my James?”
She was near shrieking by the end. Mrs. Finley wasn’t just comforting her any longer, but trying to hold her down in her chair.
“Easy there, easy there. We’ll find the bairn. We’ll find him.” Mrs. Finley looked at him then. “Won’t we, my lord?”
Alfie couldn’t answer. Someone had come into Balcarres and taken James. He didn’t know what to do. If he made the wrong choice, whoever it was might get away. They might never see James again. The thought of not seeing that gummy grin or hearing those sweet baby coos was awful enough for him; he couldn’t imagine how Agnes was suffering. And if something happened to James—something unthinkable—if that happened, Mrs. Hirkins would never forgive herself. She’d be in pain for the rest of her life, if the guilt didn’t make her heart give out first.
He didn’t know what to do, but if he did nothing, all that would happen anyway. He had to at least try.
“Mr. Howe, wake the rest of the household. Search the outbuildings first. When the day staff arrive, have them join you. No! Have half of them join you, the other half search the house, just in case.”
Was that the right choice? He couldn’t be certain. There was nothing to be done about it now as with a curt bow, Mr. Howe was gone, off to see Alfie’s orders were followed, be they the right ones or not.
“He’s vanished. Just like Captain McConnell.” Agnes said. There was a dreamy quality to her voice that had Alfie and Mrs. Finley sharing a worried look.
“It’s not like that at all,” said Dominick, but Alfie could hear the fraying in his voice. Could see it too, in the worried pinch of his mouth.
“It is though.” Mrs. Hirkins added, nodding frantically. “It is, it is. I saw James and then he was gone. I saw the captain’s body and then he was gone too. Poor Mrs. McConnell, I should never have left her there alone when she fainted. The way she cried out for her husband before she collapsed, I’ll never forget it. But what was I to do then? What now?”
Something in her words caught at Alfie, not an invisible key, but maybe, just maybe, the handle of one.
“Mrs. Hirkins,” he said slowly, trying to puzzle out his own thoughts even as he spoke. “I need you to think very carefully. Please, I wouldn’t ask you to relive it if it wasn’t for James’ sake. Did you know Captain and Mrs. McConnell before that day in the drawing room?”
“I knew they were the architect and his wife, here to mess everything about. I’d seen her darting around the garden and him at a distance a few times, either going out to the folly in the morning or back to the inn in the evening, but we’d no reason to be introduced.”
“That’s very good, Mrs. Hirkins. You told us that when you found the body, the rope was tied like a noose around his neck. Did you mean it was a hangman’s knot?”
Dominick was staring at him quizzically, but even if Alfie was wrong, at least he was distracting Mrs. Hirkins from her worry for a few minutes while the search began.
She shook her head. “I don’t know what sort of knot it was. It was more the way it was tied at the back, just behind his ear the way the hangman does right before the drop to snap the neck instead of—”
She cut herself off then, overcome, and Alfie gripped her hands more tightly. “Just a bit more. That morning, Mrs. McConnell found you in the hall. She needed help finding the drawing room so you showed her the way. Then what? Tell me exactly what you remember.”
“I showed her the way,” Mrs. Hirkins repeated. “I didn’t blame her for not knowing how to find it in this warren. We got there. The door was closed. She thanked me for helping her and dismissed me. I said it was my pleasure and opened the door so she could go in. When I did, there was something lying in the middle of the room. I didn’t understand what I was seeing at first, but then Mrs. McConnell cried out ‘My husband!’ and I realised it was the captain’s body I was looking at. Facedown on the rug with that rope… as I’ve said. Then she fainted, and I ran for help.”
And there it was, the key. Alfie could see it clearly now, and he was pretty sure he knew what it unlocked.
“Is that exactly what happened?” he asked. “Those words, that order, everything?”
She took a moment, then nodded, certain.
Alfie leaned down and pressed a quick kiss to her knuckles.
“Thank you,” he whispered. Then he rose and turned to Mrs. Finley. “Watch over them both. A pot of tea wouldn’t hurt. Nick?”
He didn’t wait for Dominick to respond, knowing he trusted Alfie enough to follow wherever he led.
When they reached their destination, Alfie didn’t bother to knock before throwing the door open. His way was immediately blocked by a flurry of skirts and bright red hair.
“You can’t come in!” Janie screeched as she rushed to the door. She gripped either side of the doorway with her hands, using her body to stop Alfie from going any further. “Sir, you can’t come in here! This is Mrs. McConnell’s room! It’s not proper!”
Normally, Alfie would agree, but James’ life might depend on the woman in that room.
“To hell with proper! Let me in this instant!”
Janie’s eyes were wide, torn between following orders and following propriety.
“Sir…” she whined.
“Alfie?”
He raised a hand to stop Dominick before he could say anything more. Dominick didn’t know it, but without him, Alfie would never have figured it out.
“Janie, this is an emergency. I’ll give you to the count of three. One. Two.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
Mrs. McConnell appeared behind Janie in the doorway. She was fully dressed, but her hair hung loose about her shoulders. Janie had not yet had the chance to brush it into its tight bun for the day. She looked older, as if all the years had caught up with her in a single night, and her eyes were red from crying.
There was no time for condolences. “Where is your husband?”
Janie gasped, but Alfie was watching Mrs. McConnell.
“My husband is dead,” she said.
The invisible key turned in the lock. It clicked open.
“No,” said Alfie. “ Clyde McConnell is dead. Despite what you made us believe, your husband is alive. And he has James.”