Chapter 14
“Ignorant, that’s what they are,” Juliette snarled. “Ignorant, narrow-minded, horrible people. I hope they rot in prison.”
“Me too,” Mary declared. “Horrible people.”
The maid seemed to take strength from Juliette, who showed no ill signs from her captivity. A stark reminder came when both girls shielded their eyes as we emerged into the light. They needed a moment to adjust to the brightness after being held in the dark for so long.
We’d found ourselves on a busy street, but few passersby paid us any attention. Those who did wrinkled their noses at the filthy state of the two women with us. None stopped to ask if they were all right.
I wasn’t sure where we were, but Mary, the only local among us, directed us to Moray Place.
Oscar spotted two constables walking their patch and informed them we’d found the two kidnapped women.
One left to inform the investigative team at police headquarters and the other continued with us to Moray Place.
He asked the women to wait for D.I. Smith before discussing their ordeal, but Juliette was in no mood to wait.
“We never saw their faces. They wore masks covering all but their eyes. One was a woman, two others were men. There were no distinguishing features, they weren’t tall or short, fat or thin.”
“One of the men smelled nice,” Mary piped up.
“What did he smell like?” Oscar asked.
“Soap.”
The kidnappers had been clever to hide their identity. It could mean they didn’t intend to kill the two women, but planned to release them, and didn’t want to be identified later.
“You mentioned they put you through a mock trial for witchcraft,” I said.
Juliette nodded. “I’m a wool magician.”
“I’m a cotton magician,” Mary added. “The man who did all the talking told us if we confessed to being witches, they’d let us go.”
“They wouldn’t have,” Juliette growled. “I told Mary to keep quiet. If we’d confessed, they would have meted out punishment. I’ve studied history. I know what they did to so-called witches. Our kidnappers were mad.” She tapped her temple. “They would have done the same to us.”
She was right about the troubled history of witchcraft. My studies on the subject had been difficult reading at times.
“They were our judges, jury and executioners,” Juliette went on. “Whenever my gag came off, I warned Mary not to tell them anything. She was marvelously courageous.”
The maid’s face crumpled as fresh tears tumbled down her cheeks. “Ye were the brave one, Miss Buchanan. I couldnae survived in there without ye.”
“Yes. Well. We can only do what we can do.” Juliette self-consciously fidgeted with her tangled locks, using her arms to hide her face, but not before I saw tears well in her eyes.
“I knew we’d be rescued, sooner or later.
I’m just glad my uncle didn’t wait for the police to do their job and hired private investigators. ”
None of us corrected her. In a way, it was a kindness for her to think her uncle and aunt had hired us.
“How did you find us?” she asked. We were close to Moray Place now, and both women had quickened their pace, sensing loving embraces weren’t far away.
“We interrogated a number of people who knew you,” Miss Wheeler said, “and one who claimed not to know either of you, but we believed was a suspect. Someone followed us, then shot at us.”
Mary gasped.
“Twice,” I added.
She gasped again.
“We managed to follow the gunman after the second shooting,” Miss Wheeler went on. “He led us straight to you.”
“That was foolish of him,” Juliette said, sounding surprised.
“Miss Wheeler is a chalk magician,” Oscar clarified. “She threw chalk dust at the gunman, then used her magical senses to follow the chalk trail to the place where you were being held. He didn’t know he was being followed.”
“Nobody came into the room where we were,” Juliette said.
“He must have thought himself safe, only to find us on the doorstep when he reemerged. At that point it was too late to do anything except run. There was no point trying to stop us entering the building. Firing a gun in broad daylight near a busy street could very well lead to his capture, which probably explained why he didn’t risk firing a second time outside the teashop.
Since neither you nor Mary could identify him, and nor could we, he cut his losses and escaped. ”
“Coward,” Juliette spat.
“You say you can’t identify them,” Miss Wheeler said, “but would you know their voices?”
“Perhaps we would, but only for the man that did all the talking.” Juliette looked to Mary, who nodded. “The other man and the woman never uttered a word. Not once.”
“The voice of the man who spoke to you,” Miss Wheeler went on, “it wasn’t familiar?”
Both women shook their heads.
“Do either of you attend church?”
“I do, in Aberdeen,” Juliette said.
Mary bit her lip and lowered her head. “I like my Sunday mornings off too much tae waste it sitting on hard pews. Is that why they took us? Because we dinnae go tae the kirk?”
Juliette slipped her hand inside Mary’s. “That is not the reason.”
Miss Wheeler also hastily assured them that it wasn’t. “The reason I ask is because the building in which you were found is owned by a vicar.”
Mary gasped again, but Juliette seemed unsurprised. “I should have known he was a religious crank. He had a self-righteous air about him. He called us unnatural abominations.”
“He told me I had the devil in me,” Mary added. “He said confessing to being a witch would expel the devil and allow me to serve God better.” The girl’s chin began to wobble again.
Juliette’s thumb caressed Mary’s. The simple act bolstered the maid and she managed to hold back her tears.
“We can’t be certain if the vicar who owns the building is involved,” I cautioned them.
Miss Wheeler agreed. “I thought he might be the vicar at the church where you attend Sunday service, but it seems there’s no connection if you’ve never attended here, Miss Buchanan, and Mary doesn’t go at all.”
She exchanged glances with Oscar and me. She may be right about the vicar not being involved, but we couldn’t discount the religious motive for the crime. Indeed, we knew of another person who was very religious.
Juliette’s aunt, Mrs. Gordon.
Was the reason the female kidnapper hadn’t uttered a word in the captives’ presence because one, or both, would recognize her voice?
It was hard to stomach. Surely not Juliette’s own aunt.
She possessed a cool, brisk manner, but she’d seemed genuinely worried about her niece.
Most families had their problems, and I suspected the death of her brother—Juliette’s father—had triggered a distancing between sisters-in-law that went beyond the physical, but it would be cruel indeed to orchestrate her niece’s abduction.
Unless she didn’t see it as cruelty, but righteous. Was Mrs. Gordon so devout that she put the demands of her faith above the well-being of Juliette?
Juliette turned to Miss Wheeler. “You should look into Jack, the footman at number eight. He’s involved.” She said it with more vehemence than anything she’d said so far.
“Aye,” Mary said, equally vehement. “He dinnae do the kidnapping, mind. Neither man was tall like Jack. But he’s involved, the cur. He must be.”
“Because he wrote the letters to you both, luring you outside so that you could be taken?” Oscar asked.
“Not just then,” Juliette said. “He wrote to me in Aberdeen. He lured me to Edinburgh on a promise of…” She shook her head. “Never mind what. I thought he loved me. He didn’t. I’m such a fool for believing him.”
“Me too,” Mary said. “He fooled us both, the cur.”
“Are you certain it’s Jack the footman from number eight?” Oscar asked. “Did he identify himself in the letters?”
“He signed ’em as Jack,” Mary hedged. “The butcher’s boy is also Jack, but the one in my letters says we’ve never spoken, so it wasnae him.”
For the first time since her rescue, Juliette seemed uncertain, too.
She frowned. “His first letter to me said he’d noticed me on my last visit to my aunt and uncle in Edinburgh.
He knew it was seven years ago. He said he’d watched me from afar then, and that he knew I’d admired him, but he couldn’t act on it.
He’d been thinking about me ever since. Who else named Jack would have known I was here back then? ”
“Did you admire him at the time?” Miss Wheeler asked gently.
“Of course. He is terribly handsome.”
“Aye.” Mary nodded, sagely. “He’s a braw lad, all right.”
Juliette tossed her mop of tangled hair. “Anyway, I wanted to visit Edinburgh again. Aberdeen is a little quiet.” She grunted, but didn’t continue. I suspect she was thinking about the irony of wanting to leave the quiet life only to have too much adventure here in Edinburgh.
We turned onto Moray Place just as it began to rain. Miss Wheeler put up her umbrella and held it over Juliette’s head. Mary sidled closer to be protected, too. Juliette released the maid’s hand and took her arm instead. The women huddled close.
Juliette’s gaze slid to the garden square opposite the houses.
Her nostrils flared and her lips pinched.
I wasn’t sure if she was upset or furious to be near the location of her abduction again.
Either way, she was trying hard to contain her emotions.
“I don’t know if it matters,” she said, “but the man who did the actual kidnapping was the man who never spoke.”
“The same with the one who took me,” Mary added. “The one who did all the talking waited in the carriage.”
We walked past Mr. Kinloch’s house. Apart from a constable stationed at the base of the stairs, all was quiet, the curtains drawn.
The fellow who’d been lounging against the garden fence earlier was no longer there.
The constable accompanying us went up to his colleague and spoke quietly.
The other’s brows shot up as he stared at Juliette and Mary as if they were sideshow freaks.
Juliette lifted her chin even higher, but Mary didn’t seem to notice.