Chapter 6 A Yarn of Suspicions
The morning of the pottery class arrived with a clean, bright light that fell across the worktable in long, unbroken panels, and I found myself arranging the clay and the small dishes of water with more care than the task strictly required.
The Yarn the pieces were taking shape, and the conversation had drifted back to safer ground, the upcoming harvest festival, the new display in the window of the chemist's shop, the price of wool.
But I had seen what I needed to see. Florence's hands had not stopped trembling, and Julian had not looked up from his clay since the constable's departure.
When the class ended and the students began to gather their things, I moved around the table to collect the water dishes and the discarded scraps of clay.
Florence was the first to leave, her coat pulled tight around her shoulders despite the warmth of the room, her farewell brief and distracted.
Julian lingered, wiping his hands on the cloth with slow, deliberate strokes.
"You asked about my uncle's acquisition," he said, without looking at me.
"The truth is, I do not know what it was. He wrote to me a few months ago, the first letter in years, and he mentioned that he was close to securing something important, something that would change everything. He was obsessed with it. But he never told me what it was, and I did not ask."
He set the cloth down and finally met my eyes. "I am not the villain in this story, Miss Croft. Whatever you may think of me."
I held his gaze for a long moment. "I do not think you are a villain, Mr. Blackwood," I said. "But I do think you know more than you are telling me. And I think that, sooner or later, you are going to have to decide whose side you are on."
He did not answer. He only picked up his jacket and walked out into the morning, and the door swung shut behind him with a soft, final click.
I stood alone in the quiet of the shop, the scent of wet clay still hanging in the air, and I looked at the six stools arranged around the table and the six misshapen pots that sat upon the canvas.
Each one held the imprint of the hands that had made it, the steady pressure of Eleanor's fingers, the nervous tremor of Florence's, the clumsy determination of Julian's.
And somewhere in the village, I was certain, there was a button carved from horn or bone with a pattern of interlocking circles, and someone who knew exactly where it had come from and why it had been left beside a dead man's body. I only had to find them.
I began to clear the table, setting the pots aside to dry and folding the canvas cloth with slow, methodical care. Outside the window, the morning sun had climbed higher, and the light that fell across the counter was bright and clean and full of promise.