Chapter Twelve #2
“Don’t think she noticed me. Thinking her own thoughts, she were.”
“Did she seem…upset?”
“Can’t say she did.”
“Was she carrying anything?” Solomon asked.
“Oh, no. Well, not apart from the basket. Thought she were collecting blackberries before they’re finished.”
“There were blackberries in her basket?”
“Might have been,” the man said. “It had one of them covers over it that keeps the flies off.”
“Which direction did she come from?” Solomon asked, his heart sinking even as his brain raced through possibilities and implications.
“From the bridge, I guess. Walked on toward Channing.”
“By herself?”
“Oh yes.”
Solomon thanked the laborer, who grinned and ambled off toward the bridge, whistling for his dog. Solomon returned to his task, a nasty, almost unthinkable suspicion in his mind. Constance was right. Even before the body of her son had been found, Mrs. Harvey had been terribly overwrought.
*
It was not really surprising to come across David sketching on the other side of the canal. Constance found it more interesting that he wasn’t wearing his coat. Instead, it was spread out beside him, with ruffled indents where two people had clearly sat, one of them rather smaller than the other.
He didn’t seem to see her approach, so hard was he concentrating on the page before him.
His hand flew across the paper and he barely looked up.
Either he had already memorized the view, or he was drawing something else entirely.
At last, he looked up, his eyes widening in surprise to see her. Then he waved and stood up.
“Where’s Solomon?” he called.
Constance indicated the thinning line of trees farther back.
“Are you going back to town?” he asked.
“Yes, are you?”
He shivered, as if he had only just noticed the cold, and bent to pick up his coat. “In a few minutes, when I’m finished. See you at the Duke’s Arms, if you like.”
“Good plan!”
In truth, she was looking forward to something to eat and a rest. It had been a frustrating couple of hours, with no definite clues to be found.
People and horses had clearly walked here, but no one had dropped anything.
If anyone had bled, the rain had long since washed it away.
There were no obvious signs of scuffles, no weapons hidden in the longer grass.
Judging by the silence from Solomon, he had found nothing of note either.
Even the barge dredging the canal had passed the lock now, and she doubted they had discovered what they all sought.
She only passed one cottage between her and Solomon, quite close to the town. An elderly woman with a bent back was hoeing the weeds from her front garden.
“Good afternoon,” Constance said politely over the fence.
The old woman raised unexpectedly bright eyes from her work to Constance’s face. “My. Ain’t you a beauty.” She straightened up painfully and leaned on her hoe. “Where’d you come from then?”
“From London,” Constance said. “My husband and I are staying with Mr. and Mrs. Harvey at Channing House.”
“That must be very nice.” The woman’s old eyes positively sparkled with curiosity.
“Not particularly, at this time,” Constance confided. “I expect you’ve heard of their tragedy.”
“All over the county by now. Always asking for trouble, that lad. Never thought he’d find it here, though.”
“You knew Percival Harvey?”
“Since he were a little lad when his parents bought Channing House. Pretty child, but he were spoilt even then. He was their only one, I suppose, their pride and joy. They must be in pieces.”
“They are,” Constance said. “You say Percy was asking for trouble—whom did he annoy the most, do you think?”
The old woman cackled. “Both the Wests, one way and another! And that poor lady over at Dare Hall—he couldn’t take not being irresistible!”
“I hear West has a temper.”
“So does his missus. Doesn’t make them killers.”
“I don’t suppose you saw Percy the day he came back from London?” Constance asked hopefully. “Last Thursday?”
Surprisingly, the old woman took a few moments to answer. “I don’t know,” she said reluctantly. “I might have.”
Constance felt the leap of her pulse. It was only a possibility, but it was more than they had discovered up until now.
“Where?” Constance asked.
The old woman nodded toward the opposite bank. “Over there. My eyes aren’t so good now. That’s what’s really annoying. I see what goes on. I just can’t see who’s doing it.”
“And what does go on?” Constance asked.
The old woman winked. “I don’t sleep much now, so I walk a lot. You’d be surprised what—and who—I see at night, creeping about.”
“I gather Percy crept more than his fair share at night.”
“He did that, though Daphne West should know better than to encourage him.”
“He crept around Mrs. Jenkins’s too, didn’t he?”
“Saw him skulking there often enough. But then, they all do.”
“Who do?” Constance asked.
Something flickered in the old woman’s eyes. “All of ’em.”
“All of them” because her eyes were too poor to see? Or because she didn’t want to name names? Constance let it go for now and returned to the main point.
“Where did you see Percy last Thursday?”
“On his horse, on the road to Channing House.”
*
“And yet he never got home,” Constance said excitedly to Solomon when they met up at the Channing bridge over the canal. “He must have bypassed the house, cut through the wood to Dare Hall, perhaps even abandoned his horse there if it were lame or sick, while he went looking for Adelaide.”
“Maybe,” Solomon said noncommittally.
Constance sighed. “I know, I know. The old woman can’t even confirm it was Percy, just some man on horseback.”
“More than some man,” Solomon argued. “He must have been dressed as a gentleman, with a gentleman’s dress and posture.”
“Did you see David, sketching on the opposite bank?”
“I did, but he seemed rather engrossed. I heard you talking to him.”
“I said we’d meet him at the inn. I think Adelaide and Clarence had been with him.”
Solomon made no comment on that. She didn’t really expect him to.
He said, “I met a farm laborer who told me something interesting and rather disturbing.”
“What?”
“That he didn’t see Percy on the day he was shot, but he did see Mrs. Harvey. He thought she was collecting brambles, but her basket had a cover on it, so it could have contained anything.”
Constance stared at him. “Like a pistol? You think Percy gave her his pistol when she told him to—she is his mother, after all—and then she shot him with it, afterward hiding the pistol in her basket?”
“Unlikely, I know, but possible, surely? Percy was seen near Channing House—perhaps. If he was looking for Adelaide… If he found her and his mother interrupted…”
“She’d have to be a little mad,” Constance said shakily.
Solomon turned his head and met her gaze. “Do you think that she isn’t?”