Chapter Seventeen #2
She paused and glanced back again to the spot where Solomon had been standing, and as she moved, a splash of color caught her eye. Almost at the path, stuck through a sharp, broken twig at about the level of her hip, was a piece of fabric.
She went toward it and crouched down. From here, there was no clear shot to where Solomon had been. Trees were in the way. But it could have been torn off as the shooter fled back toward the path afterward… Or before, as he had stalked his prey.
He. She glanced back at the piece of fine, blue-patterned woolen cloth. No, this had not come from a man’s garment. It was from a woman’s gown, and she had seen the color and the pattern before.
“Adelaide,” she whispered.
Adelaide, who had been so breathless when she greeted them on the doorstep of Dare Hall. Almost as though she had been running… She could easily have made it back to the house ahead of David’s gig, though not without rushing.
Constance snatched the torn cloth from its twig and straightened.
She had thought she might try to speak to their other suspects, West and Everett, to establish where they were when Solomon was shot.
Now, she only had one, desperate, urgent thought—to get back to Dare Hall, where she had abandoned Solomon.
*
Penelope Owens’s hands were still shaking when her father came home.
She had to stand in front of her looking glass and deliberately change her expression from wide-eyed and fearful to calm, casual interest. She had to practice holding it for some time.
It was difficult when her heart thudded so hard and her legs wobbled, but she persevered, and found the very calmness of her face seemed to settle her heart—and this time, when she walked to the door, her legs carried her much more easily.
She walked downstairs to find that the maid had already served tea. Her father sat at the table, absently drinking from his teacup while he read the newspaper held up in his other hand.
“Good afternoon, Papa,” Penelope said, taking her place behind the teapot and pouring herself a cup. She did it quickly, in the hope of hiding the residual trembling of her hand. “How has your day been? Was it a serious crisis at Dare Hall? Is Mrs. Jenkins well?”
“I wasn’t summoned to Mrs. Jenkins but to Mr. Grey, who had managed to get himself shot!”
“Shot?” Her voice broke on the word, but at least the shock sounded natural. “Please tell me he is not dead…”
“Of course he is not,” Papa said testily.
There was no of course about it, and he obviously recognized that because even as her brain began to repeat, Thank God, thank God, over and over, he cleared his throat in an apologetic sort of a way and rattled his newspaper.
“Could have been much worse,” he said, scowling.
“Just a nasty graze that needed a couple of stitches. And a blinding headache for a day or two, I should think, but he’ll be fine.
” He patted her hand. “No need to fret. There’s no madman in the neighborhood!
I expect it was intended as a warning rather than murder. ”
“I wonder if the law makes a distinction,” she said, knocking her cup against her teeth in her rush to hide her face with it.
“To Harvey, the important thing is Percy’s killing. The Greys have merely stirred everyone up with all their ignorant questions, made everything worse. With any luck, they’ll go back to London and leave things alone.”
“Sir Felix was talking about involving the detectives of the Metropolitan Police.”
Papa growled. “More strangers. Just like Percy to cause all this trouble by dying! Still, I suppose it’s the one thing he can’t be blamed for.
” He pushed his cup toward Penelope and she refilled it.
“Personable woman, Mrs. Grey. What on earth is her husband thinking of, involving her in such sordid matters as murder? Expect she’s a comfort to him. But she needs to take him home.”
“Will Constable Wills not search for whoever shot Mr. Grey?” Penelope asked casually.
“Oh, he’ll have to make some sort of show of it, I suppose. Don’t suppose he’ll find anything, though.”
Oh, I think he will…
*
Her heart in her mouth, Constance tried very hard not to burst into the guest bedroom where Solomon lay. But still she must have entered suddenly, for everyone in the room turned to gaze at her in surprise.
Solomon, propped up on pillows, was drinking tea, the unhealthy pallor of his skin brighter than before. That was welcome, even if the presence of Adelaide at the bedside was not. At least David still sat at his other side.
“A cup of tea, Mrs. Grey?” Adelaide offered politely. “Forgive us holding the tea party in your room, but Solomon claimed he wanted company.”
“I wanted yours, too,” Solomon said, and Constance knew he had guessed where she’d been and was not happy about it.
“Well, here I am,” she said lightly, untying the strings of her hat and laying it on the dressing table. “And yes, please, I would love a cup of tea. Thank you for keeping him company. You look better, Solomon. How is the headache?”
“Not so bad. I expect the laudanum helps.”
David gave her his chair, then fetched the stool from the dressing table to sit beside her.
“Has the rain started?” Adelaide asked.
“It has, but it’s not heavy.” Now that she was with Solomon and saw him not only alive but looking better for his nap, her mind seemed to be working again.
Adelaide was wearing the same gown she had worn this morning, and it was not the gown that the torn piece of cloth had come from.
When had she seen Adelaide wearing that bright, distinctive design?
Surely on their first meeting at the inn…
Adelaide brought the tea to Constance herself, though David had risen to help. “I have Clarence to attend to,” she said, “so I’ll leave you for now. Please just ring if you need anything at all, or if I can help in any way.”
“Thank you,” Constance said. “You’ve been so kind already.” And she had. Had this woman really darted outside as soon as they’d gone, followed them secretly through the wood, and taken a shot at Solomon, who now lay in her very comfortable guest bed? It chilled her spine, even to think of it.
David had risen to follow his hostess and give Constance and Solomon some privacy. At the last moment, as Adelaide’s footsteps sounded in the passage, Constance caught her brother-in-law’s arm.
“Don’t leave her alone with him,” she breathed. “Ever.”
David’s eyebrows flew up. He opened his mouth to speak, and his eyes were not friendly. In the end, he simply turned and walked out of the door.
“What was that about?” Solomon asked as she came slowly back to the bed.
Constance bent and rummaged in the pocket of her coat, which she’d left on the footboard. She brought out the torn piece of cloth. Then she sat on the edge of the bed, close to Solomon, and spread the fragment on her lap.
“I found it in the woods, near where the shooter must have been. It’s from one of Adelaide’s dresses.”
“Not the one she is wearing today,” Solomon pointed out.
“No, not that one, but it is hers. And I’m pretty sure it wasn’t there when we passed that way this morning.”
Solomon gazed at the cloth, shaking his head. His eyes were troubled. “There is so much wrong with this. Mostly that you should not have gone there, not alone.”
“I was quite safe. I knew the shooter would not risk going back there so soon.”
“You knew no such thing, Constance. You took a chance.”
“We have always taken chances. If we don’t, we have to give up Silver and Grey. I—and the baby—were in far more danger standing beside you this morning.”
He closed his eyes. “Do you think I have not considered that? What are we doing, Constance?”
“We’re solving another mystery, and yes, maybe we need to consider stopping, but not yet. This torn piece of Adelaide’s gown is about the only physical clue we have in this whole case.”
Solomon shifted restlessly against his pillows. “True. But would Adelaide have changed her dress just to shoot me, then changed it back again?”
“I admit I can’t see why she would,” Constance said. “But it is possible. And David is too close to her.”
“You mean he didn’t believe that she had done it? Constance, I don’t believe she would shoot me, whatever she may or may not have done to Percy.”
“That’s the point,” Constance said. “What if she didn’t set out to shoot you?
Just to warn us off so that we’d leave the matter alone?
Wills is floundering. Unless they call in Scotland Yard, we are the best chance of finding Percy’s killer.
So, perhaps she changed out of what she was wearing just so we wouldn’t recognize her if we glimpsed her through the trees, then shot wildly, aiming to miss, and by bad luck caught your head? You had just moved it after all.”
Solomon gazed at her. “And then dashed back here, changing again into her original dress before we returned? She must have seen me fall.”
“But she couldn’t give herself away by sending anyone to help you, let alone summoning the doctor.
Perhaps she even saw David in the gig. I don’t know what yet, but this piece of gown means something.
” She reached up to smooth his forehead with her fingers.
“Now I’ve made your head hurt again. Don’t worry, Sol, it’s only a theory and I shan’t do anything foolish.
It doesn’t feel quite right to me either, and I don’t think we have anything like all the facts.
I could do with reading over all our notes… ”
“Tomorrow will do,” Solomon said, catching her hand and kissing it.
She shuddered, chilled by the flood of horror at what tomorrow might have been, had that bullet hit him a mere inch to the right.
She could not afford to let such fears paralyze her.
For now, making sure Solomon’s condition did not worsen was her entire focus, but she could not shake the fringe of unease that remained.
Tomorrow will do. But would it?