Page 33 of Miss Moriarty, I Presume?
De Lacey swallowed. “Mr. Baxter is a very busy man.”
“Does he have other children?”
De Lacey again blinked a few times. “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to discuss that.”
Charlotte was only trying to gauge how important Miss Baxter might be to Moriarty. De Lacey’s answer, however, reinforced how little he was allowed to discuss with regard to father and daughter.
“Very well, then,” she said. “In that case, Mr. de Lacey, I would like to know how you have kept an eye on her safety over the years.”
The stationat Snowham was about an hour east-southeast of London. Detrained passengers exited quickly, leaving Livia and Lord Ingram to tour the place at leisure. There wasn’t much to see, only a single half-covered platform next to a small building, indistinguishable from any other minor country stop. A few travelers awaited the next train headed for London, a bored stationmaster spoke to the ticket agent, and an occasional express train rumbled through, not deigning to slow down.
“Do you remark anything at all?” Livia asked her companion, after they had been at the station for a while.
“No, nothing, I’m afraid,” said Lord Ingram. “Shall we take a look beyond the station?”
They found a hackney and asked to be driven around, pretending to be a pair of siblings looking to settle down nearby. The cabbie, not surprised by the purpose of their journey, informed them that the village had more than doubled in size since the railway came through in the sixties.
“Much cheaper and nicer compared to London, innit?” he opined.
The village was indeed composed of a core of older buildings around High Street, their red roofs darkened with age, and some other streets with newer but more uniform-looking houses. After a quick detour into the surrounding countryside, Lord Ingram asked to see any mills, factories, or other such sites that one might conceivably invest in.
They were taken to a brick kiln, a tannery sitting idle, and lastly, the only inn in the village, freshly painted and put up for sale because its owner wished to retire. Lord Ingram whispered to Livia that none of these establishments remotely approached the scale and sophistication of the De Lacey Industries premises he and Charlotte had seen.
But they alit at the inn anyway, as Mr. Marbleton almost certainly would have patronized the place, if he had spent more than a day in Snowham.
It was early for luncheon and they were the only diners in the dining room, the windows of which looked onto green countryside and a willow-lined riverbank in the distance. Their steaming shepherd’s pies came with a white-haired innkeeper, who was happy to inform them that two parties were already interested in his establishment. “Very well kept this place has been, if I do say so myself. And I’m not asking too much, just its fair value.”
They chatted a little more on the history of the inn, its current operations, and the innkeeper’s plans after retirement, before Lord Ingram said, “If you don’t mind, Mr....”
“Upton is the name, sir.”
“Right, Mr. Upton. My sister and I are on a possibly fruitless quest in search of a friend. He departed from our midst several months ago and hasn’t been heard from since. Recently we learned that he’d passed through Snowham. Yours is the only inn in town, from what I understand?”
“The publican does have two rooms above the taproom, but those rooms aren’t listed in any travel guides. So if your friend came from elsewhere and stayed here overnight, he would have stayed with me,” said Mr. Upton proudly. He then sighed. “But I no longer have as good a memory for names and faces as I did when I was younger, just so you know.”
Lord Ingram held out his hand. “Be as it may, this is a photograph of our friend.”
Livia stilled.Shedid not have a picture of Mr. Marbleton, but Lord Ingram did?
In the photograph, Mr. Marbleton stood in an open field, his arms wide, his face tilted up to the sky.
The innkeeper excused himself and went to fetch his reading glasses. Livia leaned closer to Lord Ingram and whispered, “My lord, where did you obtain this?”
“Long story,” he whispered back. “The picture was developed last summer from one of the negatives I borrowed from the Marbletons, during the Sackville investigation.”
“Borrowed?”
“Yes.” He grinned. “Though when I attempted to return the plates, the Marbletons did not take it too kindly.”
The innkeeper returned with glasses on, and with one look at the photograph, said, “Why yes, I remember him. That’s Mr. Openshaw. A more amiable young man I’ve rarely met and I’ve seen the whole world pass by.”
Something cracked inside Livia. Having seen Mr. Marbleton with her own eyes, she knew that fewer than twenty-four hours ago he was still alive and in one piece. Yet this unexpected confirmation of his itinerary last December made her feel... as if he’d been gone a decade and this was first time she’d had his news.
Yes, something had been fractured—the protective restraint she’d put into place so that she did not obsess over his fate every hour of the day. Through this damaged dam streamed all the questions she’d had no one to ask. How had he looked? What had he said? Had he eaten properly? Had he given any hints about his past or his future?
She bit the inside of her cheek. Best let Lord Ingram do the talking. If she opened her mouth, her emotions wouldn’t just spill all over the table, they would submerge the inn, possibly the entire village.
Lord Ingram looked at her before he turned to the innkeeper again. “That is excellent news indeed, Mr. Upton. Do you recall when he stayed with you?”
