Page 25 of The Villain's Fatal Plot
As curate, Paul’s duty was to his parishioners, which covered almost anything he chose to do. The apothecary seldom attended chapel—Anglican wasn’t Meera’s religion, after all—but she had reason to be concerned about her patients and the village’s new arrivals.
“I recognize a few of these names,” he admitted. “But the notes are cryptic. I have no notion of what Miss Edgerton is saying. If I mark the names I recognize as villagers, can you tell me if her report might cause anyone harm? Would someone kill to hide them?”
Meera bounced her infant son on her shoulder and flipped the pages. “These are mostly reports of female troubles, what she’s used to treat them, how the medications worked, notes of formulas... The notes may help me treat these same patients if they come to me, but they won’t. That troubles me more than any fear of extortion.”
“You need an office in the village, where the women can findyou easily, the way they found Miss Edgerton. Maybe you could set up in her cottage a day or two a week? But that’s getting ahead of ourselves. Someone killed the lady, and until we know who and why, no one is safe. Rafe is too new here to recognize names, so it’s up to us to see if the notes contain any useful information.”
She nodded doubtfully. “I can try, but do not hold out much hope of my being accepted as physician. If I were male, and they needed their medication badly enough, they might ignore my brown skin, maybe. But a brown female... We’ll see.”
She pointed at a page. “The assistant the banker left here is named Smith. Here is a Sheila Smith. This note is from five years ago. Sheila was only seventeen. If I’m reading the abbreviations correctly, the patient was at least eight weeks gone with child. The prescription was for an abortive. The final note indicates the prescription was successful but requires adjustment based on weight due to its harshness.”
Paul frowned. “His daughter? His wife? I cannot imagine Miss Edgerton extorting funds from a seventeen-year-old. And there are too many Smiths to assume the banker is related.”
Paul’s mother had been even younger when she’d been repeatedly raped. To give her unborn child—him—a name, she’d escaped into a loveless marriage. She’d have ended on the streets and starved otherwise. Without his stepfather, he wouldn’t be here today. If she had no money and no husband, he understood this Sheila’s desperation. Carry the child—and they both died a lingering death.
But even if this Sheila Smith’s family had riches... the result was little different. An unwed mother wasn’t welcome anywhere and any chance to marry well was lost. Her family might pay to hide her disgrace and end up an extortionist’s best target.
What worried him was if the banker was somehow involved. Bankers weren’t wealthy enough to pay extortion, especially assistant ones. Might a demand drive him to murder?.
He probably should start preaching about the wages of sin.
Preaching wouldn’t have saved his mother from violence. Itmost likely would not have helped an innocent miss either. Keeping women ignorant only gave men more advantage over them.
Grimly, he wondered if he could talk the widow or Meera into educating girls.
“So these notes won’t help us find a killer?” he asked, returning to the immediate problem.
Meera grimaced as she flipped through the pages. “People are not always rational. Perhaps this Miss Smith can no longer have children and her new husband blames Miss Edgerton. Perhaps Miss Smith told someone about Miss Edgerton, and Miss Edgerton refused to help a stranger. Some of these notes indicate reservations about treating her patients as they wished. Look at this one.” She pointed at scribbling in darker ink, indicating the lady had pressed angrily with her pen nib.
“Patient is hysteric. Gave her placebo.” Paul frowned. “And we have no knowledge of whether the hysteric died or lives happily ever after.”
Meera nodded. “This book might be useful as evidence should we ever discover the culprit, but it is of little use in finding them. If you will mark the parishioners you recognize, it might help me later, if I set up an office. Beyond that, I can’t see it making a difference.”
“I’ll tell our new bailiff. He’s going through the orchard, apparently trying to size up the men as a possible culprit for climbing over the widow’s wall and breaking the apple tree. He works hard, but I fear he is not a strategic thinker.” As Minerva was, Paul thought as he left the infirmary and strode down the central corridor in search of his betrothed.
He found her in the library with Hunt, going over faded historical records and intricately drawn maps of the village. She blessed Paul with a smile at his entrance but returned to pointing out relevant plots on the map.
The captain set aside his monocle to nod greeting. “It seems not all the villagers turned to the bank to buy their lots,” heexplained. “Despite what he thinks, Bosworth can only claim some of the farmland and the abandoned properties. The others were granted title by the earls or bought them with cash.”
“Abandoned properties, like the inn and tavern?” Paul examined the maps but lines and numbers made little sense to him.
“Well, we established the tavern belonged to one of our local families for centuries, like Miss Edgerton’s cottage, so Henri is fine. The inn was built on the original priory holding and owned and improved by a succession of earls. A local family ran it until the last Wycliffe died. We see no evidence that it was ever sold. The bank’s suit claims the viscount offered to sell off the cottages the estate owned to their occupants, and as a favor to the viscount, the bank loaned those villagers the money to buy them. The bank directly paid the viscount. When the manor closed after the last earl’s death and employment died out, the tenants forfeited their mortgages and scattered. So the estate—or the viscount’s creditors—received the money and left the bank holding useless properties.”
“So no one bought the inn and it’s still in the estate’s name?” Paul left the rights and wrongs of money to others wiser in the matter than he, but the inn directly affected everyone in his parish.
“As far as we can determine, the inn still belongs to the estate,” Minerva assured him. “The last earl did not bother putting money into it. After his son’s death, he had no reason to keep up the property when he had no son to leave it to. As we can attest, he rightfully assumed his daughters and sisters had no interest in operating an inn.”
“Sounds sensible to me. I’ll pass that information on to Rafe when I find him. Your new bailiff covers a lot of territory on his rounds.”
After arranging to see Minerva over dinner that evening, Paul retrieved his hat from the butler and took the side entrance nearest the orchard. He raised his eyebrows at the sight of a liveried coachman polishing the manor’s slightly used butrecently refurbished carriage. Would a new carriage driver be another suspect?
Walker was on the drive, speaking with a gentleman on horseback who had apparently just arrived. A far cry from the abandoned fortress it had once been, Wycliffe Manor was returning to life with the aid of its new inhabitants.
Hunt’s invaluable steward waved Paul over, introducing him to the visitor. “This gentleman is a solicitor, regarding Miss Edgerton’s estate. Could you show him to the cottage and introduce him to Mrs. Porter?”
Word of the lady’s death had traveled swiftly. “Of course. I was going that way shortly. Perhaps you would like to rest and have a spot of tea while I finish my rounds, Mr. . ..?
“Culliver, Amos Culliver, at your service. Tea sounds most excellent, I thank you... ?”
