Page 32 of Secrets of Capell Manor
But Ridley suddenly sat up tall on the edge of the bed. “I may have something!”
“Well, go on then, Ridley, tell us.”
Ridley recounted what he had seen and heard just a few days prior to Edmond’s disappearance.
“I was doing my morning work like I always do. The sun wasn’t up yet, and everyone except Marta was still asleep. I took some firewood to the lord’s bedchamber. I was super quiet because I didn’t want to wake him. I put the firewood in the wood holder there. I stoked the fire and added a log.”
“Ridley, get to it,” Devlin prompted. “We know you stoke fires each morning already.”
“I was about to leave the room when Lord Edmond started thrashing and moaning in his sleep. He had done that before, especially after a night of drinking and whorin’.”
Rosalind gasped, and Marta sat straight up in her chair. “Ridley Shaw! You watch your tongue. And around our lady too! I’m not so far gone over here that I can’t get up and box those ears!”
Both Devlin and Alden hid a grin. Neither doubted that Marta, nearly in a dead faint or not, wouldn’t follow through with her threat.
Ridley quickly apologized and continued his tale. “At first, the sounds he made were just his usual miserable moans and groans. But then he started talking, almost yelling, really, as he thrashed about. Some of the words were hard to make out, but he kept saying two words over and over.”
Everyone leaned in, waiting for Ridley to reveal Edmond’s sleep talking. Ridley paused dramatically.
“He said freedom whispers.”
Devlin started pacing, Marta fell back into her chair, Alden commenced fanning her again, and Benton, who managed to wake up for Ridley’s disclosure, snorted in exasperation.
Devlin turned to Rosalind. “Does that mean anything to you? Have you heard it anywhere before?”
Rosalind shook her head.
“Are you sure that is what he said?” Devlin asked.
“Oh yes. I am sure. He said it over and over and even yelled it out a couple of times.”
“Was there anything else, Ridley? Anything else that seemed amiss the day before or around that same time?”
“Yes, there was,” he said. “It was his desk.”
“What about his desk, Ridley?” Rosalind asked. “I was here in the days before and the day after Lord Edmond disappeared and nothing looked amiss.”
“That same morning, I noticed that the desk was askew in the room like it had been pushed away from its place on the floor, and most of the drawers were open. There were papers scattered about and even some on the floor. And the inkwell…it had tipped over, and there was ink everywhere.”
“Did you look at any of the papers, Ridley?” Alden asked eagerly.
“No! Definitely not. If the old lord had woken up and caught me snooping around the desk, I’d have got a thrashing for sure.”
“Marta, did you clean up the papers or ink?” Rosalind asked.
“No, milady. I never saw anything like that, and I always tidied the lord’s room every day after the morning victuals.”
“Benton, what about you? When you helped your lord dress that morning, and really every morning, did you see anything unusual?”
“Not a thing, milady. The room looked much as it does now. Nothing looked out of place.”
Rosalind thought for a second. “It does seem Lord Edmond was upset about something. But then again, he was often in a rage. It could have been anything.”
“So basically, we’re no closer to figuring this out since we found the bloke.” Alden sighed.
“Not entirely true, Alden,” Devlin said. “We have the words he kept repeating in his sleep. It could be a clue.”
Marta, who had finally composed herself, stood and announced, “Nothing is ever solved easily on empty stomachs. We’ll sup early this evening.” And with that she left the room.
