Page 10 of Evidence of Evil
“Is that where you normally keep it?” Solomon asked.
“Yes, I think so. What do you expect to learn from it?”
“Nothing much,” Solomon admitted. “Mainly I wanted to see if it was clean enough to have been in the water recently.”
“Looks it to me,” Maule said, picking it up to examine it more closely. “But then, I used it quite recently myself.”
“When was that?”
“A couple of days before we found Frances. Must have been about nine or ten days ago.”
Something caught Solomon’s eye, and he reached out to the iron hook.
“Oh God, what’s that?” Maule asked with dread. “It’s not her hair, is it?”
Chapter Three
“No,” Solomon said,managing to pinch it off at last with his fingers. “It’s a couple of white cotton threads. What color was Miss Niall’s nightgown?”
“White…” Maule swallowed hard. “You’re right, then. Whoever did this pushed the body out from the shore with this. Why would he bother? Did he mean to hide her?”
“I doubt it. She wasn’t weighed down, was she? I think he meant her to be seen. Too close into the bank and a casual observer like your gardener might not have noticed except from particular angles.”
Maule wrinkled his brow in consternation. “Can’t see the point. Man must be a lunatic. But then, who else would do such a thing to an innocent young lady?”
Solomon gave no answer. Instead, wrapping the threads in his folded handkerchief, he put them in his pocket. As they left the boat shed, he asked, “Did you row out on the lake alone when you went?”
Maule blushed again. “No, I took the children, and my wife.”
“Very proper,” Solomon replied.
“You can take yours out, if you wish,” Maule said. “I understand you’re more recently married than I am. Romantic gestures are always appreciated, if frequently sabotaged by the presence of children.”
Solomon smiled faintly.
“Mind you, the lake doesn’t seem so attractive anymore,” Maule said with a sigh. “Come on, let’s go and have tea with the ladies. Afraid you’ll have to do the penance of meeting my children, too. They have tea with us every day, mainly to give their poor governess a break.”
Solomon didn’t entirely believe in his reason for the children’s presence at tea. And he was proven right when, as soon as they entered the drawing room, three children launched themselves from the table to grab Maule’s arm, hand, and leg respectively. Moreover, he did not immediately scold them but hugged them back before scowling direly and pointing to the table. Though they obeyed, the children did not look remotely abashed, let alone frightened.
“Oh, you have met Mr. Grey,” Lady Maule said to her husband, apparently used to this ritual. “Come and meet my dear friend, Mrs. Grey. Constance, my husband, Sir Humphrey Maule.”
Constance rose to curtsey and offered her hand with the grace she brought to every movement. “Sir Humphrey, I’m delighted to meet you at last. And your delightful family, of course.”
“Delightful? Ha!” said Maule, making his children grin again. “Grey, these are our children, Benjamin, Juliana, and Clive.”
Benjamin, the eldest, could have been around ten or even eleven, the others a year or so younger. They all stood to bow and curtsey, regarding him with great interest.
It was certainly a lively tea party, although Solomon found the children well behaved. If they stepped over the line from lively to rowdy, Elizabeth intervened with a word that quieted them down. She must have made a good governess, he reflected. Kind but strict, although perhaps not as strict as some parents required. To Solomon they seemed happy children, which hementioned to Constance when they finally had the chance to speak alone in their bedchamber.
“I think they are,” she agreed. “When Elizabeth first came here as governess, she said they were running wild for much of the day and cowed by their father during brief parental inspections. After his first wife died, I don’t think he knew what to do with them.”
“When did she die?”
“Shortly after Clive was born, so about eight years ago. There were complications from the birth, apparently. A fever. About eighteen months ago, Elizabeth arrived as governess, gradually involving their father more in the children’s lives, which seems to have been good for both of them. I suppose it is also how she grew closer to him.”
“Then their marriage is a happy one?” Solomon asked, pacing to the window, where his gaze seemed to be drawn inexorably through the trees to the glinting water of the lake. The spots of intense red were like droplets of blood. Foolish fantasy.
“You think it isn’t?” Constance asked. She was moving around behind him, putting her clothes away in drawers and cupboards. Next to his.
