Page 21 of Evidence of Evil
“I do plan to speak to the doctor about that.”
Irvine peered at him in surprise. “You do?”
“Yes. I should say that Sir Humphrey has asked me to look into the matter. He accounts me good at puzzles, which, on some level, this tragedy is. And as you know, Colonel Niall has made some rather hurtful accusations against Lady Maule.”
The vicar shook his head. “We all know that is the colonel’s grief talking. No one believes it for an instant.”
“No one who knows Lady Maule, perhaps. The detectives from London do not know her.”
For an instant, the vicar looked anxious. Then he said, “We must trust in God.”
“And in his poor tools upon the Earth,” Solomon said piously, very glad that Constance was not present to hear him. “You must have known Miss Niall from her childhood?”
Irvine beamed. “I baptized her myself.”
“I understand she grew up to be a beautiful and charming lady.”
“Indeed she did. Clever, too. Her mind was quick and she was more given to study than most young girls.”
“Indeed?” Solomon said with interest. “You mean she studied more than the usual ladylike accomplishments of her class?”
“Yes, and she was very able. The trouble was her chosen subject. Too scientific for her parents’ tastes. I blame myself,to be honest, for she used to visit the sick with me, and from that she developed a rather unfortunate ambition to become a physician.”
Unfortunate and impossible for a woman of any class…“Did she go on visiting the sick?”
“Not quite so much,” Irvine said carefully. “Her parents—very properly, of course—discouraged her from anything associated with medical ambitions. Medicine, you know,anatomy…!”
Solomon’s lip twitched. He wished Constance were here. Hastily, he changed the subject. “Did Miss Niall attend church regularly?”
“Oh yes. Even when the colonel does not—his attendance fell away somewhat after his wife died—she is there.”
“Before and after her stay in India?”
“Of course.”
Solomon tried another tack. “She must have been very popular in the neighborhood.”
“Oh, yes.”
It felt a little like bumping his head against a thick cushion. Apart from the surprise about Frances’s former medical ambitions, he still had no real knowledge of her as a person. “Why do you suppose she never married?”
“I can only suppose the right gentleman never asked her at the right time,” the vicar said vaguely. “But she was still young. Tragically young.” He shook his head.
“Bearing in mind,” Solomon said carefully, “how well you must know all your parishioners, can you think of anyone who mightnothave liked her? Who had any reason, however misguided, to harm her?”
“No,” Irvine replied without hesitation. “Not one.”
Solomon’s eyes were drawn beyond him to two men marching up the drive. They had a certain look about them thatmarked them as strangers, city men in unfamiliar country. The London policemen, no doubt.
“Did she ever confide troubles to you?” Solomon asked, adding hastily, “I understand you could not tell me what those troubles might have been. It would merely help to know if she had any.”
“None that I know of. Not since her girlhood.”
“Then she was a contented kind of person?”
The vicar seemed doubtful. “I suppose she must have been.”
“But she did not seem so to you?” Solomon persisted.
