Page 33 of Evidence of Evil
“Well, I’m a stranger too. I haven’t been in the neighborhood a year, and no one here would call my father a gentleman. I still won a scholarship to university and earned my degree. In my opinion, Lady Maule is better educated, kinder, and more cultured than any of the other ladies of the county.”
“She probably is,” Constance agreed. “Though for what it’s worth, she is also a gentleman’s daughter, whatever the local rumors to the contrary. Did you know Miss Niall?”
Murray gave a crooked smile. “We were bowing acquaintances. I bowed. She tended to look through me without notice, though I did receive at least one nod of recognition.”
“You didn’t like her.”
“I barely spoke to her.”
“Then you never attended her?”
“Dr. Laing tends to see patients of Quality. They don’t always want an assistant observing.”
“Did she consult with him often?” Constance asked.
“Just once that I recall. A brief consultation shortly after her return. I was not present. But Laing was invited to dinner at the Grange. I’m too lowly.”
He wasn’t lowly in his own mind, though. Solomon, who had faced down most forms of prejudice in his own life, rather liked that in him.
“But you assisted in the autopsy?” he said.
Murray nodded. “I did.”
“And that was where you discovered she had not drowned, as had seemed clear in the beginning.”
“Indeed.”
“Didyoudiscover that, or did Dr. Laing?” Solomon asked, more as a test of his character than in any expectation of receiving a different answer to what he already knew.
Laing shifted in his chair. “We both did.”
“Dr. Laing gives you the credit. He implied he was merely going through the motions and not paying attention, because the cause of her death seemed so obvious.”
“It’s true he was…distracted. A bit thrown. Well, she was a very tragic figure lying there, so young and lovely.Ifound it harrowing, and I didn’t even like her.”
“Did Dr. Laing like her?” Constance asked.
“He never said he didn’t. He’s very closemouthed, is Laing—which is to his credit. He takes confidentiality very seriously, only ever tells me the minimum of what I need to know about patients to treat them. A death like Miss Niall’s is unusual in the extreme. And it was worse for him, knowing her and her family socially. Had done since before they went to India.”
“So you noticed there was no water in her lungs. What else did you find?”
“Nothing,” Murray said helplessly. “The lungs jolted Dr. Laing. He was extremely thorough after that. We even tested the contents of her stomach for all the poisons we could think of. But there was nothing there.”
“Nothing unusual at all?” Solomon pushed.
“Nothing,” Murray repeated, looking him in the eye.
“Then she was not with child?” Solomon said bluntly.
Murray blinked. “Good God, no!”
Constance let out an audible breath of relief. The shock in Murray’s voice was plain. It was as Solomon thought—Franceshad been making mischief, sowing discord. What they did not know was why.
“Did you ever hear any rumors in the neighborhood, however untrue, about Miss Niall having a…specialadmirer?” he asked.
Constance regarded him with a hint of mockery that he did not say the wordlover. But he didn’t want to be thought a gossipmonger. That would only make Murray as tight-lipped as Laing. The only reason the young doctor was speaking to them now was the injustice of the accusations against Elizabeth.
“No,” Murray said. “The only rumor I heard was about Sir Humphrey, and that stems from before the Nialls went to India. Apparently there was some semblance of an engagement, or so the locals believed. They were sympathetic to Miss Niall for that reason. But so far as I know, there was never any ill feeling between the two families until after she died. But then, I’m a stranger myself, and I don’t gossip either.”
