Page 59 of Evidence of Evil
It was a thin story, and she was fairly sure he would see through it. He rubbed his gloved hand over his chin, perhapstrying to give himself time for thought. “I can’t really help you there. All our buildings are in use. Apart from an abandoned shepherd’s hut over the hill there.” He pointed with his whip into the distance.
“How long would it take you to walk to this hut?”
“Oh, at least two hours, unless the ground was muddy, in which case it would be three. Listen, I had a look through Frances’s notebook, and the other things in her desk.”
“Did you find anything interesting?” Disappointed at the apparent lack of love nests, she allowed herself to be distracted.
“The notebook initials could conform to the names of friends, neighbors, and servants,” he said uncomfortably. “And beside them, I think, were reminders of what she either had discovered about them or suspected. In order to pressure them into obedience if she needed to.”
“Like Bingham. And Worcester.”
“Precisely. The thing is…I don’t think they’re important.”
She stared at him, wondering if he had become as morally bankrupt as his troubled sister. “You don’t?”
“No.” He sighed. “My sister remembered the truly important things. The notebook was probably merely future planning for unforeseen eventualities.”
“She’d used some of them already.”
He said nothing, though she could almost feel his misery.
“Did you uncover anything else that might help us?” she asked.
“Not really. I found no love letters, nothing mentioning the gift of the bracelet you were interested in. But as I say, Frances kept the truly important things to herself.”
“Why?” Constance asked. “Did her servants—or even your father—keep close watch on her?”
“I suspect they might have when she was younger,” he said, twitching his shoulder. “When she came home, my father appeared to trust her more. But old habits die hard.”
And Frances’s habits, it seemed, had merely been driven under cover.
“Did you ever fear your sister was suicidal?”
“Good Lord, no.”
“Not even over, for example, Sir Humphrey’s marriage to someone else?”
“Frances wasn’t the type to give up. On anything.”
Did that include Sir Humphrey?
John drew in his breath. “Everyone else seems to be ignoring the fact that my sister was found dead in her nightgown. You don’t believe she came home at all that night, do you? Despite finding that she could get in and out of the house without being seen. Despite the fact that anyone else could, including yourself and your husband. And you don’t believe she sleepwalked. That is why you are looking for thislove nest.”
“Could anyone sleepwalk out of a window? Besides, her maid had not seen that particular nightgown in weeks. Your sister could have hidden it with the other things in that bottom drawer. I just can’t think why she would.”
“Neither can I,” John admitted. “But there is another possibility. Whoever killed her dressed her in the nightgown just to tarnish her reputation.”
“We thought of that. But if that was the purpose, why not leave her naked?”
John’s mouth twisted. “Decency seems a ridiculous answer.”
“It does,” she agreed, a nagging thought resolving in her mind, “but it might well be right.” In fact, she wished Solomon was back so that she could discuss it with him. She needed to know what he had discovered in London.
“Well, I suppose I have no need to go on to The Willows now,” John said. “I seem to have told you everything I meant to.”
Though not necessarily everything he knew? “I’m sure Sir Humphrey and Lady Maule would be glad to see you,” she said.
His expression was uncertain, making him look even younger than his years. “Do you think so? I wondered if I would be unwelcome, considering my father’s accusations…”
