The Deathly Portent (39 page)

Francis captured her restless hand and held it. “Then how are we to prove it?”

Ottilia drew in a tight breath. “I must find out who took the message to Molly.”

“Have you any notion who it might be?”

“One, perhaps.”

“And if you find it out, will that be enough?”

“It may save a life. Though I am in hopes any further attempt will be delayed now Cassie has removed from Witherley to Lady Ferrensby’s home.”

Francis moved a little in the darkness. “You mean if there are no visions, the finger cannot be pointed elsewhere?”

“Just so.”

Then a thought exploded in Ottilia’s brain, and she sat bolt upright, disarranging the bedclothes. Beside her, Francis pushed up on his elbow.

“What in the world ails you, Tillie?”

She turned, looking back at the dark shape beside her. “You have set off a firecracker in my head, Fan! We have no proof, but we can catch our murderer just the same.”

Her night’s rest was indifferent, her mind turning on the
morrow and the actions she must take to set her scheme afoot. But since it depended wholly upon the identity of the person who had been suborned into taking a message to Molly, she had first to unravel that mystery.

Awake betimes, Ottilia was anxious to set out the moment she should have broken her fast. She had perforce to wait for her husband, Francis having decreed that she might not set foot outside their bedchamber door without his escort. She chafed while he dressed, and chafed again, once she had swallowed a hasty meal of a single baked egg accompanied by a slice of fresh bread, while her spouse worked his way through a plateful of ham. As it chanced, this little delay afforded an unexpected opportunity to glean a vital piece of information.

Patty sailed into the coffee room where they were partaking of breakfast just when Ottilia decided to broach a second cup by way of distracting herself from the spectacle of her spouse eating at what she considered an unnecessarily leisurely pace. She had discovered the coffeepot had cooled and hailed the maid with relief.

“Patty, thank heavens! Will you fetch a fresh pot of coffee, if you please?”

The girl plonked down the covered silver dish she was carrying, shoving it towards Francis. “Your eggs, sir.”

“Eggs as well?” burst from Ottilia before she could stop herself.

Francis looked up. “I’m hungry. Besides, the Lord only knows when we’ll get to eat again with what you have planned for today.”

Incensed, Ottilia would not trust herself to reply. At a time like this! Desperate for anything to speak of other than food, she caught the maid before she reached the door.

“How is your mistress today, Patty? I meant to ask you before.”

Patty’s freckles wrinkled across her nose. “Abed her be, and Master says as how he be a-going to send for Doctor
Meldreth, for as her bain’t ate nowt nor yesterday when Miss Beeleigh took up a tray to her whiles we were all out on the green.”

Ottilia eyed her with interest. “That was kind of Miss Beeleigh.”

“Aye, for Cook be rushed off her feet,” said the maid, adding with a darkling look, “Not as I be best pleased, as Miss Beeleigh took as if her be mistress in this place.”

“With everything at sixes and sevens, and poor Hannah laid up, perhaps it was as well,” soothed Ottilia.

Patty tossed her head. “Bain’t as I hadn’t got all done and dusted without her say-so.” A gleam of triumph entered her eyes. “It be me as found the back door key and all, spite of having all to do.”

Ottilia’s senses prickled, and she saw Francis halt in mid-chew, his fork in the air, his gaze riveted on the maid.

“You found the key?”

The maid shifted her shoulders. “Well, it be on the cellar stair when I went down for to fetch up the joint from the cool room below.”

“When?” barked Francis. “When did you find it there?”

Patty jumped at his tone, and Ottilia threw him a repressive look.

“Was it before all the business on the green?” she asked, carefully casual.

The maid’s puzzled stare withdrew from Francis and found Ottilia. “Aye, for I be just come up with the joint when you come into the kitchen, m’am.”

“You put the key back on the windowsill?” Where Ottilia had indeed found it, when she had gone to look for it there after Hannah was freed from the lock-up.

“Aye, for I meant to tell Master. Only with all the rumpus, I forgot.”

“I am not surprised,” Ottilia said lightly. “It is a wonder you managed to do so much. Be sure I will tell Hannah how excellently you have coped.”

Patty’s eye brightened, and as quickly fell again. “If’n it be as Mistress bain’t took and hanged.”

With which gloomy utterance, she departed. Ottilia found her spouse’s gaze on her.

“I remember you saying how much people knew that they didn’t know they knew.”

Ottilia laughed. “Just so. It is astonishing what is noticed without awareness.” Then a stray thought came into her head, and she mused aloud, “I wonder.”

“What do you wonder?” came from her spouse, pardonably irritated.

She looked at his plate. “I wonder when you are going to finish that so that we may begin. Do you not realise, Fan, that the matter is pressing?”

T
he Cock and Bottle not yet having opened its doors, it was left to Francis to rouse the servants and hunt out the maid Bessy. Since he had hastened his breakfast, he was not in the best of moods. Having laid down the law to his wife, however, he could scarcely cavil at her impatience.

If the truth were told, Francis reflected, he was lacking sleep. Tillie had tossed the night away until he had drawn her into his arms and stroked her into quiet. That she was restless and troubled was hardly surprising, for she had set herself a tricky task. In vain had Francis tried to think of an alternative scheme. He could not like the one Tillie had outlined, but for all his furious thought, he could come up with no alternative.

Finding Bessy had not been part of her original intention, but Tillie had not enlightened him as to her reason for the change, and if she did not wish to tell him, he would not ask. Aware of the childishness of this resolve, he was yet unable to overcome it.

Once he had extracted Bessy from the house via the back door, however, Tillie’s intent rapidly became clear.

“Do you recall on the night your mistress died seeing anyone about near the Cock? It would have been late, Bessy. Think carefully now.”

Bessy frowned in an effort of concentration but then shook her head. “Bain’t seen no one, m’am.”

“Well, did you hear anything unusual?”

The girl shifted her shoulders and looked away. A sign of discomfort?

“No, m’am.”

Francis watched his wife, reading the signs in her clear gaze. She was going to change tack.

“You did not go to bed until late, I think, for you were upset.”

Shock leapt in Bessy’s eyes, which became riveted on Tillie’s face. How in the world came she to guess that? Francis saw her gaze narrow a little and knew she was going to push the maid further.

“Patty came over from the Blue Pig, did she not? She brought news for Will.”

The maid’s chubby cheeks reddened, and her eyes rimmed with liquid. Words burst out of her mouth. “That fussock! Her’ve no right. I telled her afore, but her won’t listen. Bain’t for her to come mewling round here.”

“Only she brought such news as turned the house upside down, did she not? And I daresay Will paid you no attention afterwards.”

“Bain’t as I care,” snapped Bessy. “Nor as I’d time for no gossiping, not with the work as I’d to finish.”

“No, and nobody could blame you if you were late,” said Ottilia gently. “If perhaps you had gone to your room to have a good cry first.”

Bessy looked as if she might dissolve again right at this moment, Francis thought.

“Now think carefully, Bessy. When you went to do your chores, was there any unusual sound or sight?”

An echo swept through Francis of the admiration he had
felt for his wife when he had first seen her in action during the drama in his family last year. The moment she had an advantage, she was ruthless in following it up.

Sniffing back the threatening tears, the maid cast her eyes to one side, staring into the middle distance. Francis almost held his breath, his attention riveted on his wife as, with infinite patience, she waited. Could it work? Would not the girl have been too wrapped up in her grudge to notice? But then Francis saw the frown deepen in the maid’s face. Was a memory about to spring?

All at once, Bessy’s head turned back and she stared at Tillie, surprise in her face. By God, but Tillie was sensational!

“Aye, there do be summat,” said the maid. “When I be dousing the fire in the mistress’s parlour, it be like tapping on a windowpane.”

Someone trying to attract attention? Francis saw the characteristic warm smile spring into Tillie’s face.

“Oh, very good, Bessy. Thank you. You did not, I take it, investigate this tapping?”

Bessy shook a regretful head. “No, for as I bain’t paying no mind. I’d forgot as I heard it, m’am.”

A pity, Francis mused. She might have made a better witness. But Tillie had not quite given up.

“Could you have seen a face at the window perhaps?”

The girl thought for a moment, but even to Francis’s mind, it was obvious there was no more to be got from her. He saw a look he recognised in Tillie’s face and was astonished at how well he was able to read her. She would not pursue it further. She thanked the girl again.

“Never mind. What you heard will suffice, I believe.”

The maid curtsied and scurried back into the house, while Francis searched for words to express all he had felt. Tillie tucked a hand in his arm before he could think of anything. Her tone was brisk.

“The vicarage, I think.”

“You want Kinnerton?” asked Francis, surprised.

“Kinnerton? No, indeed. But Mrs. Winkleigh employs Jenny Duggleby.”

“The blacksmith’s daughter? Why do you want her?”

Francis saw her draw a tight breath, and his hand went to press the fingers resting on his arm.

“What is it, my dear one?” he asked in a softer tone than he had used towards her since yesterday’s disagreement. Her clear gaze met his, and his heart tightened.

“Only someone well acquainted with Molly would think to catch her attention by tapping on the window, and there was intimacy between her and the Duggleby household.”

“And so?”

“I fear it may be Jenny who was sent to fetch Molly from the Cock and Bottle the other night.”

M
rs. Winkleigh was discovered to have become as overprotective of Jenny Duggleby as Francis was of Ottilia. She greeted the visitors politely enough, ushering them into the rather bare room that apparently served Mr. Kinnerton for a parlour. But when asked for the girl, her eyes narrowed and she set her arms akimbo.

“Talk to Jenny, is it? What now, pray, if I may ask, ma’am? Hasn’t she been upset enough?”

Ottilia’s interest quickened, and she raised her brows. “More recently than by her father’s demise?”

The housekeeper blew out her cheeks. “Wouldn’t you be, if the fellow who did it turned out to be crazed enough to do it over again? And in brutal fashion, too.”

Francis had gone over to the window and was looking out across the vicarage gardens. He turned at this.

“For the Lord’s sake, woman! Why do you suppose my wife is here, if not to find the perpetrator?”

Mrs. Winkleigh’s willowy frame swayed a trifle, and she clutched a hand to her breast, gazing at Ottilia in horror. “You can’t mean to accuse poor Jenny?”

Quick suspicion kindled in Ottilia’s mind, and she rapidly revised her first instinct to repudiate this for an absurdity. “Is there some reason why I should?”

A gasp escaped the housekeeper, and her hand left her breast to go instead to her mouth, as if she sought to chide it for letting out incautious words.

Ottilia became sharp. “Mrs. Winkleigh?”

“You’d best speak up at once, if you don’t wish me to draw in your master on this matter,” Francis said curtly, coming across to flank his wife.

Ottilia said nothing, for his altered attitude towards her was so very welcome. But she could have wished he had kept silent. She did not care to use threats. Yet it had the desired effect.

Mrs. Winkleigh sighed out a defeated breath. “You’d best speak to Jenny. Not that she’s in any way to blame.”

“But she knows something?”

“I don’t know if it has to do with that woman’s death,” said Mrs. Winkleigh worriedly. “But I can’t deny Jenny’s been out of sorts since that night. I’ll fetch her to you.”

She hurried out, and Ottilia turned as Francis spoke, low-toned.

“Is it possible you are wrong, Tillie? You never gave the girl a thought, did you?”

Struck, Ottilia stared at him. “As a potential murderer? Why should she do it? How would it serve, presuming it to have been in revenge for her father’s death?”

“If she found out Molly was responsible?”

“Or if she heard from Patty that we thought so,” said Ottilia, thinking fast.

It was possible, but it rang false. She had met Jenny Duggleby but the once and had been struck by her intelligence. But to go so far as to mirror the vision?

“And she can’t have murdered her own father,” Ottilia said, putting her next thought into words.

Francis frowned. “Why not? If she knew of her mother’s ill-treatment at his hands? And she would have been well placed to carry out everything needful. If you are willing to suspect the mother, you had as well extend to the daughter.”

But Ottilia’s instinct argued against it, although she could not fault her spouse’s logic. Besides, she was nearly certain she had it right. And with luck, she was about to garner the word of one supremely important witness.

There was time for no more speculation, for a knock at the door preceded the entrance of the girl herself, accompanied by Mrs. Winkleigh.

Francis instantly cocked an eyebrow at Ottilia, and she took it that he was prepared to eject the housekeeper should she wish for it. She gave him a tiny smile and an infinitesimal shake of the head as she went forward.

“Jenny, thank you for coming to talk to me,” she said, holding out a hand.