“I was just about to go in again and see if the coroner missed anything. Dr. Fox will be joining me shortly. Mr. Mayhew lent me a key.”
She asked, “May I look too?”
He was taken aback by her request. There was still a body in the room, after all, although at least now it was covered.
“If ... you would like.”
“I would.”
Why was she so interested in the man’s death?
They entered, and he closed the door partway, glad Dr. Fox would soon be there for propriety’s sake as well as for his medical opinion.
As they waited, Frederick thought again of the author approaching Miss Lane’s room the previous night. Was he simply pursuing an attractive woman, or had he sought her out for some other reason?
He asked, “When Mr. Oliver came to your door, was he—forgive me—seeking an assignation, or ...?”
“Oh. I don’t know. I hope not.” She shuddered, a flush rising to her cheeks.
He added, “When I confronted him, he said something like, ‘I want to speak to the guest inside—to see if she is who I think she is.’ Seemed odd to me. When he knocked, did he call your name? Even know your name?”
She looked away in recollection. “Come to think of it, he never called me by name.”
“Ah.” Frederick concluded that Oliver had probably seen a young woman enter her room at some point and simply thought he’d try his luck.
She turned back to him. “Thank you again for sending him away.”
He nodded, and the two of them began searching the author’s room.
The desk held many quills in various stages of sharpening. Ink pots—some half-empty. And a few thick, leather-bound notebooks. He picked up the top one, flipping through several pages filled with scrawled lines. Might this be the beginning of the great book idea Oliver had promised his publisher? It seemed unlikely.
He moved to the chaise longue, unnerved anew to realize a dead man lay beneath that makeshift shroud.
Unbidden, a memory revisited him. Marina’s body, lying broken and still, her head at an unnatural angle. Him staring in horror, then feeling for any signs of life and finding none. He’d whipped off the Holland cloth from a nearby settee and laid it over her, one shoeless foot sticking out, the missing kid slipper halfway down the stairs....
With effort, he blinked away the horrid image.
On the octagonal writing table beside the chaise stood another quill propped in ink and two wadded pieces of paper. Might a clue lie within?
He unfolded the first wrinkled page and discovered not discarded words as he’d supposed, but a sketch. An amateurish drawing of a woman with dark eyebrows, wearing a mobcap and apron. Why draw the chambermaid? At least the drawing wasn’t at all suggestive. Unflattering, actually. The man’s drawing skill was even worse than his writing.
On the back were scrawled the initialsR. J.followed by a list of names:Rachel, Rosalind, Ruth, Rose, Rebekah ...Had the author been trying to remember someone’s name? Or to name a character?
On the second discarded paper, Frederick found more words. Title ideas, he guessed.The Last Temptress,Ancient Deeds,The Wronged Widow,Valley of Ashes, andThe Doom of Druggers End.
He tucked the pages into his own notebook. Then he looked over and saw Miss Lane digging through the desk and dressing table.
He asked, “Are you looking for something in particular?”
She glanced at him, then around the room, a line between her brows. When had she grown old enough to have such a line, even a charming one like that?
“I am surprised not to find more paper. His publisher toldus Mr. Oliver was writing away feverishly, so I assumed we would find a manuscript in here ... or at least the pages he’d written so far.”
He recalled Mary Hinton mentioning missing paper as well. “There is some writing in these notebooks, if you’d like to take a look.”
She walked over to join him and flipped through the first notebook he’d indicated.
“No, this is not it,” she murmured.
