The beloved earrings from my grandmother, then.
I lost one of the hoops last night while in the drawing room, and since Sarah was sitting next to me on the settee, I wondered if it might have gotten caught on her clothing.
Is it facile?
Sure.
But it makes sense in a panic-stricken, hysterical-female way.
All I have to do to make my extreme agitation plausible is raise my voice to a higher register, which is easy enough. I do it all the time when arguing with Russell.
With all due caution, I step into the hallway and cross to Sarah’s door, which I tap lightly. Receiving no response, I knock again, more firmly this time, and wait for a few seconds before deciding it is safe to enter. I duck my head into the room and call out softly for Miss Holcroft. Even as I am walking into her bedchamber, I am offering my deepest apologies for interrupting her repose.
Fortunately, I am apologizing to an empty room.
Somewhat smaller than her older sister’s quarters, Sarah’s bedchamber is almost significantly more cluttered, with larger pieces of furniture and jars, canisters, and books on every surface. Her writing table is buried under a pile of scarves, shawls, and spencers, as though she tosses a new item on the stack every day. The one on top is the pistache wrap she worelast night, which had failed to draw my particular notice because it is far from the first stare of fashion. A broad field of cream with small pink flowers, it bore the blandly simple floral design that was popular a few years ago.
If Sarah is the killer, then this is precisely the sort of shawl she should have used to squeeze the life out of Mr. Keast. I would have had no trouble believing an impoverished country widow owned such an antiquated garment.
I would have still marveled at the shortsightedness of leaving it behind but would have attributed it to the horrifying shock of strangulation. It cannot be easy to think clearly in the immediate aftermath of discovering oneself capable of murder.
But the killerhadleft the shawl behind along with the letter, both of which were calculated acts deliberately designed to point us in a specific direction. Sarah, whom Mrs. Dowell calls Machiavellian, would have the clarity of purpose to write almost a dozen letters in the wake of the murder. Furthermore, the fact that she had shared a governess with her sister might explain why Mrs. Dowell’s writing came so close to matching Eternally Devoted’s. The two women had been taught by the same hand.
Sarah is the culprit.
She has to be.
To prove it, I approach the escritoire gingerly, uncertain as how to get to the surface below without disturbing the pile beyond repair. I know it is unlikely that Sarah would recall the precise order of the garments, and yet I am wary of leaving a trail. The first moment she should realize that the jig is up is when the constable arrives at the house.
Oh, but if I cannot get to the surface without a great deal of bother, then neither can the room’s occupant. Using her escritoire as an impromptu clothes press, Sarah would choose to do her writing elsewhere, and I glance at the vanity, which is covered with hairpins and ribbons, before settling my gaze onthe night table. As with the other pieces in the room, it is strewn with items, but the thicket is less dense, with a teacup resting on a pair of books. It is too much to hope they are the first two installments ofThe Fate of the Dark Dawntrilogy, but as I grow closer I am pleased to see that one of the volumes is a gothic.
The suspect’s reading tastes align with my theory.
Now let’s see about her handwriting.
The second tome is a religious polemic about the power of faith calledThe Blacksmith’s Son,and it details the struggles of an ironworker who renounces his wicked ways, grows devout, and dies young. Although I know it would have been impossibly convenient for the book to be a diary or journal, I am nevertheless disappointed when it is neither. Still, I manage to rally my flagging spirits, openingTrecothick Bowerin the hope that it contains an inscription by the owner.
Alas, it does not.
Discouraged, I pick up the Henry Draper work and turn to the title page. It is pristine, so I inspect the inside front cover, then the inside back cover. Finding neither scribble nor scrawl, I toss the book onto the bed in annoyance, keenly aware that I cannot ransack the room in my frustration. I must proceed in an orderly fashion.
With a sigh of defeat, I reach for the bookon the counterpane, and as I pick it up, a slip of paper drops out. Softly, it flutters to the bed.
Well, well, well.
Keeping my expectations in check, I retrieve a page from the book or, more likely, the slip of paper that fell from the book, and notice at a glance that the script bears no resemblance to Eternally Devoted’s or Mrs. Dowell’s. Its letters are stiff and straight, displaying none of the fluidity of the other two, and there are blotches every few words, an indication that the writer paused frequently. In regard to the text, it takes issuewith Draper’s understanding of God’s mercy, arguing against his harsh condemnation of sinners and advancing an ethos of universal forgiveness regardless of the depth and scale of their iniquity. Each contention is linked to a specific page number, and toward the bottom of the sheet, after the last assertion, the author of the critique added a note acknowledging that none of her thoughts are particularly profound: “Assuredly, my sisters had them before me, especially Margaret, who can look at a cloudless sky and criticize it for being too blue.”
Ah, so itisSarah’s handwriting after all.
But it is so different from Mrs. Dowell’s!
Look at thosei’s—all dotted and perfect.
Were they taught by different instructors, or did Sarah simply refuse to comply with the demand for compact, graceful letters?
It does not matter.
The situation stands as it stands: I must examine Eleanor’s handwriting next.
