I closed the church archive.
“Is it possible that Mary Chastain might be responsible?” I asked. “If she had eventually married? Or someone else is doing this for blackmail?” Even though no demand had been made.
“Aye, perhaps,” Brodie replied.
That might be the answer as to motive. As for opportunity, it would not be that difficult to plan how she would take that revenge once she and her father had come to London.
And the means that it might be done?
Perhaps it is not so difficult if someone was paid enough or was given the promise of it.
A man who was tall, thick set and strong, who had found employment at Marlborough House stables weeks before, and I was certain I had seen on The Strand.
Yet, that did not answer the question about the man with the infirmity in his leg who was seen that night after the murder outside White’s and whom I had glimpsed at the rail station.
Mr. Mannering had not yet returned.
“I’ll find the man and let him know we are finished here, then I will meet ye at the front entrance,” Brodie said then, and set off to find him.
He was gone for some time when Mr. Mannering appeared.
“Were you able to find the information you were looking for?” he inquired.
“Yes.”
Andno, I thought.
“Mr. Brodie went to thank you. We will be leaving.”
“I must have missed him,” he replied. “Perhaps he lost the way. I will tell him that we spoke if I see him.”
Was Brodie waiting for me now at the entrance, having not found the clerk?
I thanked Mr. Mannering and asked him to thank Reverend Frankland as well. He accompanied me as we left the reading room.
“A moment, Lady Forsythe and I will accompany you, so that you do not lose your way. It seems that someone has left a door open.”
A door across the hall stood ajar, cold air filling the hallway.
“Where does this lead?” I asked.
“The churchyard and the adjacent graveyard beyond.”
A hallway door that was not open before. I would surely have noticed as we passed by.
Brodie had gone to tell the clerk we would be leaving, yet Mr. Mannering had not seen him. Had something drawn his attention elsewhere?
It would be just like him to go off on his own, particularly after our earlier conversation.
I thanked Mr. Mannering once more and assured him that I could find my way back to the entrance. Then, I stepped past him onto a stone path before he could close and bolt the door.
The landing had been protected from the weather by the overhang of the roof. Just beyond I discovered boot prints in the newly fallen snow.
They were a good size, the sort a gentleman might wear, and unless I missed my guess, I knew who they belonged to. I followed that trail of prints past the churchyard to the entrance of the graveyard.
As I entered the graveyard, those prints faded then disappeared altogether, the falling snow thicker as it dusted the trees and monuments of those buried there. And among them, the grave of Reverend Chastain, in what was noted in the register as the pavilion for the “Servants of God.”
I found a small stone marker beside the pathway, and in the distance the vague outline of a small structure.
