On this visit, Aunt Minna and Uncle John had brought only their three eldest children, but since they were of an age with Winnie’s sister and two young brothers, there was a vast amount of juvenile silliness prevailing. The adults were too absorbed in discussing the shocking news from Corland Castle to curb their behaviour, so the noise soon rose to an unbearable level.
Winnie sat silently a little apart, too old for childish games, and having nothing to add to the conversation. The tumult in her heart was too great for rational speech. Walter was free! She cared little for the reasons for it, whether he had honourably stood aside now that his prospects were gone, or whether Bea had jilted him just when he most needed her staunch support. All that mattered was that he was free, he would not marry Bea and therefore he was at liberty to choose elsewhere.
Not that he was likely to choose Winnie, of course, she understood that. He had surely had every opportunity to offer for her, had he ever wanted to, but he had never seen her in the light of a wife, and perhaps he never would. But the odds had improved from zero to something greater than zero. Possibly infinitesimally small, but still greater than zero.
The excitement prevailing meant that no one noticed that dinner was half an hour late. When eventually they drifted through, Winnie found herself in an island of good sense, between her father and Uncle John, the latter a quiet, rather studious man, who left his lively wife to manage theirramshackle household in York while he buried himself in his library.
The two men talked of Walter and what he might do with himself now, and Winnie was content to listen quietly. If Walter himself could not be present, the next best thing was to hear him talked of. Uncle Alfred was willing to help find him a government post, but as that would take him away to London and far from Winnie, she could not like the idea.
After dinner, the men lingered over their port, but Lady Strong diverted the young ladies away from frivolity by opening the instrument, settling Lily at her harp, the cousins at the pianoforte and allowing them to expend their energies in song and music.
“Was I ever as silly as those three?” Winnie whispered to her mother, when Aunt Watson was called upon to adjudicate a dispute between the young cousins over the music.
“No, dear, you were always my good, sensible girl,” her mother said with a wan smile, leaving Winnie unsure whether she meant it as a compliment or not.
The boys and Uncle John at last joined the ladies, but Uncle John came over to Winnie. “Your father asks you to join him in the dining room. There is someone here from the castle — a captain.”
It was indeed Captain Edgerton, who made Winnie a flourishing bow, then held the chair for her as she sat. Her father pushed a glass of port towards her.
“How are they all at Corland, Captain?” Winnie said.
“Very shocked, naturally. How could it be otherwise? The ladies weeping, the men grim-faced… it is a dreadful business. Miss Strong…” He hesitated, then seemed to gird his loins. “Miss Strong, you may or may not be aware that it was the letter you found that started us down the road to this outcome.”
“The letter I found?” she said, startled. “Which letter was that?”
“The one from the Bishop of Winchester.”
“Oh.Oh!That was how it was all discovered?”
“It was. We have not told anyone that the letter was found by you, and I suggest you do not mention it to anyone. You did not understand the significance of it, after all.”
“No, I merely wondered how to file it. But if I had not found it, Mrs Edgerton would have done so. It would have been found, one way or another.”
“Precisely,” the captain said, smiling at her. “So it is irrelevant who it was.”
“And they would resent me if they knew it was my doing, is that it?”
“They might. I would not wish there to be any rift between you and the Athertons on that account.”
“Thank you, Captain. That is very thoughtful of you. But tell me, how goes your investigation? Is there much progress?”
“As I have been telling your father and uncle, I am no further forward at Corland. I thought I had had a breakthrough in discovering that Lord Farramont had stayed at the castle on the fateful night, but apart from Mr Eustace, no one recalls the precise day. The grooms rose before dawn to prepare his carriage for departure at first light, but they have no idea which day that was. It hardly matters, though, for his lordship’s man slept in the same room on account of the early start, and it seems unlikely that a man would rise from his bed, step over his valet, go off and murder someone with an axe and then quietly go back to bed.”
“Unless the valet was helping him in some way,” Winnie said.
“An accomplice?” The captain frowned. “Possibly. Valets can be excessively loyal to their employer. I shall try to talk to Lord Farramont, but he is not high on my list at present. I am stilltrying to find a reason why anyone would wish to kill the fellow at all.”
“And with an axe, too,” Winnie said with a shudder. “It is a particularly gruesome method to choose. But I cannot imagine Lord Farramont would kill Mr Nicholson. He seems too quiet a man to rise to violence.”
“But the same may be said of everyone,” the captain said. “Except… Miss Strong, I am told you know Mr Walter Atherton better than almost anyone else. Would you say he is prone to outbursts of temper?”
“Walter? Heavens, no! A more easy-going man would be hard to find. Although… he dismissed a groom once who neglected a horse of his.”
The captain gave a bark of laughter. “Entirely understandable! I would do as much myself. But no duels or tavern brawls? No fisticuffs with his brothers?”
“Not that I ever heard. He and Eustace were very close as boys. Not so much now, since Eustace no longer lives at the castle. As for Kent, no one could quarrel with him, for he never gets angry about anything.”
“Hmm. This is the trouble, you see, Miss Strong. Every little hint of something amiss trickles into the sand and turns out to be nothing. We have exhausted the possibilities at Corland, and I do not have permission from the earl to extend my enquiries to Birchall.”
