He looked at the smudgy wrappings. “You’re probably right.”
“Come for dinner if you can manage it. If not, then something in the library on a tray.”
“Thank you.”
Julia remembered the last time he sat in her library.Collapsed is a better word.It was their last meeting before the dismaying end of the Romilly case. He’d been too exhausted to finish Mrs. Ogilvie’s sandwiches. Then he disappeared for nearly six months.
The same Marlborough House footman who had admitted Tennant earlier led him into the hall to wait for Lady Styles. The only change to the foyer was the holiday pots of white chrysanthemums and holly that the staff had added since the morning. Tennant circled the room, checking the time.Just before six. Not changing yet for dinner.He’d just tucked away his pocket watch when Lady Styles appeared.
“Good evening, Inspector,” she said, offering her hand. “Your return must mean news, good or bad.”
“I’m sorry to say it’s bad news, Lady Styles. Brigid Dowling is dead.”
She closed her eyes. “I’ve been afraid of that.”
“There is little we know at present, but the commissioner and I thought Marlborough House should be informed immediately.”
“Thank you, Inspector. It’s been a long day for you, I know.”
Tennant glanced over his shoulder. The foyer opened into hallways traversed by passing servants. “May we speak somewhere more private? Perhaps the room where we sat this morning?”
“If you don’t mind the chill. The servants don’t light a fire there in the afternoon.”
“I won’t keep you long, but if you prefer to get a wrap …”
She shook her head, and Tennant followed her to the sitting room. They sat in the same chairs they’d occupied that morning.
“We found Brigid Dowling’s body and that of her cabdriver in an abandoned warehouse near the river. He’d picked her up at two o’clock. Someone murdered them within a half mile of the Chapter House.”
Susan’s hand flew to her throat, clutching the mourning brooch pinned to her collar. “I thought …” She cleared her voice. “I thought perhaps an accident, not murder.”
“Shall I ring for the footman? Some water, perhaps?”
Susan shook her head. “Just a moment, please, Inspector.” She wrapped her arms and shivered in the cold room.
Tennant watched her. Her gaze dropped to the carpet. Her focus moved back and forth between two points on the patterned rug. That morning, he sensed a formidable intelligence behind her gaze. He thought,She hasn’t said she doesn’t understand or asked what it means.Lady Styles was working it out for herself.
Finally, she looked up. “Is there anything more you can tell me, Inspector?”
“We know that someone lured Miss Dowling to her death. A witness saw a tall, well-dressed man with a ginger beard waiting for her with a hackney. A false beard, as it happens.”
Tennant paused, expecting a reaction or a question. Whennone came, he continued. “The witness saw them enter the cab, and we recovered a costume beard near the murder site. We found no letter on her body or with her belongings.”
“But the letter from her sister … Inspector, her note to me said she was bringing it to me.”
“We didn’t find it. Lady Styles, just to be clear, did you send a cab to bring her to Marlborough House.”
“I did not.”
“I didn’t think so.”
Throughout their conversation, she had watched him closely as he spoke. Tennant waited, curious about what she would say next. Lady Styles got right to the heart of the matter.
“Inspector, it seems unlikely that two ordinary Irish servant girls—sisters living their separate lives hundreds of miles apart—that their suspicious deaths are unconnected.Unlikelyis an inadequate word.”
“I agree. The open verdict in Lizzie Dowling’s death must be reconsidered. That much is clear. Murder is the likely conclusion.”
Lady Styles leaned her right elbow on the chair’s armrest and rubbed her forehead. “My God, the queen’s servant and a second murder linked to the first … the thought staggers.”
