“My sister should perhaps accompany us regardless,” said Jane. “We’ll need to find out if this midwife even exists.”
“Yes, and if not, it could mean that there wasn’t any man in her bed at all.”
“Right,” said Jane. “We have what? The word of a maid at the tavern, who thinks there was?”
“Beaumont says she was wild,” said Byron. “But she might have grown out of that. People do.”
“Do they?”
“Not me, but people do.”
Jane laughed softly. “I see. Well, maybe she didn’t have any lover at all. But that would beg the question, why would Mr. Hardy lie?”
“Why indeed,” said Byron. “Unless he did it.”
“And it doesn’t seem he would, not if it would mean he had nowhere to go.”
“Which means, it would be more likely that Mr. Eves would lie,” said Byron. “He’s not married, correct?”
“That’s correct,” said Jane. “He owns the inn in town and he is quite vocal about what he thinks is best for the town in general. He’s involved in town business, and he’s well-liked.”
“And he hates the tavern?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I don’t see it. If you’re tupping some woman—”
“That word again!”
“Sorry.” Byron spread his hands. “When you’re involved with a woman like that, you don’t actively work against her, is all I’m saying. So, the only way I would believe that he had been her lover and that he was actively telling everyone in town he wantedthe tavern closed down was if he’d been her lover in the past and then she’d ended their affair.”
“Revenge,” said Jane.
“Revenge,” said Byron. “That’s a good reason to poison someone, isn’t it?”
“Could he have…” Jane poked her fish with her fork. “A person wouldn’t kill a woman just to get a tavern closed down, would he?”
“Oh,” said Byron. “You’re saying, they were never lovers, but that he knew if she was out of the way, that then her cousin would come in, take the place over, and sell it to someone who would not make it a tavern.”
“I think that’s quite a stretch, don’t you? To take a woman’s life over such a thing?”
“But it’s so easy to spike her drink with too much laudanum,” said Byron quietly. “I don’t know.”
“But if that’s the case,” said Jane, “why would Hardy say they were lovers?”
“Yes, none of this makes sense!”
“It seems to be becoming more and more complicated the deeper we get into it, I must say,” said Jane. “How long do we have before our appointment to go and speak with Mr. Seward?”
“Ah,” said Byron, taking out his pocket watch. “We’ve time enough, but we’d best concentrate on eating, not talking.”
“THIS IS ANodd thing to inquire,” said Mr. Seward. He was paging through the books for the tavern, which were kept in the corner of a storeroom. He’d brought them there to look over the books in case they wished to see how well the business did before buying it.
But then, Lord Byron had just come out with asking him where he was the night that his cousin died.
“Is it odd?” said Byron. “Well, I’m a bit of an odd character. Where were you?”
“Home, of course,” said Mr. Seward.
