Bridget must have caught sight of them too because she held her free hand up to her forehead and peered into the distance. “Oh dear,” she said. “It’s Rupert and Charlie.”
“They must be looking for Otis.” Nate sighed. The two young men were brothers who always went by their Christian names, possibly to avoid confusion. Nate did not even know their surname.
“Dear me, how are we going to tell them?” Bridget covered her mouth with her hand, and Nate saw tears pool in her lovely eyes.
He moved closer to her and said gently, “I’ll take care of it.”
“You won’t have to tell them anything.” Magistrate Hunt stepped forward. “That’s my job.” He strode toward the men, clearly wanting to stop them from nearing the daffodils and Otis’s corpse. Nate and Bridget followed him.
The two young men stopped as the magistrate approached them, just a few feet away from their dead friend’s concealed body. They’d been more like Otis’s followers than peers. He’d been the ringleader, exuding charm and confidence. Nate preferred these two. They were quiet thinkers, far more serious about their work, he suspected, than Otis had been.
“Gentlemen.” Magistrate Hunt folded his hands together. “Iassume you’re here in search of your friend, Mr. George Otis.”
“That’s right,” Rupert, a thin, pale young man with a sharp nose and protruding Adam’s apple, said. “He didn’t come home last night. And he wasn’t at the lake this morning.”
“You had plans to meet at the lake this morning?”
“We take a walk along the lake together every morning. We typically go after breakfast, but since George didn’t come home last night, we thought he might be waiting for us there. When we didn’t find him, we came up here.” Rupert shrugged. “So here we are.”
“When was the last time you saw your friend?” Magistrate Hunt asked.
“Yesterday at supper,” Rupert said. “We worked together on our poetry all afternoon. Then we supped at The Black Horse.”
Magistrate Hunt frowned. “What do you mean by ‘worked together’?”
“We write individually but then read our work aloud to each other, and then we give our opinions, tell each other how to improve, that type of thing.”
“Did Mr. Otis say anything to upset either of you—about your poetry, perhaps?”
“He could be a harsh critic, but that never upset us. We welcomed it.”
“And how did Mr. Otis react to your criticisms of his work?”
“They aren’t criticisms. They are suggestions to make the writing better. Stronger.” Rupert shook his head as if to stave off his frustration. “Look, what’s this all about? Has something happened?”
“You stated Mr. Otis didn’t come home last night? When did he go out?”
“As I said, we supped together at The Black Horse and then stayed to enjoy a few jugs of ale. As the night wore on, the men who had supped at home started piling in, and it grew a little rowdy. George decided to leave, but we stayed.”
“And that was the last time you saw him? Before he left The Black Horse?” Magistrate Hunt asked.
“Correct.” Rupert nodded. “When we got home, he wasn’t in his bed.”
“And that didn’t worry you?” Magistrate Hunt said.
“George is a grown man. He doesn’t have a curfew. We were both exhausted from too much ale and fell to bed right away. When we awoke this morning, George was not in his bed. So, we assumed he’d risen early and gone to the lake. It was not unusual for him to do so.”
Rupert looked from the magistrate to Nate, who stood side by side, blocking the view of Otis’s concealed corpse. “Look here,” Rupert said, “are you going to tell us why you’re asking all these questions?” He turned to Bridget without waiting for an answer from the magistrate. “Miss De Lacey? What’s happened? Is George in trouble?”
“I’m so sorry.” Bridget bit her trembling lip.
“I’m afraid Mr. Otis is dead,” Magistrate Hunt said.
“Dead!” Rupert exclaimed.
His brother, Charlie, turned a degree paler. Like Rupert, he was exceedingly thin with dark hair and large soulful eyes. Nate wondered if their appetite for poetry substituted for an appetite for food and drink. It certainly hadn’t in Otis’s case.
“How?” Rupert demanded. “How is he dead?”
