I was wondering how we could speak to Agnes alone when Oscar asked another question. “Did everyone know she was a cotton magician?”
“Aye,” the groom said.
“She wouldnae shut up about it,” Agnes added. “She was going tae leave here and use her magic tae make something of herself. She was always blathering about starting a business when she had enough money tae get going.”
The coachman suddenly appeared and barked an order to the groom. “Get back tae work. You, too, Agnes. Dinnae talk tae these folk about poor Mary unless the housekeeper says.”
The groom disappeared into the depths of the horse stall.
Agnes turned away, muttering. “Ain’t nothing poor aboot Mary the hoore.” She headed to the gate leading to the courtyard behind the house where she worked.
“She’s holding something back,” Miss Wheeler said, echoing my thoughts. She skipped over a puddle in the mews lane and asked Agnes to wait before entering the courtyard. “Mary had a special lad, didn’t she?”
“I dinnae ken, but she did get letters from someone. We share a room, and I’d see her reading ’em in bed when she thought I was asleep.”
“Did you happen to read them without her knowledge?”
Agnes didn’t blink at the impertinent question. Apparently reading someone’s private correspondence wasn’t as shocking to her as it was to me. “Nae. I cannae read. I only know they’re from a laddie because of her smile. All smug and simpering, it were.” How a smile could be both smug and simpering was a mystery to me.
“Do you know what she did with the letters?” Oscar asked.
Agnes shrugged. “If she hid ’em, they’re hid well. The police searched our room and said they dinnae find anything useful.”
“May we conduct a search?” Miss Wheeler asked.
Agnes glanced at the rear door to the house. “Mrs. Cooper’ll no’ like it.”
“Is Mrs. Cooper the housekeeper?” At Agnes’s nod, Miss Wheeler removed a coin purse from her skirt pocket. She took out sixpence and pressed it into the girl’s hand. “Will this convince you to distract her and the other staff while we look through your room?”
Agnes’s eyes widened at the sight of the silver coin before she tucked it into her apron pocket. “When ye hear a loud dunt, go through this door, take the stairs tae the top. Our room’s second door on the left.”
Agnes disappeared inside. Moments later there was an awful clatter as a heavy pot hit the flagstone floor. A woman bellowed all manner of abusive names at the girl.
“I don’t think I paid her enough,” Miss Wheeler muttered as we entered the house.
We hurried as fast as we could up the steep, narrow staircase used by the servants and entered the maids’ bedchamber. It was small, the sloped ceiling following the roofline of the building. I wasn’t tall; even I couldn’t stand erect on one side.
The three of us wordlessly searched the room, but quickly concluded there was nothing to be found in all the usual hiding places—under the mattress, inside coat pockets, under loose floorboards. We didn’t dare knock on walls to locate hollowed out spaces for fear of being overheard downstairs, so Oscar and I pressed on panels instead while Miss Wheeler searched through the chest of drawers the two maids must have shared.
“I think there’s a false bottom in this drawer,” she said. Oscar and I joined her as she removed the folded petticoats and lifted out the flat panel of the lowest drawer. “Huzzah!” She brandished a bundle of letters tied together with a piece of cotton twine and beamed a rather dazzling smile at Oscar.
He beamed back. “Good instincts to look there, Miss Wheeler. You’re a better detective than most I’ve met.”
“If only I were allowed to be a detective.”
“Their loss.” His smile softened.
She quickly looked away and tried to untie the elaborate knot. “Mary must have used her magic on this. It’s tight.” She handed the bundle to me without bothering to remove her gloves and try again.
It wasn’t easy but I managed to loosen the knot and remove the twine. I gave a letter to both Oscar and Miss Wheeler and kept one for myself. We sat on one of the beds and read. The front of each envelope simply stated ‘Mary’ with the address of the house. There was no return address. We compared handwriting, and it was apparent all were written by the same person. According to the name at the bottom of each letter, that person was Jack. Just Jack, no surname.
“Mine’s a love letter,” Oscar said as he read. “Jack says he has admired Mary for her beauty and spirit ever since she arrived at the house. He says he doesn’t want to tell her his last name because he isn’t ready to reveal himself to her. He writes that expressing his ‘raw and powerful feelings’ for her wouldn’t be possible without the comfort afforded by anonymity. The rest of it lists his reasons for finding her so attractive. The language is rather flowery, but I can see why a young woman would fall for it. The letter is undated.”
“This one is also undated,” Miss Wheeler said. “It seems to follow on from yours, Mr. Barratt. Jack says he is ready to reveal his identity to Mary, because he can no longer simply gaze upon her from afar without her knowing who he is. The rest talks about his desire for her, that she’s always in his thoughts, that he cannot eat or sleep because he’s so overcome by love for her.”
The letter in my hands seemed to be the third and final one in the chain of correspondence. “Jack tells Mary that he is excited to finally meet her,” I read, “and that he cannot wait for the moment their eyes connect. I presume he means their gazes, as eyes cannot connect. It’s anatomically impossible. Anyway, Jack tells Mary to wait for him that very evening in the mews. He’ll be waiting near the rear courtyard of her residence. He stresses that she mustn’t tell a soul. It is to be their special secret.” I folded the letter and ran my thumb and finger along the crease. “Poor Mary was lured outside by her kidnapper.” I held up the letter. “Jack.”
Oscar gathered all three letters and tied the twine around them again. “I wonder if Juliette received letters from an admirer too.”
