“As do I,” Miss Wheeler chimed in. “Since the word of a woman is equally as good as that of a man.”
Mr. Kinloch opened the door wider. “Do come in while I look through my paperwork.”
We waited in the entrance hall, alone. There was very little to look at, considering the paintings had been removed. The longer we waited, the more my thoughts wandered. The direction of them took me on a different course altogether. One that Oscar and Miss Wheeler seemed to have forgotten.
When Mr. Kinloch returned, he handed a piece of paper to Oscar. “It’s nearby. I believe the gentleman has died, but his widow still lives there.”
Miss Wheeler left with Oscar behind her, but I lingered. I indicated the bare walls with the imprints left behind by the removed paintings. “It’s a shame you had to sell off your family portraits.” According to Redmayne, Mr. Kinloch hadn’t sold the paintings, but I wanted to hear his response. I wanted to see if it matched the butler’s.
Mr. Kinloch followed my gaze. “How did you know they were family portraits?”
“It’s often the location for such things, in my experience.”
“You may be right about that, but you’re wrong about selling them. They’re being appraised and cleaned in London.”
Appraised and cleaned? Redmayne had mentioned the former but not the latter. Was that significant?
Whether it was or not, Mr. Kinloch hadn’t taken the bait I’d dangled in front of him. He’d not said the paintings were sold because he was in financial difficulty. I suppose I hadn’t expected him to, but I felt I had to try. Someone had stolen the book from my room last night and Mr. Kinloch may well have been the thief. I hadn’t ruled him out. However, financial gain was an increasingly unlikely motive. For one thing, he could have sold the book to Mr. Defoe for a much greater sum, and secondly, it seemed he hadn’t sold the paintings for financial gain. Of course, he may simply have told Redmayne to use that story with anyone who asked about them, then repeated it himself. I wouldn’t eliminate him just yet.
But I knew a way to do so, once and for all.
I returned my hat to my head, touched the brim in farewell, and left.
The residence of Redmayne’s former employer was just as grand as Mr. Kinloch’s house, although the street itself wasn’t quite as exclusive as Moray Place. The butler invited us inside after checking to see if Mrs. Carter was home for callers, but Miss Wheeler didn’t step inside ahead of Oscar and me, as was usual. She scanned the street. Both sides were lined with townhouses, unlike Moray Place where there were buildings only on one side, the other occupied by the garden where Juliette was walking at the time of her abduction.
“Is something the matter?” Oscar asked her.
“I…I’m not sure.” She shrugged and entered the house. Oscar’s gaze swept the street before he followed her.
Swathed in black from head to toe, with jet jewelry and a black cap covering her white hair, the elderly Mrs. Carter was a picture of respectable widowhood. Despite it being almost one o’clock in the afternoon, the heavy curtains were closed. The only light came from gas lamps positioned on two of the tables, neither placed near her. I wondered what she did all day, since it wasn’t enough light for her to read by or do needlepoint.
It became clear, however, that she was so frail she probably did nothing. She breathed heavily, and the hovering maid explained that her mistress found talking at length difficult.
“We’ll keep it brief,” Oscar assured them both. He explained that we were assisting the police in the search for the missing women and that one of the suspects was her former footman, Redmayne, who’d left her employment to take a position as butler at Mr. Kinloch’s home.
Mrs. Carter became quite agitated at the mention of his name and began to cough. The maid hurried to her side and pressed a teacup into her mistress’s hands.
Mrs. Carter sipped and seemed to be better for it. “Redmayne is a good man. He wouldn’t harm anyone.”
“Wasn’t he implicated in the abduction of your maid?”
She tapped her hand against her chest as she struggled to draw a breath. “Only because he was courting her and couldn’t prove he was asleep in his own bed when she went missing.” She paused to draw in two shuddery breaths. “The poor girl was found a few days later, dead.”
“Do you have a theory on who killed her?”
Again, Mrs. Carter shook her head. “I think I know why, though.” She used two hands to lift the teacup to her lips. She took another sip before lowering it. “The girl used to tell people she could do magic.”
“This was years ago, wasn’t it?” Oscar asked.
“When most magicians hid themselves away, yes. But the silly girl didn’t hide like the others. She boasted that she could do such fine needlework because she was a cotton magician.”
Cotton! Just like Mary.
Mrs. Carter drew in a deep, steady breath before continuing. “Few folk knew about magicians then, so we all thought she was touched in the head. I suppose there were some who believed her…” She coughed lightly. “One of them must have taken her.”
I couldn’t see how a maid who had no plans to start a business, living in a time when magic wasn’t widely known, could be a threat to anyone. “But why?” I asked. “Financial gain?”
“I suspect someone wanted to eliminate witches. A modern day Witchfinder General, so to speak.”
