“Someone shot a hole through her hat last week, and if she hadn’t tripped, it would have been through her heart. And before that, roof tiles nearly fell on my wife, and if I hadn’t pushed her out of the way...”
“Might these incidents have been accidents?” the inspector suggested. “And your wife’s presence only a coincidence?”
Thomas cleared his throat. “I would have agreed with you if we had not found a threatening note in her room.”
Mr. Holden raised one eyebrow. “A note?”
“It said, ‘If you value your life, you will go back to America.’”
“Did you recognize the handwriting?”
He shook his head and pulled the folded note from his breast pocket and handed it to the inspector.
Mr. Holden held it close to his left eye and then extended his arm for a farther view before placing it into his briefcase. “Do you have any suspicions of who would want to hurt your new wife?”
“She’s having a rather difficult time with the upper staff, but I don’t think they’d shoot her over it.”
Mr. Holden gave a wry smile. “Who else resides at Ashdown Abbey?”
“My mother, Dowager Lady Farnham, and my family’s ward, Miss Penelope Hutchinson.”
“Do they often go shooting? I’m aware that many upper-class ladies enjoy the sport.”
“Both my mother and Penelope are proficient with a gun, but Hibbert, our butler, assured me that no one had used the gun room that day. He keeps the keys.”
“And there’s no one else?”
“Mr. Ryse, the local rector, is a sort of relation. The position at Petersley Church is paid for by the estate, and he always gives short sermons on Sundays. He is a great friend of the family and often eats his meals at Ashdown Abbey.”
“Does Mr. Ryse approve of your choice of wife?”
“I believe so. Without Cordelia’s money, he would have been out of a position, as would everyone on the staff. Ashdown would have been sold, and it’s not easy for a man of his years to find a new position.”
“Or one where so little is required.”
“I couldn’t say,” Thomas said. “I don’t know the duties of a rector.”
They fell into an uncomfortable silence. Thomas couldn’t bear it if anything were to happen to Cordelia, but he also couldn’t endure the thought that someone he cared for might try to hurt his wife. Surely, if they had issues, they’d come and speak to him instead.
Mr. Ryse was the one who had taught him how to ride a bicycle and skip a rock. His father’s brief visits never allowed for such things nor would he have bothered to spend time with his only son. Hibbert was the one who patched up Thomas’s childhood scrapes and listened to his adventures. Edwin Thayne, his valet, had been his childhood friend and had stood by him when others would not have. Cook and Mrs. Norton had both been warm and loving, when his mother had been neither. She never could be bothered with dirty boys. Although, she’d always seemed fond enough of Penelope, but perhaps it was because she was a girl.
The carriage stopped in front of the abbey. Thomas got out first and Mr. Holden slowly stepped out behind him. He whistled again as he looked at the historical building.
“Quite an ancestral pile you’ve got here. Has it been in the family for generations?”
“Since King Henry VIII sold it to my ancestor,” Thomas said, and led the way into the house.
Mr. Holden seemed to notice every detail of the house, from the new electric lights to the newly acquired paintings from France.
“If I may be so bold, what was your wife’s dowry?”
Thomas debated not telling the man, but he didn’t want to keep anything to himself that could protect Cordelia. “Two million dollars.”
Whistling again, the inspector raised his eyebrows. “If you weren’t so eager to protect your wife, you would be my principal suspect.”
“There’s something else.”
“Yes?”
