“That was in the papers,” Madeline answered. “But clearly that’s a lie. Nelson kept insisting I should have picked him.”
Beau sat forward in his seat.
“I’m meeting with Dominic Ashe as soon as I return to Saint John,” he said. “While the Ferguson crime is old, it was no doubt sensationalized and people would remember it. There had to be something—or someone—who might know something.”
He would be damned if that bastard Taylor would continue to haunt Madeline Murray. The doorbells chimed and soon another visitor was presented to the parlour.
“Mr. Benjamin Miller, of the Halifax Chronicle.”
Miller entered, wearing a well-worn brown suit. If the journalist was shocked at seeing the Everwell ladies sitting in Veronica Turnbull’s parlour, he gave no indication.
“Please sit, Mr. Miller,” Aunt Veronica said, gesturing to a chair next to Mrs. Hartley. “I was just taking some late morning refreshments with members of The Everwell Society. Have you had the pleasure?”
Beau wanted to smile but tried to keep his emotions in check. Aunt Veronica was an effortless hostess, and at moments like this, Beau wondered if his ease with people had come from her.
“I have,” he said, nodding politely to the Everwell ladies. “I believe I did a piece on a Christmas pageant at the Manor several years ago.”
“And you have not returned,” Miss Everwell said, not small amount of judgment in her voice. “You must come back this year. Mrs. Ashe has quite outdone herself of late.”
He nodded, giving the matriarch a polite smile. “I will do my best to make amends.”
Beau wondered what a man like Ben Miller, who had helped provide Dominic with some contacts in Saint John and who, no doubt, regularly reported on murders, corruption, and other sordid details would find so intriguing about a Christmas pageant at a girl’s school, no matter how noble the cause.
“Congratulations on your innocence,” he said, shaking Beau’s hand. “And thank you and Mr. Ashe for the scoop.”
Mr. Miller’s piece on his innocence screaming across the front page of the Halifax Chronicle had been as close to a relief as Beau could muster. No doubt the reporter was the second person Dominic had reached out to.
“I’m catching the train in a couple of hours,” Beau said, feeling Madeline’s moody stare as surely as if she were touching him. “All those messy details you reported on this morning are my life.”
The reporter nodded, apparently unbothered by that. “I want an exclusive as soon as you have time to breathe.”
“As for me, I am afraid I invited you here with a misunderstanding.” Aunt Veronica did her best to appear nonplussed by her misstep in inviting one of the city’s most dogged journalists to her door to discuss an old murder case.
“I’m not certain it is an understanding,” he said, politely declining a cup of coffee as he pulled out his notebook. “I received a telegram this morning from an informant with quite a shocking revelation about one of the staff at Everwell.”
The journalist took a sideways glance at Madeline, and if Beau had no opinions of the man before he walked in, he sure as hell had some now.
“Mrs. Turnbull received a very troublesome letter yesterday, as you know,” Mrs. Hartley said. “Almost immediately, she reached out to inform us of this rather slanderous note, which had no other purpose than to blackmail The Everwell Society.”
Beau wasn’t sure if he managed to keep his eyebrows in place as he took in Phillipa Hartley’s smooth—and utterly false—tale of events that had brought the current occupants of Aunt Vee’s parlour together. If his aunt was thrown off by it, however, she recovered quickly enough.
Miller was already scratching down something in his notebook. If he sensed there was anything amiss, he gave no sign.
“May I see the letter?” he asked.
“No—” came a chorus of voices that included Beau, Mrs. Hartley and Aunt Vee.
“Yes.”
All eyes fell to Madeline, who had been the sole—and most important—contrary voice. Not even Aunt Veronica could contain her surprise.
“Are you certain, Miss Murray?” she said. “After everything you have done for my nephew, I do not wish to have you injured any more than you have already been.”
Admiration swelled in Beau’s chest at his aunt’s gesture.
“Quite,” Madeline said, straightening her shoulders, looking Mr. Miller straight in the eye. “I have given Nelson Taylor far too much power over me. My silence does nothing but give his story strength.”
Aunt Veronica handed the letter to Miller, who read it carefully. The collective room held its breath. He read it through once, and then went back and forth over several passages a second time.
