“To stop her worrying, or so she says.”
“Or because she doesn’t trust her?”
Constance frowned. “I would say she does. They certainly seem to understand each other, communicate without speech, like old married couples and young siblings.” She glanced at him, for she hadn’t meant to bring up the subject of David just yet, but since she had, she said, “Didyoudo that? You and David?”
“Yes. I think so, anyway.” His throat moved as he swallowed, and she leaned against him once more. “Now he is a stranger I don’t know if I even like. I don’t know what happened to him, what it did to him.”
He had told her once that he’d had nightmares about such things as a child. Now he was afraid again that the nightmares were true. And she could not tell him that they weren’t.
“It hurt you too,” she reminded him. “And he is strong, like you. We’ll sort it out. Meanwhile, he is safe.”
He shifted his gaze from the road to her face, and she was relieved to see the smile in his eyes. “Where would I be without you, Constance Silver?”
“Reduced to merely raking in thousands of pounds from trade,” she said flippantly, “without any fun at all. Or you might have traveled the world as you were going to before I hauled you off to rescue Elizabeth Maule.”
“I still wouldn’t have enjoyed it. Where shall we go for our honeymoon?”
She smiled, just because he was speaking of marriage again. And he had bought her the tea set. “Venice.”
“Why not? I’ve never been there…”
Chapter Seven
“Fred Gimlet,” Solomonsaid over dinner at the inn’s otherwise empty common room, “was very certain that our letters are the work of a woman. Is that fair? Or is he trying to point us away from himself?”
“Without noticing that it might lead us to his wife instead?” Constance chewed thoughtfully and swallowed. “His grief has not numbed him, as hers has. He could well bear anger against Mrs. Chadwick for not sending the doctor more urgently to his child. He could have heard of Mrs. Keaton’s accusation against Nell Dickie and considered it unfair. And he is Miss Mortimer’s tenant—there’s bound to be a grudge somewhere in their history.”
“If not in their future, since she is going to raise the rent. But what has he got against Nolan the blacksmith?”
“He has a farm horse, so he must be a customer. And his son, Richard, was one of those Nolan chased.”
Solomon frowned. “Would an angry father not storm in there and have it out with Nolan? Gimlet did not strike me as a timid man. Then again, wouldn’t he be angrier with his son for causing trouble? Sitting down and painstakingly cutting out and gluing a lot of bits of newspaper to form a vague message to send anonymously to a neighbor he could easily speak to face to face?”
Constance sighed. “It’s not a natural reaction, is it? I can’t see either of the Gimlets doing it, even maddened by grief. But—” She broke off and slowly lowered her knife and fork to the plate.“Isn’t it a rather childish thing to do? A game with the letters that also makes a powerless child’s sense of injustice plain to an adult? Richard Gimlet must have had his parents’ grievances as well as his own, and his own mother admitted he hated everyone when his sister died.”
“He might even be a friend of the Dickie children.”
“Or it could be the other way round, and a Dickie child is the culprit.” Constance shoved her plate away from her. “Or any of the children in the village, come to that. They could even have banded together to teach the adults a lesson.”
Solomon’s smile was twisted. “We’re not exactly eliminating suspects, are we? What about Sophie Chadwick, who seems to be always out and about, delivering medicine and good cheer, and making friends like Ogden, the downtrodden schoolmaster.”
“Stubbornly going her own way,” Constance said. “We don’t know her well enough, I suppose, but I can more easily imagine her scolding people for unkindness, false accusations, or whatever. Wouldn’t the sender of our letters be more timid and downtrodden?”
Solomon raised his eyebrows. “Like the schoolteacher? I’m not sure heisdowntrodden. Socially awkward, yes, despised by Peregrine Mortimer, yes, though not, apparently, by Miss Mortimer herself.”
“His eyes are sharp enough,” Constance said. “But he doesn’t meet one’s gaze for long, if at all.”
“Something to hide? Devotion to Sophie?”
“I don’t see Mortimer regarding Ogden as much in the way of competition.”
“He was sniping at him,” Solomon pointed out.
“Like a bully picking on the one he sees as powerless… Solomon, wouldMortimersend such letters? Despite the effort involved?”
He shrugged. “I can’t see his noticing the things the letters point out, let alone caring about any of them.”
“Oh no, I’m sure he doesn’t care. That wouldn’t be his purpose. But…a bit of stirring for amusement’s sake, with the primary aim of blaming the letters on Hannah Jenson?”
