“Only for some air, sir,” I answered, wary. How many interviews with him would it take for me to get crossways with one of my own lies?
He joined me at the door, and I said, “Jack told me someone else has been found.”
He nodded, and I could see how tired he was. “May I come inside a moment?”
I stepped back in and held the door open for him.
“I won’t keep you,” he said, “but Jack spoke to me at the mine. He said he met Mr. Tregarrick recently, right here at your door.”
Oh, Jack.“That’s true, sir.”
“Can you tell me about that?”
Though faint, I could hear accusation in his voice. “Jack seems to think Mr. Tregarrick is going around murdering people. I think that idea was inspired by old stories, and it seems pretty foolish to me.”
The constable’s eyebrow lifted. “That may be, Miss Penrose. But right now I want to hear about anything unusual, and Mr. Tregarrick leaving his estate and mixing in with the rest of us is exactly that. Why did the gentleman come to your cottage?”
I matched his raised brow with one of my own. “He walked me home because I fell on the heath and hit my head. He wanted to make certain I got here safely. A man with murder in his heart, to be sure.”
“I’d ask that you dispense with the sarcasm, Miss Penrose.”
My face warmed.This isn’t helping, Mina.I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Mr. Hilliard. Jack and I have been arguing over it, is all.”
“I understand. Just try to answer my questions as straightforwardly as you can. When you say ‘on the heath,’ do you mean on the Tregarrick estate?”
“Aye, sir. I cross it sometimes, same as other people.”
“Whereabouts did you have your fall?”
“Near that pool with the big stone slab, between here and the chapel.”
“Mmm.” He scribbled in his diary. “That slab, and the piles of smaller stones right around there, are all that’s left of Tregarrick manor.”
I eyed him with interest. “I always wondered where the ruins of that old place were. And why they never built another one.”
“As the story goes, the family was beset by hardship after that and didn’t have the spirit for it. But it’s so many years ago, it’s hard to know for sure. Anyhow, what was it caused you to fall?”
Without thinking, I reached up and fiddled with Mum’s cross, and the constable’s gaze followed. I let it go and shrugged. “I got hung up in my skirts stepping down from the slab, and I bloodied my head.” I touched the spot where the lump had been, still tender, and again his eyes followed. “Mr. Tregarrick happened to be nearby and came over to help.”
“Did you have much conversation with him?”
“Only a little. But he seemed a kind man.”
“Did you talk about Mr. Roscoe?”
I hesitated, considering my words. “I told him how sorry I was about what happened. I could see how it weighed on him.”
He nodded and continued writing.
“Mr. Hilliard?” He looked up from his diary. “I’m worried about Mr. Tregarrick. From what Jack’s told me, people are making up their minds about him. I worry about what might happen to him, but also about what might happen tousif everybody decides it was him and stops looking for the real killer.”
He studied me closely. “You seem pretty convinced he’s innocent.”
“I know I’m nobody, but I don’t believe he’d do such a thing.”
He closed the book and put it away. “On the contrary. As a victim yourself, and as one of very few people who’ve ever actually spoken to the man, I take your thoughts on the matter quite seriously. I’ll leave you now, but if you have any more encounters with Mr. Tregarrick, I want to know about it.”
“Yes, sir.” On impulse, I said, “Are you going the way of the village, by any chance, Mr. Hilliard?”
