My blood ran colder, and I stopped and turned.
“No!” Mina said frantically, reaching for my arm. But I pulled away and strode directly into the road, stopping halfway across and lowering my spectacles.
All I did was stare at them, but it made their eyes go wide. The miller pressed a hand to his wife’s back, and they moved quickly along.
“That’s only going to make things worse,” Mina scolded as I joined her.
“It was worth it. I’m not going to allow people to threaten us in the streets. Taking the high road is never going to make the right sort of impression on a man like that.”
“While you’re sounding rather too much like Jack for my comfort right now, I’ll admit I’m worried about the mood in the village. Even Mrs. Moyle, who always thinks the best of everyone until they give her reason not to, seemed unsettled by you.”
“She’s worried about you,” I muttered, “and she should be.”
Mina’s head lay to one side as she tried to draw my eye. “You’re still cross with me for refusing to stay behind. Youneedme, Harker.”
“That, my love, is the understatement of the century. But if anything were to happen to you, I might as well give myself over to the mob.”
A smile bloomed unexpectedly, raising rosy smudges behind those crimson stars scattered over her cheeks. “Then we best look out for each other.”
My poor besieged heart gave a throb of longing as she took my arm, and together we started down the path to the pool.
Mist still blanketed the heath, but as we drew nearer, we could see two figures. The taller of them turned, and one hand moved inside his jacket—where I suspected he’d concealed a firearm.
“Good morning, Mr. Hilliard,” I called in as peaceable a tone as I could muster.
His hand remained where it was as he replied, “I’m afraid it is, in actuality, rather a grim one, Mr. Tregarrick. I apologize for trespassing, but police business, you understand. I had intended to come up to the chapel after.”
“I understand, sir. What have you found?” My eyes moved to young master Jeremy, whose terror of me was plain on his face. Mina went to stand beside him, and Mr. Hilliard’s eyes followed her.
“This is no place foryou, Miss Penrose,” he said.
“That’s where you’re wrong, sir,” she replied in a firm tone that carried a tinge of defiance. “Mr. Tregarrick and I are engaged to be married, so these matters concern me, too, you see.”
The constable was now the third person to raise his brows and stare upon hearing this news. “Is that so?”
“It is,” I confirmed. “It will be made official this Sunday.”
“Mr. Hilliard,” said Mina, “might I ask whether you’ve seen Jack today?”
He blinked a few times, obviously still trying to make sense of what we’d told him. Finally he said, “I’m afraid I haven’t been to the mine yet this morning, Miss Penrose.”
I was about to ask him again what had been found, when a fluttering motion caught my eye. My gaze followed as the flutterer landed on the reedy bank. Another magpie, or perhaps the same as visited us here before. The bird got hold of something and begantugging. It looked like nothing more than a soggy weed, but the creature flapped about, unbalanced by the weight of the thing.
“Get away from there, now!” called Mr. Hilliard, waving his hat until the bird lifted away with a chittering squawk, dropping its prize into the water.
“May I step a little closer, sir?” I asked.
He eyed me with speculation. Giving me a solemn nod, he said, “Averylittle. Don’t disturb anything. And avoid stepping on the soft ground until we’ve had a chance to look things over properly.”
I left the others beside the stone slab and made my way around toward the spot where the bird had landed on the bank. Then I carefully stepped to the edge of the scrubby heath grass bordering the pool. Quite a few recent shoe prints had pressed into the mud at the water’s edge. They were all the same size and shape, and I guessed they’d been made by Jeremy.
The sky was uniformly gray, leaving no reflection on the pool’s surface. My eyes found the thing the magpie had dropped near the bank in a couple of inches of water. Not a weed, but achain. A silver necklace, I thought, by the dark tarnish. I wondered whether the chain still bore its ornament—and, looking more carefully, I saw that it did. Recognition arced through me like lightning through a Franklin rod.
I began to tremble as my gaze expanded out around the necklace. A few feet away, in slightly deeper water, I discovered what had brought the constable here.
The skull and rib cage rested in soft clay in the shallows, while the lower regions of the remains were lost to the deeper, darker water. The skeleton had been recently disturbed, maybe also attributable to Jeremy. By the ridges in the clay, and various depressions around the rib cage, I thought maybe he’d poked around with a stick until it had lodged somewhere, when he’d dragged it partway toward the shore, abandoning it once he realized what he’d gotten hold of.
My gaze returned to the necklace. Perhapsithad been what originally caught the boy’s eye, as it had the magpie’s.
