Page 56 of Corpse in the Canal

With Constance. Did she mean that, or was she saying the right things? “And you?”

She sighed. “I am in limbo.”

He nodded, for he understood that feeling all too well. His had lasted for years, between escape and Solomon. “You don’t feel at home here?”

“It’s Clarence’s home. Do you?”

“In England?” He considered. “I don’t think home is a place for me.”

“Is it Solomon?”

“Yes. And Constance.”

“You like her?”

He didn’t like that Adelaide cared for his answer. “I wasn’t sure at first. Her story is…complicated. But yes, I like her for herself, and for Solomon. They are like two parts of the same whole.”

“And you, David?”

His name on her lips felt oddly moving. Like everything about her. “I am used to being alone. To have my brother back is enough. Was enough…” Why had he said the last words aloud?

“But you are making a new life.” She indicated his sketchbook beneath Clarence’s elaborate monster with its huge eyes. “Your own life.”

“Yes. Aren’t you?”

Her smile was twisted. “I’m trying. It seems I am either unpopular or over-popular.”

Solomon and Constance would want to know about that. David knew Adelaide was a suspect and he should ask questions. But what he did ask came from deep within himself.

“Would you allow me to paint you?”

As soon as the words left his lips, he knew they were a mistake. Her face shut down, but not before he had seen the disappointment in her eyes. A beautiful woman constantly pursued only for her physical beauty.

“I want to know you,” he blurted.

*

Just beyond the bridge, Constable Wills was with a couple of boatmen on a narrow barge. They appeared to be dredging the canal with a large net. Constance and Solomon turned in their direction.

“Find anything?” Solomon asked.

Wills shook his head. “Not yet.”

He left the men to rake through the most recent treasures pulled up by the net—a length of pipe, a load of leaves and gravel, a horseshoe, half a cartwheel, and something unrecognizable that seemed to be made entirely of rust—and jumped off the boat to talk.

“Even if we find the pistol, I’m not sure we’d know whose it was,” he confessed.

“Then you don’t know who in the neighborhood owns a pistol?”

“No reason to,” Wills said. “It’s never come up before. I know Mr. Percival had one, because I found him shooting rabbits with it once. He didn’t hit many.”

“The killer could have disarmed him,” Solomon said, “and shot him with his own weapon.”

Wills sighed. “Which hardly helps us. We’ve searched this bank already—the busy side—but we decided the canal itself would be a more likely hiding place. If we don’t find it, there’s always the quiet side.”

“Who owns the land over there?” Constance asked.

“Mostly the squire—Sir Felix. Nearer to town, some of it’s Jenkins land.”