Page 86 of Corpse in the Canal

“You’re awake,” David remarked, and to Constance, “How is he?”

“Present,” Solomon said, raising his hand, “and perfectly able to answer for myself.”

“I prefer the sound of your wife’s voice.”

“I think he’s fine,” Constance said dryly. “If you want to sit with him, I’ll go in search of tea and toast.”

She paused only to splash water on her face and tidy her hair before leaving the room. Now that fears for Solomon had receded, the case was occupying her mind, particularly who had shot him, possibly by accident.

Somewhere, she registered that she did not feel sick—perhaps because she had only dozed, and in an upright position.

One of the bedroom doors was open, and through it, she could hear Clarence singing to himself. That made her smile and glance through the door. He was sprawled on a rug before the guarded fire, still in his nightgown, with an open robe over the top, drawing with great concentration.

An idea struck Constance.

“Good morning, Clarence,” she said, pausing in the doorway.

He looked up and grinned. “Morning, Mrs. Grey!”

“What are you drawing this morning?”

“Look.”

She went in, and he sat up to show her.

“It’s Mama,” he told her, showing a sticklike human perched on a four-legged chair with a high back. “I can draw you, too.”

To prove it, he quickly drew another stick body with a neck, arms, and a wide skirt. He gave her eyes and reached for his yellow crayon to draw in the shape and color of her hair.

Then he paused, frowning. “You’ve got gold hair. Mama’s is black. But in my picture, you still look the same. David’s picture looked like Mama.” He rummaged through the sheets beside him and came up with the sketch he had seen before. “I can’t draw her like that.”

“It’s just the detail,” Constance said. “If you keep practicing, and trying, you’ll get more and more detail. But I can tell that is your mama, and that is me.”

He didn’t seem convinced, but he only shrugged and carried on coloring in her dress, while Constance continued to gaze at David’s portrait of Adelaide. He had drawn it the day before yesterday, when he had been with Adelaide and Clarence by the canal. David had not detailed the paisley pattern of the blue cloth, except in very vague swirls, but oddly enough, he had shown what looked like a jagged tear to the left side of the gown.

Her breath caught and she jumped to her feet. “You must show me when it’s finished,” she told the boy, and left deep in thought, to fetch tea and toast for Solomon and herself. She found the maid about to bring it up, and saved her the trouble, but it seemed to take an awfully long time to return to Solomon’s room.

“David,” she said, interrupting their conversation without apology while she placed the toast on the bedside table between them, “the day you drew Adelaide and Clarence by the canal, had she torn her dress?”

David blinked. “Why, yes. It caught on some bramble thorns and she yanked it free. How did you know?”

“You drew the tear on her gown.”

“Did I?” He sounded rueful. “How very unflattering of me.”

“Where were those brambles?” Constance asked, ferrying cups of tea to both brothers before perching on the side of the bed.

“In that rough, wooded area behind where I was drawing.”

“Not in the Larchford wood where we were yesterday?”

“No, much nearer the town.”

Constance let out a breath and drew the torn cloth from her pocket. “Is this from the gown she wore that day?”

Unlike many men, David didn’t even need to think about it. “Yes.”

“Then this clears her. Unless she’d been at the Larchford wood before she met you—”