Page 55 of The Case of the Curate

Mrs. Thornfield’s sitting room was just past the baize door, so they did not have to go through the kitchen under the eyes of servants. It was a cozy, comfortable room with an armchair and a desk, shelves for account books, and a rug before the lit fire in the hearth.

Kate sat down and waited, though not for long. Only a couple of minutes after leaving her there, Mrs. Thornfield returned with the young footman, Lewis, and left him there.

“Just the man I wanted to see,” Kate said pleasantly.

“Can’t think why, my lady,” Lewis said boldly.

“Can’t you? I suspect you can, but I’ll tell you anyway. I need to know why you were rifling through Dinah’s things.”

“I told Mrs. Thornfield already. She gave me what I wanted, a memento of Dinah.” He even pulled a folded cotton handkerchief from his pocket to show her.

“Then why are you still so anxious?”

“’Cause she’s still dead,” Lewis retorted.

Kate regarded him. “Do you know how Dinah died, Lewis?”

“She collapsed.”

“She did.” Anyone would have under the circumstances. “Lewis, did Dinah steal the dagger from Lord Chadbon’s study?”

His mouth fell open. Whatever he had expected her to say, it wasn’t that. Although it didn’t make her accusation untrue.

“Of course she did not!”

“She was responsible for cleaning the room. The fact is, the dagger went missing, and she was the person most likely to have taken it.”

“Nonsense!” he said, then blushed fierily. “That is, she didn’t, my lady. She weren’t that daft.”

Kate held his gaze. “Then who was? It was gone by early afternoon, when Mr. and Mrs. Otteridge arrived. Did you go into the study that day?”

He glared at her, clearly about to deny it. Then she all but saw his brain working. He swallowed twice. “Yes, I did. I took the dagger that afternoon.”

“When that afternoon?” Kate demanded.

“Before tea. Around three, maybe.”

“Did Dinah find out and take it from you?”

He shook his head, and suddenly his face was defiant and, she thought ruefully, honest.

“No. I gave it to Dinah, just to show off. And so she could protect herself.”

“Protect herself?” Kate pounced. “From what? From whom?”

“I don’t know,” he said grimly. “She wouldn’t tell me, but I could see she was worried by someone in the house.”

“Worried enough to take the dagger from you?” Kate asked. This was surely the worst possible scenario.

Lewis nodded miserably. “Not to steal it! Neither of us meant to steal. It was only for a couple of days until…until she felt better.”

Or until Lord Chadbon’s guests had gone. Which one had upset Dinah to such an extent?

“But she took the dagger from you? She was that frightened?”

“Or that furious with me. She told me I was an idiot and snatched it from me. Put in her apron pocket and stalked off. But it wasn’t there when she died, was it? Or someone would have accused her of thieving. So I went to get it back from her cupboard in the maids’ dormitory, which is where I though she must have put it. That’s what I was doing when Mrs. Thornfield found me there.”

“But you didn’t find it, did you?”