Page 42 of The Vanished Sister

“It’s from Mrs. Watson and Penelope,” he called. “They found someone at Taunton who saw Mrs. Carstairs the other day!”

Fourteen

Livia kept fanning herself, even though the afternoon was not all that hot.

They strolled on the quay of Ilfracombe’s sheltered little harbor, the Newells, herself, and Charles Carstairs, who’d come to inform his fiancée, and everyone else by extension, that on this day his father, his sister, and his mother’s maid had viewed the unfortunate deceased and everyone had concluded emphatically that it was not Mrs. Carstairs.

How relieved Mrs. Watson would be to learn this, perhaps even more relieved than Livia had felt being given Stephen’s letter at the post office this morning: He reported that the situation around Moriarty had not materially changed and he had no cause to fear for his freedom or personal safety.

“But if Mrs. Carstairs is not dead, then there will be a scandal, won’t there?” whispered Mrs. Stanmore Newell to Livia. “I mean, not the same kind of scandal as if she’d been murdered but still, a to-do at least.”

As this was her daughter’s future mother-in-law they were talking about, Mrs. Stanmore Newell was, for once, not sticking her nose where it did not belong.

“I’m sure it will all be forgotten once she returns to High Burrow—or Noble House.”

“Well, I’m sure it wouldn’t be brought up again once she returns,” said Mrs. Stanmore Newell, clearly indicating that she, for one, would not forget the matter so easily. “But why did she leave without a word to anyone in the first place?”

To send a strong message to her husband?

Livia chose not to say anything. Mrs. Stanmore Newell could be irksome at times but she was harmless. Now that the police investigation was about to move on from Mrs. Carstairs to the actual victim, the Stanmore Newells would soon leave Devon and she wouldn’t see them again until Mrs. Newell’s birthday, at the earliest.

But Mrs. Stanmore Newell didn’t need a response, only an audience. She happily carried on. “Do you know, my dear Miss Holmes, I didn’t tell the police this, but the night before she disappeared—or maybe the night during which she disappeared, I should say, since we don’t know when she left—I saw a man walking about High Burrow in the small hours of the morning.”

She nodded at the significance of her own words.

Had someone else made the revelation, Livia would have felt a frisson of anticipation. But Mrs. Stanmore Newell was nearsighted and often chose not to wear glasses for reasons of vanity. “You are sure about it?”

“Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Stanmore Newell with cheerful certainty. “I got up to drink some water and was standing before my window. I thought to myself, why, is that a man skulking about? So I put on my glasses.

“It must have been an hour or so before the rains started. The clouds parted for a moment and the moon came out and it was most definitely a man, walking away from the house in the direction of the downs.”

Her voice quaked a little in her excitement. Livia felt a grudging respect: For someone who loved to gossip, she had in fact kept a juicy nugget to herself out of respect for the situation.

“Could that have been a servant?”

Domestic staff had ways of getting around rules and some delighted in doing so as frequently as possible.

“I suppose that’s possible.” Mrs. Stanmore Newell acknowledged this much less tantalizing alternative. “But what if it was a local farmer and Mrs. Carstairs’s secret lover?”

For someone who had acted as if Mrs. Carstairs walked on water—

No, actually, Mrs. Stanmore Newell was still speaking glowingly of Mrs. Carstairs. A woman who could run a house like that—and keep a secret lover on the side. Imagine that!

“Anyway, I’ll tell the police if we’re questioned again. One must save something for an encore performance, don’t you think?” She winked conspiratorially. “And what a nice new tassel for your fan, by the way. Is it new?”

The late afternoon sun shone, the air was cool and tangy, and Livia was feeling very charitably inclined toward Mrs. Stanmore Newell. The tassel had arrived in Stephen’s letter this morning, a present for Livia, and Mrs. Stanmore Newell was the first person to notice.

She fanned herself again and lifted the tassel with her other hand for its silk strands to slide along her gloved fingers. “Yes, it is indeed new and I like it exceedingly well.”

Mrs. Watson sent cables to Sans Souci and the Ilfracombe Constabulary, but called on High Burrow to give the good news in person.

She arrived a little after eight in the evening and saw the firelight behind the house well before her vehicle reached the gates of the property. The column of smoke that rose disappeared against a rapidly darkening sky, but the smell in the air, as she alit, was not the reassuringly rustic redolence of prunings being reduced to ash.

Or rather, not only that. Mrs. Watson sniffed. She could make out woodsmoke, but there was an unpleasant overlay of hair or feathers going up in flames.

The young men of the household received her with great courtesy. Justina’s son and stepson called her Aunt Watson. The term had not mattered greatly during the house party, but now it touched her strangely: She was inextricably linked to this family, just as she was inextricably linked to Justina.

Apparently Mrs. Wellesley had already left for London to search for her mother, and Emaline Carstairs was still “rather unwell,” to quote her husband’s embarrassed exposition.