Page 49 of The Vanished Sister

Twenty-two years in the same household—Treadles must take her assertions seriously. “And what made you think she might have been eloping, other than that she decided on a solo trip without telling you about it ahead of time?”

Mrs. Hawthorn once again craned her neck to gaze up at Mrs. Whitehill in the tartan riding habit, as if in apology for divulging her secrets.

“When I looked back, it seemed obvious. For several days she’d been distracted, but in a happy manner, if you understand what I mean, Inspector. She gazed out of the window and smiled to herself. I believe I even caught her twirling around in the parlor one time—though when she saw me, she explained that she was recalling the dance steps of her youth.”

Those did sound like signs of infatuation—in a woman forty years younger.

Treadles peered again at Miss Holmes, surreptitiously this time, wondering whether she’d perceived his shock.

But maybe the housekeeper did, for she continued in staunch, perhaps even slightly defensive approval: “A lady’s heart doesn’t wither with age. Some become disillusioned by gentlemen because some gentlemen cannot be trusted. But Mrs. Whitehill, all her husbands adored her and she loved being married. If a suitable gentleman had come along, I don’t see why she wouldn’t have been enthusiastic about the prospect of a fourth marriage.”

But had such a paragon come along?

“Where would she have met such a man?” Treadles gave in to his bafflement. “Would his arrival not be common knowledge in the village? Also, you mentioned that she was happily distracted for only a few days. Was that not too short an acquaintance for a decision as significant as an elopement?”

Mrs. Hawthorn deflated somewhat at his series of questions. Her lips puckered in concentration; she shook out her apron and smoothed it again. “Eloping is an exciting thing to do and Mrs. Whitehill, she liked a bit of excitement. But I do see what you mean, Inspector, and maybe I got a little carried away in my guesses. As for where she could have met him, that I can answer more easily. Right before I noticed her distraction, she took a trip to Ludlow.”

Ludlow was a market town some fifteen miles south of Boxton.

“What was in Ludlow?”

“A big congress of Christian women. There are always ladies who are escorted to such events by brothers and sons.”

“So she could have met someone from elsewhere while she was at this to-do?”

“That’s what I thought, Inspector, but maybe I was mistaken,” said Mrs. Hawthorn, the frown lines on her forehead deepening with sorrow. “Maybe she was, too, poor Mrs. Whitehill. She was so full of anticipation when she boarded the train that day. So…very happy.”

Sixteen

Mrs. Watson had thought she couldn’t possibly have the presence of mind to pay attention to another woman’s story. She also didn’t want to: Mrs. Whitehill had not met a kind end; whatever Mrs. Watson would learn was always going to lead to a fatal plunge into the Bristol Channel.

She must have forgotten who she was: an incurably empathetic and endlessly curious individual, always interested in the lives of others, especially when there was the least hint of a grand romance.

By the time Mrs. Hawthorn left to fetch her keys, so she could show the investigators other parts of the house, Mrs. Watson found herself pondering Mrs. Whitehill’s reasons as if she were the woman’s half-scandalized neighbor.

If only the whole thing had not ended in calamity.

“Cherchez l’homme, indeed,” said Inspector Treadles in a low voice to Miss Charlotte, only the top of his head visible above the high, swooping back of the canapé. “What made you decide, Miss Holmes, that the likelihood existed in the first place?”

“I have seen my own mother throw caution to the wind when presented with an extremely attractive man,” answered Miss Holmes, the curled ostrich feather on her hat bobbling. “And she didn’t even have the freedom Mrs. Whitehill enjoyed as a widow.”

She rose to study other pictures scattered around the drawing room; Inspector Treadles did likewise. After a moment, Mrs. Watson found herself joining them. They yielded to her the place of honor in front of the mantel, where Mrs. Whitehill’s three husbands, all handsome men, were memorialized in photography, charcoal drawing, and small oil portraits.

Little wonder that Mrs. Whitehill still retained her enthusiasm for love, with such a string of past successes.

Mrs. Watson felt a stab of shame: She’d looked askance at Miss Charlotte’s theory when the dear girl first proposed it to Inspector Treadles, forgetting that she herself was approaching that age and had no objections at all to one more grand romantic adventure.

In fact, Justina was that age and still seething in romantic turmoil.

“But while we must take good old-fashioned seduction seriously as an avenue of inquiry, it is by no means the only possibility before us,” murmured Miss Charlotte.

Very true. The apparently grief-stricken son could have pushed his mother into the sea, and then gone back home to pretend all was well until he was informed by a panicked Mrs. Hawthorn that something had gone awry. Or perhaps the love-stricken one wasn’t Mrs. Whitehill but Mrs. Hawthorn, in thrall to a comely but penniless fellow. She could make her future married life a great deal more secure by obtaining her bequest from her employer years, perhaps decades, sooner by making sure said employer died in the here and now.

Mrs. Watson could even see Mr. Broadfield and Mrs. Hawthorn being co-conspirators in Mrs. Whitehill’s death—her only child and her loyal servant, turning against her together for reasons that might or might not have anything to do with mutual longing.

Mrs. Hawthorn’s ring of keys clinked in the corridor and they went out to meet her. She took them up a rather dramatic curving staircase and unlocked a heavy-looking door.

The door led to Mrs. Whitehill’s private parlor, connected to her bedroom. Here the photographs were almost all from her travels. She’d been to Windsor Castle, Edinburgh, the Isle of Man, and several seaside resorts, among other destinations.