Page 81 of The Vanished Sister

They approached the barricade. But the cable car itself was missing, the cable car that, even if the mechanism wasn’t working, should be berthed at the top to prevent random sailors who might pass by below from getting the wrong ideas.

Rough steps had been gouged into the slope alongside the rails; the metal chain that served as handrail had rusted but not yet crumbled. The investigators descended, Inspector MacDonald gallantly taking the lead position, Mrs. Watson bringing up the rear.

Rain had stopped, but droplets fell from trees that crowded against the tracks, nature in the process of uprooting human intrusion. The ground was slippery. After a few minutes, little twists of pain dug into Mrs. Watson’s kneecaps. She gritted her teeth, jabbed the tip of her weighted umbrella into the stony steps, and carried on.

At the bottom they found the small cable car, which had smashed through the wooden barricade at the end of the tracks and collided with a rusted structure that appeared to be a retractable dock folded back and locked down. The cable car had once been painted a red similar to the color of Villa Inglese’s roof tiles, but now that paint was speckled and faded. On its doors were stenciled the message, in weathered, patchy letters, Faulty brakes. Do not operate.

Mrs. Watson braced her hand on an outcrop. Well, the cable car was where it shouldn’t be. But who could say it hadn’t slid down the tracks long ago? After all, the heirs of Villa Inglese clearly had not been paying attention in recent years, or the cable car would not have a defective lift and bad brakes.

She realized, with a stab of despair, that she was openly and defiantly seeking a broken link in Miss Charlotte’s chain of deduction. So Justina had silenced Mrs. Osmond decades ago, but she’d never admitted wrongdoing. They only had Mrs. Osmond’s suppositions and accusations.

And it was still far from certain that she had anything to do with Mrs. Whitehill’s death. Mrs. Whitehill’s son remained the greatest beneficiary of her death. Also—

“Look at this!” cried Inspector MacDonald triumphantly.

On one sharp corner of the cable car’s roof, a shred of fabric had been caught. It was beginning to fade from exposure in the elements, but Mrs. Watson’s hopes died as she recognized the green woven silk, with its subtle windowpane pattern, from Mrs. Whitehill’s traveling-jacket-and-skirt set.

The tracks had been installed at an angle across the rock face, reducing its effective gradient, the only reason the investigators had been able to reach the bottom without ropes and pitons. The ascent back was less dangerous but far more strenuous. Mrs. Watson’s thighs burned, her lungs protested, her heart hung as heavy as a millstone.

When they at last reached the top barricade, she took out a flask of whisky from her handbag—wild, obstinate hopes aside, she had come prepared for disastrous news.

Miss Charlotte shook out her skirts and brushed stray leaves from Mrs. Watson’s sleeves.

“I’ve lost my will to live,” murmured Mrs. Watson.

She would recover in time, she knew that, but she had been badly wounded. Why, she didn’t understand. She hadn’t thought much about Justina in recent years. How had she come to care so much about her in so little time?

Miss Charlotte nodded and linked arms with her. Together the two women made their way to the front of Villa Inglese, a few steps behind Inspector MacDonald.

Mrs. Albright had changed during the time they’d spent searching for the whereabouts of the cable car. Her garments were once again both too much and not enough. Distracting—they prevented one from paying attention to the woman beneath the clothes.

“I hope it wasn’t too arduous a trip, going down there,” she said, once they were in the drawing room again. “It never occurred to me that it was possible.”

Miss Charlotte downed most of a cup of tea. “Mrs. Albright, according to the transcripts from your recent interview, conducted by Inspector MacDonald and my brother, you said that when you arrived in this house, Mrs. Carstairs was here, waiting.”

Mrs. Albright rocked back and forth in her chair, as if unsure what to do now that Miss Charlotte had dispensed with small talk. “Ah, yes, she was.”

“Did she know to expect you?”

Mrs. Albright added sugar and milk to her tea, then stirred it. Her teaspoon was from the same set as the one in Mrs. Watson’s cup, except the handle of hers featured a bas-relief cameo of Hermes the messenger god, distinguishable by his winged helmet, whereas Mrs. Watson’s had a cameo of Apollo with a wreath of laurels in his hair.

Did these beautifully made, beautifully polished spoons belong to Justina, Mrs. Watson wondered numbly. Who would take the trouble to claim them now?

“I—I’d be rather surprised if Mrs. Carstairs had expected me,” said Mrs. Albright at last. “Mr. Carstairs wrote me and said that the house would be ready on the sixth. But I was eager to come to the coast—I grew up in Weymouth, by the sea, and spent far too many years inland when I was in Canada. So I thought, well, the house didn’t need to be that ready. Whatever property Mr. Carstairs deigned to hire would be far better than anything I’d dwelled in for a while.”

“So you arrived early. By how much time?”

Mrs. Albright smiled sheepishly. “A day and a half? Two days?”

That much? And why should Mrs. Watson care that this shifty woman wanted to take advantage of the Carstairses? But care she did. In fact, it infuriated her that Mrs. Albright wanted two more days in this house for nothing.

“How did you know that you’d be able to get into the house?” Miss Charlotte continued her unhurried yet inexorable questioning.

“I stopped at the letting agent’s and showed him the letter from Mr. Carstairs and he gladly provided the key. But I was prepared to spend the night at an inn if he had refused. Or I could have gone to High Burrow and asked to be put up for the night.”

Mrs. Watson could barely keep herself from rolling her eyes.

“So key in hand, you came to Villa Inglese. Were you surprised to see another carriage in front of the house?”