Page 83 of The Vanished Sister

“I believe it was. But I can also see how, if the first quadrantes hadn’t been discovered ‘accidentally’ and in good time, Mrs. Carstairs could have ‘come across’ the coins on one of her walks on the property. And then proceeded to give Mr. Gables permission to excavate to his heart’s content.”

The three weeks Mrs. Whitehill had allotted Justina to put her affairs in order had instead been used, ruthlessly and efficiently, to put an end to this new threat.

Had Mrs. Albright not shown up unexpectedly, Mrs. Whitehill’s body, transported back to High Burrow, would have been buried six feet underground in a spot in which Mr. Gables had certainly lost all interest. And digging a grave for Mrs. Whitehill would have been that much easier than otherwise, in soil that had recently been excavated and packed back loosely.

Inspector MacDonald tented his hands beneath his chin. “I can see how Mrs. Carstairs, in a moment of desperation, could raise Mrs. Whitehill high enough to clear the balustrade. But it would have been a herculean task for her to shove Mrs. Whitehill into the carriage, drive back to High Burrow, and then somehow transport it another fair distance to this pasture.”

Miss Charlotte thought for a moment. “Inspector, I believe you plan to conduct trials with weights from the terrace of Villa Inglese?”

The officer of the law appeared taken aback. “Yes, I’ve been thinking that I ought to test your hypothesis about the cable car. But I’d need to first bring the cable car back to the top of the rails, before I can toss a burlap sack of about Mrs. Whitehill’s size and weight to see what happens next.”

“I have no doubt you will succeed admirably at that task, Inspector. While you do that, would you mind conducting a different experiment? With a large cloth—good-quality sheets ought to do—bundle your heavy burlap sack in such a sheet, set the bundle against the side of a carriage. Then tie enough sheet rope to the bundle to pass through the other door of the carriage and be attached to the saddle of a horse.”

Inspector MacDonald’s eyes widened. “I see what you mean. And then walk the horse until it has pulled the bundle up into the carriage—and now I can reattach the horse to the carriage and drive away normally.”

That was how Justina would have brought Mrs. Whitehill out of Villa Inglese on her own.

Such a lonely business, murder.

Miss Charlotte glanced back. Already Villa Inglese had disappeared from view, obscured by geography and plant life. The sea beyond, slate-colored under an overcast sky, looked flat and fathomless. “As long as Mrs. Carstairs could keep the body from being found overnight, the next day was the servants’ half day. There would be a good long stretch of time for her to drive the bundle to the dug-up patch in the pasture.”

The grassy land between the house and the site of Mr. Gables’s excavation did not have carriage paths, but would have allowed passage of wheeled vehicles.

“Which would still have been a great deal of work for a woman accustomed to the easy life.” Inspector MacDonald sucked in a breath. “I almost forgot. The day after Mrs. Carstairs’s visit to Villa Inglese, Everett Carstairs arrived at High Burrow by early afternoon. So he could have helped her.”

He shook his head. “For all his avowals of love, I was certain that if he learned what Mrs. Carstairs had done to her first husband, he’d immediately petition for a divorce. I didn’t see him as a potential accomplice in the murder of Mrs. Whitehill.”

Miss Charlotte spun the handle of her slender umbrella. “It is still only a theory, and we’ve had plenty of those collapse of late.”

But this particular theory—that it had been all hands on deck from the moment Mrs. Carstairs received Mrs. Whitehill’s letter—had already borne fruit in the shred of fabric atop the smashed cable car.

What, exactly, had been the purpose of Mrs. Albright’s presence at High Burrow? Why had Everett Carstairs invited his first wife’s cousin to the gathering?

After they’d read the letters from Mrs. Osmond and Mrs. Whitehill, Miss Charlotte had posited that the primary purpose of Mr. Carstairs’s decision was the temporary possession of Villa Inglese. The Carstairses were gambling on the chance that Mrs. Whitehill’s threat of posthumous exposure was only a bluff, that in fact Mrs. Whitehill had not prepared for any such eventuality.

After the London Season, Everett Carstairs traveled to inspect various family holdings. It so happened that most of those were in the West Midlands—it had not been by chance that Reginald and Emaline Carstairs had met in Birmingham; he, too, had been in the area to learn the ropes of the business his mother had brought into the family.

For much of Everett Carstairs’s trip, no doubt he’d been doing just that, seeing with his own eyes how the yards and factories were run. But he could have easily slipped away to nearby Ludlow. As for the address in Sutton Coldfield, the wealthy enclave that had become something of a suburb to Birmingham—the address that had Mrs. Watson wonder for a moment whether the old gent at the inn could have been Everett Carstairs in disguise—the Carstairses also had a house in the same district.

So the old gent convinced Mrs. Whitehill to come to the north coast of Devonshire. Justina picked her up, probably from the railway station in Barnstaple, and drove her directly to Villa Inglese, where the deed was done, though not in the way Justina had originally envisioned.

But still, Mrs. Whitehill was dead. Now Justina must contend with the visit from her son’s future in-laws. No doubt there had been debate on whether to cancel the long-scheduled event, but in the end the Carstairses welcomed the Newells as if nothing was the matter.

Here Mrs. Albright served another purpose. Mrs. Whitehill might be dead, but what of her threat that Reverend Robinson’s death by atropine poisoning would be publicized? What would be the Carstairses’ countermeasure?

Sometimes there was no good solution. And the least terrible one they settled on was for Justina to disappear, on the seemingly plausible pretext that she could no longer tolerate her husband putting Mrs. Albright up in a nearby house and parading her in front of family and friends.

The discovery of Mrs. Whitehill’s body shortly afterward complicated things, but as long as her death could not be traced to the Carstairses, they would eventually emerge unscathed.

Outside the carriage, rain started again, a steady, slanted shower. Leaves blew about. Mrs. Watson rubbed her sleeve, feeling cold. Was it already here, the end of the summer?

“So they were actually united on that front.” Inspector MacDonald shook his head again. “Mrs. Watson, do you recall that when you went to High Burrow to give the news that Mrs. Carstairs had been seen outside the railway station in Taunton, Everett Carstairs had been burning some of his wife’s dresses? A rather obvious act of displeasure, that—part of the reason I hadn’t believed he would stand by her.”

Mrs. Watson nodded slowly. She’d thought it a chilling act, one that put the lie to all Everett Carstairs’s protestations of love.

“But when Miss Holmes asked Mrs. Albright whether Mrs. Carstairs was gone for some time—Miss Holmes, I assume you meant to ascertain whether Mrs. Carstairs saw to Mrs. Whitehill’s travel bag?”

“That had indeed been my intention,” affirmed Miss Charlotte.