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“Are you going home?” Mr Cavanagh pointed down the road with his cane.
“No. I am on my way to see Dotty now,” Clementine lied.
“Please extend to her my condolences, won’t you?” Mr Cavanagh murmured with a crisp bow.
“I shall do, thank you.”
“You take care now,” Mr Cavanagh called before taking his cue to leave.
Clementine hurried away but took no more than another dozen or so steps before she stopped again. Staring down at her feet, she tried to decide what to do for the best. Should she go and see Dotty, or should she go and see Mrs Saunders first?
An hour later, Clementine let herself out of Mrs Saunders’s house and puffed out her cheeks. She was now more disturbed than ever but also relieved because now she knew for a fact that her suspicions were correct. Sally had been wearing a night-gown when she had been found downstairs on the kitchen floor. No, Mrs Saunders hadn’t removed the clothing Sally had been wearing yesterday, nor did the undertaker take some of Sally’s clothing with him when he had collected Sally’s body. Mrs Saunders hadn’t seen any of Sally’s clothing lying around the house either. No, Mrs Saunders hadn’t been back to the house since she had locked the place up after the undertaker had left. No, she had no idea why there was no sheets on Sally’s bed. Mrs Saunders suggested that maybe the undertaker had used them to cover Sally’s body in the kitchen and had then taken them with her body to the mortuary.
All that information led Clementine to only one conclusion; that there was something suspicious about Sally’s abrupt demise. According to Mrs Saunders, Sally had not gone out last night nor had she had any visitors after Clementine had left around six o’clock and no, there had been no visitors to the house this morning either.
That left Clementine with another problem. How observant was Mrs Saunders? Clementine knew she had been there, and she hadn’t been alone, yet Mrs Saunders had sounded adamant that nobody had been to the house.
“Now what do I do?” Clementine cried in exasperation.
“Still mumbling to yourself?”
Clementine gasped and whirled to glare at the man standing behind her – far too close behind her for comfort. She instinctively stepped back and lifted her brows at him as she tried to adopt a nonchalant expression, but she failed miserably because of the florid flush of guilt that stained her cheeks.
“How do you do that?” she gasped, clutching a hand to her chest above her pounding heart, although why it was thumping Clementine couldn’t be quite sure.
Moss folded his arms. “Walk down the street?” he teased, lifting his brows askance at her.
“It is easy really, most people do it, especially in villages like this.”
“I meant creep about so silently,” Clementine snorted.
“It appears that you were creeping. I was walking,” he challenged.
“I was doing no such thing.”
“You were too, and you were muttering to yourself.”
“I have a lot on my mind, all right?” she snapped.
“Like the death of your friend?” Moss lifted a gaze at the house next door to the recently deceased.
“It was a shock.”
“To everyone I presume.” Moss lifted a hand at the old woman who was peering suspiciously out of the window at them. When she realised that she had been noticed, Mrs Saunders darted out of sight. “Don’t tell me, visiting her was just your neighbourly duty as well.”
“Mrs Saunders found Sally this morning,” Clementine reasoned.
She wanted to tell him to go away and mind his own damned business, but Clementine suspected that if she did then Moss would remain with her just to annoy her.
And distract me like he is now.
“She doesn’t seem too upset,” Moss mused, smirking when his gaze turned to the window only to find the woman peeking around the edge of the shutter. He waved to the path before him and motioned Clementine to walk. “Shall we?”
“I can find my own way home, thank you,” she informed him pertly.
Moss hesitated but wasn’t going to allow her to walk home by herself, not least because he wanted a quiet word in her father’s ear about allowing his wayward daughter out alone. After what he had heard from the Captain this morning, he was starting to wonder just what strange and unexpected seizure had taken the newly deceased lady who was, by all accounts, perfectly fit and well up until Clementine had visited her.
“I think it is only right that I should escort you after what has happened this morning,” Moss murmured smoothly.
