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Annis wisely doesn’t argue. When her husband shoos us all out, she leaves without a word. Mrs. Bannerman waits until the door shuts and then starts in on Annis again.
It might seem that we should stick around to help, but Annis can look after herself, and I don’t imagine she’d appreciate a defense from either her little brother or his assistant. She has Sarah, who stays at her side but also stays out of the fight. As we make our retreat, the last thing we hear is Annis telling her sister-in-law that she doesn’t give a damn about the will. She’ll escort the lawyer in and hold the pages while Leslie signs them.
It’s still a long walk to the side exit, which suggests Annis hadn’t led us on a roundabout path—the house just really is that big. Several times, I start to speak, only to catch a whisper of motion down the hall. No one is sleeping tonight. The staff are everywhere, silent and listening.
I wait until we’re outside in the courtyard. Simon took the coach to the stables to water Folly. I’m not sure how a Victorian man of means summons his coach. It’s not as if he can pop off a text to say “I’m ready to go.”Whatever the answer, it doesn’t apply to Gray. Why summon the coach when it is a pleasant evening and the stables are only a couple of hundred meters away?
As we cross the courtyard, I want to ask Gray whether he’s okay. He might have seemed unaffected by Leslie’s insults and insinuations, but I recognize his calm tone and empty expression for what they are: protective walls.
Gray has had a lifetime to test every possible mode of defense against bigotry and bastard-shaming, and at some point, he decided equanimity was the best response. Unruffled and untouched, insults rolling off him.
Would I want a near stranger to express concern when I thought I’d hidden my hurt feelings? I would not. So when we step outside, I just say, “I have a question.”
“Only one?”
“It’s multipronged, but I’ll start with one.”
“The answer is yes.”
“Yes, you think Leslie’s poisoning could be connected to the other two deaths?”
He glances over. “Thatwas your question?”
“What did you think I was going to ask?”
“Whether I was actually censured for grave robbing.”
“Oh, I’d have gotten to that eventually.”
We pass a small rose garden. I inhale. When I don’t get the expected perfume, I bend over a bloom to smell nothing. It’s a perfectly tended garden of perfectly matching roses, which might as well be plastic.
I glance at Gray. “The answer is yes—you did rob a grave?”
“No, the answer is yes—I was denied my medical license based on an accusation of grave robbing.”
“Which was unfounded? Or a misunderstanding?”
His brows rise.
“Misunderstanding would be my guess,” I say. “You did something, and they accused you of grave robbing, which is technically inaccurate. There was, however, a grave and a corpse involved. Some youthful misadventure in the pursuit of science.”
He slows and then stops as he faces me. “Isla told you?”
“I’m a detective, remember? Sometimes that’s about following clues, and sometimes, it’s about making educated guesses based on a person’s character. So I’m right?”
“Discomfortingly so.” He peers at me. “Are you quite certain Isla did not tell you?”
“Is it the sort of thing shewouldtell me? Or is it the sort of thing that makes you uncomfortable—mostly annoyed at how it was handled but, possibly, a little embarrassed at having done such a thing.” I consider. “No, not at havingdoneit, but at having not been more careful toconcealit.”
“That is…” He stuffs his hands in his pockets and then pulls them out again, starting to cross his arms before stopping himself. “Isla tells me you studied a form of mind reading at university. You were trained as a criminal alienist.”
“Ha! No. Thereisa field for that, and I took courses in it, but my degree is in criminology and sociology, which is more about societal factors than psychological ones. Definitely not mind reading, though that’d be cool. Whatdidyou do that got you into trouble?”
He glances around, as if to be sure no one lurks in the bushes. Then he lowers his voice. “I opened a grave.”
“You dug up a dead body.”
He seems about to protest and then squares his shoulders. “Yes, but not by choice. That is to say, I chose to dig it up, but that was not my preferred method of action. The man was the victim of murder, and I believed the official cause of death was incorrect. I wanted to check. I applied for permission to see the body before burial, but I made the mistake of being honest and explaining that I thought the cause of death was incorrect.”
