The two women sat in silence until Crowley returned, bearing a large bowl on a silver tray. The scent of chicken soup wafted across the room, reminding Emma of Herbert Munting and his multilevel henhouse in the village.
“Miss Kate,” Crowley declared imperiously, “Madama has prepared this especially for you. You are not to leave the table until you’ve finished every drop.” He placed the bowl before Kate and remained standing over her, as though he intended to keep track of each spoonful. “We wouldn’t want your mother to see you like this, now, would we, Miss Kate?”
The wistful expression on Kate’s face gave way to one of warm affection. She reached up and punched Crowley lightly on the arm. “Humbug,” she said fondly. “Do you know how long it’s been since you’ve threatened to turn me in to Mother?” She faced Emma. “He used to do it all the time when I was a little girl. Had me and Grayson trembling in our wellies till it dawned on us that he’d never really rat us out.”
Unmoved, Crowley pointed sternly to the bowl. “The bouillon is cooling rapidly, Miss Kate.”
“Will we see you at supper?” Emma asked.
“ ’Fraid not. I only came back to make sure Syd got here in one piece. It’s all been a bit much for him. Gash will drive me back to Plymouth this evening, and I’ll stay there with Grayson to arrange for Susannah’s return. Dr. Singh thinks we should be able to bring her back in three or four days.”
Crowley opened the hall door. “I beg your pardon most sincerely, Miss Porter, but Miss Kate really must eat, then get some rest.”
Kate smiled wryly and picked up her spoon. “If you’ll excuse me, Emma, the warder here prohibits talk during mealtimes.”
Good old Kate is growing restless, Emma thought as she headed for the library. Still, it was unlikely that she’d ever leave Penford Hall. She seemed to love the place as much as Grayson, and the staff treated her with a special tenderness. To Bantry, Kate was the pride of Penford Harbor, and she was clearly the apple of Crowley’s eye.
Slowing her pace, Emma thought back to her conversation with Bantry early that morning. She’d found him in the kitchen garden, watering the vines on the birdcage arbor. When she’d asked if he knew what had happened to the oilcloth, he’d led her to a side room that served as his potting shed. It had been roofed over with tightly joined wooden boards and fitted out with a workbench, shelves, cupboards, a pegboard with hooks, and a standing pipe that supplied water from the hall.
Bantry had pulled the oilcloth from behind a coil of rope in one of the large cupboards. It had been washed and neatly folded, but Emma could see a ragged tear at one comer, where a grommet had been pulled out.
“Gash brought it back with him from Plymouth,” Bantry told her, “after he dropped off Kate and His Grace. Have to remember to bring it down to Ted Tregallis for mending.”
Emma fingered the frayed edges thoughtfully. “Did you tear it when you uncovered the wheelbarrow the other day?”
“What’re you talkin’ about, Miss Emma?” Bantry squinted at her, perplexed. “I never uncovered the barrow, and I‘d’ve had a thing or two to say to anyone who did. Don’t hold with leavin’ things lyin’ about for the damp to get at ’em.” He put the oilcloth back in the cupboard and brushed his palms together. “Nope. Lads on the chopper must’ve torn it, when they was loadin’ poor Miss Susannah aboard.”
Or, thought Emma, turning into the long corridor near the library, someone yanked the oilcloth off of the barrow hard enough to tear it. She slowed her pace once more. Peter had discovered blood on the handle of the grub hoe, hadn’t he? Emma came to a full stop as a moving image filled her mind.
In the clear light of morning, a faceless figure ripped the oilcloth from the barrow, seized the hoe, and swung the long handle at Susannah’s head. Susannah crumpled soundlessly and tumbled down the stairs. Panicked, the attacker shoved the hoe back into the barrow and fled the garden, leaving Susannah for dead.
Could that person have been Kate? Kate seemed to share Grayson’s fanatic loyalty to Penford Hall, and where there was fanaticism, there might be violence. Emma removed her glasses and pinched the bridge of her nose unhappily. She liked Kate. She admired the way Kate had kept her head when dealing with the emergency in the garden, and her temper when faced by Susannah’s taunting. Still, Emma conceded reluctantly, Kate had a motive to silence Susannah. If the duke’s cousin exposed a cover-up of Lex’s murder, Kate Cole would lose everything she held dear.
As she approached the library, Emma felt a prick of anger toward Susannah for stirring things up, but it passed quickly. No one deserved a death sentence for asking uncomfortable questions. Emma reminded herself that she would do better to reserve her anger for the person who’d passed that sentence. Replacing her glasses, she opened the library door. Derek caught sight of her, got up from his chair, and crossed to meet her.
“Derek,” she began, but he cut her off.