“She’s dead?” I gasped.
Sir Poppet looked from my astonished face to Nell‘s, blinking rapidly. “You didn’t know? I thought you did. You said you knew about Sybil and Douglas.”
“We knew they’d run off together,” I explained, “but we had no idea she was dead” A horrible thought flashed into my mind. “Williston didn’t kill her, did he?”
“No.” Sir Poppet shook his head briskly. “Both Sybil and Douglas were burned to death in a seedy hotel near Toronto.”
“That’s why he thought I was a ghost.” Nell was gazing down at her white dress and looking a good deal more ghostly than was good for her.
I put an arm around Nell’s shoulders while Sir Poppet picked up the telephone on his desk. He spoke so softly that I couldn’t make out the words, and when he finished, he poured a glass of ice water from the carafe at his elbow, then came around the desk to hand it to Nell.
“I’m sorry for giving you such a turn,” he said. “I honestly thought that the family had told you the entire story. I can see now that the subject must still be too painful for them to discuss in full.”
“Poor Williston,” Nell murmured.
“Indeed.” Sir Poppet half-sat on the edge of his desk. “He blamed himself when Sybil left. He felt that he’d neglected her by spending too much time at the office. When he learned of her death, he was overwhelmed with guilt and remorse. He traded painful reality for a mode of existence in which he could spend every waking hour endowing Sybil with worldly goods she was long past needing.”
I looked over to where the deed lay, atop the fruitwood box on Sir Poppet’s desk. “Such as number three, Anne Elizabeth Court?”
“And the family farm up in Yorkshire, and a good deal more besides.” Sir Poppet sighed. “For the past two years, he’s done nothing but create documents assigning all of his family’s possessions to Sybil. Compensation, I assume, for his earlier neglect.”
I held a hand out toward the desk. “May I keep the deed?”
“I don’t see why not,” Sir Poppet said. “It might disturb Williston to see it again after presenting it to Sybella. Yes, by all means, take it with you, and the box as well.”
Nell shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “Why did Williston talk about his mother?” she asked. “And about a theft? Why Sybella Markham instead of Sybella Willis? Was Sybil’s maiden name Markham?”
“No. It was Farrand.” Sir Poppet lifted his hands into the air, then let them fall. “I don’t pretend to understand everything, Lady Nell. I’ll have to analyze the transcripts of today’s encounter thoroughly before I can begin to work out the details.”
“Did he mention Sybella to my father-in-law?” I asked.
“Your father-in-law was treated to a detailed account of the bursting of the South Sea Bubble in 1720,” Sir Poppet replied. He gave an impatient little sigh and shook his head. “I don’t think you quite understand. This is the first time in two years that Williston’s spoken his wife’s name aloud. It’s an enormous breakthrough, and I can only say—” Sir Poppet broke off as a knock sounded at the door. He excused himself and left the office, to return a moment later with Bertie in his arms. “Sir Bertram declares that you are to be congratulated, Lady Nell, and I must say that I agree with him.”
I watched from the front stairs of Cloverly House as Sir Poppet, Nell, and Bertie took a turn around the lawn. Nell had been thoroughly shaken by her unwitting participation in Uncle Williston’s therapy, and I was grateful to Sir Poppet for taking the time to talk her through it.
We were stuck there for a while, anyway. I’d sent Paul up to London with the deed Uncle Williston had given Nell. I had a friend at the British Museum, an expert on papers and inks, and I wanted him to take a look at it. If Toby Treadwell said the deed was a fake, I’d believe it. If not, I’d begin to ask a whole new set of questions. Such as: Who was Sybella Markham? How had her property come into the hands of the Willis family? And what did any of this have to do with my father-in-law?