“Hasn’t it gone quiet in here?” Nell commented dryly.
“That’s why they call him Toby the Terrible,” I said, laughing. “He’s hell on assistants. You do realize what he’s told us, though, don’t you? Uncle Williston doesn’t have access to iron-gallotannate ink, or paper from Quim per’s of Bath. He gets his supplies from a local calligraphic studio—I asked Sir Poppet.” I added the tape recorder to the growing assortment of odds and ends rattling around in my briefcase. “I don’t know how Uncle Williston got hold of Sybella Markham’s deed to number three, Anne Elizabeth Court, but it’s the real thing, straight out of the good ole eighteenth century.”
“I knew it would be real,” Nell said serenely. “Just like Sybella Markham.”
Nell had dressed for the day in the pleated gabardine trousers and linen blouse she’d worn on our drive down to Haslemere, and brought with her the white leather shoulder bag she’d carried in London. She opened the shoulder bag now and drew from it a sheaf of typewritten papers.
“What’ve you got there?” I asked, peering curiously over her shoulder.
“It’s a copy of the transcript Sir Poppet’s secretary made of my conversation with Uncle Williston yesterday,” Nell replied. “I think it bears close examination.”
“Did Sir Poppet give it to you?” I asked suspiciously.
Nell twined a golden curl around her finger and glanced casually out of the window. “I’m sure he meant to,” she said. “There was a whole stack of them on the hall table this morning and I—”
“You stole it?” I exclaimed. “Nell! How could you? What about patient confidentiality? What about good manners?”
“I’ll let you read it when I’m done,” Nell offered.
“Hurry up, then.” I gave her a playful nudge with my elbow, and while she fell to perusing the purloined transcript, I poured a cup of herbal tea from the thermos Sir Poppet’s housekeeper had filled. I downed half the cup, then reached for the telephone. It was time to check in with Emma.
“A laser printer and a slick little computer setup,” Emma said when she heard my voice. “I wish he’d asked me about the computer,” she added fretfully. “I’m sure he paid too much for it.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, William’s on an independence kick.” I took a sip of tea. “I presume you’ve put his new toys in the shed with the others?”
“I would have, but... Emma paused. ”You know the vacant house on the square, across from Peggy Kitchen’s shop? Well, Peggy came by with her van and a crew this morning. She said she’d received orders to pick up everything that should have been delivered to the cottage and move it to the empty house on the square. Someone’s rented it, apparently.“
“Someone like my father-in-law.” I sighed. Willis, Sr., would soon be the only lawyer on his block with offices in Boston, London, and Finch. “Aunt Dimity will be pleased to hear that he’s not planning to desecrate the cottage. She’s back, by the way. With me, I mean.”
“No kidding,” said Emma. “Does that mean William’s out of danger?”
“For the time being,” I told her. “Did you manage to dig up anything on Julia Louise?”
“I did,” said Emma. “I spent most of the night on-line with a professor of legal history in Oxford. Derek fixed the retaining wall of his back garden once, gratis, so he was more than willing to give me the lowdown on dear old Julia Louise.”
“He’d heard of her?” I said, surprised.
“She was infamous,” Emma replied. “The minute she moved from Bath to London, she began to throw her weight around. She brought hundreds of lawsuits against her sons’ competitors, which didn’t endear her to the legal community, and there was a lot of tittle-tattle about why she had to pack her younger son off to the colonies.”
“What kind of tittle-tattle?” I asked.
“Something to do with a woman,” Emma explained. “My professor wasn’t sure whether Lord William had gotten her pregnant or broken an engagement or what. He must have cleaned up his act when he got to the colonies, though, because he married well once he was there.”
“Hold on a minute.” I covered the mouthpiece of the phone and reported Emma’s findings to Nell.
“Ask Mama if she knows what Lord William’s wife was called,” Nell said.
I relayed the question to Emma, then repeated the answer to Nell. “Charlotte Eugenie Stoll. She was the daughter of some bigwig on the colonies.”
“Hmmm,” said Nell, and went back to reading the transcript.
“What about the older son?” I asked Emma.
“Sir Williston? He was Julia Louise’s hatchet man, did whatever Mother told him to do. Although ...” I heard the sound of papers being shuffled in the background; then Emma spoke again. “He became something of a saint after her death. He donated money to poorhouses and supported several orphanages.”