“Like suffocating,” said Sebastian.
Flanagan turned his head to look at him, his face held tight and flat. “Twenty years ago, in Nantes, I couldn’t begin to understand how Jacques Renard could do the things he did. And I can’t understand here, today in Ayleswick, how someone I know could have murdered that beautiful and talented young woman. Yet someone did.”
“There aren’t many men could do such a thing,” said Sebastian. “Hold a woman down for three to five minutes and watch her slowly die.”
Flanagan grunted. “You think so? If there’s one thing the French Revolution and the noyades of Nantes taught me, it’s that most people’s capacity for evil is infinitely greater than we’d like to believe.
“Infinitely,” he said again, then slipped his left foot into its boot and stomped down hard.
Chapter 25
Archie arrived home from his expedition to Ludlow early that evening. He was hot, dusty, tired, and cranky.
“Two blasted days!” said the Squire, hunching forward on his bench to prop his elbows on the boards before him when he and Sebastian compared notes over a couple of tankards of ale in the Blue Boar’s taproom. “I spent the better part of two days interviewing everyone from the Feathers’ innkeeper to the ostlers and scullery maids. And I didn’t learn a blessed thing.”
“I take it Emma Chance left no permanent address with them either?”
“No. Which is strange, don’t you think?”
“Yes.”
“She was there five days. The chambermaids say she must have done a fair amount of shopping, for she had any number of boxes and parcels delivered from dressmakers and milliners and such. But beyond that, no one could tell me anything.”
“How did she arrive there? By the mail?”
“If only! That would at least have given us some indication of where she’d traveled from. But she came in a gig, and no one was familiar with the lad who drove her. He simply let her off and went away again.”
“And she traveled without her own abigail?”
“She did. Told some tale about the girl breaking her leg, which is why she needed to hire a new one.”
Sebastian swiped a thumb across the condensation on his tankard. “I’d say you learned something.”
Archie stared at him. “I did? What?”
“You learned that she went out of her way to disguise who she was and where she’d come from.”
“I suppose I did. But . . . why? Why would she do such a thing?”
Sebastian took a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and slid it across the table to the young magistrate. “The chambermaid found this list of names when she was cleaning Emma Chance’s room.”
Archie frowned as he ran through the list. “Good God; I’m on here.” He looked up at Sebastian. “Why is my name here? And why has it been crossed out? Mine and Samuel Atwater’s. Samuel Atwater? What does it mean?”
“I’ve no idea. But it’s an interesting collection of individuals. The only one I’ve yet to speak with is young Lord Seaton, who isn’t here.”
Archie nodded. “He’s gone to Windermere.” He read through the names again, his frown deepening.
Sebastian said, “Tell me about him.”
“Crispin?” Archie looked up. “We were great friends as young lads. But the Seatons are Catholic, you know. So while my father was able to send me to Eton, Crispin had to go to Stonyhurst.” Catholics were forbidden to attend schools such as Eton and Winchester or Oxford and Cambridge. It was only in the last two decades that they’d been allowed to establish their own educational institutions; before that, they’d had to send their sons and daughters to the Continent. Archie shrugged. “We sort of went our separate ways after that.”
“What’s he like?”
“Well . . .” Archie shrugged again with all the discomfort of one little given to analyzing his fellow men. “My father always said he was an idealistic dreamer with more passion than sense. But then, my father could be a bit harsh in his judgments.” He set the list aside. “Crispin’s been gone for at least a fortnight. So why is his name on this list?”
Sebastian took a slow sip of his ale. “Have you spoken to Higginbottom?”
“About the postmortem, you mean?” Archie turned a bit pale. “I stopped by there on my way back from Ludlow. He’s a sadistic bastard, isn’t he? Showed me her heart and lungs and wanted me to see the rest of her, but those bits were enough for me, I’m afraid.”
Sebastian said, “I’d be interested to take a look at the clothes she was wearing when she was killed.”