Hero waited, and after a moment, the old woman started up again, her voice hushed, ragged.
“He was out the night that pretty lady was kilt. Come back real spooked, he did. Wouldn’t tell me what’d happened. But whatever it was, it scared him bad.”
Hero leaned forward in her chair. “You think he might have witnessed her murder?”
Reuben’s mother plucked at the worn, stained cloth of her dress. “I dunno. To be honest, milady, I have wondered, ever since they found her dead. You see, Reuben was scared, but he was also excited—the way he’d get when he had a secret. He did like his secrets.”
If Reuben had seen Emma Chandler’s murder, it would have been a dangerous secret to keep, thought Hero. It might very well have ended up getting the simpleminded man killed.
“He’d gone out the night before too,” Reuben’s mother was saying.
“Oh?”
Silent tears began to slide unchecked down the old woman’s cheeks. “Was out most the night, he was. Didn’t come back till the sun was up, which was right foolish of him—and so I told him, ye can be sure of that.”
“Do you know where he would go at night?”
She shook her head. “He’d just wander. Sometimes he’d tell me things he’d seen, but not always.”
“Did he tell you what he saw Sunday night?”
“I know he was by the pack bridge at dawn, because he told me he come upon that lady down there. Paintin’ a picture, she was.”
“Yes,” said Hero. “Reuben told Lord Devlin he’d seen her there.”
The Widow Dickie nodded. “The thing is, milady, I don’t think Reuben told his lordship that was the second time he’d seen her that mornin’.”
Hero found her attention well and truly caught. “It was?”
The old woman shifted uncomfortably in her chair, not quite willing to meet Hero’s gaze. “I don’t like to be carryin’ tales, ’specially not about a man of God, but . . .”
“Yes?”
The Widow Dickie gripped the arms of her chair with gnarled, work-worn hands. “The Reverend’s got this cousin, ye see. Rachel Timms is her name. She’s a widow, she is. Her husband, he was kilt in the war some years back. The vicar, he’s got this little cottage tucked into the side of the hill, just above the churchyard; Hill Cottage, it’s called. The old sexton used to live there, but Nash, he’s got his own cottage, so he don’t need it. So when Mrs. Timms’s husband was kilt and she had no place to go, the Reverend, he let her come and live at Hill Cottage.”
“That was very kind of him,” said Hero, not quite certain where any of this was going.
“He did the same for another cousin of his. Maybe eight years ago, it was. Rose Blount was her name.” Reuben’s mother chewed on her lower lip. “Only, she died after a few years.”
Hero studied the older woman’s age-lined, troubled face. “Mrs. Dickie, what are you trying to tell me?”
The old woman met her gaze squarely. “Rose Blount died in childbirth, milady—her and the babe both. She never told nobody who her baby’s father was. But, thing is, from the first week the vicar brought her here, my Reuben, he was telling me how he’d see the vicar sneakin’ over there to her cottage in the middle of the night when there weren’t nobody else around. And then, after she died, why, the vicar, he didn’t let more’n a few months go past afore he’s got his cousin Rachel livin’ in that cottage, and Reuben tells me the vicar is visitin’ her at night too.”
Hero felt her stomach tilt with revulsion. “Are these women actually his cousins, do you think?”
“Oh, yes, milady. I truly believe they are. Everybody thinks he’s such a fine, generous man, lettin’ ’em live in Hill Cottage fer free. But there ain’t nothin’ kind or generous about it, and he ain’t lettin’ ’em live there for free, if you get me drift?”
“Do you think his wife knows what he does?”
The Widow Dickie snorted. “How could she help but know? You ask me, she don’t mind the way things are one bit, so long as it keeps him outa her bed.”
“How many people in town know about this?”
“As to that, I can’t say. There may be some as suspects it. But ain’t nobody gonna talk about it—him bein’ the vicar ’n’ all. I’ve argued with meself for days, thinkin’ maybe I should tell somebody what me Reuben seen. And now me boy’s dead, and I can’t help but wonder if . . .” She swallowed. “Maybe if I’d spoke up sooner, Reuben would still be alive.”
“I don’t exactly understand what this has to do with the death of Emma Chandler,” said Hero.
“But that’s just it, milady. The churchyard is the first place Reuben told me he seen the pretty lady early that morning, even before the sun come up. She’d walked up the hill from the Blue Boar and was standin’ by the lych-gate when the Reverend left Rachel Timms’s cottage.”
“Did Reverend Underwood see her?”