The virger’s lodgings lay to the west of the chapel in that part of the castle known as Horseshoe Cloister. A quaint old house of timber framing filled in with brick noggin, it dated back to the fifteenth century, with delicate window tracery and a second story that jutted out over the ground floor.
Sebastian found Rowan Toop’s widow seated in a small but surprisingly fine parlor and surrounded by a bevy of somber-faced women who stared at him as if he were a crow who’d alit in the midst of a covey of mourning doves. He wouldn’t have been surprised if the grieving widow had simply buried her face in the depths of her black linen handkerchief and used her grief as a reason not to speak with him. Instead, she excused herself to the ruffled ladies and withdrew with Sebastian through a low door into an adjoining dining room.
“They mean well, I know,” she said, closing the door to the parlor with a sigh of relief. “It’s just that, sometimes, sympathy can be more oppressive than grief.”
It certainly appeared to be so in this case, Sebastian thought, studying her self-composed features and noticeably dry eyes. Either that, or the Widow Toop was extraordinarily successful at hiding her feelings.
She was a startlingly plain woman, built tall and as bony thin as her late husband. But she was better born, and lost no time in letting Sebastian know she was the daughter of one of St. George’s former Canons. She was also, he suspected, better educated and more intelligent than Toop. Yet it was not at all difficult to understand how she had ended up married to a mere virger. Intelligent she might be, and gently bred, but she had a most unfortunate face, with a small squashed nose and no chin and bad teeth.
She fixed Sebastian with a steady gaze. “You’re here because of the death of my husband?”
“Yes. I’m sorry.”
She nodded. “Rowan told me you’d been asking about the missing relics.”
“Can you tell me if he stayed home last Sunday evening? Or did he go out?”
The question didn’t seem to surprise her, although he noticed her gaze slid away. “He was out, yes.”
“Long enough to make it to London and back?”
She nodded quietly and went to fiddle with an expensive-looking silver epergne on the sideboard. Like the parlor, the dining room was small but exquisitely furnished, with a cabinet of fine French china and gilded sconces dripping cascades of faceted crystals. Some items were undoubtedly her own pieces, inherited from her mother, the Canon’s wife. But not all.
“Do you know where he went?” asked Sebastian. “Or why?”
“No.”
Somehow, Sebastian couldn’t bring himself to come right out and ask this recently widowed woman if she’d known her husband was a grave robber. So he said instead, “Did your husband ever mention a woman named Priss Mulligan? She owns a secondhand shop in Houndsditch.”
“I don’t believe so, no. But then, Rowan knew I had no interest in . . . in some of the things he did.”
That’s one way to put it, Sebastian thought. Aloud, he said, “How did he seem when he came home Sunday night?”
“Truthfully? I’d never seen him in such a state.”
“In what sense?”
“It’s almost as if he were . . . frightened. Yes, that’s it; frightened. Terrified, actually.”
“Of what? Do you know?”
“No; I’m sorry. He said he didn’t want to talk about it and went to bed.”
“Was he carrying anything when he returned?”
“No.” The question obviously puzzled her. “Whatever do you mean?”
Sebastian simply shook his head. “What about last night? Was he frightened when he took the dog for its walk?”
“I don’t think so, no. They’ve been busy planning Princess Augusta’s funeral, you know, and he always enjoyed royal affairs at the chapel.”
“Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to harm your husband?”
Her eyes widened. “No, but . . . I thought they said he simply fell into the river?”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. Your husband never told you anything about what happened Sunday night? About who he was going to meet, or why?”
“No.”
Sebastian studied the widow’s plain face, the delicate gold locket nestled at her throat, the fine muslin gown her husband had doubtless purchased with money gained from dealing with resurrection men or selling trinkets snatched from the dead.