“Thank you, miss.” Blinking back tears, Molly retreated to the other bed, picking up the gown and spencer. She started toward the wardrobe, but paused. “Oh. Ye’re dress ’as got a stain. Oi’ll take it down ter Mrs. Beeton ter scrub it out. Ye’ve picked up a bit of dirt on yere spencer, too. W’ot were ye doing yesterday—?” she broke off, her expression stricken as she remembered what everybody had been doing.
“It’s my laundry,” Kendra said, walking toward her. “You shouldn’t have to do extra work, Molly. I’ll take it to Mrs. Beeton.” She lifted the jacket out of Molly’s hands.
“’Tisn’t any trouble, miss. ‘Tis good to work.” The tweeny was reaching for the clothes, but stopped when she noticed Kendra’s expression. “W’ot is it, miss?”
Kendra’s eyes were on the brownish gray stains. “I’m not sure.” Was she imagining the similarities?
“Miss?” Molly asked uncertainly when the silence lengthened.
Heart pounding, Kendra carefully inspected the smears running across both the gown and the spencer. They looked the same, but it didn’t make sense. “Have I been mistaken?” she wondered, frowning.
“Mistaken ’bout w’ot?”
Kendra came to a decision. She thrust the bundle of material back into Molly’s arms as a sense of urgency came over her. “Do me a favor, Molly. Take these clothes to the Duke and Dr. Munroe. Tell them to compare the stains to the one on April Duprey’s coat.”
The tweeny eyed the smudges dubiously. “W’ot is it?”
Kendra hurriedly slipped on her shoes. “I’m not sure, that’s why I need the Duke to look at it under his microscope. But I think it might be potash.”
“W’ot does that mean?”
Kendra paused at the door as she met the maid’s confused gaze. “It means that I’ve been wrong, Molly. Wrong about everything.”
57
No smoke was curling out of the chimney of the hermit’s hut today. Of course, the abandoned feel of the place meant nothing; the appearance was easily deceptive. And Thomas may have already deceived me, she thought as she approached the door.
Kendra paused to listen intently, but heard nothing but birds trilling from nearby trees and the soft whisper of leaves and grass, stirred by the breeze.
She pounded on the door. “Thomas? Thomas, I need to speak to you!”
Silence.
She pounded again. “C’mon! Open up!”
Nothing.
She tried the door. She hadn’t noticed any lock when she’d been in the place earlier, so she wasn’t surprised when the door swung inward easily.
The room was empty. The shutters were still open, the sunshine seeping weakly through the greasy panes, limning the clutter inside. If possible, the stench seemed even worse than before.
Look around, then get out, she decided. Although she wasn’t entirely sure what she was looking for. She spotted the cupboard that she’d bumped into yesterday. Jars, pottery, and paintbrushes still littered the surface. Her hands, she noticed, were smeared with grayish dirt about two seconds after coming in contact with the containers. Was it potash? Or plain dirt? How the hell am I to know?
Without a fire in the hearth, the room was as cold as a tomb. Kendra shivered slightly as she rifled through the cupboards. There was no way Thomas had used this place for torture, but he could’ve stashed April Duprey here before he dumped the body on the path. And Rose . . . yes, he could’ve kept her here too, as everyone searched—as he searched. Who better to know when they had finished searching the area near the lake than a volunteer in the search party?
She paused, tension prickling along the back of her spine. Was that a noise? A scrape and shuffle outside? She held her breath and listened. No, nothing. Except for the thudding of her heart.
Trying to shrug off her tension, she resumed her search. Her hands were filthy as she opened jars and containers. She would need a bath afterward, even if it meant hauling up the buckets of water herself.
Her eyes narrowed on the top shelf of the cabinet, noticing the wooden container. It wasn’t dust-free, but it seemed less grimy than everything else in Thomas’s shack. It also struck her as too ornate for the hermit. She reached up, bringing the container down. It was eight inches high, six inches wide, and about ten inches in length. The wood looked like mahogany, the lid hand-carved with a floral design. Balancing it in the crook of her arm, Kendra lifted the lid, and frowned as she saw skeins of yarn inside.
Puzzled, she reached in. Her fingertips had touched the soft filaments before she realized what it was. In revulsion, she gasped, lurching backward and falling hard against the cupboard. The box toppled out of her arms, hitting the dirt floor and splintering. The contents spilled out.
Not yarn . . . hair.
Human hair.
58
Gabriel wanted a drink badly. His hands shook with the wanting. He clenched them into fists and thrust them into his coat pockets. He gritted his teeth together. His head was pounding; his stomach twisted into knots. Though he’d had a bath that morning, he could smell his own sweat, a pungent odor that added to his misery.