Father Antonio pursed his lips, steepled his fingers, and shook his bald head slowly. "I don't believe I do."
"Are you sure? You visited her in Bermondsey several times after she left the convent."
The priest's gaze sharpened.
"Before and after she had the baby," Matt went on.
The priest's face suddenly cleared. "Ah, now I recall. She was a silly girl, quite unsuited to convent life. She was far too…" He waved his hand in the air and searched for the right word.
"Worldly?" I offered.
He pointed at me. "Precisely, Miss Steele. Too worldly to be a nun. I wasn't particularly surprised that she left under such circumstances."
"I thought you said it was difficult for outsiders to get into the convent. How do you think she got pregnant?"
"The sisters aren't locked in. They could leave, although it wasn't encouraged. Clearly Abigail chose to come and go as she pleased."
"Or perhaps just the once," Matt said.
"Why do you want to know about her?"
"She might be able to shed some light on Mother Alfreda's disappearance."
He blinked. "I doubt that. It was nothing to do with her. She left because of her condition."
"Are you sure? Did you ask her on one of your visits to her home?"
The priest looked away. "Did she tell you I'd visited?"
"She's no longer at the same residence. She moved ten years ago. You didn't know?"
Father Antonio face flushed. He adjusted his cassock over his knees again. "Of course not. Why would I? I only visited her once or twice after she left the convent to make sure she settled into civilian life. As I said, I feel responsible for the nuns, even after they leave my care."
"Yet we had to remind you of her name moments ago," I bit off. The man was beginning to grate on my nerves. He was clearly hiding something, and I suspected it was the identity of the father of Abigail's baby. I didn't want it to be him. I really didn't. But he was the most likely option.
"I've never been very good with names," he said. "Look. I don't know where she is now. She asked me not to return again, so I didn't. I didn't even know she'd moved out of that awful garret."
"You stopped going?" I pressed. "Just like that, even though you say you felt responsible for her? She was an unwed woman with a newborn baby. As if that's not difficult enough, she had no friends or family to help her. It's a miracle she survived at all."
He bristled. "She not only survived, she was thriving the last time I saw her. Indeed, she had more savings than me! I didn't worry about her, Miss Steele, because Abigail had work from the hat factory. She was making a good sum, despite the low pay. Indeed, she enjoyed the work. It seemed to fulfill her, somehow, in a way that being a nun never did."
"How do you mean, fulfill her?" I hedged. The use of that term piqued my curiosity. It wasn't one I would have used to describe a piece worker forced to do menial labor for low wages.
"She told me she enjoyed working with the silk. She spoke about the way it felt against her skin, how lovely it looked when it caught the light." He stared out the window and smiled wistfully. "She was drawn to it," he murmured, his voice distant. "That's the word she used—drawn. Like a gentleman to his lover." His face suddenly turned scarlet and he dismissed his comment with a chuckle. "Or so I'm told."
Fulfill. Drawn. I looked at Matt. He looked at me, his eyes bright with the same realization. Abigail Pilcher was a silk magician.
Chapter 6
"Silk is a natural fiber," I told Matt as we drove home. "But working it is where the magic comes into play."
"Like gold and wood," he added with a nod. "Abigail must be a magician. I'm convinced of it. Her son must be too. That's why he was good in the silk hat department at Christy's but not the other areas. He had an affinity for it."
"We should be looking at factories that work with silk to find him."
"He could be in a shop, not a factory. Any draper or dressmaker would do. And there must be a thousand of those scattered through the city."
"Not so many high-end ones, and silk is definitely high-end."
My reasoning seemed to rally him a little. "Does London have a silk trade?"
"Spitalfields used to be full of pure silk weavers, but the trade has suffered in recent times, and I don't think there are many left. They used to work from their homes for manufacturers that required silk for their goods, rather like Abigail did for Christy's. That's all I know of the business."
"Then it seems more likely we'll find Abigail's son working for one of those manufacturers rather than as a weaver. Ready-made gowns, hats, undergarments…can you think of anything else that requires silk?"
"Silk flowers, waistcoat lining…" I absently stroked my thumb along the padded fabric covering the door as I thought—the silk covering. "Coach interiors."
I pulled out a notepad and pencil from my reticule and jotted down all the trades we could think of that required silk, but I didn't know where to begin looking for the factories that produced them. Many wouldn't even be made in London these days. Bristow might know.
We told the others of our discovery when we returned home. While Duke and Cyclops considered it a significant finding, Willie wasn't so sure. "Why does it matter that Abigail Pilcher is a magician?" she grumbled. "It don't mean she'll know what happened to Phineas Millroy."
"Or it may mean she sensed magic in the baby and knew he had to be cared for by people with a knowledge of magic," Matt countered. "She could have squirreled him out of the convent."
"It's worth finding her and asking," I said.
"S'pose," Willie grumbled into her chest.
"She's been like this all morning," Duke whispered to me. "Best to leave her alone or she'll bite your head off for talking."
Willie glared at him, as if she knew what he was saying even though she couldn't have heard from the other side of the drawing room.
"What did Father Antonio have to say about Miss Pilcher?" Cyclops asked. "Did he know who the father of the baby was?"
"I suspect so," I said with a glance at Matt. I didn't want to upset Cyclops with my suspicions. He was already disappointed to learn that the priest had lied to the police.
"He didn't say it, but I think he's the father," Matt said, obviously devoid of the same qualms. "What do you think, India?"
"I tend to agree. I am sorry, Cyclops, but Father Antonio shouldn't be held up as a fine example of the priesthood."
Cyclops shook his head and sighed.
"To be fair," I added, "I believe he may have cared for Abigail. He seemed sad when he spoke of her."
"It was as if he'd lost something," Matt said. "I felt a little sorry for him. The life of a priest can't be all that easy for a man such as him."
"You mean one with urges?" Willie asked.
"I was thinking along the lines of a man in love. Urges seems appropriate too."