Her head snapped up. "How?"
"We're investigators. Finding out things is what we do. For example, we know you're very proud of your son." It was a guess but not a very difficult one. Most women would be proud of a son who'd been born in a filthy Bermondsey tenement and risen to become an importer for a growing business enterprise.
She smiled. "I am. I miss him when he's away, but he's got to make his own way in the world." She scooped up a spoonful of ice cream and popped it into her mouth. "So that's what you want? To know who Antony's father is?"
"We already know," Matt said.
She went very still. "He told you?"
"Not in so many words. But it was easy to put the pieces together and see Father Antonio's reaction when we spoke to him about it."
She lowered her gaze. "So you know my shame."
"It's not yours," I said quickly. "He took advantage of your naivety and his position."
"It wasn't like that. I was naive, yes, but he and I…" She huffed out a half-laugh. "I like to think he loved me but loved God more."
"I think he did love you," I said gently. "Perhaps still does. We won't tell anyone your secret, Miss Pilcher. That's not why we're here. We want to ask if you know why Mother Alfreda disappeared."
She shrugged. "No. Why would I?"
"Did she leave the convent before or after you?" Matt asked.
"About a week before."
"Do you think she left of her own accord or did something happen to her?"
She licked ice cream off her lower lip as she thought. "I don't rightly know. Her disappearance came as a shock, I'll tell you. None of us knew what to think. Seems strange she'd just up and leave without a word, but if she didn't…well, it means something happened to her, don't it. Something happened to her right inside those convent walls." She smirked as she scooped out more ice cream. "Maybe one of them done her in. Can't blame 'em. She was a dragon."
"Any ideas who might have…done her in?"
"Could be anyone. I had good reason, but it weren't me, if that's what you're thinking."
"We weren't," I assured her. "Was she cruel to you after learning of your plight?"
She nodded. "Not just after. She hated me all along. Sister Margaret said it was because I was too pretty and spirited. I don't rightly know, but Mother Alfreda didn't like me before, and she thought even less of me when she learned I was with child. She called me all sorts of terrible things. I didn't think I'd hear words like that inside those walls. It got worse because I wouldn't give her the father's name."
"She asked you to leave?"
"No, that were the new mother superior what done that. Mother Frances."
"She took over the role immediately?" I asked.
"She couldn't wait. She'd been eyeing off that office for years, so the older nuns said. Apparently she'd wanted to become mother superior before but missed out and they gave it to Mother Alfreda. Once she was gone, the next in line was Sister Frances. She was a bitter, nasty old thing too. Don't s'pose she's dead now?"
"No," I said.
"Pity."
"What about the other nuns?" Matt asked. "Did any of them have reason to dislike Mother Alfreda?"
She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "There was always something. One sister complains of working too hard, another thinks she should be allowed to keep a book given to her by her family, that sort of thing. Just petty problems."
No reason to "do her in," as Abigail put it. Only Mother Frances had reason enough—if a power struggle could be considered a good reason. It may have been the motive for countless murders of political rivals over the centuries but not within convents.
"What do you know about the missing babies?" Matt asked.
She slowly lowered the spoon she'd been licking to the empty bowl and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "You know about them?"
"Yes. As do you."
She nodded. "Sister Clare told me. She's the mother superior's assistant and kept the records. She told me one day that a baby had disappeared and then another a short time later. Their records were also missing."
"Was one of the babies named Phineas Millroy?"
"I don't know."
"Did you ever see either of the babies?" I asked. "Touch them?"
She frowned. "Why?"
I drew in a deep breath to steel myself then stepped closer to her. "Because you're a magician," I said quietly, "and so was—is—Phineas Millroy. We thought perhaps you might be able to somehow identify the magic in him."
She looked from me to Matt then back to me again. "I don't know what you're saying."
"Yes, you do. I'm also a magician, Miss Pilcher."
"Don't be scared," Matt assured her. "We just want answers, nothing more. We don't care about your magical connection to silk."
Her throat jumped with her hard swallow. "What kind of magic do you do, Miss Steele?"
"Watches," I said. "I can make them run on time. You can work silk easily, can't you?"
"Quick and easy," she said with a hint of pride. "I can make a dress in half the time it takes two girls. I can make the prettiest, most delicate flowers and decorations. I even made a dress for a princess, last year. It were the loveliest thing you ever saw, all golden yellow with butterflies flitting between flowers on the skirt. Mr. Robinson himself says I might get another royal commission soon. Imagine that, eh? Me, thrown out of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart for being a bad girl, making dresses for princesses. I bet Sister Margeret'll be tickled. You'll tell her for me, won't you?"
"Of course," I said with a smile, "but I thought you were friends."
"We were, in a way. Friends but rivals too." She leaned forward and whispered, "She had an eye for Father Antonio too. We used to make up silly stories about him admiring our bright eyes and taking a fancy to us. They started as just girlish fantasy but when he took notice of me for real, she stopped being so friendly to me."
Matt cleared his throat. "Back to the missing babies," he said. "You say Sister Clare told you they'd disappeared."
She nodded. "I used to help her in the office, sometimes. She was new to the assistant position then, and the records were in poor order. I worked with her to get them right, and that's when she told me. I saw one of the babies in the nursery but I can't recall if I touched him. Anyway, you can't feel magic in another magician, Miss Steele, only in what they work on. You should know that."
"I do," I said on a sigh. "I suppose I was just clutching at straws, wondering if perhaps the baby had touched someone and—" I cut myself off before revealing that Phineas potentially had the power to heal. "Anyway, he was just a baby. If he did possess magic, he couldn't have practiced it without speaking a spell."
"And babies don't talk." She handed the empty glass and spoon to Matt. "I better get back."
"Of course," Matt said, taking my glass too.
"One last question," I said. "Did anyone at the convent know about your magic?"