“She is under the floor. He means no harm. Please.”
He backed up to the bed and sat down on the edge of it.
“What does it mean?” Hammersmith said.
“Should we assume it’s the missing Mrs Price?”
“I think if it were all of them, the whole Price family, she would have worded this differently, wouldn’t she?”
“But under the floor? What floor?”
They both looked down at the smooth wooden planks beneath their feet. Day shook his head.
“We were in the common room, near the hearth,” he said.
“Mrs Price is under the hearth?” Hammersmith said. “That makes no sense.”
“No, you’re right. I don’t think that’s what the note means,” Day said. “That’s where we were when she gave this to me, but she can’t have written it there, can she?”
“Why not? Before we arrived.”
“Her husband would have seen. And so would Calvin Campbell, and the schoolteacher, the children, Bennett Rose. There were a lot of people in that room. They all would have seen her write it.”
“Maybe they did see her.”
“I don’t think so,” Day said. “She was nervous. She handed this to me carefully, as she took my hand to say good-bye. She didn’t want anyone else to see. If she wrote it in front of them all, why keep it a secret afterward?”
“So she meant this for you.”
“For us.”
“She wrote it somewhere else and brought it with her.”
“She may not have even made up her mind about whether to give it to us. She might have waited to decide until she met us.”
“Then the floor she mentions could be anywhere. Why not be more specific? It’s not much of a clue, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
“I think she would have given us more information if it had occurred to her. It must have seemed quite obvious to her as she wrote it. She was in a hurry to write this before being discovered doing so and she was thinking about a place so familiar that it didn’t enter her mind that we wouldn’t know it, too.”
“But we’re not from here.”
“Exactly.”
“We don’t know this village.”
“So she didn’t just mean a place in the village, she meant the place where she was when she wrote this, the place where she’s most comfortable and at home, a place that needs no explanation for her.”
“Her home.”
“The rectory.”
“Mrs Price is hidden under the floor in the rectory.”
“It’s as good a theory as we’ve got.”
“Unless the note means nothing. It could be the ravings of a madwoman.”
“But if that’s the case, then we have no clues at all. So let’s assume it means something unless and until we discover that it doesn’t.”
“We don’t even know that this is meant to be Mrs Price. Or, if it is, where the other two are. Mr Price and the boy.”
“No.”
“And who is the man she mentions? ‘He means well.’”
“Yes. But she says ‘He means no harm.’ It could be Mr Price.”
“That doesn’t tell us where he is. This is a maddeningly imprecise note, Mr Day.”
“But I don’t think she means Mr Price. She was nervous, positively jumping out of her chair.”
“Well, three people have disappeared from her village.”
“She was standing next to her husband the entire time. She kept the note a secret from him.”
“Her husband.”
“The vicar. Mr Brothwood.”
“This is getting us nowhere.”
“Not entirely,” Day said. “We’ll want to examine that rectory. And we’ll want to do it without letting Mr Brothwood know that his wife gave us this note.”
“We don’t owe her anything.”
“No, we don’t. But we have no reason to make her life more difficult. She’s clearly already upset about all this. We’ll tread carefully.”
“Not so carefully that the little boy dies while we’re being polite to the vicar and his wife.”
Day sighed. “Of course not. Sometimes, Mr Hammersmith, your single-mindedness is just the slightest bit maddening.”
Hammersmith grinned and pulled another chunk of bread off the roll on his plate.
“Is it good?” Day said.
“Hmm?”
“The groaty dick.”
“Oh, I’m not sure. I didn’t notice right off, but it has a curious aftertaste. And I feel a bit dizzy.”
“It’s been a long day, and it’s colder here than it was in London.”
“True enough, but I’ve been drugged before, and this has the same feel about it.”
“Drugged? You’ve said nothing about being drugged as we’ve sat here discussing mysterious notes and rectories.”
“It may not be drugged. I’m only mentioning the possibility that there may be something in the groaty dick.”
“And if there is? Rose poisoned us?”
“I think perhaps someone did.”
“Are you all right?”
“I’ll be fine. I had a bite or two, that’s all, but I recommend you eat only the bread.”
“I feel all right. I don’t think there’s anything in the beer.”
“Good. It was probably meant to disguise the taste of the drug. The bitterness.”
Day rummaged in his suitcase and brought out his Colt revolver. He checked the chamber and nodded.
“We’ll go downstairs and confront Rose,” he said.
“What if we don’t?”
“You mean, let him think he’s drugged us?”
“Just that.”
“He’ll know he’s failed when we continue to tramp about his village alive and well.”
“I don’t think he meant to kill us.”
“It wouldn’t make a lot of sense, would it?”
“London would only send more men if we both died or disappeared.”
“Perhaps the poison is only in
Hammersmith reached and picked up Day’s bowl. He sniffed it and dipped a spoon into its murky brown depths.
“Don’t,” Day said. “If it’s got the drug in it-”
“A bite won’t hurt me. I have the constitution of an ox.”
Hammersmith tasted Day’s pudding. He spit the bite back into the bowl and smacked his lips. “That’s thoroughly unpleasant,” he said. “He’s overdone it. I don’t suppose he’s ever poisoned anyone before.”
“And, as you pointed out,” Day said, “the beer might have masked the flavor of the drug.”
“So we were both meant to succumb.”
“It would appear so.”
Hammersmith stood and gripped his truncheon. “This does seem to be a clear indication of Mr Rose’s guilt, sir.”
