“It seems so. I will send a man to collect the constable.”
Surprisingly, she was hungry and she walked into the dining hall. Again she was eating alone. Before all this, she would have felt embarrassed about eating alone, and she’d be tying herself in knots wondering if people were watching her. They did watch her, but now she wondered if a pair of those eyes knew exactly what had happened to Oliver and Mr. Carter.
Where were they? Where was Oliver? They had searched outside. They had searched in the hotel.
Mr. Carter was not a tramper. He didn’t seem to leave the hotel for any reason. The only time she’d seen him leave the hotel had been when he’d gone to the village to ask about the curse. Then again, she hadn’t kept tabs on him and his coming and goings.
Sometime during the night, Mr. Carter disappeared. Some of the people here weren’t present at the time Oliver had disappeared. That left the Schonbergs, the countess and her party, the rude Italian and Mr. Carter himself.
The Schonbergs were chatting amicably between themselves. They seemed not so bothered by Mr. Carter being missing. Was that because they knew there was no threat to themselves?
Nothing inside her understood the mind or the urges that had led someone to do this. It simply wasn’t in her, but maybe that wasn’t important. Was it not enough to say that someone had urges she would never understand? It wasn’t always important to know why.
The countess was there with her staff and her grandchild. The child was looking nervously at the grim faces. Clemmie knew that Miss Marnier and Miss Juno were scared. The countess had fainted. They were stuck here until their carriage was fixed.
The Italian she didn’t know much about other than that she didn’t particularly like him, and that was brought on mostly by him not liking her. Given that he didn’t know her made his hostile behavior suspicious in her book.
As she’d seen him a few times, his attention was absorbed by a newspaper. And why was he still here? As opposed to her and the countess, he wasn’t stuck here, and he wasn’t here to tramp like the Schonbergs.
“Mrs. Rowland, how are you?”
Clemmie turned to see Miss Juno. Her smile was tight and her eyes had that look of being a little larger than they should be.
“I am…” What could she say? “Mr. Carter seems to be missing.”
As if hoping to find him, the woman’s eyes searched the room. “We saw him last night,” she said. “He spoke to us. Quite an arrogant man. I’m sure he’s just gone out.”
“That’s what I said when my Oliver went missing. Now Mr. Carter has gone missing too. What did he say when he spoke to you?”
“He asked about our carriage.”
“The one that was damaged?”
“Maybe he was wondering if that accident is linked.”
“Is it linked?”
“We didn’t see how, but I suppose if those… specters can make a man disappear, they can make a boulder roll.” Her eyes darted again and she stepped closer, lowering her voice. “They said the soldiers were seen in the village.”
This was news to Clemmie. “Really? When?”
“Last night. Maybe Mr. Carter ran afoul of them. He seemed a man given to curiosity, I would say. This is awful. Simply awful.”
Clemmie didn’t know how to take this information. “Did you see him leave?”
“No. He was more interested in the carriage.”
“How is the countess faring?”
Miss Juno looked over at her employer, who was sitting with Miss Marnier. “She isn’t liking this one bit. We can’t understand what the issue is with the carriage. Something about needing the right steel for the forge. We all want to be on our way. The countess seems particularly concerned at night. She doesn’t sleep well. Luckily, I sleep like a log. There could be a whole company of soldiers marching down the corridor. I probably wouldn’t notice. But Miss Marnier is scared. We are all scared. Something terrible is happening. Can’t you feel it? I swear I feel as though I’m being observed every moment.”
It was true that Clemmie had felt that way too. But then she was being observed, being the left-behind bride of the man who’d disappeared.
“Because we did hear them wandering the other day, didn’t we?” Miss Juno said earnestly, as if seeking confirmation. Clemmie wondered if Miss Juno had been told she was being fanciful.
“Yes, we did hear them. And I heard them again—myself, Miss Marnier and the countess. We heard them in the mist.”
The slim woman tucked her arms to herself. “I don’t like it here. I feel scared going around every corner. Funnily, it seemed like a very nice hotel when we arrived, but now I look at everything with suspicion.”
“Mrs. Rowland, how are you?” Miss Marnier said, approaching them.
“As well as can be expected.”
“It seems Mr. Carter has gone missing,” Miss Juno said and Miss Marnier’s eyebrows drew together sharply.
“No, surely not. He seemed such a kind man.”
“Sometime after supper last night. Did you see him afterward?”
“He came and spoke to us for a moment, didn’t he, Miss Juno?” Miss Marnier said. “He didn’t seem distressed in any way. I think he said he was heading back to his room.”
It seems he never made it. From what she’d noted earlier, his bed hadn’t been slept in. So it wasn’t that he’d been woken during the night and had left his room. Or worse, been dragged from his bed. “Somehow he must have disappeared after that.”
“Maybe he heard something and was drawn out,” Miss Marnier said. “Once out there, they must have pushed him like they tried to do with me.”
“What happened that day?”
“I was just taking some exercise. The mist came in and within moments it was impossible to see. I heard them first. I actually called to them for assistance,” she said as if she’d done the dumbest thing she could have. Her mouth drew tight.
