“And yet they think I’m responsible,” Clemmie said bitterly.
“That does sound a little ludicrous,” Mrs. Schonberg said. “The constable has forbidden us from leaving. No one is allowed to leave.”
There had been a party leaving, but that had been before the constable had arrived. Now it looked like no one was leaving until he said they could. And if he thought her responsible, he wasn’t going to let her go.
A silence descended on the table.
“I just don’t know what to do,” Clemmie repeated.
“This person has not finished with their activities,” Mrs. Schonberg said. “You saw the message, and then you were abducted. Mr. Carter saw the message, and then he was abducted. And now the countess. It must mean she is being targeted next.”
“Mr. Carter wasn’t the one to see the message first,” Clemmie said. In fact, she couldn’t quite remember who’d seen it first, but he came afterward after they’d been grappling with the meaning.
“But he was the only one who knew what the message meant. It had to be for him,” Mr. Schonberg said.
“What about Oliver?”
“Maybe he saw the message and dismissed it as unimportant, and it was erased before anyone else saw it.”
Why would anyone want to abduct the countess? Well, she was wealthy—that was not in doubt—but why abduct Oliver and Mr. Carter, and herself? There had been no ransom demands for any of them. And the messages promised retribution for something—when there was nothing to retribute for. Oliver didn’t have any deep, dark secrets he was hiding—as far as she knew. He was too open and gregarious to be hiding secrets. Mr. Carter—well, she didn’t know. As for herself, her greatest sin was being a young, silly girl who was absorbed with the things that were important to her—rather frivolous things, if she were honest. But it wasn’t as if she was unique, she was like most young women in her society.
Maybe it was persons of more elevated society this person objected to. She and Oliver weren’t aristocrats like the countess. But then there was Mr. Carter, an American. Granted he was well educated, so he could belong to a fine society on the other side of the Atlantic. But now a servant being abducted, which completely quashed the theory.
It made no sense. Every time she tried to pin down a motive, it slipped through her fingers like sand.
Chapter 27
THE CONSTABLE SEEMED TO TAKE his time speaking to people, especially as three people were now missing. She could so easily have been one of them. And for all she went through, ludicrous that aspersions were thrown her way. It was as though it had never happened.
The bruises felt very real, however, and she shifted uncomfortably whenever one was pressed too much.
Again she keenly noticed other people observing her as she sat with the book she’d bought in the village. It seemed she would never need Italian now, but it was something to distract her mind.
Maybe she should go have a chat with her driver to see if he’d observed anything. But then the building had been searched, apparently, and nothing found. Wherever this Mr. Hubert was held, they hadn’t found anything. It was as though people simply disappeared. But she knew better. They were taken away on a cart.
No carts were missing, however. And there was no account of one missing all morning. How could that be? He was here for breakfast, and then simply vanished and no cart was taken. There had to be somewhere in the hotel that the searchers hadn’t found. But how would Mr. Weber not know about it? They had entered every guest room, including hers. They had probably started with hers. As if she’d gone down to the servants’ quarters, rendered this man unconscious and dragged him up two flights to her room.
With a groan, she rubbed her eyebrows. Her tea was getting cold, but she had no appetite for it.
“Mrs. Rowland, may we speak?” the constable said. “Could you please join me in the library?”
She stifled another groan. What could he possibly want now? But instead of asking, she smiled tightly. “If you wish,” she replied and rose. A third groan, from pain this time.
“You are in pain?” he asked. Clearly the man was observant, but he didn’t believe her story about being abducted, even with bruising and scraps to her very face.
For a moment, she considered ignoring him. “Yes,” she finally said without elaborating. In the library, she took the same seat as before.
“I wish to know about the argument you had with Mr. Rowland the night before he disappeared.”
Clemmie blinked. “What argument? There was no argument.”
“It was observed.”
Desperately she tried to think back on what could possibly have been construed into an argument. There was nothing. “Oliver promised to take me up to the observation platform before leaving, and I said that would be nice. I went to the village to buy a book, while he was preparing for our departure. That was all that was discussed.”
“You were observed having a row.”
“There was no row.” Where could this have come from? “Who has said so?”
He ignored the question. “You came from Paris before staying here.” It was a statement rather than a question.
“We stayed two nights in between, but yes.”
“Have you felt that your husband had been ungenerous with you?”
“No.”
“So you assert there was no argument?”
“Yes. There was no argument. We were excited about the next leg of our journey.”
“Do you have a lover, Mrs. Rowland?”
“No, of course not!” she said sharply.
“And who was this Mr. Coleridge?”
“A professor. A man we met the day we arrived here.” Was he asserting that Mr. Coleridge was her lover? This was all absurd. If she’d been dragging her feet about asking her father for
