“Never seen the chap in such a state!” he went on, at his friend’s urging. “I worry about him, I really do. I’d almost call off my travels except that the passage on the ship is already paid for and my Delia is very keen to visit the family and meet the new nieces and nephews—”
“I’m sure Mr. Springfield would never expect you to give that up, Hobbs!”
“Oh, he didn’t say a word about it,” Hobbs assured his companion. “I only wondered if it might not be better for the mining operation if I were to stay.”
“Take a day to think that over before you scuttle a family trip,” the muskrat advised. “You’re staying for the funeral, aren’t you? Talk to Springfield afterward—he’ll be more himself then, after the final rites and whatnot.”
“Good idea. I sure hope he’s feeling better by then. I tell you, he was so distracted I had to tell him things three times over, and he had to be reminded of stuff he taught me. He mixed up feeder and footwall when I was giving him the latest report!”
His friend gaped. “What’s more different than those two things? You find one, you maybe got a fresh vein of ore. You find the other, it means the claim’s almost done!”
“That’s what I’m saying,” Hobbs agreed, leaning over the table to pick up the creamer. “The poor sap’s all mixed up. I told him that the materials arrived for the cribbing and he just shrugged. As if it didn’t matter to him! He was the one who made me put the order in last month, because the thought of the wall collapsing on the miners kept him up nights.”
Lenore gave Vera a quizzical look, but Vera only shook her head. She’d explain the significance of the badger’s words later. Right now, her nose was twitching. Hobbs’s account was giving her all sorts of ideas.
After signaling Esme and paying their bill, the two of them left the diner and walked together as little ways down the main street.
“Well, out with it,” Lenore said at last.
Vera quickly looked around to make sure no one was listening. Thankfully, traffic was at a lull. “There’s something extremely odd going on. Ever since Dorothy claimed Edward was murdered, things have just been…askew. Edward himself is behaving like he’s not quite sure what’s going to happen next, and I don’t just mean the death of his mother. That was sad, but hardly a shock. Edward is acting like he’s been…stunned. Not to mention, I smelled blood in the carpet of the Springfields’ foyer. Something sinister happened there, because if it wasn’t sinister, why did someone cover it up?”
“Well, what are you going to do?”
Vera thought hard about several things she’d learned in the past few days. The history of the Springfield family, Dorothy’s uncertain experience, the quiet, lovely shore of Mirror Lake….
“I’m going to talk to Edward again,” she declared. “He’s hiding something, and I’m going to find out what it is!”
Chapter 5
Back in the Springfield house once more, Vera dispensed with the softball questions this time.
“Mr. Springfield,” she said bluntly when they were sitting in the same chairs in the living room. “In all the time I spoke with you before, about your parents and your family, you never mentioned Thomas. Why is that?”
She’d hoped that by springing the mention of the brother’s name on him, she could see an unguarded reaction. But Edward only sighed, looking off toward the fireplace mantel.
“The less I think about Thomas, the better,” he said quietly. “But I suppose you’ll need the whole story, or you won’t be content.”
He paused for a moment, gathering thoughts. Then he began, “Thomas was my older brother, and while we were young, I thought the world of him. He was very smart and did the best in all his classes. He was expected to take on the business, of course. And he made time for me, always having fun and playing pranks.”
“Sounds like an ideal brother.”
“If only it stayed that way. I think there was something a little off about Thomas. He got into trouble, just little things at first. Pranks that got too mean, like when the maids got blamed for broken flower vases, but it was actually Thomas who did it. He didn’t always get caught, but when he did, he’d say he was sorry that things went wrong, and of course he didn’t mean anything by it, but…”
“Yes?” Vera prompted.
“Well, the fact was that whether he meant it or not didn’t matter. He was hurting folks. He hurt my mother’s feelings terribly, not to mention mine. Finally, he got into a scrape so bad that there was no apologizing for it. He ran away to escape my father’s punishment. And honestly, I never saw him or heard from him again. I know he contacted my parents once or twice. To ask for money, maybe, or just to taunt them. My father wrote him out of the will and the whole mining business, naturally. And instructed everyone else to ignore any letters Thomas might send. He even ordered several family photographs and paintings to be destroyed, because it hurt my mother to see them.”
“And Thomas never tried to make your parents change their minds?”
“If he did, I didn’t hear of it,” Edward explained. “I just tried to live my own life. I had to step up and learn the things Thomas was meant to do. As I said, he was older, and knew more. I took over a lot of the business after my father passed, and more after my mother got sick. She never said his name again, not even when she knew she didn’t have much time left.”
“I’m very sorry to have to bring it up,” said Vera, “but I was wondering if it
