“Ah, young Peter. That boy is going to go far in life. He has the natural instincts of a criminal. He has managed to blackmail me into teaching him how to use a sword.”
“I know,” I told him darkly. “What I do not know is why you decided to get to know the locals. Unless . . .” I let my voice trail off suggestively.
“Unless?” he prompted.
“Unless you are curious about Rosamund Romilly’s disappearance and decided to ask a few questions.”
“Certainly not,” he said stoutly.
“Liar!” I whirled on him. “Swear to me on whatever you love best in the world that her name did not come up in conversation. Swear on Huxley,” I ordered.
“For God’s sake, you’re dancing around like a damselfly. Of course it came up,” he told me in a flat voice. “Rosamund’s disappearance was a nine days’ wonder. It was the most interesting thing to happen here in three centuries, but no one knows anything. No one saw anything. And there are as many versions of what happened to her as there are people on this island.”
I stopped in front of him, forcing him to halt in his tracks. “Stoker. Indulge my curiosity.” I raised my chin.
He gave a gusty sigh. “Veronica, have you ever talked to a Cornishman? A proper one? For more than three minutes running? They are the most superstitious folk in the British Isles, and that’s saying something. For every fellow who suggests she ran away with a lover or threw herself from a cliff, there are five more saying she was taken by piskies or mermaids or knackers or, just possibly, a giant.”
I blinked at him. “A giant?”
“The Cornish love their giants.”
“Dare I ask about the knackers?”
He folded his arms over the breadth of his chest. “About two feet tall with blue skin and pointed ears and content to make their homes underground. Something like an Irish leprechaun from what I gather, only one isn’t supposed to ask much because they’re thoroughly bad-tempered and malevolent.”
“They sound just the sort to make off with a bride on her wedding day,” I pointed out.
“Veronica, in the name of seven hells, please tell me you are not giving serious consideration to the idea that knackers abducted Rosamund Romilly.”
“Of course not.” I pulled a face. “But what the people around her believe is almost as significant as what actually happened. Very often, golden nuggets of truth may be found in the deepest waters.”
“That is a dreadful analogy. To begin with, gold is usually found in shallows,” he said.
I held up a hand. “No lectures on metallurgical geology, I beg you. Besides, I have no doubt they were having a very great laugh at your expense. I would wager that pulling the leg of the casual traveler is a well-established sport in this part of the world.”
“Of course it is,” he replied with an unexpectedly agreeable air. “Which is why I stayed long enough to buy every man a pint and winnow out at least a little kernel of wheaty truth from the chaff of gossip.”
He slanted me a mischievous look. “Very well,” I told him tartly. “Yours is the better metaphor. Tell me, what grains of truth did you discover?”
He shrugged. “Precious little for all my trouble. Discounting the piskies and knackers—”
“And giants,” I added.
“And giants”—he nodded—“it seems there are only two possibilities.”
“Death or departure,” I supplied.
“Precisely. If she left, how and under what circumstances? Was she abducted? Did she flee, alone or with the help of another? And if so, why has no one heard a whisper of her whereabouts since?”
“And if she died, was it by her own hand, misfortune, or murder?” I finished. “Very tidy. A taxonomy of possibilities. It is practically Linnean in its purity.” I paused. “Tell me, what do you think of our host?”
Stoker did not hesitate. “Agincourt,” he said, and I understood him perfectly. With that rare sympathy that we shared, he had seen Malcolm Romilly precisely as I had, a bulwark of English predictability in this strange and otherworldly setting.
A rush of pleasure surged through me. This was how it had so often been between us, repartee serving as the language of the heart for us. Where others might whisper little poetries, Stoker and I engaged in badinage, each of us certain that no one else in the world understood us as well as the other.
But just as I began to hope that his mood of the previous night was well and truly behind him, some almost imperceptible withdrawal occurred. His posture, always inclined to lean towards me like an oak to the sun, straightened and he took half a step backwards, his tone suddenly cool. “Personally, I am inclined to think that she took a boat and left. It is the simplest explanation, after all.”
“On her wedding day?” I protested. “Surely not.”
His sapphirine gaze was level and hard. “I do not pretend to understand the motives of women,” he said.
I ignored the barb and replied only to his words. “I suppose such a thing would be possible,” I reasoned. “The currents around here must be dangerous.”
“That was brought to my attention many times by my drinking companions,” he informed me. “They also like to think that she is haunting the island, but that was no doubt a story for my benefit as an outsider. They’ve created a sort of cottage industry about her disappearance. Peter tried to sell me a charm to protect me against her ghost.”
“How much did it cost you?” I knew him too well. He would never have passed up an enterprising child bent upon earning a coin.
He reached into his pocket, producing a bit of shell strung upon a ragged string. “Two shillings.”
“Two shillings! Highway robbery,” I said with a lightness I did not feel, “particularly as you’ve already agreed to teach him to use a sword.”
He thrust the unlovely item back into his pocket. “He is a bright boy and someone should encourage his initiative.”
