“Apparently one of the ways Mr. Harding was cheating William was by forging his name on contracts that turned out to be questionable at best and criminal at worst. William, of course, knew nothing about them, but it didn’t look good for him. The detectives took the stance that with all the shenanigans going on, Harding and William had formed a partnership and William decided to do away with Harding and claimed the other half of the ill-gotten goods.”
“How horrible for William. I know him to be an upstanding man, and to think they believe he would do illegal and perhaps criminal things with his business dealings is disheartening.”
“Yes. But more than disheartening to William, since he now has to spend time and effort restoring his good name with all those people and businesses that Harding swindled.”
“How does all of this tie in with wanting to visit Miss Gertrude, since you believe she couldn’t have shoved Harding into the river?”
“From what William and I have uncovered, Harding met his victims at the same pub on a regular basis to collect the money. I am hoping Miss Gertrude might have seen other victims in her comings and goings.”
“This leads me to believe you intend to keep on with this investigation.”
“We have to. If we don’t, they’re going to charge William, and as you said, you know him, and he would never murder anyone. Just promise me you won’t tell Papa what I’m doing.”
The carriage came to a rolling stop before her aunt could answer. Aunt Margaret stepped out of the carriage and turned to Amy. “This still sounds dangerous to me. We will discuss this on the way back from our calls.”
Thinking perhaps it had been a mistake to tell her aunt as much as she had and grateful she hadn’t told her everything, especially the part about William being shot, Amy trudged behind her up the steps to the front door.
The ladies seemed pleased to have Amy and Aunt Margaret visit, although they did mention that they hadn’t been expecting callers. When Amy and her aunt offered to leave, the sisters declined and insisted they stay for tea.
“We missed you at church Sunday,” Amy said, once they all had their tea and it was prepared to everyone’s liking. No biscuits or other sweets were offered with the tea, which Amy took as an indication that the sisters were not expecting them to stay long.
Or perhaps hoping they wouldn’t.
“Yes, sister and I were feeling a bit under the weather. I think we might have caught a chill.”
“I hope you are feeling better.” Amy could not help but notice that Miss Gertrude wore some sort of face makeup that was doing a poor job of hiding a few scratches on her face.
“It appears you’ve been injured, Miss Gertrude.” Amy smiled, trying to appear sympathetic. “Nothing serious, I hope.”
The woman waved her hand. “ ’Twas nothing. There is a cat that comes around occasionally. I told sister we should not be feeding the thing. Especially since the last time we did, it scratched my face.”
“Oh dear. Well, do be careful, because those sorts of injuries can cause infections,” Aunt Margaret said.
Silence fell, and Amy had the feeling the ladies were uncomfortable and wanted them to leave.
They shared some innocuous conversation about the weather, Bath traffic, the conditions of the road, and the Queen’s birthday.
As Amy took her last sip of tea, she decided she would try one more question and then depart. “Will we see you at the book club meeting on Thursday?”
Miss Penelope smiled. “Oh yes. We just love the meetings, don’t we, sister?”
“Yes. Everyone in the club is so very friendly too.”
Silence.
Amy looked over at Aunt Margaret. “I believe we have other calls to make?”
“Yes.” Aunt Margaret gathered her gloves and reticule. The four women walked to the door, and Amy couldn’t help but think that the sisters were accompanying them to make sure they left.
It had been a strange visit. Short and awkward.
As they shrugged into their coats, air-kissing commenced, along with good-byes and See you on Thursday.
Once they were settled in the carriage, Aunt Margaret said, “Well, they certainly weren’t welcoming. I’m afraid this was a waste of your time.”
“Not at all.” Amy glanced out the window, then back over at Aunt Margaret. “I couldn’t help but wonder if the ‘chill’ they caught and the scratches on Miss Gertrude’s face had anything to do with William chasing down the person who attempted to escape with the ledger.”
She had obviously startled her aunt. “What? I thought you said—or at least I assumed—that it was a man who absconded with the ledger and who William chased through the woods.”
“That’s what we thought, but since we didn’t see the person’s face and whoever it was wore a cap of some sort, now that I think about it, it could have been a woman. William mentioned the person stumbled. If it was Miss Gertrude, she could have been scratched by branches.”
Amy considered how William had described the thief. A bit taller than medium height, he’d said, and of medium build. Miss Gertrude was certainly tall enough to be a man, and although she was quite thin, a bulky coat could give her a studier appearance.
Aunt Margaret studied her for a minute. “I would suggest the next thing you work on is finding out if Miss Gertrude is capable of climbing out of windows and running through the woods in the dark.”
Amy nodded. “It doesn’t seem likely, though, does it?”
William had just spent the worst three hours of his life. Detectives Carson and Marsh had fired questions at him from every direction. If William hadn’t had Mr. Nelson-Graves, the barrister, there with him, he was almost sure he would be looking at the world from behind bars.
Mr. Alfred Lawrence, William’s solicitor, had joined in during the questioning also, requesting a copy of the file that contained the incriminating evidence. The detectives
