“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying she changed dramatically—but why? I can understand the shock of losing her husband, but why change your whole way of living?”
“Any conclusions?”
“Just that the solving of her murder has to be tied to those two turning points in her life. I think something happened to her eighteen years ago, something even more profound than the loss of her husband. And I think something happened recently too—something that prompted her to begin selling off the art collection.”
“Maybe she needed the money.”
“But for what? Was someone blackmailing her? Was she planning on escaping from Little Gosling and starting a new life like Lucy did? Was she afraid? Did she owe someone a lot of money and felt she couldn’t go to her solicitors? We need to find out why she did what she did.”
“You told me once to begin with what you know. Well, here’s what we know: Evelyn Villiers blamed her daughter for causing her husband’s death. She told you she was selling the art collection because she didn’t want Lucy to inherit. Maybe she knew her daughter would be showing up.”
“How could she? Lucy says she came home because she read the account of her mother’s death in the Suffolk newspapers, and you confirmed the date she arrived from Northern Ireland.”
Angus, the young man in the kilt, flipped the bar flap and strode over to our table. “We have a few off-menu items tonight. Would you like to hear about them?”
We did, and after perusing the menu as well, decided on the daily special, sea bass with scallop risotto and golden beet salad. We settled back against the cushions with our drinks.
“Eacles is pushing hard for a quick arrest,” Tom said. “He has his eye on the housekeeper.”
“What?” I stared at him. “She didn’t do it, Tom. What motive would she have had? She knows nothing about antiques or how to sell them. She’s not a thief. All she wanted was her weekly pay.”
“Try convincing Eacles. What we need is someone with both motive and means. Right now I’d say our best bet is the Australian nephew.”
“If he’s in England.”
“Yes—if he’s in England.”
“What about the Lius? They were both at the crime scene. Maybe The White Lotus Society knew about the húnpíng and sent Henry to England.”
“And he’s been waiting since 1997 to do something about it? Henry had a perfectly good reason for being on the scene. They ran out of shrimp rolls.”
“How about the son, James, then? He lied about being at the tent.”
“There still wasn’t enough time. He couldn’t have driven Evelyn Villiers to Long Barston. People saw him helping out there before the play.
“Hmm.” It was a good point.
Our meals came, and we spent the next few minutes enjoying our first bites. Jayne was watching us from behind the bar. I gave her a thumbs-up. I could have happily eaten at The Three Magpies every night for the rest of my life.
Especially with Tom.
They say familiarity breeds contempt—or boredom. Not in this case. Being with Tom Mallory was becoming an alarming necessity. To be blunt, I couldn’t get enough of him. Oh dear. He’d told me at Christmastime he was a lost man. Well, I was getting lost with him, and enjoying every minute of the journey. The question was, where were we headed? I had no idea.
“Tell me more about your theory,” Tom said, setting down his fork. “The turning points in Evelyn Villiers’s life.”
“It’s not a theory—just some interesting connections.” I took a bite of risotto and chewed thoughtfully. “The one thing that doesn’t fit is the green maiden.”
“You were going to tell me something about wagon bell the other night.”
“That’s right—I’d forgotten. I found something in Dunmow Parva—where Lucy was sent after the inquest.”
“What does Dunmow Parva have to do with—?”
“Just listen. I told you, the day Evelyn Villiers came into Ivor’s shop she said something that sounded like wagon bell. We know she was interested in the legend because she had that book by her bedside with the green maiden chapter marked, and she told the housekeeper she hoped one day they’d get the story right.
“I still don’t get the connection with Dunmow Parva.”
“I’m not finished. I also told you I found Winnifred Villiers’s old house in Dunmow Parva. And I met the neighbor, Sheila Parker. After Sheila and I talked that day, I stopped at The Green Maiden pub in the village. Tom, the place is a shrine to the legend—gift shop, lithographs on the walls, quotations from the legend painted on the beams in Old English. I was trying to figure out what the words meant—it’s been a long time since I studied Anglo-Saxon—when I noticed two words that could be pronounced wagon bell.”
I wrote the words out on the bar napkin: Wægn belæwung.
“Did you mention it to Lucy?”
“She’d never heard of it.”
“What do the words mean?”
“No clue, but I may know someone who can translate.”
He looked at me suspiciously. “Kate, what are you planning?”
What I was planning was a return trip to Essex. If anyone could translate the Anglo-Saxon language, I was pretty sure it would be Professor Markham. He may have slammed the door in my face, but I wasn’t giving up that easily.
I reached up and kissed Tom on the cheek. “No worries. Only a chat with an aging academic.”
“An elderly ex-housekeeper, an aging academic. Who’s next? The ghost of Agatha Christie?”
“Why not, if she can help? This case has roots in the past.”
Tom held up my empty wineglass. “Another?”
I nodded. “As long as you’re driving.”
As Tom stepped up to the bar, I thought about those roots into the past. Something was bothering me, flitting around the edges of my brain like a subliminal image in a movie theater. Was it the Australian nephew, hearing that Lucy had disappeared and figuring he was next in line for his English uncle’s
