So perhaps it was the case that the country, too, could push people together, force them to know each other. In extremity, anyhow.
“She gave you no hint of what she might do after she leaves London?” asked Lenox.
“I doubt she knows. I think she’s had the worst year of her life,” said Jane.
“Do you know what she told me as I put her into the carriage?” said Toto. “She said she’d always wanted to be an actress. I told her to go to Edinburgh and look up Madame Reveille at her theater — to use my name, if she liked, as a reference.”
“Did you really?” said Edmund.
“That’s where I intend to picture her,” said Toto, a piece of toast held meditatively in her hand. “At least until we hear from her again. The wretched thing. Fourteen!”
At that moment Pointilleux came in. He had been up very, very late — and from the looks of it had made an excellent time of the ball — and after greeting them all he asked, eagerly, what had happened.
“Oh, we’ve just been over it,” said Lenox. “I’ll tell you later.”
Pointilleux scowled. “I am miss everything,” he said.
“Get married, then you can be Mrs. Everything,” said Toto.
That afternoon, Edmund and Charles made the rounds of Markethouse, tidying all the stray details of the case.
First they went to see Hadley and told him that they had confirmed their suspicions about the odd incidents at his house: He was not their target, but an accidental victim of the circumstances that had eventually led to the death of the village’s mayor. He nodded gravely and thanked them again; they gently declined his offer of a tour through his gemstones, explaining that their time was still not their own. He saw them out himself — Mrs. Watson, he said, had been called away unexpectedly, a damned nuisance, but she was generally very reliable … and if they needed their lives insured, the Dover Assurance, gentlemen, first-rate service, honest and reliable service, he was happy to wait on their needs at any time …
Their next stop was to see Mickelson and tell him that his dog had been stolen. He was sitting in the Bell and Horns — being a practitioner of that certain variation of professional farming that involves mostly sitting at the bar, telling loud stories — and he took the news philosophically, though he added that it was a shame, because he had drowned a litter of puppies not a week before, and he would have held one back had he known.
Then it was Stallings. Lenox wanted to hear about the details of Stevens’s death, though to his disappointment, the mayor had never spoken.
“He revived a little before evening, but then fell comatose again,” the doctor reported, “and by nightfall he was scarcely breathing. Indeed, my assistant called me in three times, certain that he was dead. At last he stopped fogging the mirror at just after eight o’clock.”
“His wounds killed him?”
“If his clothing or the knife was unclean, his internal organs may well have become infected — a case of sepsis, as the medical journals have begun to call it now, from the Greek. I plan to be present at the autopsy.”
Their final visit was to Clavering. This was the one they had both been anticipating unhappily, given that they would have to deceive him.
As it happened, however, he was ahead of their news. “She’s gone,” he said, greeting them. Calloway was still in the cell behind him, and Clavering gestured toward the old man. “His daughter. Fled. Adelaide Snow’s already been in to tell how it happened.”
“We heard,” said Edmund, and indeed several people had stopped them to tell them the news.
“And I can’t blame her,” said Clavering grimly. “Not with what’s passin’ about — the word about Stevens.”
“The word?”
It was the day of the market, and there were stalls and sellers in the square, chattering; a small village could never half-keep a secret, Lenox supposed, it was either buried, or everyone knew. Who had spoken about it to whom, igniting the chain of gossip? One of the women they had visited last night? Another one of Stevens’s victims?
Clavering’s face was black with anger. “At least he’s dead.”
“Amen,” said a voice from the cell — Mad Calloway.
They looked at him. “Would you like to speak to us now?” asked Clavering. “Take back your confession?”
Calloway shook his head firmly and decisively. “On the contrary, I stand by it. I killed him. I hope I have a chance to say as much to a court under oath.”
Lenox, a father, understood — and glancing over at Edmund, he saw that his brother also did.
Apparently Clavering understood, too. He took the key to the cell from its peg and said, “I suppose you might as well stay at your cottage until it’s all sorted out, Mr. Calloway. We can’t spare the staff to stay overnight any longer. You won’t leave Markethouse?”
“I will not.”
“Very well, then. On with you. There’s market today, if you haven’t kept track of the days. I’m sure your garden is a right mess, too, before you can sell anything. I’ll have my eye on you.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
They all spent the morning at the market together, where there was every kind of gossip running up and down the little lanes of the village. A little bit after noon they returned to Lenox House with a whole variety of parcels: oranges in brown paper for Sophia, a small silver mirror that Toto had bought for herself, a basketful of vegetables Lady Jane had acquired.
When they came into the front hall, Lenox saw straightaway that waiting on the silver tray was a letter, its return address visible, from James Lenox, Edmund’s older son.
Edmund spotted it a beat later. He turned pale, took it, and without a word went to his study. He was there for nearly an hour before Lenox decided to knock on his door.
“Come in,” Edmund called.
Lenox entered and saw his brother staring out of the window, a hand at his chin. The letter lay across a small card table next to him.
“How are you?” asked Lenox.
“I think James is the kindest soul that ever lived. He expresses a great deal of concern for me, which of course is unnecessary. Anyhow, better still — the best news I’ve had in a long time — he’s returning here for a visit, as soon as he’s handled a few small matters in Kenya.”
“That’s wonderful.”
“I think he may be home in time for Christmas, with any luck from the wind,” said Edmund, smiling.
He looked younger — and Lenox realized, knowing Edmund as he did, that it wasn’t simply the news that James would return home. It was the letter itself. What did it mean to be left alone to take care of the children, when it was two of you who had brought them into the world together? It was a part of Edmund’s burden that Charles hadn’t quite considered; he had thought of the companionship that was gone, the love and care, but less of how solitary and grave Edmund’s responsibilities as a father had become.
James would be all right. That was why he looked so relieved.
“That will be a treat,” said Lenox.
Edmund sighed and smiled wanly. “Yes. Only Teddy to tell, now. And who knows, James may be able to tell him with me. Teddy’s always looked up to his brother.”
“I know it. So have I!”
“Oh, shut up.”
Lenox hadn’t been joking, but he let it pass.
The supper that evening was the nicest one they’d had yet. Atherton came, and afterward the five of them played cards in the convivial blaze of fire and candlelight, drinks and small biscuits on the table with the cards, the dogs sleeping on the thick rug, and Toto losing so steadily and spectacularly that she owed them a theoretical fortune by the end of the night.