“It’s blue,” Hammersmith said. “Did any of the missing people have blue eyes? Is this the little boy’s eye?”
“I don’t know,” Hilde said. “I don’t remember their eyes. But it can’t belong to anyone else, can it? I mean, nobody else round here’s missing an eyeball or I think I would have noticed.”
“How big was it?” Day said. “Before it withered, I mean?”
“It was the size of an eyeball, I suppose. I thought it was a tiny egg.”
“But was it the size of an adult’s eye or a child’s?”
“I’ve never seen an eyeball that wasn’t in a person’s head before.”
“Yes, of course. I don’t suppose you have.”
“It’s not much of a clue,” Hammersmith said.
“The good doctor might be able to tell us more about it tomorrow.”
“Dr Denby would help you,” Hilde said.
“Yes,” Day said. “But we’re talking about our doctor friend from London.”
“Oh, please don’t let him take it to London,” Hilde said. “I’ll never get it back.”
“I don’t think that will be necessary,” Day said. “He’ll join us here soon enough. In the meantime, is there anything you can tell us about the missing boy, Oliver? Was he your playmate?”
“He’s only a baby.”
“Then you didn’t know him?”
“Of course I know him. I said I don’t play with Oliver. He always follows Peter about, and it’s quite annoying.”
“Peter?”
“His older brother.”
Hammersmith cleared his throat and reached for his notebook and pencil.
“What can you tell us about the Price family?” Day said.
“Well, there’s Oliver, of course. Virginia is next youngest. She’s five. Then Anna and Peter. But they’re not all properly brothers and sisters. Peter and Anna and Virginia all had the same mother. But Oliver is different and not properly a part of the family, except that they have the same father, which is nearly good enough, but Virginia doesn’t think so at all.”
“And you play with the elder siblings.”
“Peter and Anna are far too old to play with me. Anna is very nice to me, though. Peter and I will be married when I’m old enough, only he doesn’t know that yet.”
“I see. Then Sutton Price is father to all four children and has two missing wives, yes?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And the most recent missing wife would be Hester Price.”
“Yes.”
“She is mother to Oliver, also missing, but not to the other three.”
“No, sir. Their mother’s dead and gone. Or gone, anyway. Oliver’s mother was nanny to the others before she married Mr Price. Now she’s their stepmother.”
“They do seem particular on that point,” Hammersmith said.
“Her name was Mathilda, is that right? The first Mrs Price, I mean.”
“I think her name was also Mrs Price before the new Mrs Price come along, sir.”
Day looked at Hammersmith, who shrugged and nodded.
“That does make sense,” he said.
“Indeed. Very well, Hilde. Thank you for your help. Would you mind if we keep your souvenir for a day or two if I promise to return it before we leave Blackhampton?”
“You really will give it back?”
“I really will.”
“Okay. I had better get to my room before Father returns and scolds me.”
“How is your mother? We heard she’s feeling a bit ill.”
“She’s sleeping. Dr Denby says he’ll come first thing to look after her again.”
Hilde rose from the chair with some difficulty and tottered on her good leg before getting the cane under her and limping to the staircase. She looked back at them, a shadow of doubt flitting across her face. She bit her lower lip.
“You won’t lose it now? The eye, I mean.”
“We won’t lose it.”
She smiled and moved slowly up the stairs. Hammersmith waited until she had passed from sight and sighed. “Well,” he said, “we do seem to have evidence of a murder, but I don’t see that it helps us a bit.”
“Nor I. Perhaps the doctor will be able to work some miracle of chemistry on this eyeball.”
“You don’t think Hilde Rose had anything to do with the crime?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. She’s a child.” Day snapped the box shut and set it on the table.
9
Jessica let the siblings run ahead, not too far, but they had been cooped up inside all day and needed to release some energy. They could easily be mistaken for twins. Peter was twelve years old, and if his father had been anyone but Sutton Price he might already be working the mines. He was a bright lad, quiet and independent, but quick to find solutions. He rarely completed his schoolwork, but he performed brilliantly at quizzes. His sister Anna was more decisive and studious. She was only eleven, but she was as tall as Peter was and she mirrored her older brother in nearly every way. If he was the creative light of the Price family, Anna was the practical rock that grounded him.
“That’s far enough, children,” Jessica said. Peter in his black overcoat had disappeared in the darkness.
When she caught up to them, she found that they were hunkered over the top of an old pit. Peter was leaning forward on a slag pile while Anna hung back a bit, urging her brother on.
“Say it,” Anna said.
“I will,” Peter said.
“Then say it.”
“I’m working up to it.”
“You’re not going to say anything.”
“Am, too.”
“Then say it.”
“Peter, come away from there,” Jessica said.
Anna looked up at her as she drew near them and smiled as if to convey that she was uninvolved in any wrongdoing. Peter glanced in her direction and then leaned farther over the edge of the pit, clearly in a hurry now to carry out his sister’s challenge.
“Rawhead and Bloody Bones,” he said.
Jessica rushed forward and slipped on a patch of ice as Peter continued chanting down into the pit, his voice louder now that he was committed to the dare: “Steals naughty children from their homes!”
Jessica landed on her bottom on the hard ground and stifled a scream. She was wearing a corset, a petticoat, a dress, and a heavy woolen overcoat, so the fall didn’t hurt her in the slightest, but her face flushed with humiliation. Anna rushed over to help her teacher up, but Jessica waved her hand at Peter, who was still at the lip of the pit, still staring down into the dark.
“Peter, stop that right now!”
Peter didn’t even glance in her direction. “Takes them to his dirty den,” he said. His voice was strained now, and the words were nearly choked off by the time he mouthed dirty den.
Jessica struggled to her feet as Anna scurried about, picking up the books Jessica had dropped. Jessica let the girl tend to the books. She marched forward, more careful now about the ice underfoot, and grabbed Peter by the back of his collar. He came easily away from the pit, but Jessica almost lost her footing anyway and rocked forward as she recovered her balance. For a moment, she was staring down into the maw of the pit. Compared to the utter blackness down there, the night sky seemed blue and full of life, stars and moon and white frozen breath. But it seemed to Jessica that she could see the slightest orange glow somewhere down there in the tunnel, as if a small fire had been lit in response to Peter’s call. The thought that something might be coming through the mines toward them made Jessica shudder. She drew back from the pit and pressed a knuckle to her teeth.
She whirled Peter around and gripped him by his shoulders. The boy was so thin as to be nearly weightless, all elbows and knees. She saw now that he was crying, quietly, tears dragging down his cheeks, sluggish in the cold. She pressed his face against her coat and stroked his hair. He needed a haircut, she noticed. She wondered, not for the first time, how well the children were faring without their parents, how well the housekeeper was caring for them. If Mr and Mrs Price weren’t found soon, a decision would have to be made about where to put Peter, Anna, and Virginia. It was likely they’d be split up and raised in different households. Jessica felt her throat closing and forced herself onto a different train of thought. It would do Peter no good if she started crying herself.