“You—?”
Gray leans out the parlor door. “Is everything all right?”
I turn and half curtsy. “Apologies, sir, I was telling Mrs. Ballantyne that she was mistaken about the funeral today and that you invited her to tea with Detective McCreadie. We will retreat upstairs, so as not to disturb your work.”
He heads back into the funeral parlor, and I glare at Isla, making sure I’m under the lights so she can see my expression. Then I herd her up three flights of stairs to the attic. Only when her laboratory door closes behind me do I let myself explode.
“YouquestionedSimon? By yourself?”
“You said you could not, and I agreed. So I did it myself.” She settles onto a chair. “I was very discreet.”
“He could have been a killer.”
“He is not.”
“You didn’t know—” I bite my tongue. This is going to take us right back where we were earlier, with Isla accusing me of patronizing her. We’re going to need to talk about this. A long discussion on the danger of whatshe just did and the fact that she isn’t an amateur sleuth in a Victorian novel.
I need to say that without sounding as if I’m treating her like a child, and I’m not in the mental state to navigate that conversation successfully. I’ll return to it when I’m calmer.
I take a moment to find my equilibrium and say, “I wish you’d spoken to me, but we can discuss that later. So you talked to him?”
“I was quite clever about it, if I do say so myself.”
I bite back the urge to say that “clever” is not the word I’d use for approaching a potential killer without backup. But her face glows with the exhilaration of success, and I can’t bring myself to dowse it with a blast of reality. Later, I will. For now, I put myself in her place, her very delineated role, all those walls and barricades that even a progressive family cannot knock down for her.
I have punched a hole through one of those walls, giving her a peek into possibilities beyond. A glimpse of excitement and adventure. Can I blame her for missing the quicksand and the crocodiles and seeing only a glimmering tropical paradise?
She’llneedto see those crocodiles and that quicksand—the sooner, the better. But I can’t treat her like a child. She’s a brilliant and capable woman.
“What did you do?” I ask, knowing she’s waiting for this.
“I went to the stables and found him within, currying the horses. I asked him to step out. That seemed safer than speaking to him inside.”
A sidelong look my way, and I grudgingly acknowledge the precaution with a nod.
She continues, “I pointed out a loose cobblestone as my excuse, so it would not seem suspicious that I summoned him out of doors. Then I commended him for the excellent work he’d done, repairing the path into my garden, how it was quite smooth now, and I no longer caught my heel on the stones.”
“Uh-huh.”
“He was quite confused, as he did not repair the path at all. He reminded me that it is the gardener’s work, and while he will be quite happy to tell Mr. Tull about the loose cobblestone, he did not have the means to do more than temporarily fix it himself.”
“Ah.”
“I said yes, I only meant for him to tell Mr. Tull about the stone. As for the garden path, I said I was under the impression he’d aided Mr. Tull with that. He said, no, he had not—we’d had two funerals that day—but he was glad the job was to my satisfaction.”
“Which proves he really is Simon.”
“Quite. An imposter would have agreed to fix the cobblestone and he’d have taken credit for helping with the garden. Therefore, it is Simon, though I am still concerned that you saw him following us.”
“That was your brother’s doing. The more I considered Simon as a suspect, the less I liked it. I could explain away everything except seeing him today, and so I followed a hunch on that.”
“A ‘hunch’ that Duncan had us followed.” Her mouth tightens. “That is not like him. He can be protective, but he knows I venture into the Old Town on my own.”
“He wasn’t protecting you from unsavory neighborhoods. As long as he thinks I’m Catriona—who stole a locket I knew was very important to you—he’s not going to trust me.”
“A matter which we shall resolve as soon as his paper is delivered.” She rises. “All right then. Have we resolved all questions about Simon? Did anything else connect him to Archie Evans beyond his association?”
“A hash pipe.”