‘He might have drugged Celia,’ Oswald argued. ‘He’s a doctor, after all, and has such things in his medicine chest. And how do I know you’re not aiding and abetting him? You might be in this together.’
‘And why would I want your sister here?’ Mistress Ireby scoffed. ‘I’ve no wish for my brother to get married again. At least, not since the death of my husband. I’ve been very comfortable here these past twelve months, caring for Roderick. I have no desire to live alone.’
I doubted if Oswald had heard much of this. He was chewing his lower lip and pursuing some thought of his own.
‘You say your brother has gone to visit an uncle at Barnet. Whereabouts exactly does this man live?’
Mistress Ireby sucked in her breath. Her eyes were like flints. ‘I have told you, my uncle is reported to be on his deathbed. Do you really suppose I would give you his direction so that you could blunder in with your wild accusations against Roderick and disturb his final hours? Get out of this house now, Master Godslove, before I summon my neighbours to help eject you.’
‘We’re going, Mistress,’ I said gently, ‘but before we do, would you be gracious enough to describe to us your brother’s movements today. We know that he was at the Arbour this morning after breakfast and had words with Celia.’
‘Words!’ Oswald interjected furiously. ‘He damned well forced his unwelcome attentions on her if your children are to be believed.’
I frowned him down. ‘Did he return here afterwards, Mistress Ireby?’
Her thin bosom swelled and, ignoring Oswald, she addressed herself to me. ‘Roderick did return for his dinner, yes. Then he went out to see one of his patients in Paternoster Row, and it was while he was gone that a man servant of our uncle’s arrived to request his presence urgently at Barnet. As I told you, our uncle is thought to be dying. When Roderick returned, he paused merely to pack a few necessaries in his saddlebag and he was off. He told me to expect him when I see him. There’s no telling how long Uncle Silas might linger.’
I thanked her again for her courtesy, took Oswald firmly by the arm and led him out to the patiently waiting horses. He was my host and I could hardly criticize his behaviour, but as we rode back through the city, I did venture to remark that Roderick Jeavons seemed to be innocent of whatever had befallen Celia.
‘If you think that, you’re a simpleton,’ he answered scornfully. ‘I’m not at all convinced that he knows nothing. In fact, I intend having that house watched for the next few days, and I’m entrusting the task to you, my dear Roger.’
I was so taken aback that I found myself unable to utter a single word of protest, and we completed our journey in almost total silence, passing out through the Bishop’s Gate with only minutes to spare before the curfew bell tolled. (We heard the gate creak shut as we drew abreast of St Mary’s Hospital.) But I had plenty to say to Adela as we fell wearily into bed after what seemed like one of the longest days of my life. (I had hoped against hope that Celia might have returned during our absence with some perfectly reasonable explanation for her disappearance, but the long faces of the women had told their own story.)
Adela said now, snuggling into my side, ‘You really aren’t perfectly well yet, sweetheart, but I don’t see that you can refuse. And they are all in such distress, and so frightened after the other dreadful things that have happened to them, and they have all been so kind to me during the past few weeks that it would be worse than churlish to say no.’
It was on the tip of my tongue to point out that if she had trusted me more, been less willing to believe Juliette Gerrish’s pack of lies, we would be under no obligation to the Godsloves: we would never have set eyes on them nor become involved in their sorry saga. But suddenly I felt too tired, too bone-weary even to speak. I could hear the children’s muffled snorts and snufflings from the neighbouring room, reassuring sounds that there was some sanity left in a world that suddenly seemed bleak and menacing, so I put my arm around Adela and went to sleep.
For the next two days, while Oswald half-heartedly pursued his calling, either in chambers, off Chancery Lane, or in the law courts at Westminster — I felt sorry for his clients who could not possibly have been commanding his full attention — I spent much of my time in and around Old Dean’s Lane, watching for signs of Roderick Jeavons’s return. On more than one occasion, when Mistress Ireby left the house, I had to dodge about on the opposite side of the street, hoping she would not notice me, and I lived on meat pies and small beer obtained from vendors of these commodities in Westcheap. This diet, plus the conviction that I was wasting precious hours when I could be pursuing other lines of enquiry elsewhere, in no way improved my temper or my digestion. On Saturday evening, therefore, I told Oswald bluntly that in future, while I was prepared to visit Old Dean’s Lane once a day until I was satisfied that the doctor had finally come home, I refused to hang around the district all day, every day.
‘It’s folly,’ I said. ‘I shall be bound to know when he’s returned.’
Oswald, whose features were as ravaged as his sisters’ and whose eyes were like two dark bruises from lack of proper sleep, was forced, in the end, to agree with me.
‘But we’ll go together tomorrow,’ he insisted, ‘after Mass. We’ll all go to St Botolph’s in the morning to pray for Celia’s safe return. .’
His voice broke and he pushed aside his half-eaten supper with a trembling hand, an act which set Clemency and Sybilla off crying again, the former quietly, the latter with her customary noisy abandon. Hercules, who had somehow managed to creep unseen into the dining parlour, started to howl in sympathy. Elizabeth, Nicholas and Adam were looking frightened and Adela shepherded them away to play upstairs. She pressed Clemency’s shoulder as she passed her cousin’s chair, but I could see that she, too, was beginning to wish we were well out of a situation that seemed to grow more dark and menacing with every passing day. The Arbour, with its increasingly fraught and fearful atmosphere, was fast becoming no place for children.
In bed that night, we talked again of returning home, and this time Adela agreed with me. But, yet again, we decided that to do so would be both mean and cowardly. Adela would have to devote herself to keeping the children — and, of course, the dog — amused, while I did my best to unravel the mystery of who hated the Godslove family enough to try to kill them.
‘Have you,’ I asked, ‘ever heard any one of them mention, or perhaps hint at, something in their past that could be in any way. . disgraceful?’
Adela raised her head from my shoulder and stared up into my face, her forehead, as far as I could see in the gloom, creased in puzzlement. ‘No, never. Why? Do you know of something?’
I broke my promise and told her what the little kitchen maid had said to me, having first obtained her promise to utter not a word to anyone else about it. But when I had finished, she was as bemused as I was.
‘The child must have been mistaken in what she heard. Or thought she heard. What possible secret — “terrible secret” — could any of them possibly have?’
I kissed her. ‘If we knew that, my love, we might have a better idea of who it is who is trying to murder them all.’
‘You don’t really believe it?’ Her tone was indignant. ‘They have their faults like all of us, but essentially they’re very good people.’
They were related to her by blood, however remotely, and she did not care to believe ill of them. Moreover, as she kept repeating, they had been kind to her.
‘It’s quite possible that the girl was mistaken,’ I answered soothingly, but kept my true opinion to myself: that the household was a peculiar one; that the almost lover-like devotion of the siblings was unhealthy and unnatural, a potential breeding ground for evil. ‘Go to sleep now and forget about it.’
I would have made love to her, but my wife is a good daughter of Holy Church, which decrees that copulation is sinful before going to Mass. So I lay staring into the darkness, stifling my urges, listening to Adela’s even breathing as she sank deeper into slumber, longing for home and wondering where it would all end, and when.