guilt about the past. If you can prove you are indeed Mary Sullivan’s son, he will fight for you in court to let you have every penny of the estate that is rightfully yours.’
The young man gasped for air. ‘I had not thought that possible.’ He raked a hand through his hair again. ‘Mother might hate me for this. She has raised me to forget about my father and never want a penny of his fortune.’
Alkmene smiled at him. ‘Or she might be grateful when you explain to her what drove you to it. Your love for her, the wish she would be cared for as she gets older. Silas Norwhich wanted to set things straight. He was sorry for the harm he had caused and he spent many years trying to do penance for it. He even died because of it. I think that does mean something.’
The young man hung his head. ‘When I first met him, I was livid with rage. I did not see him clearly and only hated him for denying it all. But when I saw him at his house that night, it was different. He was different. A broken man. He knew he had been lied to, but he still kept saying it could not be true. He was desperate, and it was pitiful to see. I could for the first time in my life believe he might have been sincere in his attempts to set it straight.’
‘See.’ Jake nodded. His tone was calm and compassionate. ‘So think about contacting Mr Pemboldt. Not at his offices, for his clerks cannot be trusted. Try him at home. And be very cautious in all that you do. The killer is still at large and might come after you too, if he thinks he can still save the fortune he always wanted to have.’
Alkmene looked at Jake. ‘Fitzroy Walker?’
Jake nodded. ‘Has to be.’ He checked his watch. ‘It is too late for us to return to London tonight. We need two hours to get back to the village on foot and… We will have to do it tomorrow.’
He looked at the young man again. ‘Take care.’
He nodded and stepped back. ‘Thank you for coming here. I do not show myself in the village.’
Alkmene frowned at him. ‘You do not… But…how? You were not spying on us at Wallace Thomson’s house this morning, and later at the church when I was looking at the family grave of the Sullivans?’
He shook his head. ‘I never go there. I had a lad take the letter into town and leave it on the counter at the inn.’
Alkmene frowned. If he had not been spying on them, then who had?
And why?
Jake had already pulled the basket out of her hand. ‘It’s still a long walk back, Lady Alkmene. Let me carry that thing. We’d better think up a plan along the way for how to smoke out Fitzroy Walker. Because I have a feeling he will be harder to get than we thought.’
Alkmene’s feet were positively on fire when they reached the inn again. She asked the innkeeper’s wife to bring her a basin with lukewarm water, large enough to put her feet into. Also some sherry and some cheese and cold cuts.
Jake hitched a brow at her. ‘Used to command?’
Alkmene was too tired to mind, or retort. She just dragged herself up the stairs and once the water had come, dipped her feet into it. It was bliss to sit and let the water play around her feet, through her toes, while the sherry warmed her from the inside out and the cheese caressed her palate.
OK, it wasn’t French and refined like at home, but with an empty stomach everything tasted sweet.
Sitting with her bed pillow behind her back, she closed her eyes and enjoyed the sense of elation that they were so close to the solution. They had their killer identified and only needed a strategy to smoke him out.
Only, hmmm?
Jake had been right that it might be harder than they thought. After all, they had no proof that Fitzroy Walker had been at the house that night, face to face with Silas Norwhich.
As long as they could not place him there, they had nothing to offer to the police. All the pieces they did have formed an intriguing picture, a motive certainly, but they also needed opportunity.
Maybe Fitzroy Walker had already cleverly bought an alibi for the night, convincing some friends or men from a bar to lie for him that he had been with them.
Maybe he would snub them to their faces, proving them wrong in their assumption it had to have been him. But who else?
Somebody knocked on her door.
‘Yes?’ she called, too tired to get up.
Jake came in, carrying her scarf in his hand. ‘This was still in my pocket. I should have returned it to you when we came in.’
She smiled at him a moment. ‘Thank you. Put it on the bed, will you? Thanks also for retrieving it and keeping it safe. It was a present from my father, and he is fussy when I lose things.’ She yawned. ‘I feel bushed. I need sleep more than anything else. You have dinner alone, if you want to. I am turning in just as soon as my poor feet have cooled down.’
Jake laughed. ‘You do know that if you stay too long in that water, your pretty little feet will get all wrinkled?’
‘Like that lasts for ever.’ She stretched her arms over her head. ‘You can’t rile me tonight, Jake. I feel glorious.’
Jake stood, tall, imposing. ‘Strange. You met a man who was done a grave injustice and you feel glorious?’
‘Well, he is about to inherit all of Silas Norwhich’s estate. That should make up for something. I suppose if Mary Sullivan still loves pretty things, she will have some now.’
Jake huffed. ‘That is so typical for your kind of people. Thinking money can buy off anything. As if injustice can simply be settled by paying a price into an account.’
He turned to the door. ‘I am glad we are not eating together tonight. I couldn’t swallow a bite.’
He slammed the door shut. The bang reverberated through the floor and creaked in the beams overhead.
Alkmene sat stiffly, suddenly sensing the water was getting too cold, her poor feet were freezing and her stomach was warm from sherry but could perhaps have used some more substantial sustenance.
But after what Jake had just yelled at her, she was not going down. She didn’t want to see his arrogant face.
Not tonight, maybe not tomorrow either. He was dead set on misconstruing everything she said. Blaming her for the bad feeling that he had over his mother’s ordeal. But she had nothing to do with his mother, his father, his past. He should stop making her pay for an injustice that was not her fault.
Despite Alkmene’s recent assertion he could not rile her, her happy feeling had vanished completely now, and she felt so tired she could just cry. Whatever they accomplished together, it did not change Jake’s views of her. He wanted to hold on to his prejudice.
Perhaps she had to distance herself from him to maintain her dignity. Just look at her – almost shedding tears because he was so unreasonable.
First thing in the morning she had to arrange for a car here in the village, to get
