swaying to and fro on the washing line.
She had been lucky it had not rained for two days, she thought glancing up at the blue sky. It was a crisp day in early March. The sun was nowhere to be seen, but at least there were no rainclouds. Unpegging the six rugs, she laid them out side by side and sprinkled them liberally with the tea leaves. She was just picking up her brush when a voice at her elbow startled her.
“Putting the place to rights, aren’t you, missus?” Turning, Mina saw it was the old man who had winked at her in the bar and given her the bunch of flowers at the church.
“Good morning,” she said politely. “Just giving the place a spruce up.”
“Arrr,” he commented, clamping his pipe between his teeth, and rocking back on his heels.
Mina cleared her throat. “I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name the other night.”
“That’s alright, don’t you fret none,” he said comfortably. “Reckon you had enough to occupy you that night. The name’s Gus. Gus Hopkirk.”
“Well, it’s very nice to meet you, Mr. Hopkirk. I’m Minerva Nye.”
“Minerva?” he repeated with a frown, taking his pipe out of his mouth. “That’s not a name from ‘round these parts.”
“No indeed,” she agreed. “I believe it’s Latin in origin.”
“A Roman name?” he gave her an appraising look.
“Yes.”
“Bit of a mouthful for me,” he said frankly. “Reckon I’ll just call you Minnie.” Mina was so taken aback by this piece of familiarity that she couldn’t think how to respond. “Saw one of your birds last night, out at Gull Point,” he continued.
“One of my birds?”
“Aye,” he agreed and touched a finger to his nose. “An owl.” His eyes twinkled and he turned away, ambling across the yard.
Mina’s mouth fell open. There was certainly more to Gus Hopkins than his rough outward appearance let on. Otherwise, how would he know that owls were sacred to the Roman goddess Minerva? She stared after him a moment, wondering if Gull’s Point would be on the cliffs and remembering she had not yet caught even a glimpse of the sea.
Why should she not take the afternoon off and go for a walk until she found the beach? The idea appealed to her. Even as a schoolteacher at her father’s school she had taken every Wednesday afternoon as a half-day holiday. It was nice to have something to look forward to. Her mind made up, she sat back on her haunches and started briskly to brush down the rugs.
A good deal of dirt came away with the tea leaves and floral patterns and borders emerged as she worked. By the time she had finished, her own cuffs, hands, and apron were decidedly worse for wear. There was no point changing her apron now, for she had decided to tackle the grimy windows that afternoon, so after hauling the rugs indoors, she simply went and washed her hands and face in the scullery and then went in search of newspapers to clean the windows with. Edna’s tip regarding the gin had worked wonders on the etched mirrors, but when it came to windows, Mina knew that nothing was as good as newspapers and vinegar.
Remembering she had seen a pile tied up with string in a cupboard, she retrieved a stash of them and carried them through to the parlor room along with a pail to make up the cleaning solution of half vinegar and half water. Mina untied the bundle and started separating the pages out. It wasn’t long before she started noticing that the headlines were a lot more sensational than the ones that had graced her father’s favored broadsheet.
Half-naked Somnambulist Finds Herself in Deadly Peril she noticed had a rather salacious drawing of a scantily clad female dangling from a rooftop, her underwear having fortuitously caught on a chimney pot and spared her from plummeting to her death below. She scrunched that page up for use with her lips pursed. She was of course glad that Miss Fanny Jones had been spared a nasty fall but failed to see why she needed to be depicted in a state of undress for all to see.
The next page contained the highlights of a case against a wicked poisoner who preyed on rich widows, a scandalous divorce case with accusations of infidelity on both sides and an improbable haunting. Mina’s eye had just fallen on an article about a twenty-four-year-old female thief who had masqueraded as a fifteen-year-old errand boy for four