The Ninth Daughter - By Barbara Hamilton Page 0,97
insulted, that the British believe I’d be such a booby as to announce murderous intentions under the name that pretty much everyone in New England knows is mine.” He pulled off his wig, folded it carefully, and laid it on the corner of the table, then vigorously scratched his scalp. A small pot of cider—and two larger ones of hot water—steamed gently over the fire, and Abigail went to fetch cold chicken and a couple of slices of corn-pudding for him from the crocks where tomorrow’s cold Sabbath dinner waited, cooked and ready.
Of her account of Richard Pentyre’s reaction to being asked about his movements on the night of the twenty-third, he said, “In truth it’s no more than I expected. Even if he didn’t murder his wife, he might have been up to a dozen things he’d rather the Provost Marshal didn’t know about. The fact that he’s a friend of the Crown and a consignee for the East India Company’s tea doesn’t mean he isn’t elbow-deep in smuggling cognac, silk, and paint-pigment from the French.”
“Is that something Sam could find out about?”
“I suppose.” John poured molasses over the corn-pudding. “If you feel like explaining to him that you’re still investigating this murder.”
“I do,” said Abigail grimly. “While on the island I spoke to Lucy Fluckner—”
“What, Tom Fluckner’s heiress?”
“And a true-blue Whig, it sounds like,” said Abigail. “She told me that at the time Mrs. Fishwire and Mrs. Barry were murdered, a third woman—the Fluckners’ maidservant Philomela—was having horrible poems sent to her, and was being followed, by a man whom she suspects was the killer.”
“Suspects—?”
“Because of something in one of the poems, about killing a red-haired woman. A few days ago—less than a week after Mrs. Pentyre’s murder, in other words—he started following her again.”
John whispered, “Damn. Is she sure? Not that it’s the killer, but that it’s the same man who followed her the summer before last?”
“She’s sure.” Quickly she outlined all that the girls had told her. “There was no time to seek out Lieutenant Coldstone after I learned this, or I would have been stranded on the island for the night, and Heaven only knows what Sam would have had to say. I’ll write him tomorrow. Coldstone, I mean, not Sam. At least she shall be safe there at the fort . . .”
“If the man isn’t a Tory himself, and there among them,” murmured John, and carried his plate to the sideboard. “Or masquerading as one. With the island that crowded, and people coming and going on business to the town, it would be easy. It does sound as if he’s been away, doesn’t it?”
Together they brought the tin tub from the corner where she and Pattie had stood it earlier, brought up the screen to protect it from drafts, and poured the hot water in. “There’s nothing to tell us that he lives in Boston and not New York or Halifax, for that matter,” said John, as he took off his coat. “In fact, nothing in any of this indicates that the man who killed Perdita Pentyre has anything to do with the man who killed the others and now, apparently, has resumed his pursuit of another woman who, like your precious Pamela, has neither friends nor family strong enough to look out for her.”
“Pamela.” Abigail, who had gone to fetch the candles from the table, came back around the screen. “John, tell me if this sounds mad, but—it occurred to me today—is there any chance that the reason Rebecca has not come forward—has not even gotten a message to me or Sam or Orion—is that she’s . . . she’s being held prisoner somewhere?”
He paused in the act of removing his neckcloth, regarded her in the softly flickering light with a kind of gentleness, as if she had an injury that would reawaken in agony if touched. “I think it far likelier that she is dead,” he said.
“I do—I would—because of course in any house in Boston where she could be locked in an attic, she could also be buried in the cellar. Except this man, whoever he is . . . he doesn’t hide the bodies of his victims.”
John took the candles from her hand, set them on the chimney breast. “The man who killed Mrs. Barry and Mrs. Fishwire doesn’t hide the bodies,” he said. “The man who killed Mrs. Pentyre—if he is not the same man—only left in the open the body that he wanted the Watch to find.