what you were told?” Charlotte asked.
“By Jemima Hurd, who accused Martha Sloan of being somewhat wanton in her affections. She is a handsome girl, perhaps more suitable for our Lem, after all, than for—” Rowe came to a halt. He realized that the suggestion was no longer worth making, with Alexander Godwin lying dead.
Longfellow answered the minister's next question before it was asked. “We've left him in your cellar, out in the graveyard. I've also sent someone for John Dudley.”
Talk of a corpse in his own backyard caused Rowe to consider more carefully the likely impact of the matter. “But murder—you are absolutely sure? How, exactly, have you drawn your conclusion?”
“By looking at a hole in the back of his neck, about the size of a shilling. We're certain it was made by a tool found beside him.”
“A tool? To me, that would imply an accident, perhaps suffered while he worked on the ice yesterday. Though with so many about—”
“This was no accident. He must have been attacked from behind, struck by an ice hatchet Lem took from Mrs. Willett's barn. The killer left the body in a small wood where it was unlikely to be found for hours, or even days.”
Rowe removed his hand from Charlotte's. Had he finally begun to pull the pieces together? She wondered all the more when it seemed his eyes made of new point of avoiding her own. Instead, they went to the cloth bundle on the hearth.
Just as he took a breath to speak once more, Rowe was interrupted by a voice from the doorway.
“Thus,” Moses Reed said quietly, “we have a weapon, witnesses to an earlier altercation involving the victim, and a possible motive. But these things are rarely what they seem. Tell me, who found the body?” The lawyer entered, and set the tea service he carried onto a table.
“Lem Wainwright, I'm sorry to say,” Longfellow replied.
“Another point for the prosecution.” Reed stroked his beard thoughtfully. “Some might say that a man who has committed murder will go back to the scene of his crime… but that sort of thing is hardly proof. What was the boy doing when he found the body?”
“Looking for the hatchet he'd lost earlier,” Longfellow explained. He mentioned seeing the missing canvas bag himself—and, that it had long rested at the feet of several men at the bonfire, including the village constable.
“Now that may take us forward a step. Has the affection reported between Lem and Martha Sloan been put into the form of an engagement?”
“Not yet,” Charlotte answered.
“Then I doubt he would go as far as murder to protect his name, or hers. At least a jury may not care to think so. And the scuffle could have been caused by something else entirely. I'll know more when I've talked with the boy—if you wish it,” he added, giving Lem's acknowledged sponsors a chance to refuse.
“It could be a good idea,” said Charlotte. “Do you think he's in enough danger to need an attorney?”
“At the moment, that's difficult to say.”
“If so, would you be able to help him, Mr. Reed?”
“I will try, madam. For your sake as well as for his. Although I've not been asked to stand in court on a case of murder, I've seen one or two tried. It's a challenge I'll gladly accept, should it come to that.”
Further speculation was interrupted by rapid knocking.
As he was closest to the front door, Reed went to answer. Moments later, there was a bustle in the entry hall. Then they saw a man with dun-colored hair and a strikingly bulbous nose make his way into the room. John Dudley went straight for the fire. Once he'd reached it he stood with his back nearly covering the hearth, his hands behind him, swaying slightly.
Charlotte could not help noticing, as she looked up, that the constable suffered from a large red carbuncle on his neck, with three or four yellow heads coming up around it. This seemed almost worthy of one of the sly friends of Sir John Falstaff—though which one, she could not recall.
“What's this about a murder?” the constable asked, after he'd sent a bleary eye to each of them.
“You heard already?” asked Longfellow.
“You think it's nothing at all to come walking down the road with a corpse under a sheet of canvas? Several saw you—by now, the news is all over the village. What do you expect me to do about it?”
Not known for an ability to converse politely, John Dudley seemed to