door, the flickering candlelight showing her face wrought and her mourning bonnet askew, was Rebecca Harriman.
She had grabbed the doctor’s arm when she saw me come into view behind him, and we stared at each other in wonder.
“Mr. Speed? But what are you doing here?” she said.
“I was about to ask the same question.”
“You two know each other?” said the doctor, looking back and forth between us.
“Never mind that,” Rebecca said. She wrung her hands together frantically. “I’m glad I found both of you. I need help. Jesse’s missing.”
CHAPTER 13
“What happened?” the doctor and I each demanded, more or less in unison.
“I collected him at the Globe, right where you left him, Mr. Speed. We headed for Torrey’s inn. As it was getting toward evening, I decided it made sense to lodge there overnight before riding home at sunrise.” Rebecca’s voice was much less steady than usual, and her hands worked against each other anxiously as she spoke.
“We were in the public room there, and Jesse said he’d like to go outside for some fresh breaths. After a while, I noticed he hadn’t come back. I went to look for him, but he was—” Her voice caught, and she gasped for breath—“nowhere. He’d . . . he’d vanished.”
“How long ago was this?” I asked.
“The sun had just set when I went out looking for him.”
That was well over two hours ago, I thought. Why had it taken her so long to sound the alarm?
Rebecca had one hand to her forehead and with the other she tore at her black dress. “Oh—if only we’d ridden home to Menard tonight,” she wailed. “None of this would have happened. First Lilly and now . . . I cannot bear it.” She wobbled on her feet and reached out to the wall to steady herself.
“We don’t know anything’s happened, Widow Harriman,” Dr. Patterson said. “He’s probably hiding somewhere, the little devil. We’ll find him safe and sound, I’ve no doubt.”
“Let’s fan out at once,” I said. “He can’t have gone far. Doctor, perhaps you and the Widow Harriman should go to Torrey’s. Most likely he’s still in the vicinity.” I turned to Rebecca and asked, “Where else might he have run off to?”
She raised her arms helplessly.
“What about the stables?” came Martha’s voice from behind us. I swung around and saw Martha and Jane standing back in the hallway, clutching each other’s arms in worry. “This is the little boy who was in the loose room with Hickory when I arrived earlier, right, Joshua? Maybe he’s visiting the horses again.”
“Good idea,” I said. “I’ll head to the Globe to look for him there.”
“I’m coming with you,” Martha said. “Jane and I both will help with the search.” Jane nodded resolutely.
We all hurried down the front steps of the house. At the bottom of the red-brick walk I turned to Rebecca and said, with as much confidence as I could muster, “We’ll find him.” She gave me a stricken look in response.
Patterson grabbed the lapel of my coat and hissed into my ear, “I haven’t yet finished with you, Speed.” Without waiting for a reply, he turned around, took Rebecca by one arm and Jane by the other, and hurried off in the direction of Torrey’s.
“Who’s Lilly and what’s happened to her?” asked Martha as soon as we were alone, striding swiftly in the direction of the stables.
“I should have told you earlier,” I said. “It’s the real reason I wrote the letter to Father to forestall your visit.” Quickly, I explained about Lilly’s death, as Martha’s face grew pale in the moonlight. “So stick close by me tonight,” I concluded. “Who knows who could be lurking about in the dark, especially if something’s happened to the boy now?”
“That’s a terrible tragedy, but I can take care of myself,” my sister said with assurance.
“I imagine Lilly thought the same.”
I prayed Patterson and Rebecca would find Jesse near the inn. Torrey’s Temperance Hotel was the oldest and shabbiest public accommodation in Springfield, an odd place for Rebecca to have chosen to spend the night with her young nephew. The public room there was notably rough and the liquor its barkeep served notably harsh. That the self-proclaimed “temperance” hotel had become the quickest and cheapest place in town to get stinking drunk was a fact so accepted by the local populace that no one noticed the irony anymore.
Why was Rebecca lodging there? Was she so short on funds after having paid off the debts of her late