“All right. You have gotten my interest up. If you have no objection, I would like to accompany you.”
“That would be lovely. As you know, I am awkward at these things. I always seem to say the wrong thing, or drop my tea in my lap, or trip over a chair leg.”
Aunt Margaret grinned. “Yes. That about covers your visits.” She looked down at Amy’s feet.
Amy sighed. “Yes. My shoes match.”
Stevens opened the door, and she and Aunt Margaret descended the steps and climbed into the carriage.
Fluffy clouds floated like giant pillows across the sky, blocking the sun, then retreating, allowing the warmth and light to bathe the earth again.
Once they were settled and on their way, Aunt Margaret asked, “William is with the police this morning, is he not?”
“Yes. I am quite anxious. You know how these detectives seem to work, since we’ve dealt with them before. They focus on one suspect and then devote all their time to proving that person was the killer instead of casting their net wider.”
“You were there when the police arrived. What sort of evidence do they have?”
“Apparently one of the ways Mr. Harding was cheating William was by forging his name on contracts that turned out to be questionable at best and criminal at worst. William, of course, knew nothing about them, but it didn’t look good for him. The detectives took the stance that with all the shenanigans going on, Harding and William had formed a partnership and William decided to do away with Harding and claimed the other half of the ill-gotten goods.”
“How horrible for William. I know him to be an upstanding man, and to think they believe he would do illegal and perhaps criminal things with his business dealings is disheartening.”
“Yes. But more than disheartening to William, since he now has to spend time and effort restoring his good name with all those people and businesses that Harding swindled.”
“How does all of this tie in with wanting to visit Miss Gertrude, since you believe she couldn’t have shoved Harding into the river?”
“From what William and I have uncovered, Harding met his victims at the same pub on a regular basis to collect the money. I am hoping Miss Gertrude might have seen other victims in her comings and goings.”
“This leads me to believe you intend to keep on with this investigation.”
“We have to. If we don’t, they’re going to charge William, and as you said, you know him, and he would never murder anyone. Just promise me you won’t tell Papa what I’m doing.”
The carriage came to a rolling stop before her aunt could answer. Aunt Margaret stepped out of the carriage and turned to Amy. “This still sounds dangerous to me. We will discuss this on the way back from our calls.”
Thinking perhaps it had been a mistake to tell her aunt as much as she had and grateful she hadn’t told her everything, especially the part about William being shot, Amy trudged behind her up the steps to the front door.
The ladies seemed pleased to have Amy and Aunt Margaret visit, although they did mention that they hadn’t been expecting callers. When Amy and her aunt offered to leave, the sisters declined and insisted they stay for tea.
“We missed you at church Sunday,” Amy said, once they all had their tea and it was prepared to everyone’s liking. No biscuits or other sweets were offered with the tea, which Amy took as an indication that the sisters were not expecting them to stay long.
Or perhaps hoping they wouldn’t.
“Yes, sister and I were feeling a bit under the weather. I think we might have caught a chill.”
“I hope you are feeling better.” Amy could not help but notice that Miss Gertrude wore some sort of face makeup that was doing a poor job of hiding a few scratches on her face.
“It appears you’ve been injured, Miss Gertrude.” Amy smiled, trying to appear sympathetic. “Nothing serious, I hope.”
The woman waved her hand. “ ’Twas nothing. There is a cat that comes around occasionally. I told sister we should not be feeding the thing. Especially since the last time we did, it scratched my face.”
“Oh dear. Well, do be careful, because those sorts of injuries can cause infections,” Aunt Margaret said.
Silence fell, and Amy had the feeling the ladies were uncomfortable and wanted them to leave.
They shared some innocuous conversation about the weather, Bath traffic, the conditions of the road, and the Queen’s birthday.
As Amy took her last sip of tea, she decided she would try one more question and then depart. “Will we see you at the book club meeting on Thursday?”
Miss Penelope smiled. “Oh yes. We just love the meetings, don’t we, sister?”