Page 41 of The Case of the Curate

“Did you notice Mr. Newman or anyone else up there?”

Miss Nye shook her head. “No. But then, you know, I wasn’t really paying attention.” She sounded apologetic, as though sorry to have let Kate down. Then she brightened. “Although, now I think about it, my brother was leaving the drawing room just as I went up. Perhaps you could ask him.”

Those kindly eyes blinked shortsightedly. Was there a challenge there? Did she think Kate would be too overawed to question Sir Colin?

“Was the footman at his post then?” Kate asked.

“Ye-es, I think so.”

“Did you notice when these gentlemen returned to the drawing room?”

“I’m sure Colin was back by the time I returned. I believe you were back in the drawing room shortly afterward.”

“Yes, but I was not paying attention,” Kate said ruefully. Her head had been full of her reunion with Rupert. “I’m hoping you were.”

“They were all back before Lord Chadbon was called away.”

Lewis had seen Otteridge return, too. The man must have been away from the drawing room for twenty minutes or half an hour—what on earth had he been doing? Lying in wait for Dinah, while Kate had been in the orangery with Rupert?

The footman had not mentioned seeing Nye or Newman return to the drawing room. Newman must have been away for some time too, if he had preceded Miss Nye upstairs, although Sir Colin had obviously not been gone so long. Did this rule him out?

A pity, she thought with a twinge of guilt. If there had to be a murderer here, Gilbert would prefer it to be a Tory.

Clearing her throat, Kate set down her fork and picked up her teacup before leaning closer to Miss Nye. “Tell me honestly, ma’am, what do you think of these gentlemen? Mr. Otteridge and Mr. Newman.”

For a moment, Miss Nye’s eyes cleared, the semipermanent cloud of worry fading. “Honestly? I don’t like Mr. Otteridge. He’s ambitious and never says what he means. Mr. Newman is young and personable but equally ambitious. I can’t imagine the former noticing a mere maidservant. Newman would notice her femininity, not her.”

Kate caught her breath. This was plain speaking with a vengeance. “How do you know I’m still talking about the maid?”

“The word is she collapsed. Why else do pretty maidservants collapse and then disappear?”

Kate nodded. She was impressed by Miss Nye’s grasp of events that seemed to have quite passed by the other guests. And yet she was well aware that by her own questioning, she could have handed the weapon of scandal to “the other side.” Miss Nye’s brother was Tory, a purely temporary supporter on a single issue, who could turn on them quite easily over something else. For the first time in her determined crusade for the truth, Kate felt she was floundering and dangerously out of her depth.

“I think more of you—and Lady Chadbon—for looking into it,” Miss Nye said, still surprising her.

“Thank you,” Kate said humbly. “Are you saying that in their own ways, both Mr. Otteridge and Mr. Newman felt entitled to…endanger the maid?”

“Of course. And from your questions and my answers, they probably had the opportunity.”

But did either of them do it? “Did you notice anyone else moving around at that time? Servants, perhaps?”

“No, just the footman at the drawing room door.”

“Thank you, Miss Nye. I appreciate your clarity.”

Miss Nye smiled, clearly pleased to have helped, and grateful for Kate’s good opinion. Which struck Kate as faintly tragic.

*

As she left the breakfast parlor, Kate realized that Miss Nye had not asked how or indeed where Dinah was after she “collapsed.” Which was a little odd, given her understanding and pity for the maid. Did she assume the girl had been spirited away, or dismissed? Or did she know exactly what had happened to her?

The thought caused Kate’s stomach to tighten uncomfortably. Could she trust Miss Nye’s account of her brother’s movements, especially when Lewis had not confirmed the time of his return to the drawing room? Was the woman loyally covering up her brother’s suspicious movements? Or had she not noticed them and decided to fill the gaps with her own best guesses? Neither was helpful.

Kate’s next tasks were to talk to Nye, Otteridge, and Newman, although it was going to be rather harder to ask them exactly where they had been when they left the drawing room that evening. On the landing, she spotted Otteridge laughing with Lord Chadbon over something before ambling upstairs. At the same time, Newman was trotting downstairs to the front hall.

Who to follow first?

In the end, she decided on Newman, mainly because he was younger and she could more easily imagine his skulking in the dark and overpowering the maid. So she ambled casually downstairs in his wake, ignoring the discomfort of the thought she could be pursuing a man who had already killed. Not that she was actually afraid, for Miss Nye was right: No gentleman would regard Lady Ambrose as disposable like Dinah. Which made Kate unusually angry.