“She used to slip away at night. Wander the fields. Maybe do other things I didn’t want to know about.” Dick shook his head. “It took me a while to realize she might be up to something else. And then Mistress Pollard died.” Dick looked up. His eyes were bloodshot, his eyelids reddened. “She came in after they took you, Harry. She was wild, her hair all flying away. Said she hadn’t done it. Hadn’t killed Mistress Pollard like she killed the sheep. Was calling Lord Granville the devil and cursing him.”

The big man knit his brows like a puzzled little boy. “She said Lord Granville killed old woman Pollard. Janie was crazy. Just plum crazy.”

“I know,” Harry said.

Dick Crumb nodded, as if relieved by his agreement. “I didn’t know what to do. She was my little sister, crazy or no.” He wiped the dome of his head with a shaking hand. “The only family I had left. My baby sister. I loved her, Harry!”

The body on the rope seemed to twist in horrible reply.

“So I did nothing. And last night, when I heard that she’d fired the Granville stables, I came a running down here. The old place had always been her hidey-hole. Don’t know what I would’ve done. Only I found her like this.” He threw his hands out to the corpse as if in prayer. “Like this. I’m so sorry.” The big man began to cry, great heaving sobs that shook his shoulders.

Harry looked away. What could one do in the face of such overwhelming grief?

“You have no reason to apologize, Mr. Crumb,” Bennet spoke from beside Harry.

Dick raised his head. Snot shone beneath his nose.

“The blame lies with my father, not you.” Bennet nodded curtly and walked back around the cottage.

Harry took out his knife. Dragging a chair over beneath the corpse, he climbed up and cut the rope. Janie slumped, suddenly freed from her self-imposed punishment. He caught the body and gently lowered her to the ground. As he did so, he felt something small and hard fall out of Janie’s pocket. He bent to look and saw one of his own carvings: a duck. Quickly, he palmed the little bird. Had Janie been placing his carvings at the poisonings all along? Why? Had she meant to set him against Granville? Perhaps she’d seen Harry as her instrument of revenge. Harry darted a glance at Dick, but the older man was simply staring into the face of his dead sister. It would only grieve Dick further to tell him Janie had meant for Harry to take the blame for her crimes. Harry pocketed the duck.

“Ta, Harry,” Dick said. He took off his apron and covered his sister’s distorted face.

“I’m sorry.” Harry laid his hand on the other man’s shoulder.

Dick nodded, grief overtaking him again.