“We need a witness who won’t be intimidated by a British threat,” said John. “That is, always supposing the poem has any bearing on the Pentyre matter at all. It may not.”

“Do you doubt that it does?” asked Abigail, surprised.

“Not the slightest.”

Abigail looked for Queenie the next day at the market, turning in her mind possibilities that seemed, when viewed from one angle, to be the fantasies of a schoolgirl dream. Yet her mind kept returning to the lakes of blood on Rebecca’s kitchen floor, to the stains of mud and dampness on the green and white counterpane, the glint of scissor-blades in the shadows of the hall, and she knew that the lunacy which she suspected possessed Hester Tillet was as nothing compared with the madness whose existence could not be denied.

Even a man who would deliberately mimic such crimes, for whatever goal of politics or vengeance, is no more sane than the devil who originally perpetrated them.

As if that brief glimpse of madness had opened some terrible inner door, she seemed now to be conscious of lunacy everywhere. What had Lucy Fluckner said? You know how easy it is to think, ‘Were we really making that up . . . ?’

She didn’t know.

All she knew was that she wanted, by hook or by crook, to get into the Tillet house and have a look at the south attic.

Queenie was nowhere to be found at the market. Abigail spotted Mrs. Tillet’s tall, starched cap almost at once among the stalls, and kept well clear of her. The cook could be ill—according to Rebecca, Queenie was a determined malingerer. Yet, Mrs. Tillet was an even more determined taskmistress, and ferociously disinclined to let any member of her household abdicate their duty.

Curious.

I’m going to feel very silly indeed, Abigail reflected as she moved swiftly, lightly away from the market square—her basket still empty—in the direction of Fish Street, if I find that there is some perfectly simple explanation to the yard being kept locked up, the rear house going unrented, and the Tillets’ obvious desire to keep people away.

The gate into Tillet’s Yard was still locked when Abigail reached the alley. Stepping back until her shoulders touched the opposite wall, she craned her neck to look up, and saw the south attic’s shutters had been opened again. The inner sides, folded back against the rain-wetted dark of the gable, were dry, the glass beneath them unbeaded with any trace of last night’s showers.

Surely it isn’t possible. Mrs. Tillet isn’t that mad.