Darcy revved the motor and we drove back to the hall. I sat fuming with frustration, but I knew in my heart they were right. If only I had something to go on, some vital clue, some thread that linked the deaths. As we drove I tried to rack my brains about things I might have seen. There had been a couple of occasions when a thought had passed through my head, too fleetingly to grab on to, that I had just witnessed something important. But I could no longer remember what those moments were. As a detective, I was a hopeless failure.

Chapter 29

Chapter 29

STILL DECEMBER 28

Suffering from near frostbite.

When we arrived back at Gorzley Hall we found everyone in a state of excitement about the ball. The clatter of a sewing machine came from a back room and I gathered that one of the local women had been conscripted to make alterations. People were rummaging through the dressing-up trunk, calling out things like, “Will this do?”

Junior Wexler ran past. “I’m going to be a Redcoat!” he called. “I’m going to borrow a real uniform and a real gun.”

“Oh, there you are, Georgiana.” Lady Hawse-Gorzley appeared in the doorway, looking frazzled. “I wondered where you had disappeared to.”

“I went out with Darcy and my grandfather to see if there was anything we could do to help solve these murders,” I said.

She glanced around in case any guests were within hearing distance. “I thought you said they’d arrested Wild Sal,” she whispered.

“They have. But a farmer’s wife died after Sal was in jail.”

“The whole thing is extraordinary and unbelievable,” she said, shaking her head. “Especially in our little neck of the woods. Did you discover anything?”

“Nothing at all,” I said. “I feel quite frustrated, but we’ve nothing to go on.”

“It’s not your problem, my dear. You are supposed to be having fun with everyone else. You have your costume for tonight, I hope. All the best ones have been snapped up. Oh, and I hope you don’t mind—I had a word with your maid and asked her to help Mrs. Upthorpe and Mrs. Rathbone dress tonight. Our Martha can help Mrs. Wexler and Bunty.”

I tried not to let my face betray that being dressed by Queenie might be something fraught with danger. Should I perhaps warn Mrs. Upthorpe and Mrs. Rathbone that my maid had in the past done such things as setting fire to her employer?

“What about Mrs. Sechrest?” I asked. My mind went immediately to that white figure creeping down the corridor in the night.

“The Sechrests have gone home and will be dressing there. I wonder what she’ll wear this year. She always goes in for frightfully elaborate costumes. Last year she was Nell Gwynne.” I tried not to smile at this.