Just inside the wall, vegetables had been smashed into the earth and the ground about it churned up and flattened by many footsteps. As I had seen hunting dogs trained to search for foxes, I paced the perimeter of the flattened area first, studying for anything out of place in the area not disturbed by the constable or others.
Nothing.
I then continued my survey making smaller and smaller concentric circles around the area. Mostly I found only more footprints in the rows until I came upon a flattened, dying onion stalk about two feet from the center. On the leaf was a brown stain.
Blood?
I knew it could turn brown after time. If only I had a way to know for sure.
I first tried the spectacles, and then the regular hand glass to examine the mark. Despite making the stain larger, neither provided more insight.
A few more stains appeared when I reached the center, but never in great quantity. Even when I studied the area with a magnifying glass.
I sat back on my heels and glanced about me. My interest fell upon the stone wall at the end of the garden.
The stone structure came up to my waist, and I leaned over it, hoping to find virgin territory for my investigation. Instead, I found the same trampling as on the other side, but with more footprints and less churning.
I clambered over the wall at one edge of the churning and conducted the same type of review of the grounds, starting with the perimeter and moving inward. Even less to be found on this side because I found no brown stains as I had on the other. Upon reaching the wall, I slid down the stones to sit in the earth, not caring that I might be staining my pants’ seat or that Mrs. Simpson would probably scold me for it later.
Melancholy slipped over me. I so wanted to have discovered something the others had missed, but had come up with nothing. I pounded the back of my head against the wall. Pain shot through me, and I cursed myself for being so ridiculous as to give into my emotions. Mother had always taught me a detached mind produced better results. Dipping my chin, I rubbed the back of my neck. In that position, a fluttering between the stone wall and the grass caught my attention.
Flipping onto my hands and knees, I focused on the object. A piece of coarse material was snagged on the jagged edge of a rock. With my thumb and forefinger, I removed the small square—no bigger than an inch—from the wall and studied it. The material was too rough to be from a person’s clothing, but from what other object, I wasn’t certain. With one of Ernest’s magnifying glasses, I took an even more detailed examination. The fibers along the edges were frayed, but their color wasn’t faded. Whatever it had come from, it hadn’t been there long.
I wrapped the piece in my handkerchief and stuffed it in my coat pocket. There, my hand hit the book I’d found earlier in the conservatory. I removed the slim volume and examined it. It appeared to be some sort of ledger with columns lining each page. While I recognized my mother’s script, I couldn’t make heads or tails of the entries. The writing appeared to be in some sort of cipher.
What was the purpose of the record, and why would she feel the need to use a code?
Perhaps my uncle would have an idea?
I scrambled back over the wall and returned to the workshop. The snoring had been replaced with a loud banging similar to the one I’d heard last night. I reached for the latch, but stayed my hand halfway to the door. I had no interest in a repeat of last night’s near miss. I pounded on the door until Ernest opened it.
“Sherlock,” he said, “why didn’t you just come in?”
“Could you remove the hira shuriken from the bow?”
“Good idea. I’ll move it to another bench as well,” he said, stepping back into the workshop and toward the workbench with the crossbow.
I followed him into the workshop. “I’m returning your magnifying glasses.”
“Already been out there? Did they prove useful?”
His rounded gaze told me how much he wanted to hear the affirmative.
“Very,” I said and waited until after he removed the stars from the crossbow to approach him. “I did find something odd.”
“And what was that?” he asked, turning to me.
“This was caught on a rock in the wall at the back of the garden.” I opened the handkerchief and passed it to him, the piece of cloth resting in the center of the white linen.
He peered at it, then moved to the door to examine it in the sunlight. “It’s too fine for burlap. Too coarse for linen. Perhaps I’ll show it to Violette.”
“Will you be seeing her again soon?”
“I’ll probably take her breakfast again. Good time to have a private conversation, you know.”
“May I come too?”
He paused. “She only gave me instructions to bring you this morning. We took an awfully big risk, deceiving your father like that. I don’t like lying. I’ll pass on your request to her, though.”
My shoulders dropped. I had so many things I wanted to ask her, but for the moment I would have to depend on Ernest.
“I do have another observation about the garden. I found no blood.”
“It must be there. I saw some on the pitchfork tines myself.”
“But none on Mother’s boots, or on the plants.” My words picked up speed as I could see Ernest’s gaze drifting from me. “Last year when Mother hired that medical student to tutor me in biology, he had me dissect a frog. When I opened it, blood sprayed out all over my hands and the dissecting tray. He said it wasn’t dead and I’d hit a vein. Because the heart was still pumping, the blood spurted out. When they dissected the cadavers in medical school, very little blood leaked out because it wasn’t flowing. The person was dead.”
My uncle frowned, as if he were weighing the information I’d just shared. “Why would someone put a pitchfork into a dead woman?”
“I don’t know. But you see, if the constable claims Mother killed Mrs. Brown by stabbing her—”
“She’s innocent of the crime.” Ernest’s mouth widened into a broad grin, and he slapped me on the back. “Good show, my boy. Good show. I must share this with your mother directly.”
“Shouldn’t you tell Father?”
He paused to stare at the wooden beams crisscrossing under the building’s roof. After a moment, he refocused on me. “I think it’s best for us to keep your father out of it at the moment. After all, as a local justice of the peace, he might be denounced for favoritism or some other bias given that the accused is his wife.”
With a sigh, he glanced about the workshop. “I have so much to do, but Violette must come first. I don’t think I’ll wait until tomorrow. I should go now.”
Having made the decision, he scurried about the workshop, preparing to return to town and the prison. In a matter of minutes, he was back in his suit, valise in hand. “Come and see me when I return, and I’ll share your mother’s thoughts.”
When he waved me toward the door, I passed the workbench and spied my handkerchief still lying on it. “What about that bit of cloth?”
“Cloth? Yes. Quite right.” Pausing at the bench, he carefully folded the handkerchief and dropped it into the bench’s top drawer.
On the way back to the house, I put my hand in my pocket and remembered the ledger I found in the greenhouse. I needed to decipher the entries noted inside.