Page 15 of The Shadow Key

The woman next to him purses her lips.

‘It is both, actually. But I cannot deny I have my suspicions.’

‘And they are?’

For a moment she does not answer. Instead she stares, eyes assessing, as if trying to fathom him.

He wishes she would not.

‘You must understand,’ Linette Tresilian says, ‘that Dr Evans meant a great deal to everyone here, and he will not be so easily replaced. Especially by an Englishman.’

Henry blinks. ‘Are you saying someone did this because I’m not wanted here?’

His hostess clears her throat; lightly touches the edge of a curtain half-divided from its rung.

‘The gatehouse was Dr Evans’ pride and joy,’ she murmurs, not looking at him. ‘He’d be turning in his grave if he saw it now.’

The change of both tone and subject is obvious and Henry would have pulled her up on it, if not for those last words.

‘He’s dead?’

She raises an eyebrow at him.

‘Why yes. Didn’t my cousin tell you?’

Henry shakes his head. ‘I knew a position had become vacant, but not the circumstances of how.’

Another beat. A look of sadness skitters across her face. ‘Dr Evans died in March. He was Penhelyg’s physician when I was a child, a man of advancing years even then – needless to say, he was very old. Still, his death was a dreadful shock.’

‘A shock? He’d not been ill, then?’

Linette Tresilian lifts one shoulder in a half-shrug. ‘He suffered a little from arthritis, but otherwise, no. I never knew an elderly man to be so robust. Yes, it was a dreadful shock indeed.’

Unbidden, Henry feels a familiar pull in his gut. It is the very same feeling he had whenever Francis Fielding, his contact at Bow Street, would profess to some curiosity about the demise of one of his cases. How, for instance, could a man die of a brain haemorrhage when no head wound had occurred? How might a man be poisoned without presenting symptoms of the fact? Such cases were a puzzle to be solved, and Henry always had been extraordinarily good at puzzles. It was what made him so popular with the Runners.

He bites down a feeling of injustice, focuses instead on the matter at hand.

‘What was cause of death?’

‘A weak heart. He was found on the threshold, there. It was Mrs Evans who happened upon him. She was most distressed. Dr Evans was her brother, you see.’

This explains why the housekeeper appeared so unwelcoming last night.

‘Who attended him?’ Henry asks.

‘Dr Beddoe,’ comes the reply. ‘He lives in Criccieth, a town across the estuary. He’s been seeing the villagers in the absence of a local physician.’

‘I assume he performed a post-mortem?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

Her voice comes sharp again. Those grey-green eyes narrow. He is not sure she understands.

‘A post-mortem,’ he says. ‘An examination of a body after death.’ When a look of distaste crosses her features, Henry inclines his head. ‘I merely wish to ascertain if my predecessor did indeed die from heart failure. Was there no mark on him? Any sign of external injury?’

‘No,’ she says, forceful. But then she repeats the word – softer this time – and licks her lips. ‘But …’

‘But?’

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