Page 22 of The Missing Page
James hummed pensively. “Do you think it was written to Sir Anthony or from him?”
Leo’s heart gave a little thrill that James even thought of the latter. In some other world where Leo was able to tell him the details of his job, James might just understand. “The paper was cheaper than what I’d expect from Marchand, but anyone can buy inexpensive paper.”
“It might have nothing to do with Rose. He could have received it in London. Although I don’t know why he’d bring it with him to Cornwall. I suppose it would be too much to ask for blackmailers to specify exactly what secrets they’re referencing.”
“Unsporting of them not to, really.”
James then proceeded to tell Leo about his conversations with Martha and Camilla.
“So, I’m trying to decide whether gently born young ladies murder one another over failure to wear proper frocks,” Leo said.
“Some might, but I don’t think Martha does.”
Leo didn’t think so either, but the animosity between the cousins still made him curious.
They began to make their way down a path that James said would lead toward the village. Neglected garden beds gave way to an expanse of brownish scrub, which in turn led to a low stone wall with a gate that swung open on rusty hinges.
This footpath ran parallel to the shoreline, as best as Leo could tell, but he still hadn’t glimpsed so much as an inch of the sea. He could smell it, he could feel the sharp sea breeze, and if he strained he thought he could almost hear it. Hell, he could taste the salt in the air.
“Next time we decide to go to the sea, we ought to do it in the summer,” James said.
“And when we aren’t investigating a decades-old mystery in a creepy house,” Leo suggested.
“Or trying to be civil with family members who were perfectly content to have nothing to do with me for twenty years.”
“And who don’t have any food in the kitchen despite the house being littered with Meissen porcelain and priceless art,” Leo added, and only then realized that James had suggested taking a holiday together. Several months in the future, in fact. It wasn’t as if Leo didn’t know that James wanted Leo to stick around; it wasn’t as if Leo didn’t plan to do precisely that.
It was just that hearing James assume this, hearing James speak of a future of shared holidays as if it were a foregone conclusion, made Leo feel appalled with himself. He felt like Mrs. Patel had been on to something when she asked if Leo was running a con.
A path that at first seemed like a shortcut to the village now thinned out to the point of disappearing. “So help me, if this doesn’t lead to the village,” Leo said, striving for a light tone, “I will eat the first sheep or goat or what have you that crosses our path.”
“Not much in the way of goats at Blackthorn, I’m afraid. Nor sheep.”
Leo shoved his hands in his pockets and kept his eyes on the path. “Say, you know I’m going to look for any dirt I can find on your family, right?”
If James was brought up short by this sudden change in topic, he didn’t let on. “I think that’s rather the point of this exercise. If the mystery of Rose’s disappearance could be solved without a lot of unpleasantness, it would have been done twenty years ago. Why, did you think I was going to be cross with you for being ungentlemanly or something?”
“There’s a difference between unpleasantness that occurred twenty years ago and the knowledge that the person responsible for the unpleasantness is sitting across from you at dinner and a few branches over on the family tree.” He scuffed the toe of his shoe along the dirt path. “I’d much rather discover a nonmurderous explanation. I’d rather you have a living cousin than a dead one.”
James looked at him oddly. “You expect me to go to pieces.”
“I expect you to be slightly miffed that I’m treating your family as murder suspects.”
James was silent for a few paces. “Huh. I might have expected to react that way too, if I had thought about it. But I know you and trust you a good deal better than I know or trust this lot.”
“Why on earth would you do a thing like that?”
“Don’t be daft.” James bumped his shoulder against Leo’s.
Leo wanted to lay out an itemized list of reasons James shouldn’t trust him, and possibly shouldn’t trust anybody, but judged it a sad waste of both their time. “That had better be the village up there,” he said instead.
It was indeed the village, and high time, because Leo’s stomach was rumbling and he was beginning to suspect that he was getting too old to think on an empty stomach.
At the tea shop, they settled into a small table in a shadowy corner.
“So,” Leo said when a plate of scones and sandwiches and a scalding hot pot of tea arrived. He had saved this bit of information for when they were sitting face-to-face. “It turns out there was never any inquest. Rose was never declared dead and her body was never found.” He gave James a moment to consider this. “That’s extremely unusual. Typically, a body washes ashore. You can even predict when and where it will turn up.”
“All right,” James said slowly. “So she didn’t drown?”
