Charles was studying the photograph when he heard the rustle of skirts and turned, bowing to the woman who had just entered the room. She was petite and slender, with an attractive face and pale blond hair, and seemed considerably younger than her husband. She was dressed entirely in black, with a full skirt banded in crape, a pleated bodice, and a tulle fichu at her throat, also of black. On her gleaming hair, she wore a becoming Marie Stuart cap with black lace veil behind, and jet earrings on her ears. She carried a black lace handkerchief in one hand and Charles’s card in the other.

“Mrs. Day,” Charles murmured, with another bow. “Please accept my deepest condolences upon the death of your husband. I am sure it is a very great loss.”

“Thank you, Lord Sheridan,” the widow sighed, sinking into a black-dressed chair. “You were an acquaintance of my dearest Alfred?” Her glance went from Charles’s card to the photograph on the mantel. Her pretty blue eyes brimmed with tears.

“I fear I had not the honor of knowing him,” Charles said regretfully. On the way to Oxford Street, he had considered various pretexts and ruses, but none seemed to quite fit the sad circumstances. In default of a plausible lie, he had determined upon the truth, although he hoped to tell as little of it as possible. “I am deeply sorry to intrude upon your grief at this time, Mrs. Day, but I fear it is necessary. I have been asked to undertake a private investigation of your husband’s death. I understand that he kept a safe here, and hoped…” He paused, knowing that what he was asking must seem unforgivably presumptuous to the grief-stricken widow. He took a breath and plunged on. “I hoped you might permit me to take a look into it, to see if I might find anything there that could lead me to his killer.”

The widow regarded him thoughtfully, and an expression of something very like shrewdness came into her eyes. She did not ask upon whose authority he had come or precisely what he was seeking-questions she should certainly have felt entitled to ask. Instead, she said, in a low, calm voice: “I should not object to your looking into the safe, Lord Charles, but I very much regret that it is impossible. I myself have desired to do so. Unfortunately, I do not have a key.” She produced the black handkerchief and touched it to one eye. “My darling Alfred kept it always with him, but it was not with his effects when they were returned to me. I very much fear that his assailant took it from him.”

“Ah,” Charles said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the key he had found in Alfred Day’s trousers. “I wonder if this might be what you have been looking for.” He held it out, adding apologetically, “I examined your husband’s belongings yesterday in the surgeon’s office. I felt the key might be material to the investigation, so I retained it.”

The widow leaned forward and snatched the key from him. “Yes!” she exclaimed, with evident relief. “This is the very key! Lord Sheridan, I do thank you!”

“You are most welcome.” Charles bowed deferentially. “Would you mind-That is, do you think-?”

The widow did not wait to hear his request repeated. She stood with alacrity. “Come with me to the library, your lordship,” she commanded, sweeping purposefully out of the room, Charles following in some surprise. He had not expected quite so eager a compliance with a request that he considered rude and peremptory.

The library was devoid of books, containing only a desk, a leather sofa, and two wooden chairs. One of the chairs was placed in front of a window. On it sat an elderly manservant holding an ancient percussion cap shotgun across his knees.

“Thank you, Fisher,” the widow said. “You may end your watch now. I have the key.”

“Very good, ma’am,” the old man mumbled, and shuffled out of the room, carrying the gun.

Mrs. Day apparently felt that some explanation was necessary. “I feared,” she remarked, “that if my husband’s assailant had taken the key, he might attempt to enter this room and open the safe. I asked Fisher to station himself here as a guard.”

“Very prudent, I’m sure,” Charles murmured.

Mrs. Day went to the opposite wall, took down a gilt-framed print of a Constable landscape, and exposed a metal safe concealed in the wall. Charles watched as she deftly inserted the key into the lock and swung open the door. Swiftly, before he could move, she had reached inside and seized a large packet of bank notes, thrusting it into the recesses of her full-skirted dress. Leaving the safe door open, she retrieved the key from the lock and turned with great dignity.

“Thank you, my lord,” she said, inclining her head. “It was a great kindness to bring me the key to my dearest Alfred’s safe. I am sure that I shall be forever grateful.”

And with that, she turned and swept from the room, leaving a bemused Charles to explore the remaining contents of the safe at his leisure.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

The village of Exning was about two miles to the north and west of Newmarket. Bradford, glad to have something useful to do while Edith and her mother were negotiating agreements of great significance with the dressmaker, made inquiries at the postal office in the rear of the greengrocer’s shop. The grocer’s daughter, who was also the village postmistress, was a charming young woman with nut-brown hair tied with a pink ribbon. She gave him a flirtatious smile and directions to Dr. Septimus Polter’s animal surgery, at Hill House. She glanced up at the clock.

“If ye want t’find the doctor in this mornin’, sir, best ye ’urry,” she said, with an enchanting flash of dimples. “ ’E’s off t’ Ipswich today on business. ’Is ’ousekeeper, Mrs. Flagg, said ’e was takin’ the noon train from Newmarket.”

“Thank you,” Bradford said. He tipped his tweed cap smartly and turned to go, thinking that if a detective wished to learn something about a villager, the best place to begin was with the village postmistress. And if they were all as pretty as this one, detecting would be a fine business. He had forgotten, for the moment, about Edith.

“Oh, wait, sir,” the woman called, and Bradford turned back. “Since ye’re goin’ to ’Ill ’Ouse, mebbee ye wouldn’t mind-” She took a shoebox-sized package from a shelf and pushed it across the counter. “Would ye be so good as to deliver this to the doctor? The letter carrier was meant t’take it, but she left it be’ind.” The postmistress gave her pretty head an irritated shake, as if to comment on the careless ways of letter carriers, and watched Bradford out the door.

Following directions, Bradford turned his hired hack off the village road at a painted sign bearing the words DOCTOR SEPTIMUS POLTNER, VETERINARY SURGEON. At the end of the shrubbery-lined lane stood Hill House, and behind it the surgery, in a separate frame building with two windows in the front and a Dutch door. Behind this was an ancient timber-and-stone barn, open on one side to a fenced paddock. Within, Bradford could see several horses. A ragged boy was carrying a bucket of oats into the barn, followed by a motley flock of chickens looking for their share.