A Perilous Perspective (Lady Darby Mystery #10)(45)
Mr. MacCowan’s stooped shoulders seemed to bow even further under the weight of all we’d told him. “Nay. His brother works at the shipyards doon in Clydebank, and his mam passed away a few years back.”
Gage silently studied the man, perhaps uncertain how hard to press him. “Is there anything else we should know? Anything that might help us piece together what happened, and find the perpetrator if she was, indeed, poisoned deliberately.”
His gaze lifted toward the door in the far corner, which I suspected led to a bedchamber. Perhaps he was thinking of his failure to convince Mairi to pass the night with him. What he didn’t know, but I suspected, was that his daughter had already been poisoned before she arrived here. It was only a matter of time, then, before the toxic substance worked its way through her system.
He shook his head before allowing it to hang low.
“Well, if you should think of something, send for us at Barbreck Manor,” Gage told him as we rose from our chairs. We had already taken several steps toward the door before he finally answered.
“Can ye tell me . . .”
I turned to look at his haggard face.
“Where was she found? Where is she noo?”
“The long gallery,” Gage replied.
His head reared back in shock, clearly as surprised as we had been to find her there.
“And we placed her in the icehouse. It was the coolest location to put her until the authorities release her for burial.” Since we had yet to speak to Barbreck about the matter, we didn’t know who that figure would be. Whether the procurator fiscal would need to be called in or a local magistrate or other official could handle the matter. Few things were uniform throughout the Highlands, including their method of policing.
“You’ll no’ be cutting her, will ye?” His eyes suddenly blazed. “Because I willna give ye permission for that. I willna allow it.”
I wasn’t surprised to hear he was so adamant against it, or that he’d directed these comments toward me. Apparently, even in the depths of the Highlands, people were aware of my past. Many still viewed dissections and autopsies with fear and revulsion, convinced that if their bodies weren’t interred whole and complete in a Christian burial, they wouldn’t be able to rise again on Judgment Day. A fear that the present laws, which made the bodies of executed murderers the only legal supply of corpses for medical schools and anatomists, did nothing to help assuage.
Even now, however, Parliament was debating the merits of a second attempt to pass an Anatomy Act changing all that. I anticipated word from Philip, the Earl of Cromarty—my brother-in-law and a strong proponent for reform in the House of Lords—any day now on whether those efforts had succeeded.
An autopsy of Miss MacCowan might tell us more about what the poison had done to her internally—whether it had damaged her heart or lungs, her liver or kidneys—but I hadn’t the heart or stomach to try to convince Mr. MacCowan otherwise if he was so set against it. And I certainly didn’t have the authority.
“No autopsy is intended, at least by me. And we’ll inform the authorities of your wishes,” I said, refusing to flinch from his fiery gaze.
He held my gaze for a moment longer, as if gauging my trustworthiness, and then the fight seemed to drain from him. He subsided back into his chair with a weary nod, slumping forward in defeat.
I couldn’t help but grieve for the old man, forced to bury his daughter when by all rights she should have long outlived him. I wondered who would look after him now.
And was surprised when I received an answer of sorts.
We had mounted our horses and steered them back down the path toward Barbreck Manor when Miss Ferguson suddenly emerged from the trees. The governess’s head was bowed as if she was in deep thought, and it wasn’t until we were nearly upon her that she looked up in surprise, side-stepping away from the ponies.
I studied her curiously as she hurried toward the cottage, questioning why she was there. She’d told us in the long gallery that she didn’t recognize Mairi, leading me to believe they hadn’t known each other. And yet here she was visiting Mairi’s father. Was she merely here to pay her respects? Did she feel a responsibility to do so given the fact she’d practically tripped over his daughter’s body? Or was there something more?
I cast one last glance over my shoulder before the cottage disappeared from sight to find Mr. MacCowan standing on the porch waiting for her. He lifted his arms as if to embrace her, but the foliage blocked my view before I actually saw him do so. Regardless, it seemed certain the two were not strangers, which made it difficult for me to believe she hadn’t also known Mairi. I frowned, suspicious that Miss Ferguson had lied to us.
Upon our return to the manor, Gage ventured off to speak with Barbreck while I attended to Emma. My baby girl was all smiles, and I soon discovered my morose mood and gloomy ponderings were no match for her toothless grins and giggles. Part of me dreaded leaving her to travel to Poltalloch, so I dawdled, holding her on my lap as I made silly sounds and faces, making her laugh all the harder.
It was while I was blowing wet kisses on her palms, making her kick and chortle, that Charlotte found me.
“If society could see you now, they would never believe you’re the same woman the scandal sheets wrote all those nasty insinuations about just three years ago.” She leaned over my shoulder, making several ridiculous faces of her own as she cooed to Emma.