After the Wedding (The Worth Saga #2)(73)

There had been someone at the door. Camilla had run through Rector Miles’s office in haste. She had had so much to do, and…

Right. She could see the fireplace in his office, the gray ash that she’d had to clean out, mixed with little curling bits of paper… It had all gone in the dust bin.

Damn.

“They must have corresponded,” Camilla said, her nose twitching. “But he burned the correspondence. After eighteen months of cleaning, I know what a burned telegram looks like.”

Adrian lifted his head. “What sort of correspondence did you say it was?”

“A telegram. Several, I would imagine. He burned them. I had to clean out the fireplace; I would know.”

He was staring at her, his eyes broad and wide.

“Drat.” Camilla squeezed her eyes shut. “Drat, drat, drat. We’re so close. There has to be something.”

“You said it was a telegram?”

She turned to him. “Why?”

“Oh my God.” Adrian didn’t stand. He didn’t move an inch. Still, that broad smile took over his face. “There’s still a chance, then.” And then, in his regular voice, he spoke. “Mrs. Beasley,” he said, “are you listening?”





Chapter Nineteen





It took Mrs. Beasley approximately five seconds after being hailed to appear, tea-tray in both her hands. “Well, dearies,” she said brightly, “who would like some tea?”

“Um.” Camilla looked at Kitty, then back at Adrian. “I’ve got some questions, I think, about a telegram that might or might not have been sent through your office.”

“Oh, I heard you the whole time.” Mrs. Beasley smiled and set the tea-tray down. “All the more reason to serve tea.” She began pouring the brown liquid into cups. “Never gossip on a dry throat. It doesn’t turn out well.”

“So were telegrams sent between Lassiter and Miles?” Adrian cut in.

Mrs. Beasley brandished the sugar tongs. “One lump or two?”

“One, but—”

“You know how I am,” Mrs. Beasley said. “Gossip only goes in, not out. I could never tell you what another person sent via telegram. That would violate a sacred trust reposed in me, and I’m not the sort to do that.”

“But—then—”

“I would never speak of the telegrams I sent or received,” Mrs. Beasley said, adding sugar diligently to a cup and handing it to Kitty, “but I would love to tell you about the procedures of the telegraph office.”

“Ah.” Adrian nodded and took his own cup of tea. Camilla wondered what procedures she meant, and how it would help. But Adrian seemed almost comfortable.

“How long do you keep the telegrams that are sent?” he asked.

“I don’t keep them. I send them on.”

“No. I mean, when someone fills out a form, or when you’re taking notes on a telegram that comes for someone in the area. How long do you keep those notes?”

Mrs. Beasley tilted her head and looked at Adrian. A little smile played over her face. “Well, dearie. You know I’m supposed to burn them all at the end of every day.”

“But in reality?”

“Well.” Mrs. Beasley shrugged. “Every day is quite often, you know. In reality, I sometimes take a little longer.”

Camilla felt her heart thump. “How much longer?”

“Ah.” A flicker of a smile passed over the woman’s face. “Well. It may have been…a bit since my last burning.”

“A week? Two weeks?”

“Oh, less than that,” Mrs. Beasley said. “Three days. But… How shall I say this? Operating a teletype machine is not interesting work, Miss Winters. Sometimes, we keep things around for our own amusement.”

“Do we?”

“I could never show them to anyone, you understand,” Mrs. Beasley said kindly, “but they’re all in the attic, organized by date. And speaking of the office—my husband has finished his time there, and he’ll be expecting me to take my turn there for a few hours while he heads to the pub.”

“Is that so?”

By way of an answer, Mrs. Beasley withdrew a keyring from her pocket. “It is locked, the attic, but this…” She fished one key out from the lot and jiggled it. “This, that’ll undo the attic door. I would never let these keys out of my sight.” She set them on the table. “Never, at least not on purpose. But I am old-ish and forgetful-ish.” She smiled brilliantly. “What a shame. I’ve misplaced them. Do let me know if you see them.”



* * *



Kitty offered to help, but the attic wasn’t large, and in any event, Camilla knew what it was like to walk away from a place of employment with nothing but a valise.

“Send your sister a telegram,” Adrian told her. “And tell us what you’d need. I’m sure we can find a position where you can have your daughter with you. If I can’t think of something in my family’s holdings, I’ll find somewhere else.”

It took Camilla and Adrian several hours to sort through the sheaves of paper in the attic. There had been hundreds of telegrams exchanged over the years; few of them were relevant. They retreated downstairs with a stack of papers.