A Lady's Guide to Gossip and Murder by Dianne Freeman

Author:Dianne Freeman
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2019-04-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

Mosley provided a very detailed description of Mr. Norton. We also learned that he’d been carrying an umbrella when he left the office Tuesday evening to retrieve Mary’s columns, as was the man Charles had seen. Though since it had been raining, off and on, that evening, anyone out of doors would likely have had one on hand.

George used the telephone on the editor’s desk to place a call to Inspector Delaney, leaving a message about the possible identity of the man seen leaving Mary’s house on Tuesday.

“If Evingdon is still under suspicion, the fact that Norton was also at Mrs. Archer’s home should help his case,” he said as we returned to his carriage. “The police really have no other evidence with which to accuse him.”

He assisted me into the carriage and settled in beside me. “I’m not so sure about your theory,” I said, the carriage rocking as we moved into the street. “If the man Charles saw at Mary’s house was only her editor, picking up her columns, then no one saw the murderer. Wouldn’t that make Delaney even more suspicious of Charles?”

“But if he did pick up the columns, then Mrs. Archer was alive at the time your cousin drove past. And I now have a connected crime to investigate, which I hope will provide more evidence. I can’t believe the police allowed Norton’s office to be cleaned and cleared.” He sighed. “But I have a contact at Bow Street who may be able to tell me what they know about that murder—any evidence found, who they interviewed. We’ll see where that leads us. And I have yet to search Mrs. Archer’s home.” His eyes fairly sparkled with the thrill of the chase. “So, all is not lost. Though I do wish we’d known about her connection to that column before the newspaper stopped printing them.”

“I could probably make some comment in the column I write, explaining the omission of the four issues. Although unless I can write a column by this evening, I’ll be explaining the absence of five.”

“Let’s think about this a moment.” His brow furrowed. “We’re assuming since both Mary and her editor were murdered, the killer knows she wrote the column, and the column had something to do with the murder.”

“You suggested he was trying to stop something from coming to light.”

“Yet you didn’t find anything inflammatory in her files.”

“I beg your pardon. We found a great deal of inflammatory information, but it was marked Do not use. Additionally, I have yet to review everything in those files. As Lottie transcribes them into plain English, I try to provide the names from the initials Mary wrote. From there I work off Lily’s invitation list of who is and isn’t in town in order to eliminate suspects.” I shrugged. “It’s a slow process. I’d say we’re only about halfway through the notes. But if you believe one of those notes is tied to the killer, then we have a great deal of work to do as there are still many notes to review.

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