Page 127 of Disturbing the Dead
Wait, that never made it into any news reports.
Still, everyone at the Christie house knew. Someone must have talked.
I flip to the next scene and—
“What the hell?” I say, pushing to my feet.
I’ve been reading alone in the library, and when I hear someone outside the door, I freeze, hoping I didn’t say anything too un-Victorian within Lorna’s hearing. Instead, it’s Isla who walks in.
“Ah,” she says, seeing the pamphlet in my hand. “The cause of the outburst, I presume.”
“Have you read this?” I say.
“I have,” she says calmly. “And I am handling it.”
“At first, I figured the Selim-tunnel bit came from a leak in the Christie house, but then I got to the scene where Lord Muir interrupted our breakfast the next morning. The details were spot-on. Same as the details on my dress the night of the party.”
“I know, and I am handling it.”
“Someone inside this house is supplying…” I trail off as the answer hits. The only possible answer. My gaze shoots to the door.
“We are safe to speak here,” she says placidly as she takes a seat. “We no longer need to worry about Lorna listening at keyholes.”
I curse as I remember how many times I’d found Lorna hovering outside a door, as if nervous about interrupting. How often she’d offered to help. How often she found an excuse to linger.
Alice had complained about Lorna being nosy, and like Mrs. Wallace, I brushed it off as Alice being protective of her employers’ privacy.
“You’ve fired her,” I say.
“Not yet. I want proof, and I am working on obtaining it. Until then, I have informed Mrs. Wallace, who agrees with my assessment. She is helping me keep Lorna busy at tasks that do not allow her to eavesdrop or follow us.”
“Which is why you wouldn’t let her go to bed when she had a headache. You figured she’d read the letter she brought and hoped to follow us.”
“Yes, the letter was clearly unsealed, and if I had any further doubt, her sudden headache erased it.”
I wave the pamphlet. “You think she wrote this?”
“Sadly, no. I say ‘sadly’ because, if she did, I would feel obligated to commend her resourcefulness and ingenuity. It would be hard to fire a young woman who took such efforts to fund an independent life. No, I am convinced she is only being paid to spy on us for the actual writer, who is likely Jack’s rival, Joseph McBride, based on my analysis of the word choices and writing style. I have been working with Jack to confirm that.”
“You’ve been busy.”
“More like you were busy—you and Duncan—and I recognized these serialized adventures pose a threat to your investigations. I decided to delve deeper while you were otherwise occupied. It was only after reading this latest installment that I realized we had a spy under our own roof.”
“Another housemaid gone, then.”
“I am afraid so.”
“Annis warned us. She said Lorna was too normal to work out… and the fact she did work out should have suggested something was up. Guess I’ll be picking up my dustrag for a while longer.”
Isla shakes her head. “I will speak to Annis and borrow one of her girls while I find another maid.”
I don’t argue, but I know that won’t work. The Gray household—with its scientist siblings and former-criminal staff—can’t have just anyone working here. That’s why they kept Catriona for so long. As difficult as she was, she’d never been frightened off by the blood spatter or sold gossip about her employers.
“What we need—” I begin, when Gray comes tromping down the hall, the sound of his boots unmistakable.
I pop into the hall. “How did it go?”
“Hmm.” He passes me and heads straight for the bottle of whisky on the desktop.
