Page 74 of Disturbing the Dead
“No, I don’t disagree. I’m just struggling with extra information.”
I tell him what Phoebe said about her uncle.
“Ah,” McCreadie says. “That does add a complication.”
“It doesn’t mean Selim did anything. Phoebe might only have heard Muir blame him, so she’s leaping to his defense. Perhaps she fears he may have done it to reclaim his country’s treasures. That he objects to the plunder and therefore, by logical extension, could have taken them.”
“Yes.”
I glance at Gray. He continues walking, but his gaze is sharp enough that I know he’s thinking it through.
“That does make sense,” Gray says. “Lord Muir makes off with the artifacts and blames Mr. Awad as a convenient suspect, who is also conveniently unavailable. However, that leads to the question of where Mr. Awad is. Michael says they do not know.”
McCreadie nods. “That is what Lady Christie said as well. He was not in his rooms this morning, and at first… Well, you remember when we would do the same thing as young men. Isla would discover your room empty, and likely heave a great sigh of exasperation before covering for your absence with your parents. Lady Christie found the room empty, rolled her eyes at her brother’s youthful ways, shut the door and told the children he was still abed.”
“Expecting him to sneak back in after a night of carousing,” I say.
“Then Lord Muir arrived and wanted to question Selim, and she had to admit he was not at home.”
“But not being at home wasn’t initially a cause for surprise. Suggesting it wasn’t unexpected behavior.”
“Lady Christie was most circumspect.” McCreadie nudges a stone from the path with his boot. “But she did suggest he has… a friend he meets while in Edinburgh.”
“Got it. Any chance we can check in with this nighttime friend?”
McCreadie shakes his head. “Lady Christie, being a proper lady, has no idea who he was seeing. However, she did say that he always returned home before dawn. She presumed, with the tumult over her husband’s death, Selim thought he could linger longer.”
I check my pocket watch. “Linger past noon?”
“Yes, that is concerning.”
“Lord Muir mentioned something about ‘youthful troubles’ in Selim’s past.…”
McCreadie waves a hand. “He was exaggerating, it seems. There was trouble with a few boys at his London school, who mocked Selim’s accent. He claimed to have put an ancient Egyptian curse on them, which caused some commotion.”
I smile. “Good. But yes, that’s hardly what I’d consider youthful troubles.”
“Agreed. I told Lady Christie I would return to the house. I will need to search Selim’s room.” He catches my look. “No, I did not warn her that I would be coming back to search, giving her time to remove anything she considers private, which might include information on his ‘night friend.’ I only said that I need to return to speak to the staff.”
I’m about to ask whether he wants our help, but a look from Gray stops me. McCreadie has already had two people contact us instead of him. Better not to say anything that might suggest he needs help. If he wants it, he’ll ask.
“Mallory and I shall return home,” Gray says.
“Get some rest,” McCreadie says, and then adds with a sly smile, “I have left you some reading material.”
TWENTY-FOUR
Back at the house, we don’t just have the “reading material.” We have two copies of it, one from McCreadie and one from Tommy. They’re in two formats, though. The ones McCreadie found are bound chapbooks, selling for…
“A half crown each?” I sputter. “That’s more than a properly published book.”
Isla says, “That is intentional. It will keep them out of the hands of common folk and make the well-to-do readers feel they are receiving something special.”
“Who would pay that much for a book they’ve never heard of?”
She picks up what Tommy found, which is serialized pamphlets. “They will have heard of them through these, which are priced at a thruppence each. Triple the price of penny broadsheets, but reasonable enough to find an audience of middle-class thrill seekers, who will carry the word to others, who will then purchase the chapbook, it being the same price as buying all ten pamphlets.”
I still shake my head. I know there’s an appetite for stories of crime and murder. The interest lingering from The Newgate Calendar is now morphing into an interest in detective fiction. But it still astounds me that these stories could have been circulating for weeks now, somehow finding a market that extended all the way to Lady Christie and her children.
