“If the tinker didn’t kill them, who did?”

“I believe it could be the same man responsible for your own misfortune,” Sebastian said.

THE BELOW-GROUND buffet in the station concourse was open for tea, toast, or a three-shilling supper. Evangeline declined them all. She sat forward on the edge of her seat and did not unbutton her coat. The buffet was paneled in rich, polished wood, with stained glass in the concourse windows and electric light from bronze fittings. Their table was not in the best spot, but it was separated from the others and they would not be overheard.

Evangeline began, “Grace Eccles was my best friend. We didn’t choose each other, we just made a pair. Chalk and cheese. Mother didn’t approve. She was never a snob, but she’s always been proper.”

“What about your father?”

“My father died when I was very small. I don’t remember much about him at all. He was in the foreign service and they sent him out to India. He was supposed to send for us when he got settled, but a fever took him six weeks after the boat landed. Mother got a telegram to say he was dead. A week after that she got a letter from him, the last one he wrote. I’ll always remember that.”

“Stepfather?”

“You’re looking for a man to blame for my situation.”

“Just trying to understand it better.”

The waitress brought coffee, and Evangeline waited until she’d gone before continuing. As she started to speak again, she undid the top button of her coat and unwound the scarf from around her neck, reaching up and over her head to do it.

“People misjudge Grace,” she said. “They always have.”

Evangeline told of how her mother had reason to disapprove of her daughter’s friendship with Grace Eccles. Grace’s father was a man of poor reputation, though Grace loved him as much as any daughter ever could. Grace’s mother had run off with another man. Her father had been a hard worker and a Saturday-night drinker before that, and became an all-week drinker thereafter. This didn’t sit well with Lydia Bancroft, who was a member of the Temperance League.

Evangeline said, “The story is that Grace’s father was making his way home from the Harbor Inn one night and swore he saw something cross his path in the moonlight. Big and black and it looked at him with yellow eyes. He said they shone out like lamps. You can imagine what everyone thought. But the more people ridiculed him, the more he insisted. Until the story found its way into the paper, and then he shut up. The reporter let him think they were going to take his side. But they only mocked him like everyone else.”

“I read the article.”

“Where?”

“In the post office book.”

“That would be the one. To this day, every visitor gets to read it. They destroyed him with that. But Grace never doubted him. Stood up for him at school. She fought with boys as equals and beat them, too. She was always determined to prove him right and clear his name.

“So the two of us hatched this plan. The idea came from Grace, but she needed me for the camera.”

The fine hairs rose on the back of Sebastian’s neck. “You had a camera?”

“The Advertiser made an offer to encourage visitors. One hundred pounds for a genuine picture of the Arnmouth beast. Grace didn’t care so much about the money. She just wanted to prove something for her father. It was my father’s Box Brownie. He’d bought it for Mother to make photographs of me, so she could send them to him as I grew. I don’t think she ever got to use it.”

Evangeline explained how she and Grace had each lied to their lone parent, each saying that she’d be spending the night at the other’s house.

“We had blankets and some food tied up in a tablecloth, and a little lantern with a candle in it. Grace knew where there was a dead lamb, up near some old mine workings, and we had some bread and cake to throw around as extra bait. For some reason we thought that might bring out the beast of the moor.

“We found a sheltered place to set up camp. It had been a building, but the roof had fallen into the cellar and there were only three walls standing. You could look up and where there should have been a ceiling, you could see the stars. I think I remember looking up and seeing something move across them. Something dark, like it was making them go out. Like a figure standing over the world. But I could be inventing that.”

Evangeline went quiet for a few moments, recalling the memory.

“And then?” Sebastian prompted.

“Then I was at home,” she said. “In my bed, in my bedroom, with the curtains closed even though it was daytime. And that felt all wrong. I could hear voices through the floor. When they came upstairs I pretended to be asleep. But I think my mother knew. She touched my shoulder and I pretended to wake up. It seems I’d been awake before, from the way they talked to me. But I don’t remember.”

“Were you in physical pain?”

“I prefer not to discuss that.”

“Forgive me. Was this when Sir Owain appeared at your house?”

“His was the voice that I woke up to hear. Is that why you’re pursuing him? I’ve read detective stories. Is he your suspect?”

“Do you find the idea completely beyond belief?”

“Before I went out to the Hall, I’d have said it was. Until then all my memories were of a man who acted like a father to the whole town. But now there’s that doctor of his … watching over him and guiding what he says. It’s like they’ve made a private world up there. Just the two of them. They’re on their guard when you enter it and they can’t wait for you to leave. And there’s something … I don’t know, there’s an atmosphere in that house. It made my flesh creep.”

She sat back in her chair and picked up her scarf. As she’d been speaking, she’d absently folded and refolded it into the neatest of squares. Now she shook it out again. “Will you tell me what you discover?”

“If there’s a way I can reach you.”

“I’ll reach you. Tell me where.”

Sebastian took out his pocket pad and scribbled a few lines on a blank page. Then he tore out the sheet and held it out to her.

“Here’s where I pick up my messages,” he said. She read it, and then looked at him.

“A pie stand?” she said.

“A man has to eat.”

“Not quite the Criterion Grill.”

“I’m not quite your Criterion type. Thank you.”

“For what?” Evangeline said, rising to her feet, and he quickly scraped back his chair to rise with her.

“Your patience and your openness,” he said. “I’d expected less. But I can see that you’re an unusual young woman.”

“I would like—someday—to be not so unusual. Outwardly I live a life of independence. Inwardly I live in fear. In my life there is no intimacy. I don’t know how I can even say this to a stranger.”

“With a stranger it’s often the way,” Sebastian said.

FRANCES WAS STANDING BY THE WINDOW WHEN HE GOT HOME. She had the lamps turned low and was looking out across the rooftops of the borough. She’d once told Sebastian that it eased her eyes to look at distant things, when too much concentration on close work had tired them.

She looked toward the door as he came into the room. For a moment, in this light, he was reminded of some familiar painting. But he couldn’t have said which one. Sebastian wasn’t a gallery man, and got most of his art from magazines.

She said, “Elisabeth’s reading. I’ve been trying to get Robert to his bed. He insisted on waiting for you.”

“You should have left him to it,” Sebastian said, hanging his overcoat on the stand. “He’s old enough, and capable.”

Frances gave a brief, tight smile.

“Tell that to Elisabeth,” she said, and moved to gather up her sewing.