Riot Most Uncouth

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ask. I’d wondered if you cared.”
    â€œAll facts are relevant, and all facts will be uncovered,” I said. “The processes of the skilled investigator are deliberate and methodical.”
    She seemed to consider making some further comment about my investigative skills, but decided against it. “I am Olivia Wright,” she told me.
    Wright. It was a common name; a laborer’s name. But private tutoring from Cambridge faculty was no small expense, so she was new money, like Leif Sedgewyck. I thought of what I’d told Angus that morning; that wheelwrights can also be murderers, and I performed a series of calculations. Knifing had assumed the killer accessed Felicity’s room through the window, but her neighbor in the rooming house could also have gotten in. But I had no reason to suspect this woman, and anyway, the killer must have been a man, for a woman could not have inflicted those wounds or hung the corpse from the chandelier.
    I continued my line of inquiry: “And Felicity was, like you, a thwarted scholar?”
    She paused. “Not as much,” she said. “I think her tutoring sessions were a bit of a pretense.”
    â€œYes, of course,” I said. “She came to Cambridge in a spirit of reform, and in defiance of social norms. If she could not be admitted to college, she’d hire the professors to educate her. And she’d live in a rooming house without a chaperone, despite whatever gossips may say about her. Of course, it would merely be a joyous and unexpected accident if she happened, by chance, to encounter a wealthy and wellborn young undergraduate one fateful morning while she meandered across the warm and dewy expanse of the Great Lawn. And it would be completely unanticipated if a marriage were to result from such a meeting.”
    â€œShe met someone,” said Olivia. “And something resulted.”
    Silence between us.
    â€œBut unlike her, you’re here to get an education, not to find a man?” I asked. “Have you already got a man?”
    â€œWhy should I need one?”
    â€œAll the usual reasons, I expect.” I gave her a lascivious smile, but she did not return it.
    â€œI knew her, a little, before we were neighbors in this place,” she admitted. “We both attended the seasonal events in London for two years. Neither of us found a reasonable suitor. Her father’s wealth was insufficiently vast, and my father’s name was insufficiently respectable. After two failed seasons, there’s little point in attempting a third. The attention of the gentlemen will be focused on fresher goods.”
    â€œThe ordinary course of action would be to host a series of balls or formal events on one’s estate to introduce one’s daughters to eligible men.”
    She nodded. “And we attempted this. But my father had little standing among the social set he hoped to marry me into. His invitations were politely declined, or impolitely ignored. And Felicity’s father had his money problems.”
    â€œYes,” I said. “Lord Whippleby could hardly be expected to throw a ball to find a husband for his second daughter. He was probably far too busy shuttering wings of his country house and letting go of servants he could no longer afford to keep.”
    She allowed herself a bitter laugh at this. I was making progress.
    â€œWhat do you know of Leif Sedgewyck?” I asked.
    â€œHe’s quite nice,” Olivia said. “Good manners. Soft hands. His family’s money would have rescued Felicity’s father from his difficulties.”
    â€œDid he love her?”
    â€œI don’t think love was a prerequisite for their arrangement.” A flicker of genuine contempt flickered across her face, and she started to say something further. But then she caught herself. “I really think I’ve told you too much about this. It feels wrong to speak ill of the dead, and it’s

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