ask. Iâd wondered if you cared.â
âAll facts are relevant, and all facts will be uncovered,â I said. âThe processes of the skilled investigator are deliberate and methodical.â
She seemed to consider making some further comment about my investigative skills, but decided against it. âI am Olivia Wright,â she told me.
Wright. It was a common name; a laborerâs name. But private tutoring from Cambridge faculty was no small expense, so she was new money, like Leif Sedgewyck. I thought of what Iâd told Angus that morning; that wheelwrights can also be murderers, and I performed a series of calculations. Knifing had assumed the killer accessed Felicityâs 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: âAnd Felicity was, like you, a thwarted scholar?â
She paused. âNot as much,â she said. âI think her tutoring sessions were a bit of a pretense.â
âYes, of course,â I said. âShe came to Cambridge in a spirit of reform, and in defiance of social norms. If she could not be admitted to college, sheâd hire the professors to educate her. And sheâd 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
âShe met someone,â said Olivia. âAnd something resulted.â
Silence between us.
âBut unlike her, youâre here to get an education, not to find a man?â I asked. âHave you already got a man?â
âWhy should I need one?â
âAll the usual reasons, I expect.â I gave her a lascivious smile, but she did not return it.
âI knew her, a little, before we were neighbors in this place,â she admitted. âWe both attended the seasonal events in London for two years. Neither of us found a reasonable suitor. Her fatherâs wealth was insufficiently vast, and my fatherâs name was insufficiently respectable. After two failed seasons, thereâs little point in attempting a third. The attention of the gentlemen will be focused on fresher goods.â
âThe ordinary course of action would be to host a series of balls or formal events on oneâs estate to introduce oneâs daughters to eligible men.â
She nodded. âAnd 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 Felicityâs father had his money problems.â
âYes,â I said. âLord 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.â
She allowed herself a bitter laugh at this. I was making progress.
âWhat do you know of Leif Sedgewyck?â I asked.
âHeâs quite nice,â Olivia said. âGood manners. Soft hands. His familyâs money would have rescued Felicityâs father from his difficulties.â
âDid he love her?â
âI donât think love was a prerequisite for their arrangement.â A flicker of genuine contempt flickered across her face, and she started to say something further. But then she caught herself. âI really think Iâve told you too much about this. It feels wrong to speak ill of the dead, and itâs
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