“Good Lord,” said Archie. “What makes you think that?”
“She didn’t answer to it natural-like—I mean, not the way a body does with their own name. And there was one time I asked her somethin’ about Captain Chance, and she acted like she didn’t know who I was talking about. Weren’t till I said, ‘I mean your late husband, ma’am,’ that she twigged what I was sayin’. Acted right peculiar, she did. Mind you, I’ve no notion what her real name was. But it’s pounds to a penny that it wasn’t Emma Chance!”
“Do you think it’s possible the abigail could be right?” Rawlins asked Sebastian some half an hour later over a pint in the Blue Boar’s public room. “That Emma Chance wasn’t actually that unfortunate woman’s real name?”
Sebastian leaned forward on his bench, one hand cradling the tankard on the table before him. “It seems rather far-fetched. Yet at the same time . . . it’s an odd thing for the woman to have imagined if it weren’t true. And Peg Fletcher doesn’t strike me as particularly fanciful or imaginative.”
“No, but . . . why would anyone do that? I mean, why claim to be someone she wasn’t? The name ‘Chance’ means nothing to us here.”
“I suspect that if Peg is correct—which is still only an if, after all—then the woman’s main concern was to conceal her real name rather than to claim to be someone she was not.”
The young Squire’s cheeks darkened. “Oh, yes, of course. I should have thought of that.” He drank long and deep from his ale, then swiped the back of one hand across his foamy lips as his eyes widened with a sudden thought. “If it is true—that her name isn’t really Emma Chance—then maybe the killer knew who she really was. Maybe that’s why he murdered her. I mean, for whatever reason she was using a false name.”
Sebastian looked at him in some amusement. “Such as?”
“I don’t know.”
They drank together in thoughtful silence for a time. Then Archie said, “So how do we go about finding out if Chance is—was—her real name?”
Sebastian drained the last of his ale. “I haven’t the slightest idea.”
Archie Rawlins looked startled for a moment, then gave a soft laugh. “So what do we do?”
“You might begin by asking around town. Try to discover who saw Emma Chance yesterday afternoon, and when. In the meanwhile, I think I’ll go have a talk with the vicar.”
“Reverend Underwood? But . . . why him?”
“Because according to Peg Fletcher, her mistress spent yesterday morning sketching the church. Which means it’s a place to start.”
The young justice of the peace chewed his lip. “What if no one saw her?”
“In a village this small? Someone will have seen her—and they’ll remember it.”
Chapter 6
The aged, golden-hued sandstone church of St. Thomas was nestled into the side of the hill overlooking the village green and high street. Reached by way of a narrow lane that climbed past the Blue Boar and a rambling vicarage, the church boasted a bulky western tower pierced by twin round-topped windows almost as small as arrow slits, and a side porch with a gabled roof and a strong, nail-studded door that suggested the church had been built as much for defense as for worship.
The vicar of St. Thomas’s was a tall, lanky man in his late forties, his straight black hair thinning with the passage of the years, his sky blue eyes fanned by laugh lines. He had a way of wincing when he touched upon painful subjects, and he winced as he spoke of Emma Chance, his breath easing out in a long sigh.
“She was in the churchyard when I first saw her, studying one of the old family crypts near the apse. You know what she said when I went to ask if I could help her? She said, ‘Oh, thank you, but I’m not looking for anyone in particular. I simply enjoy reading old tombstones. I like to imagine the lives of the people whose names are engraved there, and think about the love they must have had for each other—husbands for wives, mothers and fathers for children.’” The Reverend Benedict Underwood sighed again and shook his head. “That poor woman. The poor, poor woman.”
Sebastian had come upon the vicar planting sprigs of rosemary near the lych-gate. He’d apologized for his dirty hands and pushed quickly to his feet when Sebastian introduced himself. But Sebastian found he had no need to explain the reason for his visit; news of both Emma Chance’s death and the young Squire’s request for Sebastian’s assistance was all over town.
“What day was this?” asked Sebastian.
“Friday, I believe. She’d only just come to the village.”
“Could you show me which tomb she was looking at?”
“Yes, of course. It’s this way.”
They turned toward the sunken path that ran along the side of the nave. The churchyard was surprisingly vast and crowded, given the small size of the village. But then Sebastian reminded himself that Ayleswick had once been a much larger place.