The Fourth Mistress - Chapter 29：Thread of clue

For a few seconds, the two women stared at Louise, not realizing what she just said. Louise offered them a kind smile, not bothering to explain any more than what she had spoken, and she walked out of the restroom.

When she reached the place where Graham was waiting for her, speaking to Mrs. Purles, he asked her, “Ready to leave?”

Louise nodded her head. She turned to Mrs. Purles and said, “Thank you for your delicious food.”

“Thank you for coming here, Lady Louise,” responded Mrs. Purles. “It was a delight to have you here with Graham. I have been waiting for him to come here, but I am glad to see him visit this place with you. I hope to see you again.”

Louise bowed her head at Mrs. Purles, and so did Graham that Mrs. Purles returned as it was time for them to leave the Dove’s. The sky had turned dark, and the lake surface that earlier held the colourful sky’s reflection now looked dark because of the sky. It seemed that the best time to come here was in the evening, thought Louise in her mind.

But before they took their leave, the two women she had met in the powder room noticed her standing next to Graham and their eyes finally widened in realization. When Louise’s eyes met theirs, they quickly looked away, scurrying away from there.

While they were in the carriage, heading towards Reed’s manor, a faint smile was present on Louise’s lips. She stared at the dark and tall trees that moved past the running carriage. The carriage shook because of the uneven road while they were surrounded by the sound of the rolling wheels and the continuous clopping of the horses’ hooves.

When the carriage reached Reed’s manor, the coachman pulled the horses’ reins to bring the carriage to a halt. The coachman got down from his seat and opened the door for Graham and Louise. They were welcomed back inside Reed’s manor by Gilbert, who stood at the door.

On their way to their room, they met Alison, who smiled at the couple.

“Did you have a good time at the Dove’s, Louise?” Alison softly asked Louise. She was carrying her daughter Molly in her arms, who was fast asleep.

“I did. I had a very good time. I would have never known the view at the lake could be so breathtaking,” replied Louise, walking to where Alison stood and saw the little girl had placed her head on Alison’s shoulder. She gently ran her hand over Molly’s head before bringing her hand back to her side.

“She fell asleep while waiting for you to play hide and seek,” said Alison with a small chuckle, and Louise smiled at her sister-in-law’s words. Somewhere Louise felt bad thinking Molly didn’t have children of her age group to play and interact with. The manor held people who were older than her, usually busy with their work. On the other hand, the mention of hide and seek flattered the smile on her. Alison then excused herself, “I should go and put her to bed.”

Later that night, after they had changed their clothes and before getting into bed, Graham said to her, “Next time, let us visit the lake that is in the backside of the estate. If you have enjoyed the Dove’s today, you will fall in love with this one.”

“I look forward to going there with you,” replied Louise. It had been a while since she had taken a break and spent her time like this. She said, “Thank you for taking me out to the Dove’s, Graham. I had a lovely time, and enjoyed eating the food and speaking to you.”

“I am glad to hear that you enjoyed it,” Graham responded to her words. He then said, “I don’t know if I mentioned it earlier, but today you looked beautiful. Not that you don’t look every day,” he complimented her, his eyes staring at her from where he stood.

His words brought warmth to her cheeks, and she smiled.

“You always look handsome, Graham. But I believe you already are aware of it,” she complimented him back. She was sitting in front of the dressing table, holding a hairbrush in her hand. When they were entering and leaving the Dove’s, she noticed how women had passed looks at him before looking away once they noticed her next to him.

Graham, who had been standing at the window, padded his feet to where she stood, “Shall I?” He asked her for the hairbrush.

“To brush my hair?” asked Louise to make sure that is what he meant.

“Yes,” he answered. “Don’t worry, I have done this before.”

“I didn’t worry even for a second,” remarked Louise, passing the brush to him. Because of his serious demeanour, she had never guessed him to be a romantic.

She saw his reflection in the mirror. He looked at her hair while he started to brush her locks gentler than she had been combing. Graham said, “I don’t care what others think. The only person’s feelings I care to know is about how my wife feels.”

Graham used the brush from the crown of her head to the ends of her hair.

He continued to say, “Most of the time, an outsider’s opinions and compliments don’t matter because what actually matters is what your loved ones think.”

“True,” agreed Louise.

While he continued to brush, Louise noticed his prim and proper actions. Sometimes, she wondered how a nice person like him was born as Viola’s son. Maybe Viola loved Graham a lot and was not ready to part with the thought that there was another woman in his life now. But then, Louise was not first or second, but his fourth wife.

As Louise stared at her husband’s reflection, she noticed someone at the door of the room from the corner of her eyes. It was someone with ragged clothes and hair that was the length of the waist who stepped out of the room, leaving the ends of the dress to be the last thing to disappear.

Louise’s head snapped around, and Graham stopped combing her hair.

“There was someone in here,” whispered Louise, and Graham frowned at her words. He turned back to take a look around the room, and at the same time, she stood up from her seat.

“There’s no one here, Louise. The door has been closed since we came inside the room,” said Graham, turning back to look at her.

Louise shook her head, “I saw someone leave through the door just a moment ago,” her eyes met his.

Graham said, “Let me take a look.”

She picked up the candle stand that had four candles burning in it. When she stepped out of the room, Graham followed her behind her. Her eyes looked around the corridor, going to the adjacent rooms looking for the person she had seen moments ago. No one in the manor wore clothes like that, and she could only tell that it was a ghost.

“The rooms are empty, Louise,” Graham let her know after he searched for a person whom Louise might have seen. “Did you see the person’s face?”

“I only saw the person’s back. It was a woman, her hair long and her clothes dirty and old,” replied Louise with a deep frown on her face. “It felt like the person was there in the room before… with us.”

Louise wanted to see who was trying to haunt them, wanting to know what the person wanted and why Graham’s wives were being subjected to deaths.

“Alright,” said Graham, as if assuring her that he believed her and said, “Let’s take a look around to see if we find something. The windows and the doors of the manor are locked. It should be easy to know if someone broke in or find anything odd.”

Louise nodded her head, but she wondered if doors and the walls stopped the ghost. The ghost had made use of their room’s door to slip out, thought Louise in her mind. The lights in the corridors were dimmer than usual.

Hearing footsteps from below the floor, Louise turned to look at Graham, who seemed to look in the direction from where the sound came. “Is it normal to hear footsteps from the floor below?” she asked him. It made sense to hear sounds from above the floor but not below.

“Let’s go down and take a look if someone’s awake,” proposed Graham, and they went down the stairs to the room right below where they had been standing before.

But there was no one there. The room was empty, quiet and cold. They came outside the room, and started to look in the next rooms before coming to the corridor.

Hearing the wooden floor creak behind her, Louise turned behind. Bringing her hand forward that held the candle stand and a sudden gasp escaped her lips on seeing Lady Agatha standing behind.

“What are you doing here, Lady Agatha?” Louise asked the woman.

“I came to get water as the jug in my room is empty. Jemma must have forgotten to fill it. What are you two doing here?” asked the woman, holding a glass of water, staring at Graham and Louise.

“We were searching for someone,” replied Graham, and Lady Agatha’s eyebrows drew together. The woman’s eyes then shifted to stare at Louise.

“The madness must have started again,” came the quiet words from Lady Agatha. “Have you started seeing things?”

“What do you mean?” asked Louise.

Louise didn’t know if it was because of the room’s darkness or the light from the candle that cast a shadow on the woman’s face, making her look suspicious. The woman said, “Every person in the manor has gone to sleep, whom are you looking for? Unless you are looking for someone who doesn’t exist.”

Taking a step forward, Louise asked, “How do you know I am looking for someone who doesn’t exist?”

“The last one did,” answered Lady Agatha.

“Who was she looking for?” asked Louise.

Lady Agatha laughed, a sarcastic sound coming from her mouth and she looked at Graham. There was a look of pity in her eyes, “Looks like you turned unlucky with this one too. Seeing things or people who don’t exist.”

“I am not imagining things. I am not someone who lives in the dreamland, Lady Agatha,” said Louise to the woman.

“It is only a matter of time. Did Graham see what you saw?” questioned Lady Agatha, staring right in her eyes and then harrumphed when Graham didn’t answer her. “That’s what I thought.”

Louise was not happy with the way Lady Agatha had tried to imply that she was losing her mind. A frown came to appear on her forehead, and before she could say anything, Graham said,

“I only said we came here to search for someone, auntie, and not who. We were looking for Jonas.”

Lady Agatha raised her eyebrows, “In the dark?”

“We thought he was still awake,” replied Graham, covering up the fact that he and Louise were looking for something or someone who only Louise saw and not him. “I will ask him to fill the jug of water in your room.”

Lady Agatha’s lips pursed into a thin line, “That would be good…It is near midnight, you both should go to sleep.”

Graham offered a bow to Lady Agatha, while Louise only stared at her, watching the woman take her leave. They heard the receding footsteps before it completely disappeared.

“Why don’t the family members believe that there was something amiss back then, and something amiss right now?” Louise whispered, staring in the way Lady Agatha had left.

“It might be because at that time, it was only Lisa who experienced the strange happenings and now it is only you. Tell me what you saw,” asked Graham to Louise, and she turned to face him.

“I believe the person whom I saw was a woman, dressed in an old ragged dress. A night dress, covered in dirt. Her hair was the length up to her waist. She must have been of moderate height,” explained Louise. She closed her eyes, trying to rewind what she had seen and what she must have missed. She was looking at Graham before she noticed the shadow-like movement. Her hand. “She had decayed hands, similar to what I saw before. Out of the three, who had long hair?”

Graham had a grim expression on his face, and he replied, “All the three of them.” Well, that made things easy, didn’t it, Louise asked dimly in her mind. “Come with me,” he said, and she followed him.

On their way, Graham picked up a lantern placed near the manor’s backdoor, and they stepped out of the manor.

Clearly, there had been foul play in one of the wives death, which was why she kept seeing the woman, thought Louise as she walked. And out of the three women, only one of the deaths stood out, and that was Lisa’.

Louise didn’t know where Graham was taking her, and she looked around to see the trees rustle and move because of the wind. When they walked a few distance, she realized where Graham was taking her. They finally came to stand in front of the graves that had been buried in Reed’s estate.

“The graves look untouched,” said Graham, and even Louise noticed everything was just as she had last seen.

“I don’t think the graves are the problem right now,” murmured Louise. “Did anything strange ever happen in Warlington before you were married? I would have believed that this manor is haunted. But Lisa had problems in Warlington.”

“It was only Lisa who had a bizarre death, while the rest of the elders had a natural death and the first two wives who fell sick. I have checked it before, after her death but I didn’t find anything suspicious,” answered Graham. He turned around to see the manor from where he stood now. “After her death, I tried my best to find if there was anyone’s hand, but there was nothing. It was considered to be an unusual death.”

“You sensed something was not right,” stated Louise, and he gave her a nod.

“It isn’t everyday a person falls from the chair and dies,” replied Graham.

Louise pursed her lips, staring at the graves that had made their dwelling in Reed’s estate now.

“I saw the will that your grandfather left for the family,” said Louise. She didn’t want to bring this up, but there was a possibility that soon, every member of Reed’s family would look at her with suspicion.

“Will?” questioned Graham.

“Yes, the one that he left for the family. Mr. Winkle has the habit of collecting copies of certain cases, so that he can reference in future cases. He had copies of Lisa’s case file and I took a look at it,” explained Louise, but seeing Graham’s confused expression, she asked, “What is it?”

“Louise,” started Graham, “There’s no such will made by my grandfather. Whatever he wanted to give, he had transferred it way before his death, declaring my father to be his sole successor.”

“That’s not possible,” replied Louise, taken aback by this information. “I saw a copy of the file yesterday in Mr. Winkle’s cabinet. It was clearly mentioned that all his property and belongings would go to his grandchildren’s spouses and their children.”

Graham shook his head, “There’s no such will made by him.”

This wasn’t right, thought Louise, and she said, “You are joking with me, aren’t you? Maybe you are unaware of it?” she asked if it was possible.

“I would have known if it was there, Louise,” he looked at her, slightly worried.

Louise didn’t understand what exactly was going on. She said, “I have the keys to Mr. Winkle’s office, but not his cabinets. I can check tomorrow again and if allowed, bring it to you.”

“Okay,” replied Graham, and he placed his hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry about others, Louise. Let us go and get some sleep now.”

Louise nodded her head and turned around before starting to walk away from there with him.

When the couple headed towards the manor, not too far away, stood someone. It was Gilbert, the butler, who stood with a shovel in his hand, watching them leave with his passive expression. Turning back, he walked towards the forest.

The next day, the first thing Louise did when Mr. Winkle’s arrived at the office was, ask him for the key to the cabinet. Collecting it quickly, she went to the room and opened the cabinet to pick up Lisa’ file. When she searched for the paper, it wasn’t there anymore.

Locking the cabinet, she walked to Mr. Winkle’s room and knocked on the door before entering it, “Mr. Winkle, did you check Lisa Reed’s file yesterday?”

“Not at all,” replied Mr. Winkle. “I haven’t gone to the storage room for almost a week. Why?” he gave her a questioning look.

“I thought I saw a paper yesterday, but it isn’t there anymore,” replied Louise. “It was the document of the will made by Nelson Reed.”

“Hm, I don’t remember I have seen such will,” said Mr. Winkle, and he resumed his work. Louise stepped out of the room, going to her seat and sitting down so that she could cool her head. She picked up the glass of water that was on her table, finishing the entire glass.

She placed her head on her desk because the more she thought, her head started to hurt. She wished she knew the answers to what was happening around her. Even if it was just a single thread of clue, she would be able to find out the rest of the truth.

“Are you not feeling well, Louise? You should go home,” stated Mr. Winkle, who had stepped out from his room.

“I am okay,” Louise smiled at the man, who stared at her.

“Looks like something is worrying you. Is everything alright back in the manor?” questioned Mr. Winkle.

Though the other people from the town liked to consider Mr. Winkle to be an odd man, to Louise, he was someone respectable and a person who was only intolerable to people’s lack of efficiency and maybe even stupidity.

“Everything is okay for now,” answered Louise, though her future seemed uncertain. “Mr. Winkle, what would you assume, if you saw things and then they weren’t there? Just gone as if they don’t exist.”

“That’s very simple,” replied Mr. Winkle to her, “The first question you should do is ask if you are getting enough sleep, or if your food is mixed with something. The more important question you need to ask later is who is playing tricks with you. Of course, unless it is a magician you met in the local theater,” he added.

Who? Mr. Winkle was the only person with the key… There was no one else in the room but her that day.

Louise heard the sound of the carriage that came to a stop in front of the building, in stepped the familiar coachman, Harvey. The man bowed his head and said, “Mr. Reeds has asked you to come and see him immediately.”

Louise turned to look at Mr. Winkle, who nodded his head before adding, “Make sure to finish the rest of your work tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Mr. Winkles,” and Louise quickly packed her things and got on the carriage that Graham sent.

When she reached Graham’s workplace, Louise noticed another carriage parked in front of the building. She stepped inside, walking towards the office room. On reaching,, through the glass door, she noticed Mr. Burton sitting in front of Graham.

Louise pushed the door, stepping inside the room, and she asked, “Is everything alright?”

“Good morning, Lady Louise,” Mr. Burton bowed his head. “The last time I came to visit the manor, you wanted to be involved in Mr. Wensley’s case. So I thought to come here and tell you what I found in presence of both you.”

“What did you find?” asked Louise, feeling her heart rate slightly increase in anticipation.

Mr. Burton finally said, “Elias the man with whom Mr. Wensley was associated, he was a hired killer. A person who killed people for money.”