Ian rubbed his temples. “There’s something about the pin, but trying to remember is like grasping at shadows. He’s wearing that thistle in his coat lapel in the two photos I’ve seen of George. But the witch running the boardinghouse I took him to swears he didn’t have any such thing on him when he arrived. Which means somewhere between his disappearance and me finding him again he lost that pin.”
“At least that suggests he’s still alive, does it not?” Elvanfoot made a quick glance at the other items in comparison. “Presumably these other items were taken after the victims were killed, so the possibility still exists that the pin’s presence in the shop is a mere coincidence unrelated to . . .” He gestured to the array of jewelry and other personal items.
“Aye, it would seem so,” Ian said, though he sounded somewhat less relieved about the conclusion than Elvanfoot did.
Edwina had no choice but to add up the evidence of the hidden baubles and the collection of items missing from the victims. The seriousness of her sister’s predicament prodded her to act. “I need to go find her, talk to her. Make her see reason.”
“Can you?” Ian asked. “You saw how erratic she was.” He shut the lid on the trunk. “Never mind, I’m going with you,” he said and ran down the stairs before she could argue.
After he left the room, Edwina felt the weight of Elvanfoot’s scrutiny. Certain he could see right through her, she suggested Mary wasn’t in her right mind. That she believed her sister had recently suffered the misfortune of a wounded heart, as well as a bruised cheek, from a suspected secret lover. All would be well if Edwina could just find her and bring her home for a proper heart-to-heart.
“And yet I suspect that’s not the entirety of it,” he said, fishing for a more complete explanation from her as he gazed again at the bauble in the window’s light, but he let the matter go when she said she mustn’t waste any more time.
Elvanfoot asked permission to remain behind in the shop so he might read further on the subject of memories being taken from the body. On the off chance Mary returned before she did, Edwina invited him to make himself comfortable downstairs in their father’s old chair, though perhaps with a defensive spell at the ready. He bowed his head, then followed her down the steps.
After securing her black straw hat with the green silk ribbon around its band, Edwina shook out her shawl to straighten the fringe, then swung it over her shoulders. “Ready,” she said.
Ian held the front door open for her. “So where do we start?”
“You might try that gadget of yours,” she said, nudging her chin at his pocket watch. “If there are any indications nearby, we might yet catch up.”
Edwina took pleasure in his reaction as he belatedly came to the same conclusion. He drew the timepiece out and aimed it toward the street, while she took note of the boy’s thankful absence. Blessedly, that was one less distraction to have to deal with. After all the whirligigs and wheels finished spinning on his watch, Ian got a reading. Besides the three witches and singular imp within the shop, there were two other possible figures. One was moving at a high rate of speed, the other stationary and situated somewhere at the far end of the street. They followed the moving target.
“That way,” Ian said as they rounded the corner and followed the lane east for perhaps a quarter mile.
The city street quickly narrowed, casting a pall over the couple the farther they ventured from the commercial lane. In this part of the city, middle class and poor were stitched together in a mismatched patchwork of varying extremes. Stationers and milliners occupied streets once removed from tobacconists and butcher shops, doss-houses and gaslight pubs. Middle-class terrace flats stood back-to-back with tenements built with uneven bricks and wooden slats held together with rusted rose-head nails.
Ian stopped and checked his watch again. “She’s stopped moving,” he said after turning in each of the four directions while conferring with his device. “Possibly there.” He pointed to a corner pub with windows trimmed in black paint where piano music spilled into the street every time the door opened. Above the windows, a banner of faded gold lettering read THE STOLEN DOVE.
Edwina’s intuition rebelled. “Why would my sister come here? It doesn’t make any sense.” Left to her own instincts, she would have searched for Mary by the river, or along the battlements of the old castle, or even atop the parliament clock tower.
“She’s run from us, and until we know her motivation, I wouldn’t dare to speculate. And yet I think it’s safe to say she won’t be happy to see us again when we find her.” Ian had been glancing up as he spoke, taking in the neighborhood with a suspicious eye. He lowered his chin and looked Edwina full in the face then. “Would you rather return home? I can continue to look for her myself, if you’d prefer not to confront her this way.”