Royce walked around the professor, scanning the body just as I had. Even in the presence of a dead man, he did not remove his cap. “Heart attack, do you think?” He squatted down to peer at the thin line of dried blood from a cut on the professor’s right cheek. “He must have hit the corner of the desk on his way down.”
I heard the tapping of a cane outside the door, and ran out into the hall. Royce followed me out, slipping out the front door as I faced Ruth and Priscilla standing in the hall.
“What is all this hullabaloo?” Ruth frowned at me, clearly thinking I was the source of upheaval in the household.
“Professor Burbridge is dead,” I blurted out. Then I took a long breath, willing myself to slow down to try to spare these two old ladies a terrible shock. I didn’t want any fainting or heart attacks on top of everything else. But the two women surprised me.
“Poor, dear man,” Priscilla said, her face twisting in compassion. “I didn’t think he was that old. Was he ill, do you know?” she appealed to her sister.
Ruth scowled at me. “Have you called the proper authorities?” She pushed past me to enter the library. Her eyes widened and she fell back a pace at the sight of the body. She backed out of the room, blocking the doorway so Priscilla couldn’t enter. “Priscilla, please go with this young lady to the living room and ring for Louise. There’s going to be a lot of unseemly activity around here shortly.” She gave me a look that said, “Do what I say and do it now.”
I offered my arm to Priscilla and walked with her to the living room. I sat her down on one of the wingback chairs. “Let me get you a glass of water and call for Louise.”
She nodded without a word.
I could hear the sirens screaming up the winding drive. I ran upstairs to try to find Louise. When I didn’t find her in her room, I simply stood in the middle of the hallway and hollered her name. I knew Ruth would abhor the unseemly noise, but it worked. Louise popped out of Priscilla’s bedroom, clutching a duster in one hand.
“What are you carrying on about? You know the old lady doesn’t like a lot of noise in the house.”
“Priscilla needs you downstairs.” I sucked in my breath, and then told her the bad news. “Professor Burbridge is dead.”
Louise dropped her duster. “What, murdered?” she whispered.
“What?” I stared at her, shocked at that suggestion. “No, it looks like he had a heart attack. Could you bring a glass of water down for Priscilla? I’m sure she’ll want you to sit with her.”
Louise bent down to retrieve her fallen duster. I was already running back down the stairs as she turned back to Priscilla’s bedroom.
The paramedics were entering the front hall when I descended. I ducked back into the living room to find Priscilla still sitting on the chair where I left her. I knelt down at her side.
“All right?”
She turned her sweet, vacant smile to me. “Such a lot of hubbub in the hall. I hope they show the proper respect for the poor, dear man.” She shook her head sadly. “Poor man, Ruth was so hard on him. Now they’ll never get the chance to talk it over and make things right.”
“What do you mean?”
But Priscilla didn’t get a chance to answer.
A tall police officer entered the room. “Who found the body?”
I stood up, feeling the blood rush to my cheeks. “I did.”
“Please follow me.”
He led me up the stairs to a small sitting room across the hall from the library. He left the door open, so I could see the backs of the paramedics as they bent over the professor’s body on the floor. I fixed my eyes on the police officer’s face, trying to shut out the noises from across the hall.
The policeman looked like he was nearing retirement age, with a well-lined face that evoked images of a kindly grandfather rather than a stern officer of the law. “My name is Officer Travis, from the Laurel Springs Police Department. I have a series of routine questions to ask about this unattended death.”
I nodded, and answered automatically as he took down my name and other identifying information. The police had all this information on file from earlier this summer, when I was questioned in a murder case. I hoped they wouldn’t flag me as a dead body magnet or something. At least this was merely an “unattended death” and not a homicide. Still, I didn’t see the need to bring up my previous encounter with the police.
“What is your relationship to the deceased?”
“I don’t know him very well, really. He and I are—or were—both working on the Compton Hall renovation for the TV reality show. I’m a seamstress. Professor Burbridge had done some research for me on eighteenth-century embroidered curtains. I went in today to ask him for the drawings, and there he was on the floor.” I clasped my hands together in my lap. “I didn’t touch him. I called 911.”
Officer Travis wrote down all my responses in a small notebook, and finally dismissed me with a brief “Thank you for your time. I’ll be in touch if I need more information.”
I returned to the living room to see that a newcomer had joined Priscilla. A large man in his fifties, with cropped gray hair that highlighted his prominent ears and long earlobes similar to those of the Compton sisters, he leaned over one arm of Priscilla’s chair and listened while she talked softly. I didn’t see Ruth in the room, and wondered where she’d gone.
Priscilla noticed me entering the room. She extended one hand to me, while the other kept hold of the newcomer’s left hand. “My dear, come meet my nephew, Johnny. He’s Ruth’s younger son, you know. He lives just down the street, such a good boy. Not like Robby, not at all.”
I took Priscilla’s outstretched hand. Her fingers were cold, and trembled a bit. “Nice to meet you,” I said to Johnny.
His sharp brown eyes took me in from head to toe as he shook my hand firmly. “It’s John. And you are?”
“Daria Dembrowski. I’m the owner of A Stitch in Time, which provides historical sewing services. I’m working with Priscilla to transform herself into the mistress of an eighteenth-century house for the TV show.”
He nodded, his attention already diverted from me as Louise Pritchard entered the room.
“Miss Ruth would like to see Miss Priscilla in the dining room,” she announced, sounding like the grand butler from a forgotten era.
I watched in silence as Priscilla rose and shuffled out of the room with Louise.
“Is there anything else I can do?” I asked John once the door closed behind the two of them.
He was scrolling through his phone. “You don’t know of a good cleaning service, do you?”
I shook my head, somewhat shocked at his callousness. “I guess I’ll be leaving, then. I don’t suppose Priscilla will want to think about curtains at a time like this.”
He just shrugged, deep in his research. I gathered up my sewing things and left the room.
On the way out the door I saw yet another newcomer passing through the hall. I recognized his broad shoulders and trim build encased in an expensive pinstriped suit. Of course, the new attorney. It figured. I would have ducked into a room, any room, to avoid meeting him, but he heard my step and turned around.
“Ah, Daria. We meet again.”
“Randall. I was just leaving.” I tried to slip past him, but he sidestepped so that he blocked my path. I refused to let him see that I noticed. “You must be the new attorney.”
He inclined his head. “I’ve been retained to oversee the appraisal of the contents of the house, in my capacity as a wills and estates lawyer for