The Fourth Mistress

While Louise and Lady Viola were still sitting in the drawing-room, one of the window's latch opened,  letting in the breeze that had increased its velocity. Gilbert quickly went to the window and closed it. 

"It looks like it is going to rain, milady," Gilbert informed the two women. 

"I am just hoping for them to bring Father Edward here on time. It has been almost forty minutes since they left and if it rains, it is going to take longer," commented Lady Viola, her lips setting themselves in a thin line and worry mared on her face. "Maybe it would be better if all of us head to the town and take shelter in the church."

"I doubt she would allow it, Lady Viola," stated Louise, her eyes fixed on the woman. The woman turned back to look at her. The frown deepened on her forehead. "The last time, when Father Edward visited the manor, he tied this cross to one of the pillars, but she took it back to his place. What I don't understand is something that she could touch before, why did she fear seeing the cross now?" 

It was something Louise was trying to figure out since Emily had disappeared from the manor. 

Was it because the strange phenomenon of the girl being forgotten, who she was, had been broken in here? 

"You people killed her, didn't you?" asked Louise, looking at the woman in her eyes. 

"In some way we did. Yes, we did," Lady Viola nodded her head while repeating the words and trying to acknowledge it. "But we didn't want to get our hands dirty in that filth."

"Which was why you hired that man Elias Latton," said Louise, and unlike last time, Lady Viola didn't deny it. "How did you people find out that Emily was involved in the death of the three women?"

"People who are young and immature often like to believe that they know everything, and when that arrogance fills their mind, it costs them heavily. 

Three weeks had passed since Graham had gotten married to Emily, just to fulfil Lisa's wish. And even though the wedding was a quiet one, I was still uncomfortable with it, and so were the others. I mean, who buys her husband's deceased wife's wedding gown? Most of us speculated that it was probably a way of showing others how close she was to Lisa."

"But she was only trying to take Lisa's place," said Louise and Lady Viola nodded her head. 

"Yes. After what happened to Lisa, we decided not to speak about Emily's odd nature. She continued to be that good woman, who seemed perfectly alright by appearance, but she made many mistakes and had failed to cover them," explained Lady Viola. She continued to say, "One day when I went to attend a soiree, a woman there mentioned that when she had gone to Mr. Burnell's shop, while entering the details she had noticed Marlow Saltonstall's name, who had bought a wedding gown. At first, I thought it was a sick joke, but then I got suspicious, I asked Robert to get more information on the family."

It dawned on Louise's mind why Senior Mr. Reed had a file with the Saltonstall family's details.

"But that wasn't enough to have suspicion on Emily," remarked Louise. "There might have been other women who bought a gown and you couldn't link Emily's name with such a small detail."

Lady Viola smiled at Louise, looking impressed by her doubt. She then said, "It is indeed a tiny detail, but it is all those little details that makes one go hmm in thought. Gilbert was the one who got other information."

Louise turned to look at the butler. Gilbert said, "One day I had gone to the Warlington manor to fetch some of the things back to this manor, when I went to the shop and was asked if we still have the rat problem, milady. I was surprised by the question because so far, we have never come across one inside the manor as we kept it as clean as possible."

"After Gilbert came back here, he told me about what he heard," said Lady Viola. "He mentioned that a maid in our household had bought rat poison. Not once but twice. Gilbert had never told any maids to buy the poison for the manor as he had been in charge of all the servants.Within a short period, Robert got all the details of the Saltonstall's family. That the father and the edler daughter's body had gone missing." 

"Did you speak to Graham about it?" questioned Louise. 

Lady Viola shook her head, "No, we didn't. He was already upset with us because we had called Lisa to be insane and I didn't want Graham to move out of the manor and live in a different town with Emily. After looking further into the matter, we found out that it was the neighbour, the couple who helped the girl and shifted the father's body from there."

"The neighbours? Why would they do that?" Louise was confused by this information. 

"Actually, Marlow Saltonstall had planned to run away from her husband because of his abusive behaviour. Some man had promised to help her get out of it, and she wanted to run away. But before that, the man ran away from there without helping her… causing a mental breakdown, and she committed suicide," explained Lady Viola, turning her head to look back at the fireplace. "The neighbour couple had probably pitied Marlow, and didn't want Mr. Saltonstall's body to be buried next to Marlow's body in the cemetery. To avoid any suspicion, they buried the man in the nearby forest."

Louise wondered how far the phenomenon had spread, who were related to Emily. Because when both she and Graham had gone to where the Saltonstall lived, the neighbour had behaved as if he didn't know anything about it. 

Lady Viola continued, "I went to meet Mrs. Hawkins to know more about Emily, and she told me that they found Emily around the same time when the Saltonstall's family passed away. The time somewhere matched and increased my doubt."

Three years ago…

It was the twenty-first of July, where Robert Reed and Mr. Earnest Wensley were walking in the forest's stoney path that belonged to the Reeds. The sky was still bright, and the birds that had perched on the nearby trees chirped. 

"I want you to hire someone, who can help us, Earnest," said Mr. Robert, his hands in his pockets as he walked next to his brother-in-law. 

"But are you sure about it? What if there's a mistake?" asked Mr. Wensley, a frown on his face after he heard what both his sister and Robert had found out. "I do know a person who works in Warlington. He deals with these kinds of special cases. What do you want to do with her?"

"Interrogate her," stated Robert with a grim expression on his face before a tired sigh escaped from his lips. "I want to know if she really committed the crimes or if she is innocent." 

"And what about Graham?" asked Mr. Wensley.