“And the gun?” she asked the constable standing over her.
“Where no one can be harmed further by it,” he answered, his eyes not unsympathetic to her plight, but it was clear that he thought that she was wrong.
“May I see it?” Cleo asked, ignoring the disapproving looks of the newly arrived dean and the other constable who had come to the house.
“Nay, you may not,” the constable from the house answered moving into the room. “You should not be here, Miss Wallace. I will take you home.”
“My father did not kill himself!” By this point Cleo was shouting. Her emotions were scattered about and she was gasping out tears.
The men standing over her exchanged looks and stayed tight-lipped. The constable approached and helped her up. “I will escort you home.” And without giving her a moment more to protest, he dragged her from the room. The group of observers parted like the Red Sea, allowing them to pass.
“He did not do it,” Cleo sobbed to anyone who dared to make eye contact with her. “He did not do it!” She fought the constable, but to no avail. He was far bigger and stronger and used to dealing with unwilling personages. “Let me go!”
“Nay, I will not let you go. I am sorry, Miss Wallace, but you are in a terrible state of grief and must be returned to the safety of your own home. Your father’s office is no place for a young woman at this time.”
“I will not go! I will not abandon my father to the likes of your incompetence!”
The constable dragged Cleo kicking and screaming back to the house. She knew that she was making a scene, but she did not care. All she cared about at that moment was that her father had been murdered and no one seemed to care enough to listen to her about it.
“Unhand the lass,” Mrs. McGrath came barreling out of the front door of the house. “Unhand her at once!”
The constable released Cleo into Mrs. McGrath’s arms. “He is dead,” Cleo sobbed as she fell to her knees at the cook’s feet. “Father is dead.”
“Nae, that cannae be,” Mrs. McGrath answered, shaking her head in denial.
“I am afraid that it is true, madam,” the constable answered, righting his clothing that had been jumbled in the struggle.
“How?”
“I regret to say that Professor Wallace killed himself, madam.”
“Nay, he did not! He was murdered!” Cleo exclaimed in protest. “My father would never do such a thing!”
“The lass is right, her faither would ne’er leave her in such a way and he would ne’er leave her on the anniversary o’ her birth. Only a cruel man would do such a thing, and our Henry was nae a cruel man.”
The constable frowned in concern but feeling that there was nothing more that he could do readied himself to depart. “See that she rests. I will have a physician sent to administer a sedative. The girl is clearly distraught.”
“Ne’er ye mind about that. I will see tae the lass.” Mrs. McGrath’s protective tone left no room for argument. “Ye can return tae yer duties if ye even ken what those may be.”
The constable bowed and silently walked away. Cleo stared after him, grief and anger seething through every fiber of her being. “My father did not kill himself,” she shouted after him.
“Come in tae the house, lass.” Mrs. McGrath helped Cleo onto her feet. “We will talk about it all inside.”
Cleo followed the cook into the drawing room where she collapsed on the closest chair that she could find. “He would not have done this,” she kept murmuring over and over again. “My father would not have done this.” She could not shake off the state of shock she had been in since the constable and dean had arrived on her doorstep.
“Nay, he would nae have done such a thing tae ye, I agree.”
The cook’s agreement jarred her out of her state of shock just enough to respond. “The true question is, who would have done so?”
Mrs. McGrath shook her head. “I dinnae ken anyone who would have wished the professor harm.”
“Nor do I.” Cleo’s frown deepened in thought as she wiped the tears from her cheeks attempting to gain some control over herself. The question gave her a sense of purpose among the turmoil that had ripped her world apart. She needed something to cling to or risk slipping into insanity. She was now an orphan, a grown woman, but an orphan nevertheless, and the pain of it was more than she could bear. Her heart felt ripped from her chest and trampled upon, and returned with no concern for the pain caused her.
“What do ye wish tae do, lass?”
“I wish to find whoever has done this and to see them hanging from the gallows.” By this point, Cleo was shaking with barely contained rage.
Mrs. McGrath studied Cleo’s face, then nodded. “Then that is what we will do, lass.”
