Medicine and Manners #2 Read Online Free PDF Page A

Fontaine said, giving Alexandra a sad smile.
    “Now tell me, what was it you were saying about a horseman?” Alexandra asked. Before Mrs. Fontaine could respond, an old clock on a chest behind her chimed the hour. “Oh! Forgive me, Mrs. Fontaine, I must ask you to tell me at another time. I have an appointment. I am sure to be late if I don’t leave. I’ve not yet asked you about your health or your needs.”
    Mrs. Fontaine stood as well. “My health is better than an old woman expects, and my needs are few and well met,” she said as she brushed a kiss on Alexandra’s cheek. “Do come back, my dear. I always look forward to your visits.”
    Alexandra bid her goodbye with a promise to return soon. Besides watching after her health, she now had several questions to ask that there’d not been time to get to today.
    Zack stood from his perch near the front door as she exited and growled, giving one of the cats a slant-eyed stare. The cat quickly retaliated with a hiss that put Zack in his place. He backed away, only too grateful to follow along beside Alexandra as she rode Lucy toward Judith Payne’s cottage on Dedham Row.
    —
    Alexandra saw a blue haze of forget-me-nots as she approached the cottage. The little garden in front, though pretty, paled in comparison to Mrs. Fontaine’s garden. She noticed a jasmine and crocuses in purple and blue, and even a few green shoots of iris, but there was not the elaborate variety of Mrs. Fontaine’s plantings. She tied Lucy to a post, and Zack positioned himself in a comfortable pose near the door, his chin flat to the ground, and his dark eyes still drooping a little, perhaps over embarrassment about his cowardly reaction to the cat.
    After she knocked, Alexandra stood at the door for several seconds before Judith appeared. She was shown into the parlor, a room as tidy and carefully arranged as the front garden had been, but with less color. A ray of early-spring sunshine splayed itself across the center of the dark-hued carpet, giving an otherwise somber chamber a welcoming look.
    “Dr. Gladstone, thank you for coming,” Judith said as she directed Alexandra toward a sofa. Judith’s face, usually as pretty and fresh-looking as spring, today was marred with a frown and a troubled expression.
    “Are you all right, Miss Payne?” Alexandra asked.
    Judith pressed her lips together in a nervous gesture before she answered. “To be frank, no, I’m not all right, and please call me Judith.”
    “Very well, Judith. Now, please, tell me what’s troubling you.”
    “It’s those men—those who were murdered,” she said, as if to remind Alexandra. Judith held her head down and twisted a white handkerchief with her long fingers and sat with the rigid posture of a schoolboy. It was several seconds more before she raised her eyes to look at Alexandra. “As I told you, I…believe I know the identity of the person who killed them.” She was obviously struggling to keep her voice steady, but she was not completely succeeding.
    “What…makes you think you know that?” Alexandra asked.
    “It’s because of Thomas Cavenaugh,” Judith blurted.
    Alexandra spoke calmly, hoping to keep Judith from giving in to the tears she seemed to be on the verge of shedding. “I don’t believe I know anyone by that name,” she said.
    “He doesn’t live here in Newton, he lives in Foulness,” she said.
    “I see, and what makes you think he may have killed anyone?”
    “He…He’s my fiancé.” Judith was twisting her handkerchief again. “I don’t mean he’s a murderer. I can’t see him doing such a thing, although I don’t really love him.”
    Alexandra frowned. “I’m afraid I don’t understand at all what you’re trying to tell me, Judith.”
    “What I’m trying to say is that my father killed those two men.”
    It took Alexandra a moment to respond. “Your father?” she finally managed.
    Judith nodded as a tear crept down her cheek.
    “Are you quite