“Surely you don’t intend us to simply abandon the case, Atticus?” Lucie pushed one of the divided skirts she used for bicycling savagely into their trunk. “People’s lives are at stake. Perhaps if I tried to reason with Sir Hugh when he’s calmed a little?
Atticus smiled, hoping that his smile was masking the hollow emptiness and increasing indignation he was feeling after being bawled out of the orangery. Try as he might to rationalise it away, the feeling persisted.
He said, “Of course I don’t want to abandon the case, Lucie; it needs solving and solving quickly. And anyway, how often are we presented not only with a single murder, but with a whole string of them with the murderer still at large? Fee or no fee, he or she needs bringing to justice and we are the ones to do it.”
“Should I stay here then?” Lucie asked. “As Sir Hugh insists I should.”
Atticus considered the suggestion.
“No, it’s too dangerous. Let’s take up our room in the Bowes Hotel in the village and see this sorry saga to a conclusion from there.”
Lucie pursed her lips.
“But as you said yourself, the whole of this case seems to centre on Shields Tower and the home farm, so dangerous or not, surely we can’t miss the opportunity of me remaining here? Sir Hugh will keep me safe I’m sure – he seems to like me and there’s James and Mr Collier too. And you’ll only be a mile or two away in the village.”
Atticus looked reluctant. “I declare I still don’t like it, but if you’re sure.”
“I am, quite sure. I’ll meet you down at the Bowes once you’ve settled in.”