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Devil, Jane,” he said with surprising vehemence, “and I would not give a farthing for his opinion of anybody.”

     
    S IR J AMES V ILLIERS, HOWEVER, WAS ANOTHER KETTLE of fish—as my mother, in an angling spirit, might have been disposed to say. Sir James appeared in The Rutland Arms at so advanced an hour of the evening, however, that my mother was long since gone to bed, and Cassandra hard on her heels; only my cousin and I kept vigil with the lamps. Though the subject went un-broached between us, I rather fancy that neither of us was in haste to shut his eyes that evening, being uncertain what visions of horror might descend.
    Mr. Cooper was bent over his travelling desk, composing a letter to his wife or perhaps a sermon on the day’s events—a natural expression of relief after so trying a period. I was engrossed in a slim volume of George Crabbe’s, discovered on a shelf in a corner of our parlour—a book of verse, unknown to me before, entitled
The Village
. Its tone was so like to a bitter wind that blights the first faint flowers of spring, that I quite admired the poet. He might have captured my very spirit of trouble and melancholy. I had just concluded the passage that begins “amid such pleasing scenes I trace/the poor laborious natives of the place,” when Sally announced Sir James.
    He was not a tall man; but his figure was so elegantly spare, and so swooningly attired, that he might have been the lengthiest reed, a veritable whip of a fellow. He slid lithely into the room and bowed low over my hand before I had even thought to make my curtsey—before, indeed, my cousin Mr. Cooper had gained his feet. In another instant, Sir James had sent the serving girl for a bottle of Madeira—had made himself comfortable in our parlour—and was conversing so cordially with Mr. Cooper and myself that we might all have been acquainted this last age.
    Sir James’s fair hair was artfully curled over his forehead
à la Titus
and the leathers of his Hussar boots gleamed. I observed the cut of his dark blue pantaloons, the narrow shoulders of his olive coat, and the remarkable extravagance of his necktie—and knew myself in the presence of a Pink of the
ton
, a Sprig of Fashion, a True Corinthian. My brother Henry had long ago taught me the mark of such a man.
    “Have you lived long in Derbyshire, Sir James?” I enquired as Sally reappeared with his wine.
    “All my life,” he replied. “I was born and raised at Villiers Hall, and absent a few years of schooling and a Season or two in London, have been happy to call it home. I am the fourth Villiers to bear the title of baronet, and the second to serve as Justice for Bakewell.”
    “And does your commission generally give you so much trouble?”
    He grinned—an easy, languorous expression not unlike a hound’s. “There has not been a serious offence in the vicinity for years, Miss Austen. The duties of Justice are more honoured in the breach than the observance. We may account Tess Arnold’s murder the result of an extraordinary run of bad luck.”
    “Have there been other incidents, then, predating this murder?”
    “Not in Bakewell itself,” Sir James replied. “But the owner of Penfolds Hall—Mr. Charles Danforth—has suffered grievous misfortune in recent months. He has lost no less than four children, the last a stillborn son. His wife passed away a fortnight after her lying-in.”
    “It is a wonder the people of Bakewell do not believe him cursed,” I murmured.
    “Ah—but they do! And the maid’s murder will be taken as further proof of it.” Sir James looked to my cousin. “It is a most distressing business, whatever the cause. It seems your passion for angling, Mr. Cooper, has placed us all at the center of a maelstrom. What have you to say for yourself?”
    Mr. Cooper opened and shut his mouth without a word escaping him. It was fortunate, I thought, that no hymn sprang forth.
    “A maelstrom,” I repeated. “Has news of the