Chapter 4

I bit down on my lip regrettably as I followed him up the wooden staircase and was thankful it was not a long journey before we reached the second floor. The hallway was dark over here, devoid of all source of light since there was no window in sight. You can walk past here unseen, I noted, and felt the cover of night was alluring for me as well as Victoria on that fateful night. There was less creaking of the floorboards over here, and the carpet allowed my boots to travel across the surface unnoticed if I wished to. There were two doors to the right of me, and four more on the left of the staircase. Lord Reeds let go of the handrail as he made his way to the right and opened the door that was a few steps away from the staircase. “Carian! There is a man here to see you,” he called out, and let me pass him by before I walked into the sky-blue room with glass containers of bugs situated on the desk next to me. A small girl turned around to face me, her dark chestnut brown hair nearly covering her face as she studied me. I gave her a low bow of respect, feeling the brooding presence of her father behind me, in case his daughter felt uncomfortable with my presence.

“Detective Varon,” I introduced myself. “Pleasure to meet you, my Lady.”

“I’m not a Lady yet,” she rebutted, and got off the floor with her large encyclopedia in hand and a magnifying glass in the other. “Are you here for my sister?”

“I am.”

“Stephen took her!”

“Carian,” her father scolded. “Enough!”

She scrunched her face up with displeasure, making her look rather unattractive to the eyes. Carian was short and scrawny, and her lack of feminine features made her almost look like a boy. She even dresses like one, I noticed, taking in the men’s dress shirt she loosely wore around her tiny frame, and slacks that were too big for her. It must be her brother’s clothes, I concluded, taking in the illustrious details around the collar of the dress shirt that proved to me how valuable it once was.

His Lordship brushed himself past me and motioned for his daughter to sit down at the foot of her bed. He pulled out a chair for me that was pushed in front of a single desk and instructed me to take a seat. “Ask her questions, and then let her be,” he remonstrated, while crossing his arms at his sullen looking daughter.

“When was the last time you saw her?” I asked Carian quietly, as though we were engaged in a very intimate conversation.

“At the party, and then the ride home.” Carian bit on her finger nervously, as she tried not to have any sort of eye contact with me. “She was happy when we were heading there, but afterwards…”

“She wasn’t.”

“She was sad.”

“Why was she sad?”

“She didn’t say,” she told me honestly. “But she was quiet.”

“She isn’t normally quiet?”

“Not after a party.”

“Ah,” I said with pain. “So, something must have happened at the party.”

“She was with her friends that night, so I wouldn’t have known.”

“What were you doing?”

“I was…” she cracked her knuckles and peaked at her father like she wished he wasn’t there. “I was outside watching a fight.”

“Carian!” Bellowed out her father furiously.

“They were boxing, father!” she exclaimed with a raise of her hands.

“Carian Reeds, you know better than that,” he scolded. “Do I have to keep someone on you again?”

“No,” she sulked, after she lowered her head in shame.

“Were you out there alone?”

“I was with a man I met outside of the party.”

Lord Reeds’ voice was filled with disbelief as he exclaimed: “A man?”

“It wasn’t like that, father,” she pleaded in a child-like voice. “He liked horse races and wanted to show me his horse.”

“And you just followed him blindly.”

“He seemed safe enough.”

“Heavens, what is wrong with my daughters?” he grumbled, after he covered his face with annoyance. “What was his name?”

“I don’t know. He never told me.”

“I mean it, Carian,” he warned, with a voice so stern it would have made even me confess my darkest secrets.

“I never asked!” she exclaimed. “We just talked about stuff.” She brought her tightly balled up fists upon her lap. “Things that interest me.”

He grunted low under his breath while he crossed his arms hard against his broad chest. “I’m telling your mother, and you are basically on house arrest for a week… maybe even longer.”

“But…”

“Not one word of argument, Carian,” he exhaled sharply.

I clapped my hands loudly together, before I blurted out, “Right! Where were we?”

“We were talking about how sad Victoria was,” Carian mumbled as she did her best to control her temper.

“Yes! On that note, did she have any secret admirers? A suitor of some sort?”

“I thought it was the other way around,” she laughed. “She was dancing with men the whole night.”

“Stephen was not there,” her father revealed to me over my left shoulder. “I wish he was there to control her.”