Flowers Stained With Moonlight by Catherine Shaw

village proper; some of the people here would have surely noticed him. He must have gone around. Still,’ she added a little wistfully, ‘I do think I remember Betsey telling me that Martha had seen something.’
    ‘I remember too!’ The discussion had become general now, as everybody tried to recall exactly what they might have heard or seen. ‘Yes, Betsey mentioned it to me! Didn’t you, Betsey? Now, when was it? I was at the grocer’s … buying … buying raspberries. That was it! I told you I was buying them for tea because my nephew was visiting. And you said “Is your nephew a tall, polite young man with black hair?” And I said “No, he’s a little boy of nine.” Do you remember?’
    ‘To be sure!’ agreed Betsey. ‘Martha had told me she’d seen such a one, and I thought it must be your visitor when you mentioned him. Now, what day would that have been?’
    ‘Well, it was the day my little nephew came, so it wasSunday – why yes, it was the Sunday before last, the very one!’
    Dora, I won’t go on telling you the vagaries of the conversation, for I couldn’t possibly remember it; the remarks became wilder and more varied, as an ever greater number of guests came to ‘recall’ something about the mysterious gentleman. Yet as far as I could ascertain, only Martha appeared certain of having really seen him; it was in the early afternoon, and he was walking away from the village in the direction of Haverhill Manor, on that very same road from which (while coming towards the village) some witness claimed to have seen Sylvia running through the woods.
    Old Martha may be the ‘strange old lady’ of Haverhill, but her testimony was perfectly clear, and it was accepted as gospel truth by the whole of the company. An idea to verify her tale formed itself in the back of my mind.
    When everything had been said, repeated and speculated over that possibly could, and not a single crumb of bread or cake nor a drop of tea remained, the party began to show signs of breaking up.
    ‘We’d best be going, Va – Vanessa,’ said Peter, masking the last word with a grin and a mumble as he glanced around him self-consciously. ‘Otherwise, you’ll be late for supper getting back.’
    I did not feel as though I should be able to eat any supper at all, but I was in a hurry to depart for reasons of my own. We exchanged warm goodbyes with all present, and above all with kind Mrs Bird, who invited us to return with great hospitality; the dear lady was simply bloomingunder all the attention! I wonder if her past life has not been particularly monotonous.
    Peter brought round the carriage from where he had stabled it at the public house, and I climbed up onto the box beside him.
    ‘Peter, before we start on the road home, there is something I would like to do,’ I said. ‘That is, if you think it is a good idea,’ I added with false deference.
    ‘What’s that?’ he enquired with interest, eager to please.
    ‘It’s about that young man, the one they all said they saw. I’m thinking about Sylvia, Peter; I think she’s in trouble with the police, as they seem to suspect her, and there may be an important clue there, don’t you think?’
    ‘Could well be. But what can we do about it?’
    ‘Just this one thing. It’s little enough. Let’s stop at the nearest train station, and ask at the window if anyone remembers a young man of his description getting off the train that Sunday.’
    He didn’t answer, but clucked up the horses, and we started off at a trot. He seemed to be mulling over things in his mind. After a while, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the horses’ backs, he said to me,
    ‘I think it would be best not to meddle.’
    ‘Perhaps – for other people!’ I replied hotly. ‘But we – why, we are already meddling, just by being acquainted with Sylvia! I shouldn’t leave a stone unturned if I thought it could straighten things out for her with the police.’
    ‘Are you such great friends,