My Husband Whispered Another Woman’s Name in His Sleep — What I Found Saved His Life

Part 2

My movements over the following four days were entirely calculated.

I was at breakfast when I was expected, in the library at the hours I was known to favor, and at dinner appropriately dressed and conversational.

I asked Brian on the second morning about the estate’s wool contracts with the manner of a woman making a general study of the property.

He watched my face with that attending quality he sometimes had.

He told me the contracts ran through a factor in town.

I ate my toast and noted that he had just confirmed, without knowing it, that Craig’s cousin was operating under a false business name.

On the third day, I sent Brenda into town with a message for Heather’s brother.

On the fourth day, I sat down with a blank ledger sheet.

Using only the information available in the store accounts and the quarterly summaries going back six years, I reconstructed what I believed Craig had taken line by line.

I crossed the false entries against the legitimate ones and totaled the discrepancies per quarter.

It came to a number that made me sit back in my chair for a long moment.

I copied it fair and put it with Brian’s letter and two other documents I had found by the simple method of knowing exactly what to look for.

One was a receipt for iron goods signed by a man in a neighboring village.

Brenda’s quiet inquiry had revealed this man had no memory of the transaction and had never sold iron to anyone at our estate in his life.

I put all of it in the locked compartment of my writing case.

I kept the key to it hidden safely inside my left glove.

On the fifth day, Brian found me in the garden.

I went there when I needed to think in the open air.

He stood for a while watching me look at the roses in the dry August light.

I heard him coming, because I always heard him coming with that quiet but settled step.

I kept my eyes on the roses and waited.

He reminded me I had said I needed four days.

I told him I had needed five, but I had what I needed now.

He came to stand beside me and said nothing.

I told him I would come to his study the next morning and lay everything before him.

I told him I needed him to have the magistrate there.

I heard the sharp intake of his breath.

He asked me what I had found.

I turned and looked at him fully, which I did not often do.

He was looking back at me with his gray eyes, very still and very close.

I reminded him of his promise.

I told him what I had found implicated someone he trusted, and I needed him to hear all of it before deciding what to believe.

He said he would do it.

I nodded, walked past him into the house, and spent the night organizing the last of the evidence.

When I laid the real ledgers on the desk in front of the magistrate and called Craig into the room, would Brian finally see the truth about his most trusted friend?