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eally as prepared for marriage or employment as Miss Hoffman had claimed.
“It means ‘Yes, as you would wish it,’” the girl said.
“So they are words of agreement?”
The girl nodded. “You say them at the end of a prayer as well,” she said. “Much like
‘Amen.’”
Emma stepped back, leaving Catherine to return to her task. So she was right. Leigh
Anne Hoffman had indeed been framing the questions in a certain manner, putting words in the
women’s mouths, doing what the Americans called “leading the witness.” These interviews were
useless, save for the fact that they showed Miss Hoffman was prepared to thwart them at all turns, not
only those involving Adelaide. She would have to tell Trevor at once.
But as Emma turned, her thin summer boots slipping in the moist earth of the garden, she
found herself face to face with none other than Miss Hoffman herself.
“If you wish to speak to any of my girls, Miss Kelly,” the woman said, “you do not need
to slip away like a thief in the night. All you must do is simply ask.”
“Your girls?” Emma asked, as they both instinctively stepped out of earshot from the
kneeling Catherine. “It would seem to me that they are young women in their own right.”
“Some more so than others,” Miss Hoffman said, in a rather self-satisfied tone of voice,
as they turned to walk back toward the portico where Gerry and Davy waited, along with the darkfingered
servants.
“You are quite cavalier about this all,” Emma said. “Considering that three people are
dead.”
“Three?” Miss Hoffman said. “But I understood that the young Morrow girl was
recovering nicely from her shock.”
“She is. I mean Rose Everlee Weaver, Pulkit Sang, and Jonathan Benson.”
The woman suddenly froze in her tracks. “Pulkit Sang, you say?”
“Mrs. Weaver’s manservant. He expired within a few feet of his mistress that morning at
the Byculla Club, which is the only reason we are even here in Bombay.”
“They died together?”
“Indeed. In fact, it was their near simultaneous demise that revealed the event to be a
murder and not a natural death. Thus you might say that Sang is the one who thwarted the killer’s
clever plans, just as a bodyguard is supposed to do, even if he accomplished his task posthumously.
Wildly ironic, is it not?”
“But I did not know….”
Emma looked at Miss Hoffman curiously. During the limited time she had spent with
Leigh Anne Hoffman she had seen a variety of emotions seize the strong features of the woman’s
face. But they always seemed to do a swift dance before settling into an expression of calm selfassurance,
as if Miss Hoffman had written the story of the world for her own personal amusement.
As if it were impossible for any person to say anything she had not thought of first. This was the first
time Emma had seen Miss Hoffman honestly struggle to regain her composure.
“Two people expired that morning in the lobby of the Byculla Club,” Emma repeated.
“You were not aware of this?”
“So little gossip comes to me here,” said Miss Hoffman. “I do not go to the Club, of
course, and few people…”
“Did you know the man?”
Miss Hoffman shook her head. The initial shock had passed now and she seemed to be