CHAPTER NINETEEN
O
ver tea and a tin of shortbread we plotted our strategy.
“Let us establish a working hypothesis upon which we both can agree,” I began.
“The trouble is, we have bloody few facts upon which we can hypothesize,” he grumbled.
I waved a hand.
“A trifling matter.
We shall turn our attention to the fact at hand.
The baron was murdered in his own study.
Not by either of us,” I added firmly.
“Further, we may infer that the crime was one of passion and not the culmination of some monstrous scheme.”
“And how may we infer that?”
“The lack of a weapon.
The murderer seized a paperweight, which you have identified as an ammonite belonging to the baron, a piece that rested upon his desk.
It was the perfect weapon of opportunity for a careless villain who had brought no weapon of his own.”
“Or a clever villain who would rather use a weapon belonging to the victim than something which can be traced to him,” he pointed out.
I frowned.
“I like my theory better.”
“I had little doubt you would,” he conceded graciously.
“Carry on.”
“In either event, the man—I think we can agree it was a man?”
He nodded.
“Max was tall.
I should think a woman would have to be uncommonly strong to have wielded that ammonite to such effect.”
An expression of singular distaste had settled upon his mouth and I hurried on.
“So our man was either a creature of sudden temper who quarreled with the baron and seized the nearest weapon at hand or a cool fellow with a cunning brain who plotted this out.”
“Without knowing which, it will be difficult to track him,” Stoker mused.
“Why so?”
He shrugged.
“Tracking is my stock in trade, a skill I learned as a boy and perfected as a man.
One must understand one’s prey.
I can track a jaguar through a jungle for forty miles and never lose him, but this—”
He looked suddenly tired then, and I realized what the past days had cost him.
He had borne the loss of a beloved friend—one of the few he could claim.
He had held my life in his hands, and he had confronted the ghosts of his past at every turn.
I thought of Lady Cordelia’s parting words.
Deliberately, I reached into my bag and withdrew the flask of aguardiente.
I poured a measure into his teacup and handed it over.
He drank it slowly, the color coming back into his face as he sipped.
I could almost see the warmth passing through him, kindling his blood where it had run cold and slow.
“Now,” I said with an air of command, “try again.
If you were to track the baron’s murderer, where would you begin?”
“In the baron’s study,” he said promptly.
“It is the last place we know the fellow has been.”
“But surely the police—”
“The police are only as good as the men they send.
They are a motley crew, composed of respectable tradesmen’s sons and vagabonds, liars, and clerks.
Some are no better than the filth they arrest.”
“You have no cause to think well of them,” I observed.
“I do not.”
His mouth was a thin, hard, bitter line.
“If they sent a blackguard who walks a beat to collect protection money and harass the prostitutes, the killer could have left a case full of calling cards and they still would not have found him.
If they sent one of their best, then the place will have been gone over thoroughly.
Even then, something may have been missed.”
“Very well.
We shall begin at the baron’s.
You will apply yourself to seeking out the spoor of this particular leopard,” I said with some relish.
“And what will you be doing?”
he demanded.
“I will be attempting to discover what the fellow was after.”
“After?”
“Yes.
He must have come for something.
What was it?
A quarrel over property?
A personal misunderstanding?
A lady?”
He shook his head slowly.
“Max had no romantic attachments, not in all the years I have known him.
He never spoke of anyone, at least.
I always had the sense that he had no interest in love affairs.”
“Really?
I formed quite the opposite impression.
I think he was a great deal in love with my mother.”
“Why?”
“I haven’t the faintest.
But during our journey to London, he mentioned something about how I looked exactly like her.
Something in his manner, the soft way he spoke of her.
It was quite moving.”
He sat back in his chair, his mouth now slack with disbelief.
“I could smother you with that tea cozy and no one would blame me,” he said in a voice thick with emotion.
“Whyever should you want to?”
“Because, you daft, impossible woman, you have been concealing a possible motive from me for the whole of the time we have been together!”
“What motive?
I merely said he seemed attached to my mother.”
“And I am telling you, he had no love affairs.
If he loved her, it was
the love affair of his life.
Something possibly worth his life, even.”
“Rubbish,” I said stoutly.
“He told me nothing at all about her save that I look like her and that he would explain everything to me when he had the chance.”
“A chance that never came,” Stoker observed.
“Rotten luck for you.
I am sorry.”
I shrugged.
“At least I know a little more now than I once did.
The baron knew her, and that is a place to begin.”
“Indeed.”
“So how do we get into the baron’s house?
The poor misused housekeeper is gone to Brighton,” I reminded him.
“Another point for your argument that the killer has not a cool and cunning brain,” he told me.
“He was interrupted in searching the study.
A more experienced fiend would have simply killed Mrs. Latham as well and carried on.
He hurried out, giving her a knock instead.”
“Searching the study,” I began.
He lifted his eyes to mine.
“Like your cottage.”
“The same fellow?”
“Possibly.
But what can he be looking for?”
“That is what we must ascertain.
I presume a spot of housebreaking is in order?”
He grinned, a smile of rare and devilish charm.
He dipped into his pocket with his fingertips.
“No need.
I have a key.”
“Then we need only wait for nightfall,” I said.
“What shall we do with ourselves in the meantime?”
His gaze brightened, but before he could speak, Lady Cordelia returned carrying a basket.
“I have brought food—enough for tonight and tomorrow morning.
I thought it best if I did not come down here every time.
It might arouse suspicion.”
I peered into the basket and saw a large cheese, a few roasted fowls, some cold potatoes, wedges of game pie, a loaf of bread, and the remains of a small saddle of beef.
There was butter and jam and even a jar of chutney jostling for space with crisp apples.
“Bless you, Lady Cordelia.
We shall feast like princes.”
Stoker’s gaze slid away from hers, and she tipped her head thoughtfully.
“I presume from your guilty air that you intend to ignore my good advice and go out?”
Stoker looked abashed, but I refused to be cowed.
“We do.”
“To the baron’s, no doubt?”
“Indeed,” I said, willing Stoker to silence.
I had the unshakable feeling he would try to apologize for our plan, perhaps even be talked out of it, and I had no intention of permitting that to happen.
“Of course you do.
I ought to have suspected it.
No creature of feeling and spirit would be content to sit by and let matters take their course.
All nature would rebel against it,” she acknowledged.
I gave her a gracious nod, pleased she saw things my way.
She sighed.
“In that case, here is a revolver,” she said, handing over a small weapon perfectly sized for a lady’s hand.
“Make certain you leave after eleven.
That is when Betony is taken out for her evening patrol of the grounds.”
She left us then, and I realized Stoker had not said a word for the duration of her visit.
“What ails you, Stoker?
Cat got your tongue?”
He stroked his chin thoughtfully as he stared at the revolver.
“I was merely thinking that it may have been a very grave mistake to introduce you to Lady C.
If the pair of you ever put your minds to it, you could probably topple governments together.”
I smiled as I pocketed the weapon.
“One thing at a time, dear Stoker.
One thing at a time.”
· · ·
Some hours later—after a cold meal of Lady Cordelia’s offerings and several games of two-handed whist during which Stoker collected a sizable IOU from me—we ventured forth.
I dithered a moment over my hat but in the end opted to lay my favorite rose-bedecked chapeau aside for my second-best, a much smaller and less obtrusive affair decorated with a lush cluster of violets.
Stoker peered at my carpetbag in stupefaction.
“How much have you packed in there?
It is a veritable Aladdin’s cave.”
I held up my hatpin to the light, admiring the slender strength of the steel.
“Packing a bag efficiently is simply a matter of spatial understanding,” I told him.
I thrust the point of the pin home, skewering the hat neatly to my loose Psyche knot.
He eyed the unguarded tip warily, but I noticed in addition to the blade he usually kept in his lanyard, he slid a second into his boot.
“Good heavens, how much trouble are you expecting?”
I demanded.
He blew out the candle.
“In my experience it is the trouble you do not anticipate that is the most dangerous.”
We stood in the darkness for several minutes to let our eyes adjust, saying nothing, scant inches apart.
I could hear him breathing, long slow breaths, and smiled to myself.
He was calm—almost unnaturally so, and this was precisely what I required in a partner in adventure.
At my signal we moved to the door, slipping into the night.
He took my hand and led the way through the grounds of Bishop’s Folly, following the path we had taken earlier in the day.
I expected he would drop my hand once we left the property, but he kept it clasped in his, even as we eased out of the gate and through the darkened streets.
He chose alleyways and quiet parks rather than the well-lighted thoroughfares crammed with the vehicles of the fashionable.
We crept across silent squares and ducked into areas thick with shadows.