Chapter 8
Caroline was one of the first to tumble back into the dining room, having snatched up her dressing gown and wrapped it tightly around herself. Richard was just behind her.
The room was dimly lit by only a single shuttered lamp, for although the grate was open, the cloudy night sky offered little light.
The table and high-backed chairs were washed dark gold in the low light, and Captain Smythe—who sat sadly alone, with his head bowed—hopped up as if he’d been stuck with a pin.
“What was that?” He looked at Caroline as if she had uttered that angry shriek.
“It wasn’t us,” Richard said, taking Caroline’s hand. “Was it Lady Marston?”
Anne and Wentworth were not far behind, and the two maids as well. Mr. Belvedere had tucked his nightshirt hastily into his breeches. He looked every bit the gleeful schoolboy who had escaped his dormitory for a fine fuss. “What the hullabaloo?” he asked. “Someone murder the dragon?”
The captain shot him a darkling look.
Sophia was the next on the scene. “Everyone let me through, please. I know that was Lady Marston; I must attend her.”
She had redonned her dress, though only the top few buttons were done up, the rest imperfectly hidden under a shawl.
Captain Wentworth un-shuttered the lamp just then, casting them all into harsher shadows.
Clothed by chance, hair in various states of disarray, and all with raised brows, they must’ve been quite a sight.
Everyone shuffled to and fro so that Sophia could skirt around the table and the harpsichord to the door on the opposite side.
The door belonging to Sir and Lady Marston was now the only one which was not gaping open, and indeed they had been ominously silent after that one sound.
They all watched quietly, as if it was a pantomime. Sophia knocked. “Lady Marston? Do you need me?”
The door was flung open, and Lady Marston’s flashing dark eyes amidst her gray-black hair shone like obsidian. “I have been robbed.”
“What—is that all?” Mr. Belvedere said.
“All? All, sir?” Sir Mark was just behind his wife.
Caroline started, for he had already taken off his wig and had forgotten to put it back on, revealing a shiny pate.
“It’s a crime and travesty! The amethysts—some of the finest of the Marston jewels—are quite gone.
This bobbery, this blatant thievery, cannot pass. ”
Lady Marston did not seem to hear him. “Captain, I call on you to observe my jewel box—come! My amethysts have been taken.”
He pushed his way in, though what he expected to see, other than a jewelry box he had never seen before that was now lacking a piece of jewelry he had also never seen before, Caroline didn’t know.
“I was given to understand,” said Lady Marston terribly, “that the British Mail was of the utmost reliability. I have been criminally misled.”
“No, ma’am! The packet system is the pride of our far-flung empire,” the captain protested. “I have never had such a thing happen to a passenger in twenty-three years! It is unthinkable—”
“Well, think it, my good man,” said Sir Mark.
Minnie, their maid, thought it appropriate to burst into tears. “I swear I didn’t do anything, ma’am. I rubbed it and wrapped it in the cloth same as always when you wore it on—on—well, I can’t remember no days on this ship, but it was at least three days ago. It weren’t me…”
“No one said it was your fault.” Susan shushed her firmly but kindly. “Dry your eyes, and don’t make a scene.”
“It must be—with the stolen mail, perhaps—” The captain turned his fulminating gaze on Mr. Belvedere.
Mr. Belvedere raised his hands. “I have no more knowledge of this than I have of the mail bags! Or the parrot! Am I now to be counted a thief in addition to a Frenchie?” He pulled out a chair from the table and sat. “Search my room, please! I won’t stir from here.”
“What if he has it on him?” Sir Mark said. “The amethysts are valuable, but the links are so fine—I daresay you could crumple the whole thing into a thimbleful.”
“Hardly that,” Lady Marston corrected impatiently, “but you are correct that Mr. Belvedere may be hiding it on his person.”
Mr. Belvedere stood again. “Shall I strip down?”
“Yes!” the captain declared. “Er—in private, of course, for the ladies’ sake—”
Lady Marston spoke over them. “He must be searched, and after him, the others. There is an entire crew of men who could profit from the sale of those gems. Mr. Belvedere is suspect, I agree, but I am nothing if not fair-minded.”
This was left uncontested with far more tact than truthfulness, in Caroline’s opinion.
“By all means search everyone,” Mr. Belvedere said with exasperation, “but one of you ladies—or you maids!—must’ve noticed if one of us went poking his nose where it don’t belong.
You certainly would have noticed one of the seamen hanging about, for they don’t linger here.
” Then he smacked his own head. “But I don’t know why I am arguing the point. I am only tightening my own noose.”
“I don’t know that we would’ve noticed anyone, sir,” Susan said in her plain-spoken way.
“Minnie and I have taken to napping of the afternoon, when we are not needed, for neither of us are sleeping too well o’nights.
We also take our turns on the deck, when we can.
I don’t know if we would’ve heard or seen anything unless we happened to be right there. ”
Minnie nodded her agreement to this, wiping her streaming eyes.
“Well, there you have it,” Mr. Belvedere said. “I mean—I’m dreadfully sorry, Lady Marston. But you all heard the woman—It could’ve been anyone, seaman or gentleman.”
Mrs. Scott’s fine brow furrowed as she studied Lady Marston. “Do we know when the jewels went missing? Did you notice them this morning, ma’am?”
“I don’t recall, but I am certain I would have noticed if they were missing. I noticed at once when I opened it tonight.”
Minnie came forward meekly. “We didn’t open the box this morning, ma’am. You used only a shawl, a gold ring—from the drawer, you see?—and the onyx comb. For none of them did I open the main compartment.”
“Of course. Then it was yesterday evening?” Lady Marston confirmed
Minnie’s eyes went round. “Oh, yes, ma’am! And I can swear it was present then, for I moved it aside to tuck in your garnets.” She managed to stifle another sob. “I’m so stupid; I ought to have thought of that.”
Lady Marston’s mouth pressed into a thin line. “Then it may have been taken any time in the past day. I do not think anyone is above suspicion.”
Anne looked concerned while also suppressing a yawn.
Captain Wentworth frowned. “I daresay a search must be undertaken again, but Anne is tired, and I don’t feel fresh myself. It is weary work to begin such a thing near-on midnight. And…” His lips quirked. “Few of us are fit to be seen.”
Everyone shifted a little, having temporarily forgotten their state of dishabille. Mr. Belvedere even winked at Mrs. Scott, who turned her chin away from him and pulled her shawl a little more tightly over her hastily buttoned dress.
“I propose,” Captain Wentworth went on, “that we search tomorrow. No nook or cranny exists now that will not exist then, and I do not relish the idea of searching in the dark! Unless whoever took Lady Marston’s necklace has cast it to the void—” he gestured to the sea and Lady Marston huffed in shock and displeasure— “then it will be just as possible to discover it on the morrow. Will you accept this, Lady Marston?”
“I cannot like it, but you make a good point about the light.” Her jaw was tight; her teeth grinding. “But I suggest whoever took my jewels, if they be in this room, return my amethysts lest I bring charges against you in Lisbon!”
There was a somewhat anticlimactic silence, broken only by Minnie’s sniff.
“Er—I have only one addendum,” Mr. Belvedere said.
“Since I am the main suspect, I really feel you ought to search my cabin now. And fiend seize it—myself, too, I suppose.” He rose and began to undo his wrist cuffs.
“This is all a dashed hum, but I’ll truly be in the suds if you all turn against me now. ”
“You will hardly strip down in front of the ladies,” Wentworth said.
“Ha—of course not. I’m bold as brass but not tap-hackled.”
The captain gestured to his own cabin. “Sir.”
Richard and Sir Mark searched Mr. Belvedere’s cabin while Captain Wentworth and Captain Smythe made sure that there was no necklace secreted about Mr. Belvedere’s person.
“Should we search my cabin also?” Mrs. Scott put in quietly. “I am the only other person with a single occupant cabin.”
“I hardly think so,” Anne said. “I cannot imagine you would steal from your own—from Lady Marston. But this is an unhappy development. I do not like to think of someone so desperate in our midst.”
“It is quite silly, too,” Caroline said. “They ought not to make a stir before Lisbon! It would’ve been much wiser to wait until we were in port, would it not? Then they might take the amethysts and disappear on the continent. Now they have given us at least a week or two to search!”
Sophia smiled tiredly. “You would be a cleverer rogue than our mystery thief, Mrs. Fitzwilliam. You have the mind for it.”
The ship rocked a little more than any of them expected and Caroline and Anne both grabbed at the dining table. Sophia’s shoulder thudded into the wall, and she laughed breathlessly. “I’ll just go back to bed then—if I’m not needed. Goodnight to you both!”