Chapter 20
Caroline placed two extra whale oil lamps on the table, while the four that swung from the ceiling of the dining room were lit. She did not say anything else, for she did not want the captain to change his mind.
The three bags were roughly the size of a satchel or knapsack that a laborer might carry on his back. Each had two leather straps buckling the flap closed, and when those were opened, there was an inner bag cinched with cords.
The cords were waxed and knotted, and Caroline picked at one of them, but one of her smooth nails snapped.
“Ow!” She spread her fingers and plucked the hanging nail, wincing as it went a little into the quick. “I must leave that to you,” she said to Richard.
He and Captain Wentworth and Captain Smythe made short work of the three bags. Lady Marston and Sir Mark sat at the table, but Sophia hovered nearby.
“You, ma’am,” the captain said in cold accents to Sophia, “will keep your distance from the table. You have done enough.”
Sir Mark took one of the bags and unceremoniously dumped it out on the large rectangular table.
Folded and sealed letters slid in every direction.
There were wax seals of every color, some quite bright.
Many letters were written even on the outside, the paper lined and crossed with slanted handwriting to save on paper.
Some were clearly business circulars in formal writing with proper folded envelopes.
Some were thin, only a single page, while others were thick sheaves bound by thread into nearly a book.
Small parcels, less than a fist in size, also slid out, along with a few fancier parchments rolled and tied up with ribbon.
Some of the parcels were leather or cloth bags, with the address and direction indicated on a tag tied to the exterior.
“Sir!” Captain Smythe exclaimed. “There is no need for such careless—violent—”
“I’m not going to roll in the stuff.” Sir Mark laughed, sorting through the larger pieces. “But let us cut line, man!”
Caroline kept one portion of the pile from sliding off onto the floor, moving several handfuls back toward the middle.
She also looked at each addressee as she stacked letters.
While they were ostensibly looking for the necklace, she was also curious to find the infamous Writ of Arrest that supposedly doomed Mr. Belvedere.
Lady Marston and Sir Mark also sorted through quite industriously, although none of the flat letters, circulars, and bulletins could contain a necklace.
“If any of these bags do not have a tag,” Caroline commented, “they could be the necklace. We do not know if Mr. Belvedere attempted to disguise it.” She couldn’t imagine thrusting an heirloom anywhere without wrapping it in cottonwool to prevent snags or breakage or loose stones from being lost. But of course, he was a brute, so perhaps he had not done that.
“I don’t think it’s in this one,” said Sir Mark. He dumped the next bag.
“We have not even sorted through this one yet!” Captain Smythe protested. He handed the third bag to the second mate. “Hold onto this. I insist we do this in an orderly fashion.”
“I’ll do it as orderly as ye like,” said Sir Mark, pawing through the now rather gargantuan pile of oddments like it was a dragon’s hoard. “Perhaps all the letters over here, small packages there, bags just there for the captain to check…?”
Sophia watched with quivering knees that barely held her.
She understood Sir Mark’s strategy, but it was dangerous.
As soon as Sir Mark “found” the stolen necklace, the mail would be put away posthaste.
They needed to confuse the issue long enough to find the letter.
He or Lady Marston must find it first, then he must produce the necklace.
With only her eyes, since she was not permitted to approach the table, Sophia studied the scattered mail.
The letter they searched for would be small, only a page or two of hot press paper at most. It would be directed from Sir Mark’s London solicitor, a Mr. Pitcairn, to the expatriate solicitors in Lisbon, Messieurs Thompson and Tiddlethwaite.
It was they who oversaw the fortune of Sir Mark’s late uncle.
The Lady Mary continued to rock; the lamps to swing.
The shadows from the people gathered round the table swung likewise, and the light wanted to confuse her eyes, but Sophia was desperate.
They would not have long. Captain Wentworth and Anne were content to watch the proceeding without touching, but Caroline carded through it all with a guilty sort of fascination.
The maids had come out to watch, and the second mate stood in the corner with wide eyes.
Sophia scanned for the addressee, hoping the alliterative solicitors would catch her eye. And to her utter shock—she saw it.
There, just beyond Caroline’s right hand, was a tidy square with a golden-brown wax seal somewhat messily applied. And there were the names they sought: Thompson and Tiddlethwaite.
Sophia cleared her throat and when Lady Marston glanced up, Sophia gazed with all her might at the offending letter.
That lady scooped up a careless handful of papers and packages, including the offending one, and set them at her left elbow.
She sifted them casually until one fell in her lap.
It was quickly done, and Sophia was reluctantly impressed.
Maybe Sophia’s own skills as a pickpocket, which she had honed as a foolish seventeen-year-old, were actually inherited from her mother.
Lady Marston continued to sort through the pile, which was diminishing.
The time had come for the necklace to be found, and Sir Mark scooped up one of the bags and palpitated it as if it were a beating heart. The necklace slide from his sleeve and into his hand as he loosened the strings.
“Here! I say, look, look!” He held up the necklace by one end, allowing its purple splendor to shine in the light of the lamps. “Here it is! The blighter shoved it into this bag.”
Smythe’s shoulders slumped in relief. He took the small pouch and cinched it up tightly again.
“Yes, sir, you are right! Very good, very good. Do, all of you, leave the pile here, and I will repack the bags.” There was sweat on his forehead despite the damp chill of the room.
He wiped his forehead with relief. “Thank the good Lord,” he murmured, “that’s a’done do. ”
“And one more crime to lay at Mr. Belvedere’s door,” said Caroline meditatively. “It seems to me odd that he would take such a risk if he already possessed the counterfeited bonds. And he must’ve known the theft would put us all on alert!”
“One can’t understand the mind of a foolish knave like that,” sighed Sir Mark. “Greed—it undoes a man.”
“I suppose so.” Caroline’s brow was still furrowed.
“I shall certainly relay this matter to the officers when I convey him to the consulate,” the captain assured Lady Marston.
“You may press charges, although it will take some time for him to be sent back to London. And it is possible the Company will want first dibs on him—the East India Company is a force unto itself. But I shouldn’t wonder, with both these charges, if it isn’t Newgate for him!
He might get deportation for one or t’other—but this together? No.”
“I certainly shall press charges,” said Lady Marston, plucking the necklace from her husband’s fingers. “I thank you all, and you, Captain Smythe, for your help.”
“Absolutely, ma’am. And I trust no complaint need be lodged with the Post Office—? You have your property back, and you can attest that I have done everything in my power to rectify matters.”
“Yes, certainly, Captain,” said Lady Marston. “Particularly as my own party was—er—not exactly innocent. Or helpful.” She looked darkly at Sophia.
“Ma’am—”
“No, not another word. You have been foolish, but I know youth is foolish. Captain, I thank you. I shall sleep easy tonight.”