Chapter 16
“WE MUST SEARCH Ernfield’s quarters,” Tulip suggested.
“Without doubt,” Alex agreed, feeling fairly confident they might turn up some proof of Ernfield’s involvement in Elspeth’s death and possibly in the deaths of Alex’s predecessor dukes.
Similar to Mrs. Granger’s quarters, the head butler’s chamber was set slightly apart from those rooms housing the footmen and butlers.
“I’ll do it, Tulip. I need you to keep the rest of the staff distracted.
The cooks and scullery maids will all be busy in the kitchen, so I am not too concerned about them.
It is the butlers and footmen whose rooms are close to Ernfield’s who worry me.
I’d rather they not see me prowling around Ernfield’s quarters. ”
“And report it to Ernfield on his return?” Tulip nodded. “I understand.”
“Have them work on assignments ensured to keep them occupied in the main rooms of the house. Can you do this?”
She looked determined while nodding again.
“I’ll have them move furniture and carpets around for tonight’s party.
However, I don’t think we can keep any of this a secret much longer.
Everyone knows Mrs. Granger was found unconscious and that it might not have been accidental.
In truth, no one on our staff is as stupidly naive as I am.
None of them will be satisfied if we merely tell them all is well or fabricate some story to appease their curiosity. ”
Alex frowned, for he did not like to see her thinking less of herself again.
“You have a compassionate heart, Tulip,” he said, giving her cheek a light caress.
“This is in no way stupid. In fact, your compassion is a strength in you. That you are always ready to believe in the good in others does not diminish you in any way.”
She sighed. “Well, Ernfield certainly had me fooled. It is impossible to find any good in him now.”
“He had everyone fooled for decades,” Alex replied. “You weren’t the only one taken in by him. We all were.”
“Will you be looking for anything specific when you search his chamber?”
“Evidence of poison, for one,” he said with a nod. “Also, any keepsake that can be attributed to Elspeth.”
“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that. Would he dare hold onto anything of hers? Such as what?”
“I don’t know, a locket or ring or even a hair clip she was wearing that night. Something that can be identified as hers. If a powerful, jealous rage compelled him to push her out of the tower window, then I think he would have been just as compelled to retain some token of hers.”
“Jealous? You think he was in love with Elspeth?”
“Yes, so it is not inconceivable that he would hold onto her in some way.”
“Ugh! How sick is that? Holding onto a keepsake belonging to the woman he loved, after he’d killed her because of that love. I wonder if they had been courting and she ended it because your grandfather began to woo her.”
“Maybe. Your uncle, aunt, and Mr. Carver might be able to shed light on this. In his warped eyes, he might have imagined a courtship between them, and then considered her romantic involvement with my grandfather a vicious betrayal.”
“I see.”
He gave her cheek another caress because he could see that she was shaken.
“I’ll also be looking for those building plans to Thornwycke Hall because they did not simply walk off on their own.
Carver saw them in my study just last month.
If there are any secret passageways or hiding holes, I mean to find them. ”
This had been a priority for him from the moment they had arrived at Thornwycke and one of several frustrations he had encountered.
He no longer doubted that Ernfield had taken those plans.
“All right. I’ll be in the parlor or the dining room behaving like a flighty fribble and making our staff move furniture around.”
He kissed her lightly on the lips. “I won’t be long. Just make sure you stay in sight of everyone.”
“I will, Alex. Don’t you tarry too long because Ernfield might return soon.”
They went their separate ways, but this left Alex unsettled because after this morning’s events, he did not want to leave Tulip’s side for even a moment.
A prickle ran up his spine when he walked into Ernfield’s quarters.
He could feel the evil around him.
But he quickly composed himself and reverted to his experienced investigator manner while scanning the small room with an impartial eye.
Much like Mrs. Granger, Ernfield kept his quarters tidy and sparse. But there was no mistaking the aura of malevolence in here. “Yes, you are the very devil. Aren’t you, Ernfield?”
Alex wasted no time in rummaging through the head butler’s bureau drawers, then under the bed, and under the mattress. He felt along the mattress to listen for crinkling sounds or feel something hard buried within the straw.
Nothing.
He carefully trod across the wood floor boards, hoping to hear a tell-tale squeak that would reveal a cavity in them.
It took him a while, but then he heard it and grunted in triumph.
“Got you,” he muttered, bending on one knee to carefully pry two boards apart with the tip of his knife.
His heart began to pump furiously when he found a veritable treasure trove of evidence.
The building plans to Thornwycke sat right atop.
He dug his hand deeper into the small cavity and retrieved several vials of an unidentified substance.
At the very bottom, tucked in a small, velvet pouch, he found a gold locket in the shape of a heart. In the center of the heart was a diamond that appeared to be of the finest quality, although he was no expert.
However, even an amateur could tell the diamond was not something any working man could afford.
Was it a gift to Elspeth from his grandfather?
He removed the contents, finding a cufflink, two tie pins, and even his lost watch fob. “I wasn’t losing my mind,” he muttered. “You stole the bloody fob.”
He placed the floor boards back as he had found them, and gave a final inspection of the room to make certain he had left it in the same condition as it was upon his entering.
He tucked the vials, the velvet pouch, and other contents in his pocket, carefully rolled up the building plans, and hastened out of Ernfield’s room.
Perhaps he ought to have gone straight to Tulip, but he wanted to lock away those items in the wall safe in his study first. He also wanted to take a quick look at the building plans, especially the specifications for the duke’s bedchamber.
“I knew it,” he said, muttering again.
Within his own dressing area was a secret panel, no doubt locked or barricaded from the tunnel side, which explained why the panel had not budged when he’d run his hands along the walls or tugged on any protruding nobs.
In fact, he’d heard clicks when pulling down on one of those nobs but assumed that access might have been sealed off.
He had felt air and a coolness to the wall that was an inside wall and should not have been that cold unless there was a secret passageway behind it.
The building plans now spread out before him showed a tunnel behind the secret panel in his dressing room that led out into the garden. The escape access was hidden amid a grove of trees, its makeshift door hidden behind shrubbery, no doubt.
The tunnel also extended upward to the tower room.
“Of course.” In medieval times, the duke’s guards would have been posted up there as lookouts.
The tunnel passage served as a means of escape for the duke and his soldiers back then.
They could lock the tower door and gain more time escaping while the enemy pondered who was up there and what was aimed at them while they broke down the door.
In current day, that passage allowed any present duke to ‘visit’ whoever happened to be in that room, and remain unseen.
Alex growled softly. “I know what you did, you bloody bounder.”
It would have been simple enough for Ernfield to lure Elspeth up there with a note supposedly sent from his grandfather instructing her to meet him there.
Then Ernfield could have slipped in through the tunnel, struck her over the head, and tossed her out the window with no one the wiser because he would have locked the tower room door from the inside to make it appear no one but Elspeth had been in the room.
Any ruptures to her skull would have been blamed on the fall, leading everyone to conclude she was alone and had jumped of her own volition.
Alex took another moment to make note of entrance points and run his finger along the hidden tunnel and its maze-like turns to map it all out in his head.
He then rolled up the plans and placed them in the safe along with the vials, pouch containing the locket, and the other trinkets including his fob.
He then strode out of his study and went to find Tulip.
To his dismay, she was not in the dining room where several footmen were busy setting the table for tonight’s party. The crystal glasses and polished silverware gleamed brightly as sunlight struck the place settings.
Alex gave a nod of approval and headed for the parlor.
Tulips was not there.
His heart began to pound, for where else would she have gone? She must have been in the parlor until a few minutes ago because the furniture and carpets had been completely reconfigured and the room actually looked quite nice.
“Where is Her Grace?” he asked several footmen who had thick rags in their hands. They were on their knees on the parlor floor, busy soaking up what appeared to be ink stains.
“You just missed her, Your Grace. She ran upstairs to change out of her gown,” one of them replied. “The ink spilled as we moved this writing desk and it made a mess of her gown and the flooring. But I think we got to the spill before the ink stains bled into the wood boards or the carpets.”
Alex groaned lightly, blaming himself for creating this chaos.