Chapter 29
Twenty-nine
Rafe
“So, I can either arrest young Percival for accidently killing his cousin Comfrey in an argument over silver stolen decades ago. . . Or arrest Dickie for attempting to get back what he considers rightfully his?” The early morning breakfast rush over, Rafe set a mug of coffee in front of the morose professor.
“Transport the entire family is my preference. Killing their own brother, stealing the family funds. . . Where did they find that animal trap? Who knew about the stolen goods in the cellar? And who stole them in the first place?” Grey sipped his coffee without making his usual grimace.
Rafe gave it more thought. “Are we to assume, then, that whoever rummaged through your room here and fiddled with your carriage wheel was after something entirely different than a nearly half-century-old nest egg?”
“I’d place my wager for that on Percy. He’s a sneaksby, tried to slip upstairs right in my own house! He knows I’m aware of his disgrace in the art world.”
Rafe nodded his agreement. “As much as I’d like to offer justice to a grieving wife and mother, I cannot arrest Percival because he’s a bounder. And if there is any chance that we might find evidence against him for murder, I don’t want to chase him out of town.”
“If I catch him where he shouldn’t be, I’ll run him through myself.” Greybourne stood and laid his coin upon the table.
While the baron was more sturdily built than a scholar should be, the pen really wasn’t mightier than a sword. Rafe wasn’t too worried about the threat.
“If I didn’t need her fine hand, I should set my assistant among the pigeons. She would ferret out the culprit with her infernal questions.” Grey strode out, not expecting agreement.
But Rafe had a strong respect for what the ladies could do once they put their minds to it. Perhaps he should consult his wife.
Finding their wards in the kitchen, happily eating biscuits, he continued on to Verity’s bookkeeping office.
For a change, she was smiling over their ledgers.
At his entrance, she offered an even wider smile.
“Perhaps murder is good for our coffers. We are not in the black yet, but there is considerably less red since Professor Greybourne arrived.” She turned her head up for a kiss, which Rafe happily provided.
“He’ll be here until winter. Shall we ask him to arrange more murders? I think he might gladly remove Percival’s head.” Rafe propped his hip on the edge of the desk but didn’t bother studying the numbers she showed him.
“Not without cause, one assumes. To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit if you are not interested in ledgers?”
“I need evidence and don’t know how to collect it. As we have already learned, pinning anyone down to time and whereabouts is useless when half the village doesn’t even own a timepiece. Or look at it if they have one.”
“Because they’re usually broken,” she said in amusement. “And everyone has fists, so there is seldom a weapon.”
“Which means I must rely on gossip or confessions or at the very least, a good motive.” Disgruntled, Rafe glared at the shelves of books his wife had accumulated. She loved books and had inherited many of these.
“You need a spider on the art gallery’s wall, where all your suspects come and go,” she suggested.
“A talking spider, just the thing.” He stood up, knowing he had expected the impossible.
“I believe you said Miss Eleanor is an art historian, like the professor?” his clever wife asked casually, opening a new ledger.
Rafe halted and regarded her with suspicion. “Yes. Not much money in such, I wager.”
“Do you think she might be interested in teaching a few students about contemporary art?” She pulled out a receipt and copied it into her book while Rafe pondered her suggestion.
Doing so would set Miss Eleanor among the pigeons, just exactly what the professor had suggested. Rafe shrugged warily, not entirely certain why the quiet assistant would be useful. “Greybourne seems intent on finishing a book.”
“But he’ll be interested in justice and ridding the village of a criminal. It won’t take more than a few hours to provide a lesson to the manor’s heirs. Their tutor might appreciate it. It’s summer, after all. They need a little time away from the schoolroom.”
To spy, Rafe understood. Men ignored children even more than women, but the heirs were unusually curious about. . . everything. “We can’t put the lads in danger. The captain would have our heads.”
“Arnaud will be there. Miss Eleanor’s brother might set up a table selling his services as a tailor. You could ask Major Ferguson to work on his clocks that day. The tutor is a fierce guardian. . .”
A gaggle of spectators to deter any of the half-drunken artists. There was little danger, but little chance of learning anything either. Still, he had few alternatives. “I don’t like it, but it’s better than anything I have. I can’t just throw the lot out of town because I don’t like their mugs.”
“And you can’t cast a killer and thief into the outside world to kill again,” she added in understanding.
“I could,” he muttered as he departed. “That’s better than Grey having my head.”
The professor wouldn’t, he knew. The gentleman possessed curiosity and needed to solve the mystery as much as Rafe did. Too many things didn’t add up, like bear traps and skeletons. Not art history, but history of a sort.
As expected, Professor Greybourne agreed with him.
Miss Leonard was less enthused.
“Precisely what is it you wish me to do?” she asked skeptically. “Teach art to little boys? Listen for conspiracies?”
“Narrow your lovely eyes and terrify a thief into confessing,” Grey suggested in apparent amusement.
Rafe shot him a glare. “You are not helping.” He turned to the lady and tried to explain. “My wife and the manor ladies have assisted with investigations simply by listening to gossip and asking questions. Men tend not to consider them important.”
The lady tilted her head, dislodging a short, brown curl as she considered this. “Professor Greybourne is the teacher, not me. I am a researcher. I don’t know what I can tell small boys.”
“They like numbers,” Rafe said, unhelpfully. “Perhaps it would be better if I ask Fletch to teach them clocks.”
“Except he’s there all the time and has picked up nothing meaningful, has he? He’s not exactly a communicator,” Greybourne said. “You can teach the boys about proportions, symmetry, and perspective. Geometric structures, if they’re that advanced.”
Rafe had no idea what any of that meant, but Miss Eleanor apparently did. She nodded thoughtfully. “Not history, so much, then. I am no artist, but I can teach a little of that, although how it helps is beyond my comprehension.”
“Would it make you more comfortable if you wore trousers?” Greybourne asked, grinning.
Shocked at the foolish suggestion, Rafe didn’t know how to object.
Miss Eleanor didn’t have Rafe’s difficulty. She glared at her employer. “My understanding is that my skirts make me deaf, dumb, and blind to any salacious gossip discussed behind my back.”
The professor studied her slender figure garbed in black. “I cannot imagine they’ll even notice you’re female in that shapeless abomination.”
She smacked him on the back of the head—deservedly so—with the small notebook she’d been holding, before turning back to Rafe and dipping a curtsy. “I will be delighted to help you in whatever small manner I may.”
Holding his head—where his thick hair would have protected him from any slight blow—the professor hid a grin and gestured expansively, as if he’d known what her reaction would be.
Gathering that the baron was more annoying than he’d realized, Rafe hurriedly made the arrangements for the afternoon and set off to borrow some students.
He didn’t want to be in the professor’s shoes should the lady realize she’d been teased into this task.