Chapter 32
Thirty-two
Eleanor
Wednesday morning, Eleanor hurried in through the back hall door, encountering the professor just coming down the stairs in search of his breakfast. “Sir, what does your heir look like?”
Startled, the professor stopped at the bottom step. He wore his usual casual tweed and trousers but had taken time to brush his mane into order.
He’d run his hand through the mop and destroy the order shortly. El hated that she’d be the one to cause it. She hated worse the fear that he’d pack up and leave once she told him.
“Stupid Stew? I have no notion what he looks like these days. Why?” He narrowed his eyes. Unlike his heir, Greybourne was not a stupid man.
She took a breath to settle her nerves. “Because I was just outside, taking the air before I broke my fast, and I thought I saw you talking with Silas on the other side of the broken gate.”
He waited with a frown while she organized her words.
“Then I remembered I had just seen Silas bringing a pitcher from the cellar. So I started over to see who you might be talking to.”
“Nosy like that, I know.” He headed for the backdoor she’d just entered. “How’d you know it wasn’t me?”
“When I came closer, I saw he held a curly-brimmed hat and wore a fashionable green frockcoat you’d never be seen in,” she said dryly, following him. “They left as soon as they saw me.”
That didn’t halt Greybourne from stalking down the garden path, such as it was, and gazing down the alley to the village. As she’d warned, they were gone. “Stay here. I mean to talk to Black Dickie.”
“Mr. Bradford,” she corrected. “Let Andrew go with you. I’ll fetch him.”
“They’ll be gone by then.” He kept on going.
Wishing she wore trousers, El picked up the hem of her old bombazine and hurried after him. “You don’t know what your heir looks like?”
“He’s a second cousin or some such. Executor said he was next in line and one of us ought to learn the estate.
Mostly, he does stupid things the lawyers must bail him out of.
” He came to the end of the alley and looked up and down the road.
The hens on the green gabbled. Dr. Meera waved at them from her garden.
“I’ll talk to Blackie. You talk to the physician.” Greybourne shoved his way past a broken fencepost into the yard of the cottage Mr. Bradford occupied.
If the wretched man wanted to get shot. . . El hastened across the dirt road to talk to the good doctor.
“Out early this morning,” Meera called cheerfully. “Is there aught wrong?”
“There may be shortly,” El said grimly. “Did you happen to notice a gentleman in green coat, accompanied by someone much smaller?”
“No, but I only just came out to clip some herbs. What is wrong?”
“I thought I saw strangers lurking by our back gate. And Greybourne has just gone to confront Mr. Bradford at this early hour. I hope he does not have a weapon.”
“Oh, dear. We really haven’t seen anyone about over there, but the hedges are tall, and we aren’t home much. Let me fetch Walker. He’s not left for the manor yet.” Not waiting for argument, she hurried into the cottage.
Greybourne stalked out from the overgrown hedges at the same time as the manor’s steward arrived, pulling on his stylish frockcoat. The coat wasn’t green, and his hair was African black, not lion-maned.
The professor looked rumpled and harassed next to the dapper steward, but they both wore the same expression of concern.
“No one is answering over there,” Greybourne reported. “Have you noticed strangers going in or out?”
“We’re usually gone all day. Besides, that used to be the butcher’s house.
He had a service entrance on the other side, where he kept animals, I suspect.
That door is more accessible. The butcher has been long gone, according to manor records.
” Mr. Walker studied the disintegrating thatched roof just visible over the tall hedge.
“Shall I have Rafe keep an eye on the place?”
“Rafe can’t be everywhere at once. I’ll see what I can arrange, thank you.” The professor held out his arm. “Come along, Leonard, let us keep Miss Fields from throwing our toast to the birds.”
Eleanor dipped a hasty curtsy to the Walkers. Refraining from touching her employer, she lifted her hem and hurried up the alley. “I did not make it up, sir. I swear, I did not.”
“I never thought you did. You are better at observation than imagination.”
She’d like to be insulted, but he was quite correct.
Andrew was already at the breakfast table. He glanced up in curiosity at their entrance.
“I can see nothing will be accomplished until we rid the place of vermin.” Greybourne took toast from a tray the cook carried in and bit into it as he paced. “Let us first protect the work. Store my notes and books in the attic window seat. Nail it shut.”
Not knowing where his mind traveled, but knowing locking up his work meant trouble, Eleanor stayed with the practical. “If you are inviting danger, then people come first, sir. The staff is helpless.”
He glared at her. “Call me Grey, as everyone else does. I think we have established that you are too independent to be a proper employee. Where is that muslin you wore yesterday? It was far easier on the eyes than that abomination.”
El considered flinging her toast at him but she was too hungry. “If I am to be independent, Grey, sir, I am allowed to choose my own wardrobe. Perhaps I shall return to men’s attire. How do we protect the staff?”
“First, let him explain what he means to do,” Andrew admonished.
“He doesn’t know,” El replied truculently, filling her plate. “He makes things up and wants to be shot down.”
Grey appeared to ponder this as he finally took a seat. “Thinking aloud aids the process. Arguing helps as well. No one ever argues with me.”
“You expect students or landladies or servants to argue with you?” El set aside her snit to regard him with appalled interest. Greybourne was the most curious man she’d ever met, but admittedly, she hadn’t conversed with many men. Students didn’t count.
Grey favored her with another glare. She knew him too well to quail before it.
“The point is,” he continued, digging into his eggs, “that we must satisfy ourselves that Mr. Comfrey’s killer is caught.
We can hope that will stop any further depredations.
Let us start with the miscreants who steal purses. Do you know their names?”
“The one is Gustav, who apparently gets along with no one. The other was a burly, black-haired man. I only know him as Mort.”
“Mort never goes anywhere,” Andrew said. “He sends Tiny, who seems to be more servant than artist.”
“Has either of them come to you for new clothing in preparation for the customers they’re hoping to acquire? Do they have coin to pay?” Grey drank his tea without grimacing—or even noticing that he did so.
Miss Fields had been making the tea strong at El’s suggestion. And she’d ordered a better quality than inns and boarding houses served. The fool man had lordly tastes and not the wit to satisfy them.
“Mort came in with Percival and looked at waistcoats, but only bought a shirt. Neither has much in the way of coin,” Andrew reported.
El didn’t know what purses had to do with killing.
Her thoughts traveled a different path. “Tiny is the one who repaired your wheel, isn’t he?
He is really too small to have knocked down a man as large as Comfrey, although I suppose he might steal purses if ordered to do so?
Gustav and Mort, however, would have been quite capable of punching a banker. We’ve seen them brawling.”
“And Gustav has chosen both a new waistcoat and frock coat,” Andrew added. “He had coins to pay.”
“Leaving his purse empty, forcing him to steal to do whatever they were arguing about?” Grey wrapped his toast around bacon. “How did he achieve coins to purchase clothes? Gustav is good at what he does, but he’s a bit of a fraud and a drunkard and I doubt that he’s sold anything lately.”
El wrinkled her brow, trying to follow his thoughts. She had never applied her mind to criminal behavior. “Might he have stolen coins off Comfrey?”
Grey chewed and considered it. “I have never classified Gustav’s misdeeds as more than minor thefts and fraud and such, although he does have the unfortunate habit of inciting mills.
Percival, however, is a known cheat and liar—and more than possibly in the habit of hiring thugs to express his displeasure.
His family provides a slight allowance. I doubt that he would lift a hand to do anything himself. ”
“Percival might have hired Gustav to hit Comfrey? That’s a little far-fetched.
” El had to admit, this kind of discussion at the breakfast table was far more stimulating—even if disconcerting—than Andrew telling her about his latest employment.
“Is it possible Percival believes money is still hidden here?”
El sipped her tea and made a mental list of all the suspicious activities that had occurred, like bear traps and stolen goods in the cellar. Would city-bred Percival have arranged them? They sounded more like the work of pirates and thieves.
“Speculation is useless. We need facts,” Grey grumbled. “We can remove books to safe places, but removing ourselves and staff is more difficult, even with the dinner party excuse.”
“If your first objective is to find Comfrey’s killer, then your book is irrelevant.
I cannot believe an impecunious banker was killed for overcharging rent.
The house, and its contents, are the more likely target.
I suppose we must attend the dinner party and send the servants to their homes.
Although I fear Miss Fields has none.” El hated saying that.
She didn’t know if her new Sunday dress would be ready, and she had no desire at all to eat with gentry.
“I am willing to test the theory if it will end this uncertainty. We’ll only leave for an evening. Miss Fields may visit with friends at the manor.” Grey finished cleaning his plate and looked impatient to be off. “The question is, who do we leave here to catch any culprit?”
“What if. . . ?” El hesitated, thinking fast. “We can all climb into your carriage in our finest clothes, drive up to the manor, go inside—then change into plain clothes. I might wear my trousers. We’ll sneak back one at a time, then surround the house, and watch what happens.”
The professor coughed on his tea and appeared on the brink of apoplexy.
Andrew leaped to the rescue. “Jolly good! We’ll bring some of the manor’s hounds. Rafe can bring his wolfhound. The thieves will have to act quickly, if they believe we’ll be returning after dinner. Arrange the invitation, and I’ll start bragging all over the village.”
El hastily rose. “Excellent. Do you wish to obtain the non-invitation invitation, sir? Or shall I?” The expressions warring on Greybourne’s visage were a joy to behold.