Chapter Twenty-Five
Having assembled the duke and duchess and the Ashfords in the duke’s study, Deo said, “We believe we may have identified the thief.”
“Who?” asked the duke.
“Bidenden. I didn’t make the connection before—his apparent complete disinterest in the work we were doing threw me off—but his father is a collector of antiquities. Em?”
“He told me so, the day we moved the tree. I think he was trying to imply that he understood my passion for antiquities, but I didn’t believe him. And since his father is very wealthy, why should he be so keen to marry an heiress?”
“Unless he were in some kind of financial trouble,” finished Deo.
“Hmm, I wonder if Kenrick knows anything?” said the duke. Going to the door, he opened it and addressed Creighton. “Do you know where Lord Kenrick is?”
“In the billiard room, I believe, Your Grace.”
“Thank you.” The duke came back in a moment with Kenrick, who ambled through the door after his brother.
“What’s this, a council meeting?” He shut the door casually behind him, looking at the assembled company with a raised eyebrow.
“Rick, you may not be aware, unless the servants have told you, but we discovered that the valuable items uncovered by Deo and Emily were stolen overnight.”
Kenrick raised both his eyebrows. “Have you found the culprit?”
“Not yet. Do you know if Bidenden is in any financial difficulty?”
Kenrick pursed his lips. “I know there was some dust kicked up by his father over a few trifles. But Bryson never asked me for money or indicated he couldn’t pay when we played.
I knew he was pursuing a lady, but I wasn’t aware, until this afternoon, that the lady was Emily.
” He nodded to her and smiled. “He seemed genuinely cast down when his suit didn’t prosper though, so I had concluded he was attached to the lady.
However, the fact that he continued to nurse hopes in your direction, Emily, once he knew you were married, is a mystery to me. That does smack of desperation.”
“How well do you know him?” pressed the duke. “Would you vouch for him?”
“We were friends at Eton. Not close like you fellows,” he indicated with a wave of his hand.
“But I’d have counted on him to stand as a friend, yes.
I’ve never known any ill of him, by my standards, which may not be yours, Rob.
” For once, he didn’t look flippant or amused.
“Don’t tell me you suspect he may have had a hand in this theft? ”
“Unfortunately, we do. Were you aware his father is a collector of antiquities?”
“No, but then my interest in such things is about as high as my interest in female fripperies. In fact, less,” he added.
“The only reason I had any interest at all in this endeavor was because it was on our land and you fellows were doing it.” He frowned.
“He was a little off his game this morning, but I thought it was due to lack of sleep. He admitted to me that he hadn’t slept well. ”
“Damn!” said Deo. “And we’ve let him get away! If he has the items, he will have absconded as far and as fast as he could by now.”
“He said he was going to spend the night in town,” remarked Kenrick.
“He did,” corroborated the duke.
“Surely that was a pretense. What possible reason could he have for lingering?” Deo took a pace round the room; he was having difficulty containing his emotions.
“It really depends on where he has stashed the items,” said Emrys thoughtfully. “If they are somewhere he couldn’t retrieve them in daylight—”
“He would need to remain until nightfall to collect them,” finished Emily.
“He must have hidden that belt buckle in Smiggens’s home to deflect attention,” said Annis. “I knew Smiggens wasn’t guilty of theft. That was probably Bidenden’s biggest mistake. If he had planted the item on one of the newer servants, it might have been more plausible.”
“I shall send my valet, Bridges, into town to ascertain if Bidenden is still there. Bridges is very discreet and can be trusted,” said the duke. “Once we know if he is still in the vicinity, we can plan a trap for him.”
“Otherwise, we will need to give chase,” said Deo, clenching his fists in agitation. It was infuriating to have to wait, but he could see the sense in the duke’s proposal. “If he is still here, the items must be somewhere on the estate.”
“It might be better if I went,” said Kenrick. “It would be nothing unusual for me to go into town and call into an inn for a heavy wet. If I saw him and convinced him no one suspected him, it would embolden him to come and collect the items, wouldn’t it?”
“Perhaps,” said the duke slowly. “But it might make him suspicious.”
“You insult my acting abilities, Rob.” Kenrick grinned. “I might be able to glean something from him, too.”
Seeing that Robert was still reluctant, he said seriously, “Let me, Rob. I feel responsible. After all, I invited him here. If I’d even suspected—well, I wouldn’t have, is all I’ll say. I know you think I’m a feckless fribble with no moral fiber, but this is an insult I can’t overlook.”
“I don’t think you’re a feckless fribble!” said the duke roughly.
“Just lacking your high moral standards,” said Kenrick with an ironic smile. “In Papa’s name, let me do it. You know he would say I should, if he were here.”
Robert stiffened and then nodded. “Very well.”
“Good.” He clapped his brother on the shoulder.
“I’ll not let you down, Rob,” he said gruffly, his usual insouciance completely absent.
He left the room and Deo said, “I still think we should make a push to find the items. We only checked the servants’ quarters.
There are a hundred places he could have put them, if he hasn’t already taken them. ”
“True, but I’d like to set a trap for him, catch him red-handed,” said the duke.
“We can still do that. But if we know where they are, we can concentrate our trap on that location. Not knowing where they are will make it extremely difficult to trap him. Forgive me for stating the obvious, but this is a big estate, Rob. They could be anywhere. Somehow, I doubt they’re in the house if he is planning to come back for them.
I think if they were, he would have taken them with him.
After all, everyone was in the drawing room at the time. ”
“You think he’s buried them?”
“It seems the most likely to me, yes. Digging them up will take time. He wouldn’t have had that, leaving in daylight. And he wouldn’t have wanted to risk being seen by the outdoor servants, depending on where he put them.”
Robert nodded. “Any idea where to look first?”
“What about the piles of dirt we pulled off the burial mound?” said Em.
“He will have known we haven’t had time to start the restoration process yet.
It would be the easiest and quickest place to hide them and virtually undetectable, because the earth is in piles as we left it.
Not tamped down and undisturbed, which would be obvious, if anyone were looking for a place he could have buried the items.”
“My God, Em, you could be right,” said Deo with an admiring smile that made her blush with pleasure.
“Would he have just dropped them back into the barrow itself?” asked Emrys.
“Possibly, and if so, that would be easy to check. Which is why I don’t think he will have done it. Too easy to find them. I think Em’s theory is the most plausible,” said Deo.
“Let’s go check then,” said Emrys with a grin.
All six of them traipsed out of the house and across the lawn toward the burial site, taking a lamp with them.
“I’ll check the inside of the barrow first,” said Deo. “Then I think we should survey the site for any clues before we just start randomly digging. If we want to trap him, we don’t want to tip him off we found the items.”
On arrival at the site, Deo climbed the mound and jumped down into the entryway. Reaching for the lamp, he ducked his head and ventured inside.
“As I thought, they are not here,” he said, reemerging a minute later.
“No signs that he has dug up anything in there?” asked Emrys.
“No, it’s as we left it,” said Deo, hauling himself out of the hole. They fanned out and inspected the piles of dirt. The tools they used, shovels, mattocks, a digging bar and trowels were still there.
“I suggest we use the digging bar to prod the mounds and see if there is anything inside them,” said Deo, picking up the six-foot-long heavy iron bar with a chisel end.
The duke nodded, “Good idea. That will disturb the earth the least and make it easy to disguise that we have been looking.”
There were a dozen sizable piles of earth scattered around the base of the denuded mound.
Deo began a careful search of each using enough force to push the bar through the earth but not so much that it would cause damage to the items if he encountered them—he hoped.
He checked eight of the twelve without finding anything of note.
A couple of bits of tree root initially gave him false hope.
He was beginning to think this theory was wrong, or he’d missed the items altogether, when he poked the bar into the pile on the south-eastern side of the mound nearest to the fallen tree and thought he detected something.
In fact, some of the branches were lying on top of this particular pile.
He prodded carefully and Em came closer, “Have you found something?”
“I think I might have. Fetch me a trowel, will you?”
A trowel was fetched, and the others gathered round to watch him carefully remove some of the dirt from the pile to uncover a dirt covered cloth.
He put his hand in and felt the cloth. “Yes,” he said with a grin.
“I can feel the shape of the drinking horn. All right! Do we leave it here, or dig it out, rebuild the mound and let him dig it up and find nothing?”
“I think it will help the magistrate get a conviction if we leave it there and let him dig it up. There will be no doubt of his guilt then,” said the duke grimly.