Chapter 9
The following morning, Kit reached the workshop to find Wayland staring aghast at the wreckage of their first keel.
Kit was struck speechless. Then he looked at Wayland. “What happened?”
Wayland gestured helplessly at the broken timbers. “I don’t know. I just arrived, found the latch on the door broken, and walked in to discover”—he waved—“this!” With both hands, he snatched at his hair. “Aargh! I knew it was too good to be true.”
Kit felt the same way. They’d been rolling along without so much as a glitch and, now, this.
But this wasn’t any accident.
“Who?” Wayland said. “That’s what I want to know.”
Grimly, Kit nodded. An image of the man he’d glimpsed walking away up the alley the day before swam into his mind.
During working hours, the doors of the workshop were always propped open.
If the man had been skulking in the Grove, he would have been able to see what was being built inside.
“When I left yesterday, I saw a man in the alley two buildings away. I didn’t see his face.
When I saw him, he was walking away, but I got the impression he was leaving…
that I’d disturbed him and sent him off. ”
Wayland studied Kit’s face. “You think he’d been watching us?”
Thinking back over the moment, Kit nodded. “I suspect so. We’re the only active enterprise along this stretch—all the other buildings are stores or offices.”
And then there was whoever had been watching Sylvia. Were the two “watchers” one and the same?
Was Sylvia being watched because she was connected with him? Anyone who had been following him over the past days would have seen him with her.
A large shape loomed in the doorway, then Mulligan pulled up short. “What on earth?”
His features grim, Wayland nodded. “Exactly. Apparently, someone doesn’t want us to succeed.”
Mulligan’s face set. “We’ll see about that.
” The burly foreman walked in and paced around the frame supporting the keel.
Then he halted and snorted. “Luckily, it’s not as bad as it looks.
The center part of the frame is intact. The outer sections will have be to replaced, but there’s no damage I can see to the bilge board. That would have set us back.”
“Hmm.” Wayland joined Mulligan in examining the damage more critically. “We’ve plenty of timber—how long do you think it will take to strip out the damaged pieces and replace them?”
Mulligan glanced at the offices, which were nearly complete.
“If we pull Shaw and his team off the offices today and use them alongside my group on the frame and keel, we should be back to where we were by early afternoon. Then we can push on. And Shaw will only need one man for a single day to polish off everything in the offices, so pulling him and his team off today won’t set things back too much. ”
Wayland nodded. “Let’s do that.” He looked at Kit, brows rising.
“Yes,” Kit said, in reply to that look. “I’m sure that, in the circumstances, Miss Petty won’t be at all perturbed over having to wait another day to get into her new office.”
Mulligan grunted, and then the other men started streaming in, giving rise to more exclamations and subsequent explanations.
Briefly, Kit addressed the assembled men, admitting that he and Wayland had no idea who might have broken in and tried to wreck the build. “However, I do know that the best way forward after incidents like this is to put it behind us and get on—to repair, redo, and forge ahead.”
Although angry and dismayed, the men determinedly nodded at that. Kit waved Mulligan forward, and the foreman took over, assigning the day’s tasks.
Kit worked with Wayland and Mulligan to get the men settled and focused again, with rectifying the damage as their top priority.
Once everyone was busy and the repairs under way, Kit stepped back beside one of the moveable tool racks. With his gaze on the men climbing about the frame as they pulled out damaged timbers, he pummeled his brain for who might be responsible—for any rhyme or reason behind the sabotage.
Wayland slouched up and halted beside him, his gaze on the men as well. After a moment, he said, “I keep coming back to the question of who would do something like this.” He raked his fingers through his hair in a vain attempt to smooth down the tufts he’d created.
Kit shook his head. “I can’t imagine. I’ve been wracking my brains trying to think of any enemies I have, or even might have, who would stoop to this, but I can’t think of anyone.”
“Especially anyone who might be here—in Bristol.” After a second, Wayland said, “I haven’t come up with any potential suspects, either.”
They watched Jack scurry back and forth, fetching tools for the men as they called for them—and sometimes when they didn’t.
After a long moment of pondering, Kit said, “Over the last few days, Sylvia Buckleberry has been disturbed by the sensation of someone watching her. Ever since the fire. She hasn’t spotted anyone but, given the location of the incidents, wondered if it was the Stenshaw lads—those two who set the fire at the school. ”
Wayland nodded his understanding, and Kit continued, “It occurs to me that if those two were vicious enough to try to unnerve her by stalking her, then perhaps they thought to strike at me as well. In reality, they’d have more reason to come after me, and therefore this workshop, than her.”
Wayland tipped his head. “I suppose that’s possible. And we don’t have all that many possibilities.”
“None except for that man I saw yesterday, but he could simply have been an interested bystander—no malicious intentions at all.”
“True.”
“Jack!” Shaw bellowed. “Where’s that screwdriver?”
“Coming!” Jack darted out from the other side of the tool rack and raced across to hand Shaw the tool.
Wayland looked toward the doors. “We’ll need to do something to secure this place rather better.”
“Leave that to Mulligan and me. I’ll talk to him when he can spare a minute.” Kit glanced at Wayland, then looked toward the larger office, which was almost ready for occupation. “Aren’t you impatient to get back to your designing?”
Wayland grinned. “I am, actually.” He glanced at the men. “Once they reach the point of moving on to new construction, I plan to slip away and start sorting out the space.”
Kit grinned, then, seeing Mulligan step back from the fray about the keel, ambled over to consult the foreman about what they could do to ensure there wasn’t another break-in.
After discussing all the options and deciding on the simplest and likely most efficient way of securing the workshop—namely heavy door handles plus a heavy-gauge chain and padlock—Kit quit the workshop and made his way into the city.
His first stop was the ironmonger Mulligan had recommended for the chain and handles, then he called in at a hardware store for the padlock—the largest and heaviest they had.
Weighed down with his purchases, he headed for his office. Having gained approval from both the Dean and the Abbey by Sunday afternoon, he’d ordered the signs for the workshop and school on Monday; the sign maker had promised to have both signs ready by the end of the week.
Miss Petty was seated at a new desk in his outer office, which now looked like an efficient office and not a deserted space. He told her about the damage at the warehouse, then held up the packages he carried as proof that they were taking steps to improve the workshop’s security.
She pursed her lips, then shook her head. “The maliciousness of certain people never fails to surprise me. I’m no expert on carpentry, but that keel was shaping up to be a thing of beauty.”
Kit agreed. “Luckily, the damage proved to be relatively minor.” He paused, then said, “It really wasn’t that bad. I think that because everything’s been going along so well, the attack was a bigger shock than, perhaps, the actual damage warranted.”
With a nod, he continued into his office, turning that observation over and around in his mind.
The damage hadn’t been that bad. Given the many tools ready to hand, why had the perpetrator limited himself to inflicting only minor—relatively easily rectified—damage?
He could have wrecked the very expensive bilge board.
That would have caused Kit, Wayland, and their crew considerable grief. Instead…
Had the attacker intended to cause serious harm, but not known enough to do so? Or had he been interrupted by something, and he’d fled before he could do serious damage?
The first scenario would fit the Stenshaw lads. The second…some unknown someone else.
Kit realized he’d come to a halt before his desk. He set down the packages and rounded the desk to sink into his admiral’s chair. Several letters had been laid neatly on his blotter, and there were several others he needed to write, as well as the reports he’d promised his brothers.
Pushing the question of who had broken into the workshop to the back of his mind, he picked up his letter opener and got to work.
In midafternoon, he walked with Miss Petty to the workshop.
The only evidence of the break-in that remained was a pile of broken struts in one corner and the broken latch dangling uselessly on one door.
Shaw and one of his team were once again busy in the offices, Shaw plainly doing his best to finish off Miss Petty’s space. He waved a nail at the secretary, who was eyeing him straitly. “Be done by knock-off time today—promise.”
Kit saw Miss Petty’s lips twitch, but she subdued them and regally inclined her head. “Good. Because I will need to move my files in before I can sort out your wages.”
His eyes widening, Shaw waved. “Done by this evening—you have my word.” He set the nail in place and drove it home.
Kit handed his purchases to Mulligan, who immediately started attaching the handles to the main doors.
Wayland came up, frowning over one of his sketches. Kit spent the next half hour discussing curves and drag and the best timbers for decking.