The kiss stretched, lips lingering in a wordless pledge—a troth.
They both felt it; both acknowledged it, not just in their minds, but also in their hearts.
When he lifted his head and looked into her eyes, she looked into his, and saw her own commitment reflected in his dark gaze.
Setting her gently back on her feet, he nodded. “Tomorrow. Tomorrow we’ll hunt for where the foot-trap came from, and see if, at least for all those here, we can’t bring this investigation to a rapid and unthreatening end.”
* * *
“Damn! I forgot.” Lying propped on her pillows, Penelope turned her head toward the large lump in the bed alongside her. “I really hate this, you know. I forget all sorts of important things, and then remember them at the most useless times. I can only hope that my mind returns to its customary incisiveness once this child deigns to put in an appearance.”
They’d been in bed for half an hour. The room was wreathed in the usual nighttime shadows. Pushing back the covers, Barnaby turned onto his back, then shifted so he could see Penelope’s face. “What did you forget?” He refrained from mentioning that she often remembered things, and just as quickly forgot them again.
Indeed, she looked blank for a second before her gaze sharpened. “Mama—I asked her about the Finsburys. She said they were once much more prominent socially, but, over the last generation or so, they’ve drifted to the fringes of the ton. You know what she means.”
Sleepily, Barnaby nodded. “That fits with all I saw at Finsbury Court. They certainly don’t move in the first circles these days. Not quite county only, but sliding that way.”
“Yes, well, Mama said that the family’s main claim to fame was the Finsbury diamonds. They are apparently unique and quite fabulous, bought from some Russian czar by some long-ago Finsbury for his new wife.”
Barnaby’s eyes had closed again, but he felt Penelope’s gaze on his face.
“Did you get a look at the diamonds?”
He shook his head. “They’d already been returned to Finsbury and he’d put them back in his safe. But your mother’s information explains why he was so aghast when the constable brought the diamonds to him and he realized they weren’t where he’d thought they were. Learning that your family’s claim to fame had somehow walked out of your house without you knowing couldn’t have been a welcome surprise.”
“No, indeed!” After a moment, Penelope went on, “I don’t suppose you could find some reason to ask to see the necklace?”
He wondered what was going through her mind, considered anyway, but eventually shook his head. “I can’t see any reason why we might need to see it—at least not at this point.”
She made a disgruntled sound, but then settled back once more on her mound of pillows; she could no longer comfortably lie even vaguely flat. “Well, if matters change and the chance arises, do take a peek.”
“Why?”
He felt her shrug. “No real reason—I’m just curious.”
* * *
Griselda lay beside Stokes in their new bed in their new bedroom, in their new house in Greenbury Street. It was a neat town house standing on its own little plot, three stories with a white-painted stone façade and a small garden running all the way around. Iron railings separated the garden from the street, with a gate in the middle giving access to a simple paved path leading to the front porch. The house was the perfect size for them and the family they hoped to have, and it was located just around the corner from Griselda’s shop, so she could easily keep her finger on the pulse there while managing her new household.
Smiling, she listened to the sounds of the house settling around them. She’d yet to grow accustomed to the different creaks and squeaks.
Relaxed and deeply content, she waited for sleep to claim her.
And as so often happened when she let her mind roam free, it went around and around, working through the puzzle most recently placed before her, in this case Stokes’s latest investigation.
Something—Stokes never knew what it was, yet it never failed to alert him—told him Griselda was awake. Rousing himself from the clinging fogs of sleep, he opened one eye and squinted at her face. Yes, she was awake; she was staring up at the ceiling. “What is it?” His voice was a low rumble even to his ears. “Do you need me to fetch something?”
“No.” She glanced at him, lips curving gently in appreciation of the offer. “But I’ve just realized there’s something you haven’t put on your list to investigate—an angle we haven’t considered.”
He blinked; now fully awake, he came up on one elbow the better to see her face. “What?” He’d long ago learned to pay due attention to such insights; there was a reason two heads—or in his and Barnaby’s case, four—were better than one. Or even two.
“Consider this. Mitchell left Finsbury Court two days before he returned. He either left with the diamonds in his pocket or he picked them up while he was in London. Setting aside the questions of why he had them and why he was bringing them back to Gwendolyn Finsbury, what did he do during those intervening days in town? Is there any way of learning where he went and what he did? Because, if so, we might then be in a better position to learn the answers to all our questions about the diamonds.”
Stokes thought, then nodded. “That’s an excellent point. It might not be easy to trace Mitchell’s movements but it’s worth at least trying to see if we can winkle out any leads…I’ll put O’Donnell on to it tomorrow.”
“Good.” Griselda settled and, her features smoothing, closed her eyes.
Stokes stayed where he was, looking down at her, watching her face as sleep claimed her. She slept, content and happy, beside him every night, and just the thought, that simple fact, still held the power to shake him—to make him feel so much, an eruption of pure emotion.
Add in the fact that she was carrying his child and his heart simply overflowed.
He drank in the moment, savored it—a private moment of unalloyed joy—then he slid back down in the bed, settled beside her and his child, and closed his eyes.
CHAPTER 4
As soon as he reached Scotland Yard the following morning, Stokes sent for Sergeant O’Donnell. The man had worked under him on several cases and was one of those officers on Stokes’s list for co-opting. O’Donnell’s particular talent lay in appearing unremarkable, and he was thus very effective in extracting information while working out of uniform.
O’Donnell was quick to present himself at Stokes’s office door. “You wanted me, sir?”
Stokes waved him in. “I have to spend the day at the Old Bailey, but the murder I was called out to yesterday has a victim whose recent movements I would dearly like to know.” Succinctly, he outlined what they knew of Mitchell’s journey back to town and his subsequent return to Finsbury Court. “I know it won’t be easy, and may be a complete waste of time, but I’d like you to see if you can glean any hint of where Mitchell went when he returned to town. Where did he stay, who with, and did he go anywhere else before getting back on the coach to Hampstead two days later?”
O’Donnell snapped off a salute. “I’ll give it my best shot, sir.”
Stokes hid a grin. If he managed to catch a scent, O’Donnell would give a terrier a run for its money. “Very good. Out of uniform would definitely be best. I should be back by four o’clock. If you manage to turn up anything, report to me then.”
“Aye, sir.”
Stokes watched O’Donnell depart, then rose, resettled his greatcoat, picked up the file of evidence left waiting for him on his desk, and set off for the Old Bailey. He would never get used to calling it the Central Criminal Court, no matter what anyone said.
* * *
Frederick and Gwen left the breakfast parlor together and took the corridor to the garden hall.
“I’ve been thinking,” Frederick said, “that before we start on the more difficult task of searching for where the foot-trap came from, we should first confirm that the hammer used to end Mitchell??
?s life was in fact the one from the croquet-shed.”
Reaching the door that gave onto the garden, he opened it and held it for Gwen. “We last saw the hoop-hammer when Agnes used it to set up the croquet course on the day before Mitchell was killed, but as far as I know only your butler and the police saw the hammer used on Mitchell, so how could they be certain it was the one from the croquet-shed?”
Pausing on the gravel path while he closed the door, then joined her, Gwen arched her brows. “I would have thought they would have checked…but maybe they simply assumed. Regardless, it won’t hurt to look.” She waved toward the side lawn and the boxlike shed standing against the shrubbery hedge. “The shed is right there.”
As they crossed the lawn, Frederick said, “I didn’t really look at the hammer Agnes used, but if I was asked to describe it, I would have called it a long-handled sledgehammer.” He glanced at Gwen’s face. “Is there anything that distinguishes it as a hoop-hammer?”
Gwen grinned. “No—nothing at all. Agnes is the one keen on croquet, but as she grew older she found it difficult bending over to hit in the hoops, so she insisted on appropriating the sledgehammer and using its head to thump the hoops in. Ever since, she’s called the thing ‘her long-handled hoop-hammer,’ so everyone now refers to it as that.” Gwen’s smile grew fond. “According to Agnes, using a sledgehammer on croquet hoops is simply ridiculous.”
Frederick chuckled.
They reached the croquet shed; a simple wooden box about five feet high, three feet wide, less than two feet deep, and held off the ground on short wooden stumps, it resembled an outdoor cupboard on legs. Gwen lifted the latch and swung the door wide.
Directly in front of them sat a long-handled sledgehammer, its heavy steel head resting amid a jumble of hoops, balls, and the wooden mallets used for the game.
“It’s still here.” Gwen stared at the sledgehammer.
His hands in his pockets, Frederick studied the sight. “Do you know if it’s the one Agnes claims as her own?”
Gwen leaned closer, studying the sledgehammer, then straightened. “As far as I can tell, it’s Agnes’s—meaning the one that’s always here.”
Frederick stepped back. He waved to Gwen to shut the door. “That means we have both the foot-trap and the sledgehammer to trace.” After a moment, he met Gwen’s gaze. “Where should we start?”
Gwen’s brow furrowed and her gaze grew distant, then her face cleared. “Let’s find Penman. He’s the older gardener. He’s been here since Agnes was young and the estate was much larger—he’s the only outdoor staff left who would know what’s where in the outbuildings.”
“So where do we start in our search for him?” Frederick asked.
They began at the kitchen door and learned from Cook, just coming in with a basket full of freshly-pulled carrots from the kitchen garden, that Penman had said he was going into the orchard to tidy up the leaf-fall.
Frederick and Gwen found him plying a rake beneath the trees.
The grizzled old gardener had expected at some point to be asked about the foot-trap. “I’ve been thinking on it and I’m certain we used to have several, some of which I know we passed on, but it’d be unlike old Smithers—he was the estate manager in the days when we had one—to have given them all away. Always one to look to being prepared for anything, was Smithers.”
“So,” Frederick said, “the foot-trap might have come from the estate’s outbuildings.”
“Aye.” Penman nodded. “Can’t rightly see where else it might have come from. None of the farmers hereabouts would be likely to have cause to use such these days.”
“And a sledgehammer,” Gwen said. “Could one of those have been found in the outbuildings, too?”
Penman pulled a face. “I doubt it. We keep the big sledgehammer in the barn—still use it regular-like to settle the fence posts.”
Gwen blinked. “Perhaps we should check if the sledgehammer is still in the barn. Could you show us where it’s kept?”
“O’course.” Penman set his rake against a gnarled trunk, then waved them toward the back of the house to where a large barn squatted behind the stables. “Let’s take a look.”
Frederick and Gwen followed the old gardener into the shadows of the barn.
“Should be over here.” Penman led them toward one end of the huge barn. “On its pegs with the rest of the tools.”
Rounding the last stall, Penman halted. Pulling off his cap, he scratched his head.
Stopping beside him, Gwen and Frederick followed the old man’s gaze to where two pegs clearly set to support some large implement sat empty, leaving a blank space in the neatly regimented row of tools.
“Well, I’ll be. P’raps it wasn’t Miss Agnes’s hoop-hammer that did for the gentleman—mayhap it was the estate’s sledgehammer.” Penman nodded to the gap. “The one that should hang right there.”
Frederick and Gwen exchanged a look, then Frederick turned to Penman. “You said you’d been thinking of where in the estate’s outbuildings the foot-trap might have been.”
“Aye.” Penman turned and beckoned for them to follow. “Let’s take a look and see if I’m right.”
They followed him through the stable yard and onto a narrow, grassy track that led out and onward, along the edge of some fields.
“Outbuildings are out a ways,” Penman volunteered. “This used to be a much larger estate, see, but the master, and his father before him, too, sold off bits here, bits there, until it came down to what it is now with barely an orchard left. But the outbuildings hail from when it was larger, so they’re close to our boundaries now. Can’t even see them from the house.”
Frederick glanced at Gwen and met her arrested gaze. If the outbuildings couldn’t be seen from the house, who would have known they were there?
Penman led them past one stone-and-timber building. “Not that one. Least, I don’t think so.” He nodded ahead. “If I’m remembering aright, the foot-trap should’ve been in that one over there.”
The track they were tramping along had been curving around; Frederick glanced toward the house, at that point hidden behind the high hedges of the shrubbery. The old stone building Penman was leading them to lay tucked back against some trees. More trees grew thickly beyond and to either side of the structure. “Am I right in thinking”—Frederick nodded at the trees—“that that’s the edge of the wood?”
“Aye,” Penman said. “The path where the gentleman met his end’s not that far.”
Gwen sent a glance Frederick’s way. He caught it and nodded. This had to be it—the place from where the foot-trap had been fetched.
The outbuilding had an old wooden door. Penman pointed to the ground before it. “Been opened recently. See the freshly scraped earth?”
Frederick and Gwen nodded.
Penman released the latch chain and hauled open the door. Inside, the light was poor. They entered and halted just over the threshold to allow their eyes to adjust.
Penman was the first to move. He took three steps forward, then stopped and let out a low whistle. “Well, I’ll be.” He glanced back at Frederick and Gwen. “Looks like I remembered aright. This is where the foot-trap must’ve been, and whoever took it knew it, too.” He tipped his head toward an area screened from their sight by a pile of old crates.
Taking Gwen’s hand, closing his fingers around her cold ones, Frederick walked with her to join Penman. Looking in the direction the old gardener had indicated, they instantly saw what he meant.
Several large plow shares, an old iron trough, and a massive wooden yoke had clearly all been shifted and restacked to one side to give access to a specific spot on the floor. That spot now stood empty, just bare boards where something obviously had previously rested.
All three of them edged past the piled plow shares to take a closer look.
Penman pointed. “See there? Those round spots in the dust are the feet of the trap where the pegs go through to anchor it to the ground. And there?” He pointed
to a smudged area to one side of where the trap had sat. “That’s where the peg bag was. Old Smithers was always careful with his pegs.”
Frederick glanced around, then eased back, drawing Gwen with him. “We shouldn’t touch anything—the police need to see this, as near as possible to exactly how we found it.”
Penman seemed to suddenly realize what their discoveries meant. “Aye.” Likewise avoiding disturbing the dust around where the trap had sat, he followed Frederick and Gwen back toward the door.
Gwen looked back at the pile of old machinery the murderer had shifted to get to the trap. “Well at least we now know the murderer couldn’t have been a woman. No woman could have lifted all that.”
“Oh, aye.” Penman gave the pile a cursory glance, then waved Frederick and Gwen ahead of him through the door. “A man’s work it was, getting to that trap.”
After agreeing that for the moment they should keep their discoveries to themselves, at least until they could tell the police when they returned the next day, Frederick and Gwen parted from Penman, leaving him to get back to his orchard while they returned to the house via the shrubbery.
Neither spoke, but both were thinking furiously.
Pausing in the garden hall, Frederick caught Gwen’s eye. “As far as I can see the location of the foot-trap doesn’t only indicate that the murderer is a man, but also that it’s highly unlikely that any of the guests could have committed the murder—they couldn’t have known the trap was there.”
Gwen forced herself to nod. “Or the sledgehammer. How could they have known where that was, either? It wasn’t visible even from the barn door.”
Frederick hesitated, then in a careful voice said, “We’ll have to tell the inspector when he returns tomorrow.”