A Suitable Vengeance

“Have you found them?” St. James asked.

“Found them?” Sidney repeated blankly. “Has Deb lost her cameras on top of everything else?” She shook her head darkly and returned to the table, where she took up the part of her paper which her brother had been reading.

“In the garden,” Lady Asherton said and led St. James outside, where a salty wind was fast delivering an angry-looking bank of grey clouds from the sea.

One of the gardeners was waiting for them at the furthest point of the house’s south wing. He stood opposite a beech tree, secateurs in his hand and a worn woollen cap pulled low on his brow. He nodded when St. James and Lady Asherton joined him, and he directed St. James’ attention to the large yew bush that abutted the house.

“Dead pity, that,” the gardener said. “She be right damaged, poor thing.”

“Deborah’s room is just above,” Lady Asherton said.

St. James looked at the plant and saw that the portion of the yew nearest the house had been destroyed, its growth split, broken, and torn off completely by an object which had, most likely, been dropped from above. The damage was recent, all the breakage fresh. The distinct scent of conifer rose from the mangled branches.

St. James stepped back and looked up at the windows. Deborah’s room was directly above, with the billiard room beneath it. Both were far removed from the dining and drawing rooms where the party had gathered on the previous evening. And as far as he knew, no one had played billiards, so no one would have been witness to the noise which the camera case must have made as it crashed to the ground.

Lady Asherton spoke quietly as the gardener went back to his work, clipping off the ruined branches and stowing them in a plastic rubbish sack tucked under his arm. “There’s a margin of relief in all this, Simon. At least we know no one from the house took the cameras.”

“Why do you say that?”

“It hardly makes sense that one of us would take them and drop them outside. Far easier to hide them in one’s room and slip off with them later, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Easier, yes. But not as wise. Especially if someone inside the house wanted to make it look as if an outsider took the cameras in the first place. But even that’s not a wise plan. Because who were the technical outsiders last night? Mr. and Mrs. Sweeney, Dr. Trenarrow, your sister-in-law, the MP from Plymouth.”

“John Penellin,” she added. “The daily help from the village.”

“An unlikely lot to be stealing cameras.” From her expression, he could tell that Lady Asherton had already done some considerable thinking about Deborah’s cameras, about where they might be, about who had taken them. Her words, however, acted to camouflage this.

“I’m having difficulty understanding why they were stolen in the first place.”

“They’re valuable. They can be sold by someone who needs money.”

Her face crumpled momentarily then regained composure.

St. James showed mercy by saying, “The house was open during the party. Someone could have got in while we were in the dining room. It would have been no large matter to slip up to Deborah’s room and take the cameras then.”

“But why take the cameras at all, Simon, if it’s a matter of money? Why not take something else? Something even more valuable?”

“What?” he asked. “Everything else is too easily associated with Howenstow. The silver’s marked. The family crest is on everything. Surely you wouldn’t expect someone to cart off one of the paintings and hope it wouldn’t be noticed as missing until the next day.”

She turned her head to look out at the park, a movement designed merely to avert her face for a moment. “It can’t be a question of money,” she said, twisting her gardening gloves in her hands. “It can’t, Simon. You do know that.”

“Then perhaps Mrs. Sweeney objected to having her photograph taken after all,” he suggested.

She smiled bleakly at that but went along with his effort to divert her. “Could she have slipped out to the loo sometime after dinner and trundled through the house looking for Deborah’s room?”

Her question brought them back to the inescapable reality. Whoever had taken the cameras had also known which room was Deborah’s.

“Has Tommy spoken to Peter this morning?” St. James asked.

“Peter’s not up yet.”

“He vanished after dinner, Daze.”

“I know.”

“And do you know where he went? Where Sasha went?”