Mrs. Tyler screwed up her face in dislike. “Oh, a rude man came here one day, demanding to see my husband. He kept carrying on aboot a gold torch. Or, at least, that’s what I thought he was saying. I told him my husband wasna here, and that we certainly didna have a gold torch. He left in quite a huff.”
I could barely suppress my excitement. So Lewis Collingwood had also come here looking for his aunt’s gold torc. I wondered how many other members of the Society of Antiquaries he’d visited. Had he gone to see the Casselbecks as well?
“Do you think he has something to do with it?” Mrs. Tyler asked, clearly interpreting our interest.
“Maybe,” Gage replied cautiously. “It’s too soon to tell. Would you mind if we visited your father’s grave? We understand it’s at Glencorse Parish Church.”
Mr. Tyler nodded. “Aye. And the rector should be there should you have any problem locating it.”
We shifted to the edge of our seats, prepared to take our leave, when something in the Tylers’ faces made me pause. There was an uncertainty there, an uneasiness.
“Is there anything else we should know?” I risked asking them.
Mrs. Tyler’s eyes dropped to her lap, where her hands were clasped tightly together, and Mr. Tyler cleared his throat, glancing at his wife before finally speaking. “Weel, there is one thing. When the thieves returned my father’s bones to us, it appears there was one missing.”
I couldn’t help turning to Gage in surprise.
“We had the local surgeon check, you see,” Mr. Tyler rushed on to say. “We wanted to be sure. And, well, he told us a finger bone was missing.” He reached to take hold of his wife’s hand. “It may not mean anything. The thieves may have accidentally dropped it. It is a wee bone.”
“One of the smallest,” I confirmed, especially if it was one of the bones at the tips of the fingers.
“But . . . we would like it back. If at all possible.”
I nodded, understanding their discomfort. They wanted to be certain all of Ian Tyler was buried together, as it should be.
“We’ll do what we can,” Gage promised them.
? ? ?
“Now I’m really glad I told Lord Buchan to have Dr. Carputhers check to be sure all of his uncle’s bones had been returned,” I remarked as we exited Woodslea and climbed back into Gage’s carriage.
“I know. I could kiss you for that stroke of brilliance,” he replied, and then, with a twinkle in his eye, he leaned forward. “And I think I shall.”
I giggled a moment later when the carriage rolled forward, forcing Gage to drop back in his seat.
“Cheeky coachman,” he muttered. “I shall have to have a word with him later.”
I shook my head. “It’s not his fault you have no agility.”
His eyes narrowed in challenge. “Oh, I haven’t, have I? Well, we shall just see.”
Several rather pleasurable moments later, he’d most emphatically proved me wrong. And I told him so.
“That shall teach you to doubt me,” he murmured. And though playfully said, I thought there might be some emphasis behind his words.
I lifted my eyes to his golden hair, unable to continue to meet his gaze. His tresses, normally so artfully tussled, were a bit more of a tangled mess than usual from my fingers. I reached up to try to push the hairs I’d disarranged back into place, distracting myself from the intensity of his gaze. I grimaced. Unfortunately, I seemed only to be making it worse.
Gage laughed and I disentangled myself from him so that he could see to the matter himself. One swipe of his fingers through his locks and then back down, and they seemed to fall directly into place.
I reached back to secure two tendrils I could feel loosening from my coil of hair, thinking back to the subject at hand before Gage could broach anything more serious. “Do you think the thieves left out the bone on purpose?”
He watched as I pinned a curl. “Are you asking if I think they kept it?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know. I suppose that depends on whether the same or a similar bone is missing from Lord Buchan’s skeleton.” He turned to look out at the passing countryside and frowned. “If it is . . . then we might be dealing with an entirely different beast.”
“What do you mean?”
His eyes were troubled. “If our thief is keeping bones from each of the skeletons, then he’s collecting trophies. And that says there’s a far different motive for his actions than simply money.”
I nodded, pretty sure I understood. “Could it be Mr. Collingwood?”
“Not unless he’s a particularly vindictive man. If he’s behind these body snatchings, then he just wants his torc back. Albeit he’s willing to go to extreme measures to get it. But he would have no reason to retain tokens of his victory over these men. The victory would be in obtaining the torc.”
We sat silently contemplating the matter, because thus far we didn’t have any suspects who would have such a motive. Collingwood wanted the torc, and Fergusson and the Edinburgh body snatchers the money.
We seemed to be finding more questions instead of answers, and I was heartily tired of it.