“You’re carrying a baby,” I reminded her.
“Yes, yes,” she replied, waving it aside. “The dress should arrive by two o’clock tomorrow afternoon, and Madam Avignon has promised to send a girl over to take care of any last-minute alterations. So please return from wherever you’ve gone with Mr. Gage by then.”
I wasn’t sure why, but a blush suddenly began to burn its way up into my cheeks. Perhaps it was the manner in which my sister had phrased her remark, as if we were not really traveling about the city, tracking down leads in a theft and murder investigation. Or the memory of the way Gage had kissed me before letting me leave his carriage less than an hour before. All I knew was that I was forced to turn away lest my sister guess something far worse.
Even so, through the reflection in the mirror, I could see her eyeing me suspiciously.
? ? ?
Gage’s visit with the current members of the Society of Antiquaries turned out to be rather uneventful. None of the men wished to speak ill of their dead members, and hearing high praise about each of them told us nothing about why they had been targeted by body snatchers years after their death. They also swore that they had no record of a donation of a gold torc from a Miss Collingwood, no record of a torc of any kind. Several of them admitted to receiving letters or visits from Lewis Collingwood, but as the man had no documentation to prove his aunt’s donation, there was nothing they could do about it.
So we found ourselves armed with at least that knowledge when we appeared on Mr. Collingwood’s doorstep. He lived in a town house situated in a row of similar edifices on Broughton Place, and although the exterior looked much like every other town house in Edinburgh’s New Town, the interior was something completely different.
Words could not do it justice. Every available bit of wall space was covered in an odd array of relics and artifacts, some of which I was quite certain were not authentic. Spears and daggers, masks and reliquary, arrowheads and coins mounted in glass boxes, fishhooks, old playbills, gold plates. And there didn’t appear to be any order to it. A shelf of tiny Egyptian statues hung next to a Roman gladiator’s helmet, next to a conch shell from some tropical country.
There was dust everywhere. I didn’t know whether Mr. Collingwood did not employ maids or if he simply didn’t allow them to clean properly for fear of them damaging his possessions. Either way I was glad when the man offered us no tea or other refreshments. I wanted to escape as soon as possible.
He received us in his drawing room, which, to my discomfort, sported an entire wall of stuffed animal heads. Their beady eyes stared down at us almost in accusation, much like their owner, who it appeared was not happy with the interruption to whatever he’d been doing. Preparing more artifacts to hang on his walls?
He greeted us affably enough, but there was impatience in his movements and a tightness around his mouth. The man was also a snob. It was clear he had no idea who either of us were, but because I had the title “Lady” before my name, he at least treated me with civility. Gage, he took one look at while he was introduced, glared at his black eye, and instantly dismissed him as unworthy of his time.
“Now, what can I do for you?” he turned to ask me as I perched on the edge of a lumpy horsehair sofa. To coordinate with the animal heads on the wall, I was sure.
“Actually,” Gage said, speaking up despite the man’s efforts to ignore him. “We’ve come to ask you about the gold torc your aunt allegedly donated to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.”
“Not allegedly,” he snapped. “She donated it. And they’ve lost it, or stolen it, one or the other.” His eyes traveled over Gage’s appearance, which was faultless except for the contusion over his eye, but Mr. Collingwood seemed to find it lacking, even though his own rumpled attire and uncombed hair left much to be desired. “I take it then that you are not here to tell me they found it.”
“I’m afraid not,” Gage replied calmly.
“And what have you to do with it? You’re not a member of the society. You’re not even a Scotsman.”
“No. But I sometimes act as an inquiry agent—”
“An inquiry agent?” Mr. Collingwood interrupted, scooting forward in his seat. “Then the police have finally decided to take my complaint seriously?”
“Not exactly.” Gage tilted his head to the side in interest. “You took the matter to the city police?”
“Yes. Not that they did me any good,” he grumbled, his rather prominent eyes shifting to the side. “They told me there was nothing they could do. Not without my having the paperwork to prove my aunt’s donation.”
“I’m afraid that’s true. Otherwise it’s their word, or perhaps that of a dead man, against yours.”