A Curious Beginning

Stoker turned to Lady Cordelia. “What about the gardeners? And the children?”


“The children are away,” she told him. “The late countess’s family like to have them for a few weeks at the end of spring each year. The younger ones, that is. Hugo and Casper are at school. As for the gardeners, so long as you take the path back through the shrubbery to the little gate, you should not be seen. They are busy planting an herb knot near the kitchens and the work is exacting.” She gestured to a narrow door in the paneled wall. “Various earls through the centuries have used this as a sort of sanctum, a place to escape the family. They fitted it out with various comforts. You will find the necessary domestic offices in there, a sink and . . . and, er, other plumbing conveniences. The Medici cabinet by the stove has a few tins of cake and tea and other things to eat. Please help yourselves, and I will bring more provisions later. In the meantime, rest and make yourselves at home among the collections. I think you will enjoy them, Miss Speedwell, and Stoker has always longed for the chance to have a good rummage.”

“You have thought of everything,” Stoker said quietly.

A touch of rose blossomed on her cheeks at the compliment. “I try.” She stood and extended her hand to me. “Miss Speedwell, a moment?”

I took her hand and walked with her to the door, where we were just out of Stoker’s earshot.

“Miss Speedwell, it is not my place to say this, nor your responsibility to respond, but I hope you will do your best to keep him occupied.”

“I am afraid I don’t take your meaning, my lady,” I began.

She gave me a thoughtful look. “Then let me speak plainly. By whatever means necessary, I hope you will keep him from boredom. It is the demon that torments him and drives him to drink. It will destroy him if he lets it. And we who are his friends must not permit that to happen.”

I nodded. “I will do what I can, Lady Cordelia.”

She squeezed my hand and slipped away, graceful as a fawn as she departed.

I returned to the snug and fixed him with a challenging eye. “You have heard what Lady Cordelia suggests. That we hide out here in safety until the police have found the culprit.”

“I did,” he said in a perfectly reasonable tone.

“And you agree that this would be the most logical, sensible course of action?”

“I do.”

“And you understand I mean to do precisely the opposite?”

His mouth curved into a slow smile. “I do. Where shall we begin?”

I returned the smile with one of my own. “At the beginning, of course.”





CHAPTER NINETEEN


Over tea and a tin of shortbread we plotted our strategy.

“Let us establish a working hypothesis upon which we both can agree,” I began.

“The trouble is, we have bloody few facts upon which we can hypothesize,” he grumbled.

I waved a hand. “A trifling matter. We shall turn our attention to the fact at hand. The baron was murdered in his own study. Not by either of us,” I added firmly. “Further, we may infer that the crime was one of passion and not the culmination of some monstrous scheme.”

“And how may we infer that?”

“The lack of a weapon. The murderer seized a paperweight, which you have identified as an ammonite belonging to the baron, a piece that rested upon his desk. It was the perfect weapon of opportunity for a careless villain who had brought no weapon of his own.”

“Or a clever villain who would rather use a weapon belonging to the victim than something which can be traced to him,” he pointed out.

I frowned. “I like my theory better.”

“I had little doubt you would,” he conceded graciously. “Carry on.”

“In either event, the man—I think we can agree it was a man?”

He nodded. “Max was tall. I should think a woman would have to be uncommonly strong to have wielded that ammonite to such effect.” An expression of singular distaste had settled upon his mouth and I hurried on.

“So our man was either a creature of sudden temper who quarreled with the baron and seized the nearest weapon at hand or a cool fellow with a cunning brain who plotted this out.”

“Without knowing which, it will be difficult to track him,” Stoker mused.

“Why so?”

He shrugged. “Tracking is my stock in trade, a skill I learned as a boy and perfected as a man. One must understand one’s prey. I can track a jaguar through a jungle for forty miles and never lose him, but this—”

He looked suddenly tired then, and I realized what the past days had cost him. He had borne the loss of a beloved friend—one of the few he could claim. He had held my life in his hands, and he had confronted the ghosts of his past at every turn.

I thought of Lady Cordelia’s parting words. Deliberately, I reached into my bag and withdrew the flask of aguardiente. I poured a measure into his teacup and handed it over.