The Peculiar Case of Lord Finsbury's Diamonds: A Casebook of Barnaby Adair Short Novel (The Casebook of Barnaby Adair) (7 page)

 “That’s happened in the past.” Griselda shifted to the edge of her chair. “Stepping back is sometimes the best way to spot the right path forward.”

 “Amen.” Barnaby rose, held out his hands, and when Penelope gripped them, hauled her to her feet.

 Stokes stood and helped Griselda up, then the four strolled out to the front hall.

* * *

T
he conservatory at Finsbury Court wasn’t large, but that evening it provided a place of quiet shadows and shifting moonlight perfect for the sharing of private thoughts. And personal fears.

 “How do you see the investigation proceeding?” Gwen glanced up at Frederick’s face. They had slipped away from the gathering in the drawing room; she’d needed to get away from the avid speculation simmering beneath the surface of every comment, every glance, and Frederick had gallantly offered his arm and opened an escape route.

 He’d rescued her tonight, just as he had on the afternoon Mitchell had all but attacked her—there, beneath the palms.

 She cleared her throat. “I can’t imagine who could have done such a thing, can you?”

 Frederick remained silent for a moment more, then softly said, “No. I wish I could.”

 They’d reached the end of the glassed-in room. Frederick halted and turned her to face him. He studied her face, then said, his deep voice low, “I know the most important things I need to know—that you weren’t in any way involved and neither was I.”

 Gwen grasped his hand and pressed his fingers, her gaze steady on his face, on his eyes. “I never for a moment thought that you might be involved—that you could be involved.”

 He held her gaze, then his lips, almost reluctantly, lifted. “If I’d wanted to murder Mitchell, I would have…I don’t know, challenged him to a duel or some such thing. But he wasn’t worth it. He wasn’t worth risking the future I want—
our
future—for.”

 They hadn’t previously spoken of that future, not in words. Gwen’s heart swelled at the realization that all the dreams that Frederick’s reappearance had resurrected—dreams she’d thought dead and buried, the fruits of an innocent girl’s fanciful imaginings that had never been slated to come true—were his dreams, too.

 Her wishes and his matched, were complementary, two halves of one whole, and so if they wished, if they had the courage to, they might bring each other’s dreams to life…if they could get past the potential social quagmire of Mitchell’s murder.

 Frederick saw welling concern dim the brightness of Gwen’s gaze.

 A second ticked past, then she whispered, “How bad do you think it will be?”

 He understood what she was asking; instinct suggested that he utter some glib reassurance, but he could only give her honesty. “I don’t know. I expect the intensity of the scandal will depend very much on who the guilty party is, and their motive.” He hesitated, then said, “Given no one here had ever met Mitchell before, and your father only knew him via White’s and through Mitchell himself, then surely the police must suspect someone other than those here—perhaps someone from Mitchell’s past who followed him on his return…” He broke off as he realized the problem with that scenario.

 Frowning, Gwen put it into words. “How could anyone from outside have known where to find the foot-trap and hammer?” She glanced up and met his eyes. “They said the hammer was the one from the croquet shed, and, well, where else could the foot-trap have come from? Presumably it came from our barn or one of the outbuildings.”

 “Perhaps…but perhaps that’s not the right question to ask—where those things came from. Perhaps the question that should be asked is: Could they have been easily found by anyone seeking something of the sort?” He paused, then followed that thought further. “What if someone who Mitchell met in London knew he would be coming here, walking up the path that afternoon? What if they came earlier and hunted around? The croquet shed is at the end of the lawn near the shrubbery—easy enough to see and search. And perhaps the foot-trap was just hanging on the barn wall?”

 Frederick met Gwen’s gaze. “You understand, don’t you, that I can’t speak with your father about us—that I can’t ask for leave to address you, to ask for your hand—until all suspicion of murder has been lifted from me?”

 And until all suspicion had been lifted from her father, and Agnes, too. Gwen nodded. “Yes, I know.”

 “So until this murder is solved, we won’t be able to get on with our lives. I spoke with the local constable before he left—it seems the inspector and Mr. Adair won’t be returning until the day after tomorrow. The inspector is needed in London, it seems.” Frederick paused, then said, “I really can’t imagine any member of the house party—either a guest or one of your family—in the role of murderer. Can you?”

 Gwen shook her head. “No. And that’s not just wishful thinking. I cannot see why anyone would kill a man they didn’t really know, especially not like that.”

 “Precisely. So let’s assume that the murderer is not one of us, that he came from outside, from elsewhere in Mitchell’s life.” Frederick held Gwen’s gaze and felt a sense of impatient excitement—the same feeling he’d often had when adventuring—flare. “Perhaps if we can determine where the foot-trap came from—show that it would have been easy for anyone to have found and used—then we might help the police refocus on the real arena from which Mitchell’s murderer must hail from—his life away from here.”

 Gwen’s eyes lit; a similar impatient tension thrummed through her fingers where they gripped his. “Yes—that’s an excellent idea.” For an instant, she held his gaze, then impulsively she stretched up and pressed her lips to his.

 Frederick lost his breath. Stopped breathing altogether.

 But when her lips remained on his, he couldn’t suppress the urge to, very gently, gather Gwen into his arms.

 She came—shyly but not in any way reluctant.

 He held her like spun glass, drew in a shuddering breath, and angled his head to refashion the kiss—to one of simple yearning.

 Something they shared at a bone-deep level. He let his lips firm on hers, let them brush and say all he could not yet say in words.

 And she answered.

 Gwen stepped forward with no thought beyond her need, beyond an ineradicable desire to share, reassured by the fundamental rightness of the exchange. Their first kiss. She followed the dictates of instinct, pressed her lips more definitely to his and returned the caress, letting her lips speak in this arena where she had no voice. No simple words could describe what she felt—teetering on the cusp of the greatest delight in life—with the promise of a future shared with him shining like a beacon, not just in her mind but clearly in his, too.

 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.”

* * *

“D
amn! 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.”

* * *

G
riselda 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

A
s 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.”