“Perhaps . . . ?” Lucifer cocked an eyebrow at Phyllida.
He was asking her to act as his hostess—as his wife. With a calm smile, she gestured to the drawing room. “Why don’t we sit comfortably and you can tell us the family news. You must be parched. Have you dined?”
“At Yeovil,” Felicity replied. “We weren’t sure how much further Colyton was. Demon didn’t want to take any chances.”
Lucifer blinked, but said nothing. He ushered Felicity and Demon into the drawing room. Phyllida gave orders to Bristleford to prepare rooms and bring the tea trolley in, then joined them.
“Well,” Felicity said as Phyllida joined her on the chaise, “you two seem to be having all the excitement in the family at present, so we came to share. Honoria would have come, but in her condition Devil refuses to let her as far as the front door. And Vane’s much the same—he seems to imagine Patience is made of bone china. Scandal was tempted, but Catriona agreed he could come if he brought her, so they’re still at Somersham. And no one has any idea where Gabriel and Alathea are.” She smiled at Lucifer. “So it’s just us, I’m afraid.”
The ingenuous speech had made Lucifer blanch—its conclusion revived him. “Thank God!” He glanced at Demon. “I didn’t expect the whole troop to descend.”
Demon shrugged. “It’s summer—what else have we to do?”
Bristleford entered with the tea trolley and plates of cakes. They broke off to partake; Phyllida and Felicity sipped and nibbled delicately while they chatted; Demon and Lucifer settled for brandy and demolishing the cakes.
“So,” Lucifer said as Demon finished the last cake. “Cut line—what have you learned?”
Demon didn’t glance his way; his gaze was fixed on the chaise. Following it, Lucifer was just in time to see Felicity try to smother, then hide, a yawn.
“On the other hand,” Lucifer said, “it’s getting late and you’ll need to get settled. Is there anything that won’t wait until morning?”
Demon threw him a grateful look. “No.” He considered, then shook his head and stood. “There’s nothing that’ll make any difference tonight, and I’d rather you told us what’s been happening here before I fill you in on my discoveries, minor though they are. Knowing the details will help me set what I found in better perspective.”
Phyllida stood, drawing Felicity with her. She’d seen the yawn and caught the earlier, fleeting reference, too. “Indeed. A good night’s sleep all around, then we can start first thing in the morning.” She smiled at Felicity. “Come, I’ll introduce you to Mrs. Hemmings and show you your room.”
They all met the next morning at the breakfast table. Rested and refreshed, Flick—she insisted everyone call her that—was agog to hear their tale. Demon, relieved of his own anxiety, was similiarly eager. Lucifer and Phyllida started their story over the teacups, then continued when they adjourned to the library. Concisely, they described incident after incident; Demon interrupted with a question here and there. Flick sat and simply stared.
“How atrocious!” she declared when they’d concluded their tale. “That’s monstrous—leaving you to die in a burning cottage!”
Phyllida agreed.
Lucifer looked at Demon. “So what’s the news from London?”
“First of all, your neighbors are exceedingly law-abiding souls—Montague gave them all a clean bill of health. No debts, no peculiar past histories, nothing. All he found on Appleby was that he’s the illegitimate son of a minor peer—old Croxton, now deceased. His papa was not fond, but did educate him and pave the way into the army. Infantry—you were right about that.”
“So,” Lucifer concluded, “Appleby is an impoverished ex-infantryman with an education sufficient to allow him to serve as a gentleman’s amanuensis.”
“Yes, but there’s more. Appleby was the only one on your list who’d served in any capacity, so I had a relatively easy time. I tracked down his regiment—he saw action at Waterloo.” Demon glanced at Lucifer. “He was with the Ninth. I managed to locate his immediate superior, a Captain Hastings. That’s where things got interesting. I had to all but drink Hastings under the table to wring the nightmare from him, but it transpires that Hastings suspects that Appleby committed murder on the battlefield.”
“Murder during a battle?” Flick frowned. “Can that happen?”
Lucifer nodded. “If you shoot someone on your own side deliberately.”
Phyllida shivered. “How horrible.”
“Indeed,” Demon concurred. “During one particular cavalry charge—“ He glanced at Phyllida and Flick. “The cavalry often charge from the flank, across the infantry’s line of sight—the infantry usually put up their pieces during the charge. Most would use the time to clean and reload. Well, during this one charge, Hastings was standing almost directly behind Appleby. He swears Appleby drew a line on one of our own. He believes he saw Appleby shoot and one of the guardsmen fall, but . . . it was midmorning, and that was a hellish day. By the end of it, so many were dead and we all had our own nightmares. Hastings wasn’t sure enough to make any immediate charge, but he’d seen enough to check who the fallen man was.
“It turned out to be Appleby’s best friend. They’d even shared a tent the previous night. Although wounded himself, Appleby had gone out and retrieved the body and was, to all appearances, deeply cut up. Hastings concluded that Appleby had merely been using his sight to keep a steadier eye on his friend through the charge. That’s what he told himself. That’s what he still tells himself, but when his tongue is loosened by good brandy, the truth tumbles out. Hastings still believes in his heart that he saw Appleby kill his best friend, Corporal Sherring.” Demon looked at Lucifer. “Incidentally, Hastings said Appleby was an excellent shot with a musket.”
“So”—Lucifer looked at Phyllida—“it could be Appleby.”
“But is it?” Demon asked. “All we have is an unprovable possibility that Appleby has killed in cold blood before. We haven’t anything to tie him to Horatio or his collection.”
“And that,” Lucifer acknowledged, “is the rub.”
The entire matter hinged on the mysterious volume the murderer thought was buried in Horatio’s collection. Demon and Flick joined the party searching through Horatio’s tomes.
After an hour, Flick stepped back from the bookcase she was working through. “Why are we doing this?” She turned to Lucifer. “Whoever it is, they’ve presumably been searching every Sunday for months. But if they knew which book they were searching for, and presumably they must, then it wouldn’t take that long to find it.”
“Unfortunately, it would.” Lucifer strolled along the shelves, then stopped and pulled out an innocuous-looking volume. He showed it to Flick. “Brent’s Roman Legions. Nice binding, worth a few guineas, but nothing to get excited over.” Then he slid the entire cover free. “In reality, however, this is a first edition of Cruickshank’s Treatise of the Powers, worth a small fortune.”
“Oh.” Flick studied the cover and the book it had concealed. “Are there many like that in here?”
“Every few shelves and sometimes more often.” Phyllida reached for the next book on her shelf.
“Many collectors use fake covers to hide their most precious works.” Lucifer returned the priceless volume to its protective cover. “So in order to search Horatio’s collection, every book would need to be checked.”
They went back to checking.
After lunch, Lucifer and Demon, at their ladies’ behest, walked up to the forge to confer with Thompson. No horse with a loose shoe had yet been brought in. As they ambled back down the lane, Lucifer slid a glance at Demon. “I have to say I’m surprised you agreed to bring Flick into this—I assume she’s in an interesting condition?”
“Yes.” Demon’s proud grin was exceedingly brief. “But the damned woman wouldn’t be left behind. She insists she’s perfectly well and refuses to be cosseted. It’s as much as a warm bed’s worth to argue too hard. And, of course, Honoria supported her.”
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“Honoria?”
“Honoria, who is so damned pregnant, Devil has all but lost his ducal authority. He bowed to her decree that Flick was perfectly well enough to travel down here—he even urged me to bring her! Not, of course, because he thought it was a good idea, but because he didn’t want Honoria upset!”
“Good God! Is that what I’ve got to look forward to?”
“Unless you’re thinking of a platonic relationship—and I can’t believe you are—yes, and that’s the least of what’s in store. Judging by the state Vane’s presently in, it only gets worse.”
Lucifer shook his head. “Why do we do this?”
“God only knows.”
They exchanged glances, then smiled and lengthened their strides.
It was Flick who, late in the afternoon, put what they were all independently thinking into words. She waved her arms at the library’s bookshelves. “If the murderer’s after something here, why don’t we just let him come and get it?”
She faced the rest of the room. “I don’t mean let him get away with it, of course, but what if we organized a household picnic or some such affair, made sure the whole village heard of it so everyone would know there would be no one left at home, and then we’d go, but circle back and keep watch?” She looked at them. “What do you think?”
Demon looked at Lucifer. “I think there’s some merit in the idea. We need to accept that there’s a definite possibility that the murderer’s taken care of that loose shoe in some way other than bringing the horse to Thompson.”
“The village fete is two days from now.”
They all looked at Phyllida.
“It’s on Saturday,” she said. “Everyone for miles around attends. It’s virtually compulsory.” Standing, she crossed to the window; Flick joined her as she waved. “It’s held in the field just behind the church.”
Both Lucifer and Demon joined them at the window, looking up the slope of the common to the church. Demon narrowed his eyes. “That’s a very attractive proposition.”
“Easy enough to arrange for a watch to be kept on the house—and on the possible suspects, too.” Lucifer slowly nodded. “And the doors here, while locked at night, are never locked during the day, even now.”
“On the morning of the fete, we’ll all be coming and going, taking food and trestles up.” Phyllida faced the others. “It should be easy for anyone to watch unobtrusively and note when we’re all out of the house.”
They considered, exchanging glances, then Lucifer nodded. “Right. Let’s do it. But we’ll need to work out all the details first.”
They spent the whole evening planning, and were still arguing over the details of who should watch whom, when and from where, the next morning when the mail arrived. Bristleford brought the letters into the library on a salver and placed them on the big desk by Lucifer’s elbow.
When they paused in their deliberations to consume tea and a plate of Mrs. Hemmings’s butter cakes, Lucifer sifted through the pile. He tossed some to Phyllida and started opening the rest. “More replies from other collectors.”
He’d finished opening and perusing those he’d kept and laid them aside with a shake of his head when Phyllida sat bolt upright, staring at the sheet she was holding in her hand. “Good gracious! Listen to this! It’s from a solicitor in Huddersfield. He writes that our recent letter to one of his late clients was brought to his attention. In the circumstances, he felt he should bring to our notice the fact that his late client, an associate of Horatio’s, died at the hands of an unknown assailant some eighteen months ago.”
“Heavens!”
They all rose and went to read over Phyllida’s shoulder. She held the letter out so they could see. “It says the other collector was strangled late one night and his records were ransacked.”
Lucifer reached out to steady the sheet. “Shelby. I wonder . . .” He returned to the desk and sat. From a bottom drawer, he retrieved a stack of cards. “Horatio always noted on his name-cards what sort of items he’d most recently traded with each person. The notes refer back to his ledgers.” He flipped through the cards. “Shelby, Shelby . . . hullo!”
The shock in his voice had the other three looking up at him. Lucifer sat, frozen, a card in his hand. “Well, well.” He glanced at Demon. “Sherring.”
“Sherring?” Demon came to look over his shoulder. “The Sherring Corporal Hastings thinks Appleby shot?”
“More likely his father.” Lucifer laid the card down, then checked the stack further. “There’s entries for Shelby, but they’re more than three years ago and it looks like they were only trading furniture.”
He restacked the other cards and put them back in the drawer, then returned his attention to the card for Sherring. “Books. One buy, just over five years ago.”
“Almost immediately after Waterloo,” Demon added.
Lucifer nodded. “Where are those ledgers?”
Demon laid a hand on his shoulder. “Before you do that, write a letter to this solicitor. Give him Appleby’s name—see if he recognizes it.”
Lucifer hesitated, then pulled out a sheet of paper. “We won’t hear in time, presuming that horseshoe falls, but if all else fails . . . I’ll include a description of Appleby as well. If it was him, he might not have used his real name.”
The letter was quickly written. Dodswell was dispatched to race it into Chard to catch the night mail.
Then Lucifer unearthed Horatio’s ledgers—this time, they had a date and quickly found the entry. It listed nine books. They wrote the list on four scraps of paper, then they each took one and started along the shelves.
Jonas arrived. Amazed at the news, he joined in the hunt. Covey did, too. He checked the inventory they’d made thus far, which cut down the bookshelves they needed to search.
Lucifer told them to scan the titles on the grounds that none of the books appeared valuable enough to warrant a false cover. Even with six of them scanning, it still took most of the day, but finally they located all nine books. Along the way, they found three fake covers of Dr. Johnson’s Sermons, six fake covers of Gulliver’s Travels, and a staggering eight of Aesop’s Fables.
“Enough to confuse anyone,” Demon remarked.
“No wonder the murderer has had to search so carefully.” Phyllida glanced along the ranks of bookshelves. “And there’s no telling if Horatio, for whatever reason, concealed one of the Sherring volumes.”
Lucifer shook his head. Carrying Horatio’s card, he was checking the nine books. “No—these are the Sherring volumes. Horatio noted all the details, and he never doubled up on specific volumes.”
“Only to use for fake covers,” Demon replied.
At Lucifer’s instructions, they’d pulled the books forward in the shelves, but left them where they found them.
At five o’clock, Lucifer went around the nine books for the third time, paying special attention to the Sermons, the Travels, and the Fables. He noted the location of each book on his list, then pushed them back to stand unobtrusively with their fellows.
He, Phyllida, Flick, Demon, Jonas, and Covey had all studied each book. There was absolutely nothing to explain why anyone would commit murder for any of them.
Demon sank onto the chaise beside Flick. “We must be missing something.”
“Presumably.” Lucifer settled into an armchair and considered the list. “Let’s assume our man started searching in the library.”
“Why?” Jonas asked.
“Because if I’d wanted to search for a valuable book in this house, I’d assume Horatio would keep it in his inner sanctum,” Demon supplied.
Lucifer nodded. “So he finished in the library, tripping over heaps of fake covers in the process, and had started in here”—he paused to glance at the bookcases covering almost every foot of wall space in the drawing room—“when Horatio disturbed him. The night Phyllida and I saw him, he was still trying to search in here.”
“Most of the Sherring books are in the library
or in here,” Phyllida said. “Only the real Travels and Fables are in the dining room.” She looked at Lucifer. “Is that why you studied the books here and those two books especially?”
He nodded. “Four books, and while it’s not my area of expertise, I would happily swear there’s not a thing that makes any of them valuable. The Aesop’s Fables has been used to hide something—the front cover’s been hollowed out, but that’s not unusual. The front of such books was a popular place to hide wills and such at one time. There’s nothing there now except some canvas padding—I peeled away a corner of the covering paper and checked.”
They all sat, digesting the information. In the end, Demon sighed. “This could, of course, all be some remarkable coincidence and the murderer is in fact someone else.”
Lucifer grimaced. “Very true, which is why we need to give even more thought to how we approach tomorrow.”
They returned to their plans, to the arguments, the suggestions—the possibilities of how to trap a murderer.
The day of the fete dawned still and clear. Throughout the morning, men and boys lugged boards and trestles up the common and over the rise. Thompson and Oscar helped Juggs roll two heavy barrels slowly up from the lych-gate, then down the slope behind the church. By nine o’clock a steady stream of women, gaily dressed in bright gowns and aprons, were ferrying all manner of foods up in baskets.
By eleven o’clock, when the Manor household climbed the common, a heat haze had formed—there was not a breath of wind to blow it away. The air lay heavy against the skin, almost cloying. Pausing beside the church on the highest point of the rise, Phyllida looked toward the horizon. “We’ll have a storm tonight.”
Lucifer followed her gaze. The horizon was smudged charcoal gray. “Looks like a big one.”
Jonas nodded. “Our storms are something to experience. They sweep in from the Channel with a magnificent rush.”
In the dip behind the church, the villagers and all the surrounding families were gathering. The Manor folk descended, exchanging greetings, introducing Demon and Flick; they merged with the throng and, as they naturally would, parted. They each had their roles to play.