Maddie Hatter and the Deadly Diamond (15 page)

Colonel Muster, Professor Plumb, and Sir Ambrose were standing around with teacups, rigid with the discomfort of gentlemen who would rather be elsewhere but can think of no acceptable excuse to flee. Or, in this case, nowhere to flee to, with the library occupied by ladies. Doubly thankful for the precaution that had placed her secretarial oculus firmly over her eye, and for the purple straight hair that had replaced her brown, wavy Cairo coiffeur, Maddie backed out of the room very quickly indeed.

The housekeeper was busy shaking out the little parlour, presumably for the ladies’ later use. No retreat there. Hornblower, the footman told her, was in the dining room, having demanded afternoon coffee by himself. She presented the report, snatched a cream bun to make up for refusing the Shad at luncheon, and hurried upstairs with no idea what she would, or could, say when next she was faced with her duplicitous hostess.

Huddled in her coverlet by the cold hearth in her chamber, she listened to the conversations TD had managed to record during his hours in the library on the previous evening.

While Hornblower remained in the room, the talk had been mostly by him. Not questioning his more-or-less captive subjects, but, as usual, talking about himself. A shameless dropper of famous names, he claimed credit for the return of this peer’s diamonds and another’s kidnapped heir, that merchant’s defalcating accountant and this one’s overdue steamship. Once he was gone, however, the tenor of the evening shifted. The men’s voices came through with intermittent clarity, as they paced the room or moved between their chairs and the drinks cart.

Sir Ambrose was shrill. “She’s come to take my entire inheritance. If there’s any valuable books or curios, we must hide them. Professor, what’s the most valuable?”

Professor Plumb, sounding weary, and maybe a little drunk. “Nothing in this dust-heap is worth a plugged farthing.”

The pair explored that theme to the point of tedium before Plumb, losing patience, snapped, “If you want to know where his money went, ask Muster. Same place as the pile he won from you, I shouldn’t wonder. Once a gambler, always a gambler.”

“I didn’t gamble with Bodmin. He was my friend.” The colonel couldn’t be bothered to sound offended.

Sir Ambrose made up for it. “You wouldn’t win his money but you would mine? So I’m not your friend? I should throw you out of my house then.”

“It’s not yours until the estate’s settled, little rooster. As the executor, I control that timeline. Behave, or you’ll wait a long time.”

Plumb was not buying that. “You mean, you’re in no rush to settle the estate because you’ve already made off with the money. Hah. I told him you were not to be trusted. But would he listen?”

“Fool. He had hardly tuppence when he left. Everything had gone on his previous expeditions; only the White woman’s support made the last one possible.” Muster yawned. “I recall you getting a winter vacation at her expense. What did you do to earn it?”

“I won’t sit here being insulted. I am going to bed.” Wavering footsteps were followed by a door shutting.

Sir Ambrose groaned. “She’s suing the estate for all that money back. I don’t have it; you say the estate doesn’t have it. What will happen to us? How will I live?”

“Your wife had some pretty jewels. Are they up the spout already?”

“She won’t let me near them. Hid them somewhere as soon as we arrived. And that’s not the only thing she’s been cunning about. She was incognito in Venice so her father wouldn’t find out she was at Carnivale, but now she says she’s estranged from Main-Bearing and won’t see another penny from him.”

Maddie flinched. If Lord Main-Bearing heard of his supposed daughter’s marriage to that wastrel, there’d be stormy weather ahead. The speedy marriage was understandable from both sides now: Sarah wanted a quick change of names and a chance at whatever the baron might bring back from his expedition, and Ambrose wanted a rich wife in a hurry, having lost his fortune at cards. A lucky escape for sweet Clarice.

Colonel Muster’s voice drew her back to the recorded conversation. “And you were fool enough to marry her. Under her right name, I suppose? No getting out of it without annoying the Steamlord.” There was a clink of glassware as one or the other freshened a drink. Then Muster continued. “The lawsuit against the estate can’t proceed until the old lady’s lawyers serve the papers. They must be served to me, since I’m the executor, until I’m declared dead. Right now nobody in London knows where I am. But there’s a risk that fat detective will mention me in a report, and then the game’s up.”

Had Maddie mentioned Colonel Muster in the report she had just handed to Hornblower? She thought not. That one dealt with the baron’s airship and his body. And, of course, the photograph showing the mask had been in the manor at some point. Did the arrogant airship magnate not realize that the impediment to her lawsuit, the vanished executor, was the same colonel who had drunk tea with her this very afternoon? Possibly not, for the quarrelsome Mrs. Midas-White might have any number of legal actions against any number of persons, and likely had teams of lawyers to handle such details for her. Should Maddie tell her? Not yet, she decided. A good investigative reporter did not reveal information merely to see ill-doers punished, but observed from the fringes while the subjects revealed even more of their secrets.

Tonight she would slip TD back into the library. Or into the parlour, if there was a chance the ladies might sit there after dinner. Perhaps leaving him in the parlour overnight would reveal whatever Lady Sarah was searching for, and save Maddie a night’s lost sleep.

When the gong rang for dinner, she re-fixed the oculus and went down, hoping Lady Sarah had once again taken to her bed. She had not, but presided from the foot of the table. There was more conversation tonight, mainly from Professor Plumb and Colonel Muster, seated on either side of Mrs. Midas-White and doing their best to hold her attention. Plumb even gave up his post-prandial brandy to escort her to the ladies’ parlour. Maddie and Lady Sarah followed them across the hall. There had been no sign from the latter that she recognized Maddie or paid her any notice, which was all to the good as far as Maddie was concerned. She settled herself at the small table in the parlour, not as close to the hearth as she might have liked but out of immediate notice and apt, she hoped, to be forgotten while others talked freely.

She heard nothing of value, however, merely Professor Plumb boasting. To hear him tell it, White Sky passengers had flocked to his lectures during his trans-Atlantic crossing last fall. Was he angling for an invitation to return to America on one of Mrs. Midas-White’s ships? Just why did he feel the need to leave England again so soon? To escape culpability in the baron’s death, or to sell a purloined Nubian mask in the vast, anonymous marketplace across the ocean? Both?

Colonel Muster soon abandoned the dining room too. He talked of petty thieves hiring onto airship crews for the easy pickings, daring jewel robberies on trans-Atlantic flights, and cardsharps preying upon young men lulled into false security by the small world of an airship. Mrs. Midas-White found nothing to query in his last assertion. If she did not know of his recent disgrace over gambling, it was another morsel of evidence that she had not acquainted herself with the details of the baron’s estate. And yet she might, in any missive, mention the name to her lawyers. The colonel was taking a frightful risk by being in the same house. But then, a gambler must enjoy risks. When his oratory touched on the need for trained security forces on airship liners it was clear he was angling for a job with the White Sky Line. Such an occupation would pay him to live in the air, allowing time and distance to dim the memory of his scandalous ejection from his club.

Something crashed through the library window, bringing the parlour party to an abrupt end. While everyone else crowded to the connecting door, Maddie slipped out to the hall and hurried to the library doorway. A small, water-stained trunk lay in a spray of shattered glass and splintered casement. Surely that was the trunk from the Coast Guard Station? Sir Ambrose shoved past her into the room just as a man with a pistol in his hand clambered in through the hole.

“Where’s that poltroon, Plumb?” Professor Windsor Jones, drenched and disheveled almost beyond recognition. “Plumb! Come out here and answer for your crime.” Maddie tore her eyes from the weapon long enough to glance at the crowd by the other door. No Plumb. Jones charged at that door, his gun hand wavering wildly. “Where is that paltry pundit? Let me at him!”

Colonel Muster stepped forward. “You’re drunk. Put that toy down and stop scaring the ladies.”

“Toy?” Professor Jones stopped. “I’ll show you what this toy can do.” He whipped around. There was a loud pop. The painting of old Lady Bodmin above the hearth tumbled top over toes onto the floor, ending with the lady’s aged head in the flames and the rest of her leaning on the grate.

“Granny!” Sir Ambrose leapt forward and dragged the portrait out of the fire, smacking at the cinders that came along. Jones made for the gap left by the upset heir, pushing past Maddie to reach the hall.

“Aha!” He bolted toward the staircase. Plumb was halfway up, huffing and holding the railing as he climbed. Jones leveled the gun. Maddie cannoned into his back, sending him staggering. The shot popped. A chunk of the newel post fell away. Jones tripped over his long coattail and fell face down, his gun flying from his hand. Maddie fell over him. Above them, Professor Plumb stumbled. Thuds and truncated wails announced his progress down the stairs.

As Maddie caught her breath, Jones coughed, sending a cloud of brandy fumes into her face. She coughed too, and scrambled away as best she could, hampered by her long, narrow skirt. Her hand came down on the pistol. She shoved it into her side pocket and kept going until her back fetched up against the newel post. Jones crawled toward her. She clutched the first thing that came to her fingers—a shattered half of the post’s carved pineapple—and threw it at his face. It missed by a good margin, and he came on.

Colonel Muster planted a foot on Jones’ hand. “Stop now, man, or I’ll crush your fingers. You’ll never pen another cockamamie conspiracy theory.”

Jones wilted.

“I think he’s drunk.” Maddie attempted to organize her skirt and stand up without revealing the weight of the weapon dragging her pocket down. She was only partly successful, but nobody noticed. Those now daring to venture out of the library were rushing to Professor Plumb, who had crumpled on the lowest landing.

“I perish,” he groaned. “The fiend has given me a mortal wound.”

“Get up, you silly man. You fell down the stairs,” Mrs. Midas-White told him. “You. Footman. Take him to the library.” The morose fellow did as he was bid, hoisting the prostrate professor by an arm with no regard for possible broken bones. He plunked Plumb into an armchair, and Maddie handed back the fez that had tumbled lightly from the half-landing to the hall floor with only a stripe of dusty spider-web to show for its wild flight.

Sir Ambrose, having tenderly dusted off his Granny’s face with an antimacassar, leaned her against the wall and poured out a stiff brandy. Mrs. Midas-White snatched it from his hand and pushed it at Professor Plumb.

“Drink that and pull yourself together.”

Colonel Muster dragged Professor Jones into the room and flung him at the sofa. “Explain yourself, sir.”

“He stole my trunk. He gave it to Baron Bodmin to find the Eye of Africa. That was my research.” Jones pointed dramatically at the trunk. “It’s all in there. It was with the baron when he drowned.”

Maddie frowned. How had he retrieved the trunk from the coroner’s boathouse? How had he known it was there at all?

Jones rambled on. “All mine. When I saw the baron came ashore with a trunk, it was mine. I knew it.”

Of course, that image of the baron and the trunk had been in all the newspapers a week ago. Plenty of time for even a drunk American to find out where Cornwall was and get himself there. She hoped he had not shot anyone in stealing it back.

“Stole it, did you?” Colonel Muster abandoned his guard pose over Jones and slung the trunk up to his shoulder. “It’s evidence now. I’ll lock it up until the Coast Guard arrives to claim it.” He strode toward the hall door, danced a short minuet with Hercule Hornblower, who had belatedly decided to investigate the commotion, and headed for the stairs. Dashing up them two at a time, he vanished from Maddie’s line of sight amid the cobwebs and gloom of the upper flight.

Silence fell, thick as the settling dust. A movement near the shattered window could have been the wind touching the drapery, but it was Obie, looking in from the darkness, his eyebrows raised in a question. Maddie rolled her eyes back at him. She had not needed his help with the drunken gunman, and if she had, there would have been no time to send for him. And what were they to do with Jones? Lock him in a bedroom to sleep it off? Send for the Coast Guard to take him away?