The Vanishing Thief (7 page)

“This case revolves around young ladies just introduced to the queen and a man who's accused of using society balls to steal secrets. Everyone's more Emma's age than mine.” I needed to change the topic as heat crept up my face. “Lady Westover introduced me to Lady Dutton-Cox during visiting hours. I didn't get a chance to tell you, Emma, with all the bustle in the shop when I returned.” I slid the dress over her head so I didn't have to hear her rejoinder.

Once her dress was in place, Emma began reworking her hairdo. “Too bad there isn't some money to be made from this investigation so you could buy some nice clothes for your role.”

“I'm playing a poor relation from some backwater, so nice clothes wouldn't be appropriate.” I tried without success to tame my auburn curls.

“Good thing, because your hairdo belongs on a washerwoman. Here, let me do something with it.”

In a minute, Emma did more with my coiffure than I could do in an hour. I now had a curly upswept hairdo that made me look like a Gibson girl and made me fear my heavy locks would tumble down at any moment. Then she finished her own with a high coil and waves from the newest Paris fashion plates, gave us both a critical look-over, and we left for Sir Broderick's.

It was a short walk, but we hadn't gone far when the crawling sensation on the back of my neck told me someone was watching us. “When we reach New Oxford Street, I'm going to stop. I want you to look behind me while you adjust my hat.”

“Why?”

“I think we're being followed.”

“This is a strange case if someone finds it necessary to follow two harmless women,” Emma said, “especially if the person feeling so unsettled by our interest is someone with the power and money of an aristocrat.”

When I stopped, she was ready to swing in front of me and look over my shoulder while she straightened my hat. “It's a good thing I did, too. Your hat wasn't at the right angle.”

“Well?” I demanded.

“There are plenty of people around, but no one is looking or acting suspiciously. Are you sure we were being followed?”

My cheeks heated. “No.”

Nevertheless, with few people around and thick shrubbery for an attacker to hide in along the paths inside Bloomsbury Square, we walked around the edge of the park instead of through it.

When we arrived at Sir Broderick's town house, unharmed but slightly out of breath from hurrying, Jacob opened the door as soon as we rang and took our cloaks, hats, and gloves. We waited for him and then walked upstairs as a group to enter the study.

Frances Atterby and Adam Fogarty were already seated with Sir Broderick, who waved a sheet of cream-colored notepaper at us. “Lady Westover has graciously set up a family dinner for her relation, Georgia Peabody, which will include a couple of the peers involved in this case. Lord Naylard and his sister have already accepted. Her grandson will also be in attendance.”

Emma and I fixed tea from the pot kept warm under a tea cozy while Jacob helped himself to Dominique's digestive biscuits. Then we settled into chairs at a distance from Sir Broderick's roaring fire. “How does Inspector Grantham feel about being dragged into one of our investigations?” I needed to know how angry he was going to be at me for involving his grandmother.

“He's threatened to lock Lady Westover up in her home, but she writes that he knows how far that will get him.”

“He'll be taking it out on me, then.” I shrugged my shoulders. “That's not a problem unless he gives me away.”

“He won't, Georgia, unless it's necessary to save his grandmother's life.”

I knew Sir Broderick was right. Inspector Grantham had worked with us before and not given us away. “When is this family dinner?”

“Tomorrow night.”

“That doesn't give us much time. What has anyone learned?”

Fogarty answered my question first. “I played the chap from the Water Board. I was suspicious of a woman with a colicky baby across from Drake's and one house over. I sent Grace back, thinking it needed a woman's touch. The mother had been up with the baby at about the correct time and looked out the window. She saw a very ordinary coach with no markings whose driver sat in the box the entire time. They were there at least five minutes, but not ten.”

“Did she see anything of the passengers?”

He flipped over a page in his notebook. “No. She heard men's voices when they left, but she was on the wrong side of the street to see them. They seemed to be in a hurry getting away, shouting at the driver to get a move on.”

“Not a shiny, tall, ancient carriage?”

“No. Just a rental you'd expect to see hired to take a group somewhere. She remembered one of the two horses was a gray. She thought the coach would look better if the horses matched.”

“Definitely not the duke's carriage. Edith Carter lied about that. Why? And what else has been a lie?”

Fogarty said, “I talked to her maid when I went to her house on my rounds for our fictitious Water Board survey. She said it was just the mistress and her.”

“No parents. Why did she lie to me about that? What possible difference could that make?” I'd been badly used by Miss Carter.

“I'm sure she has a reason for every lie, Georgia. The story about the coach may have been to point our attention at the duke.” Sir Broderick smiled, his eyes half-closed.

“He and his fellow club members are the only people we've found so far who might have a reason to abduct Mr. Drake,” Frances said. “Of course, there's no reason why he would choose his victims from only one club. Once we saw the connection between Mr. Drake and debutantes, I started looking at the parties he was invited to last season. He attended at least fifty balls, although none of the smaller entertainments.”

Frances took a sip of her tea. “I talked to a couple of my contacts, middle-aged gently born ladies who act as chaperones at these balls so the mamas can go elsewhere. They remember Drake. He could always be counted on to fill out the dance cards of the less-popular misses and make himself agreeable wherever. It sounded to me as if he had ample opportunity to snatch the odd small, valuable trinket.”

“And seek out signs of scandal for blackmail,” I added.

“No one is ever more alone than in a crush at a ball,” Sir Broderick said. “What else has anyone found?”

Jacob said, “I tried all the pubs in the area, looking for Nicholas Drake's friends Harry and Tom. Said I'd heard they were looking for me for a spot of work. I finally met up with Tom Whitaker. He said they didn't have anything planned at this time, but they'd keep me in mind if they did. I told them I'd talked to Drake a few days ago and he said there was work to be had and soon. That's when Tom said he'd not seen Drake in a few days and didn't know about any plans. And I learned Harry's last name is Conover.”

“Good work, everyone.” I filled them in on what I'd learned from Lady Westover and what Lady Dutton-Cox and her daughter Elizabeth had revealed.

“I'll track down Harry Conover and see if he and Tom are known to my former mates.” Fogarty smiled as he limped in front of the bookcases. The retired police sergeant's eyes sparkled whenever anyone gave him the slightest reason to chat with his former colleagues.

“We need to talk to the duke's sister, but she's in the country,” I said. I hoped I didn't sound bitter at the prospect of traveling four days to meet someone who'd probably refuse to talk to me, but I didn't want to leave my shop for that long for a trip that would probably prove fruitless.

“Where's the family seat?” Sir Broderick asked, stirring in his wheeled chair by the fire.

“Northumberland.”

“Frances, see if you can learn who the duke's half sister, Margaret, was friendly with before she left town, and whether they've exchanged letters with her since.”

I looked around the room. “I'll talk to Julia Waxpool. As she's a debutante, Drake might be blackmailing or stealing from her, and her grandfather is on the list Lord Hancock gave us. I've heard she was acquainted with Lady Margaret. With luck, I'll be able to find out what she knows about Victoria and Margaret and whether there were truly bad feelings between them.”

Turning to Emma, I added, “Could you follow up on where Edith Carter was born and if she's ever been married?”

“Do you think chasing down the person who brought the problem to our attention is a wise use of our time?” Sir Broderick asked.

I nodded. “She knows more than she's told us, she's lied to me, and I want to get that problem out of the way before we take on all of polite society.”

Sir Broderick smiled. “Tomorrow, Emma, please find out everything you can about Edith Carter. After that, you may be too busy watching the bookshop in Georgia's absence to do much sleuthing for us.”

Frances Atterby said, “Perhaps I can help Emma. I may not know the book business, but I know how to wait on people. And my son's wife has been making noises again that I'm underfoot and should be sent away to her family's farm to mind the chickens. Me? On a farm? Can you imagine anything worse? I can't allow that. And I can't stay not busy.”

Emma and I made murmuring sounds. Frances might look like she was getting older and should be slowing down, but she wasn't. More to the point, she didn't want to.

The widow of a London hotel manager, Frances had come to the Archivists to find her husband's killer. It had taken us two years to bring the monster to justice, and in the meantime, her son kept telling her to sit down and put her feet up while he and his wife ran the hotel. Accustomed to an active life, Frances transferred her considerable talents and energy to the Archivist Society. As she told us, her son never noticed and her daughter-in-law didn't care.

“After you check on those young ladies for Sir Broderick, Emma and I would be glad of your help.”

Sir Broderick said, “If there's nothing else, we can call it a night. Georgia, I'd like you to wait a moment, please.”

Oh, great. What had I done? Or not done? Emma nodded to me and walked downstairs talking to Frances. I pulled up a chair across from Sir Broderick, letting his body block the worst of the heat from the fire. Sweat still rose on my scalp and under my corset.

“Georgia, I need to tell you something. From that time.”

I knew what time he meant. Both of our lives had been irretrievably altered.

“Do you remember Denis Lupton?”

“I remember he had a bookshop on Piccadilly. He was murdered not long after my parents—” I gulped down a sob. Those days had been too much with me lately.

“His killer was never caught,” Sir Broderick said.

“I remember every bookseller in London was terrified for weeks afterward. In the end, life returned to normal.”

“Your father had a message from Lupton a few days before he was taken prisoner. About a Gutenberg Bible.”

I grabbed the arms of the chair I sat in to prevent me from leaping up. “What did Lupton want? What did my father answer? And why have you waited until now to tell me?”

“I don't know what the message said, but your father was frightened. He told me he sent a message back to Lupton saying no. Your father wanted nothing to do with whatever Lupton proposed.”

He'd ignored the question I most wanted answered. “Why have you waited until now to tell me this?”

“Because if I had told you before, you'd have gone off chasing the wind in hopes of finding the murderer. Now you're doing it anyway, so you might as well know what little I learned.”

I settled back in my chair, ready to hear the rest. “You're certain this concerned a copy of the Gutenberg Bible?”

“Yes. I do know that much. Later, I learned Lupton's shop was ransacked when he was killed. A tall, well-built man in a top hat was seen strolling away just before the body was found, but he wasn't carrying anything. Could the murderer be your abductor? I don't know.”

“Had you considered talking to Lupton about the Bible?”

“When you came running in here that day, I decided to question your father and Lupton as soon as we freed your parents. Instead, I found myself in agony with mangled legs. I was bedridden for months. Everyone who came to see me hovered, waiting for me to die.” He smiled. “Except you, Georgia. Your determination to right wrongs, and forcing me to help you, saved my life and gave me a purpose for living.”

I couldn't bear to have him thank me. I'd failed him as badly as I had my parents. “When did you find out the details about Lupton's murder?”

He brushed my words away with one hand. “No, Georgia, I need to say this. You saved my life twice, once at the house where your parents perished, and once when you came to me to help you prove you didn't kill Lord Westover.”

“Scotland Yard should have searched harder for his murderer.” I couldn't keep the bitterness out of my tone. I'd been eighteen, newly orphaned, and frightened of the police detective who'd questioned me.

“If they had, I never would have met Adam Fogarty and Lady Westover and we never would have formed the Archivist Society.”

I had to smile at the recollection. “I nagged you night and day, brought you every scrap of information I learned, until you finally gave up. You brought Lady Westover, police sergeant Fogarty, and me together in this room. That was the day you began to build the Archivist Society. Now,” I said, giving him an obviously false stern look, “when did you learn the details of Lupton's murder?”

“Much after the fact, a witness to the discovery of Lupton's body came to see me about an antiquarian volume. Given such an opportunity, I learned all he could tell me about the murder. He knew nothing about any bookseller possessing a Gutenberg Bible.”

This was a new lead, at least to me. “I think we need to investigate Lupton's murder using the assumption he was killed by the same man who killed my parents.”