Bunny and my aunt had their heads together, deep in conversation, when I joined them. Aunt Lovatt looked up and said, “Mr. Smythe has agreed to spend a few days at Gracefield, Heather. We think it for the best.”
“What will you tell your family?” I asked him, not to discourage the scheme, but to lend an air of surprise to the idea.
“Never fear I mean to tell ‘em the truth. Wouldn’t trust my sisters with a ten-foot pole. Tell ‘em I’m thinking of buying the pigeons. They’ll cut up stiff. Can’t be helped. Mama hates those birds. Never could understand how your mama could stand them, dirtying up the house. I’ll tell her I’m leaving them at Gracefield. That should turn the trick.”
It sounded perfectly absurd. Bunny had never shown the least interest in the pigeons, but as I needed his assistance, I kept my thoughts to myself. “Three gentlemen in the house!” I said, smiling at the unusualness of the occurrence.
“Three?” my aunt asked. “Why, who else is coming?”
“Lord Fairfield—and Snoad is already there.”
“I hope you are not calling that scoundrel a gentleman!” she scoffed.
“Three men, is all I meant,” I said, and immediately began pouring coffee.
We packed our belongings and left for Hythe as soon as breakfast was finished. Soames agreed to forward any messages we might receive in reply to our advertisement. We made only one detour to the Pavilion Parade, for it is impossible to pry Auntie loose from Brighton without a trip to the prince’s shrine. There it sat, glowing like an Oriental palace, and looking as weird and wonderful as ever, with its onion domes and minarets. We always hoped for a view of the prince, and on that day, our wish was finally gratified.
He was being hoisted onto his mount as we drove past. He slid off, making a most undignified sight. Auntie averted her eyes. “You’d wonder if the earth was still round after that blow,” Bunny said, chuckling into his collar.
We decided that the elegant female in the plumed bonnet accompanying him was the Countess de Lieven, and that seemed, in some inexplicable manner, to negate the shame of the prince’s tumble. Except for that comic interlude, our trip home was uneventful, unless one can call lunch at Hastings an event. We reached Gracefield around four.
I have mentioned the roost, n
é
e widow’s walk, of Gracefield. Other than that, I have not given you any idea of the house’s architecture. It sits at the top of a cliff, overlooking the sea. The cliff is not very high; it permits clambering down to the shore, which I often do. Gracefield is an ancient old stone heap, which reaches high into the sky, gradually diminishing in floor space as it rises, and terminating in a point, crowned with a weathercock. On the top floor, where Snoad rules, it has only two chambers.
The house always reminds me of a wicked witch’s castle when I see it from afar. It is liberally endowed with bartizans, finials, and other accoutrements of romance. The reason I call it a wicked witch’s castle is its gloomy aspect. Any of Mrs. Radcliffe’s gothic heroines would feel right at home here. The sky is seldom blue. On a good day it is white, but more usually an ominous gray. The ancient trees in the vicinity are warped and twisted from the ocean’s wind and salt spray. On a stormy night the wind lashes furiously, and the sea foams up to the top of the little cliff. Safe inside, I adore the violence of those storms.
One odd feature of the house is that it has two fronts. My ancestor who built it wanted an elegant facade to face the ships at sea. His dame wished to impress her neighbors passing it on the road. We therefore have two fine fronts, both with double doors and knockers, and two lesser aspects and doors on either side. Concerned with matters of security, it occurred to me that four doors were a great many to have to contend with, in the matter of anyone leaving—or entering, for that matter. Depew had not thought of that either! We might have unwanted French visitors. I began to see that Depew was not the wizard I had been taking him for. He would want watching.
“Now for a nice cup of tea,” Aunt Lovatt said as we dismounted at the front door—the north front door facing the road. “Will you join us, Mr. Smythe?”
She need not have asked. There was no likelihood of Bunny leaving when tea was in the offing. We were met in the hallway by Mrs. Gibbons, a white-haired grenadier of a woman who is the nominal housekeeper, although Mrs. Lovatt makes all the important decisions.
“Thank God you’re home!” Mrs. Gibbons said. I had the feeling she was about to fall to her knees in gratitude to the divinity. Her face was as long as the long-case clock in the saloon, and she spoke with such force that we were all thrown into alarm.
“What on earth has happened?” Mrs. Lovatt demanded.
“Burglars!” she declared. “Someone busted in last night and ransacked Mr. Hume’s office. Every book in the place was tossed onto the floor. Snoad has given us a hand tidying it up, as he knows where everything goes. He just went back up to the roost.”
Without further talk, we all four headed to the office, where Snoad had performed his job so thoroughly that no one would ever know it had been disarranged.
“How did the man get in?” I asked.
“The door on the east side was jimmied open. Thumm has fixed it up as best he could.” Thumm, while nominally our butler, is a clever hand at general work as well.
“Did anyone catch a sight of the man?” I asked.
“We had no idea he’d been here till I sent Mary into the office to dust this morning, and she saw the mess. I called the constable from Hythe, miss. He’s making inquiries.”
“That’s fine, Mrs. Gibbons. I’ll just have a look around and see if I notice anything missing.”
“Snoad says there’s nothing taken. An odd thing entirely. The man could have carried away the silverware, for the dining room’s just down the hall, but he didn’t take a thing. I’ve checked it all out. Not so much as a teaspoon is gone, thank the Lord.”
Of course, it was not teaspoons he was after, but information. It was not likely the message Papa had been carrying was here. Perhaps he was after the schedule of messages expected, or some notes regarding messages to be sent.
Mrs. Lovatt rushed out with Mrs. Gibbons to examine the east door. Bunny remained behind with me. It was my first chance for a private word with him, and I told him about the note I had written to Depew, and my fear for the excess of doors at Gracefield.
“We can bar the doors at night,” he said. “Ram a chair under the knob. I’ll sleep downstairs. I’ll hear if anyone jiggles them aside and gets in.”
“Do you have a gun, Bunny?”
“I have my shooting guns at home.”
“Papa has a pistol in the bottom drawer of his desk. I’ll get it for you.” I went to the desk and drew open the drawer. The gun was gone. I don’t know whether it was fear or anger that caused the rush of blood to my head. I must stay calm. Perhaps Mrs. Gibbons had taken the gun after the break-in.
“It’s gone,” I told Bunny, and rushed off after Mrs. Gibbons to inquire for the pistol.
“What pistol?” she asked, horrified. “I had no idea your father kept a pistol in his office. Whatever did he do that for?”
She was still jabbering when I returned to the study, and Bunny. “I think we know now what the break-in was all about,” I said.
“How would the fellow who got in know the gun was there?”
“He wouldn’t, but Snoad knew this office like the back of his hand.”
“Then he could have just lifted it and kept mum.”
“He knew I spent time here. He needed some explanation if I should discover the pistol was missing. So he made a stage play of someone having broken in, and just took the gun himself.” I kept my main concern to myself. What did Snoad want with a gun, if he was not planning to shoot someone? I remembered that hole in Papa’s jacket, and the blood on his shirt.
Bunny listened, nodding his agreement. “Believe I’ll just nip down to the inn and leave off a note for Mr. Martin.”
“He didn’t tell us what inn he was going to.” More amateurishness on Depew’s part.
“White Hart,” Bunny said with an air of certainty.
“Did he tell you so?”
“Nope. Everyone stays at the White Hart.”
With the Swan and the Red Lion and any number of decent hostelries doing a brisk business, I could not be so sure Depew would choose the White Hart, but Bunny had a nice knowledge of social customs. That, if nothing else, he had got from his one term at Cambridge.
“If I get a wiggle on, I can be back for tea. Good thing I left my mount here,” he said, and left.
I sank onto the chair behind Papa’s desk to consider what I should do. My orders were to keep an eye on the loft, and much as I dreaded facing Snoad, the robbery gave me an excellent excuse for going up there. I was just taking myself by the scruff of the neck to do it when there was a tap at the open door. Looking up, I saw Snoad standing in the doorway.
He had put on a cravat and jacket to come belowstairs. In the dimness of the doorway, he might be mistaken for a gentleman. In any light, there was no ignoring his physical beauty. Yet it was a foreign sort of beauty, dark of hair and flashing of eye, like the more interesting sort of Frenchman.
When he had caught my attention, he stepped in. “You heard the news?” he asked. I sensed the excitement in him. He was worried lest I suspect him.
I quickly scanned what tack I should take, and remembered Depew’s advice. Behave as if you suspect nothing. “Yes indeed, Mrs. Gibbons has told us. Such an odd robbery, with nothing taken.”
“Robbery?” he asked in surprise. “I don’t think it was a simple robbery.”
“Oh really? What do you think, Snoad?” I asked, adopting a wide-eyed air of simplicity.
He bit his lip, as if regretting his rash words. “I daresay you’re right,” he said. “But Mrs. Gibbons said none of the silver was gone. The only thing missing is your father’s gun, Miss Hume.”
Now, why the devil had he told me? Pointing it out might, perhaps, direct suspicion away from himself if it was discovered later. “Really!” I said, feigning fright. “Where did Papa keep it?”
“In this drawer,” he said, moving behind the desk to slide open the bottom drawer. His head was bent down, just inches below me. I noticed how rich and full his hair grew, and how crow black it was, with tints of color in the light from the window. Then he looked up, and I was struck anew with the splendor of his eyes. They were a brownish black shade, like coffee, with lashes a lady might envy.
“I wonder how he knew it was there,” I said.
“Most men keep a gun in their offices, I believe.”
“I hope he does not plan to return and use it on us.”
His lips moved in a soft smile. White teeth gleamed behind his full lips. “A good thing I’m here to protect you, miss,” he said, in a gentle voice.
I felt like a mouse under the protection of a wild cat. He rose from the drawer and resumed a businesslike pose, and my heart resumed its normal beat. He spoke on about having tidied up the office, and nothing being stolen, so far as he could tell.
I only half listened. What I was telling myself was that from an objective point of view, Snoad was no worse than I. He was a Frenchman—surely he was not English—spying for France. I was an English lady, spying for England. We were equals in that respect. I thought, too, that the French would not choose those of low birth for such important work. Perhaps Snoad was wellborn, though not a nobleman, of course. The revolution had pretty well decimated that breed. Those who had escaped to England would be in no hurry to lend Boney a hand. I decided he was a gentleman. I could not despise the man for bravery and patriotism. But I could and did regret that we were on opposite sides in the battle.
Then I remembered that he had been at Branksome Hall for two years, and all my romantic fabrication unraveled in a trice. Snoad was no French gentleman spy. He was an English servant with ambitions to make himself a fortune, and did not care if he had to abet the enemy to do it. Or to connive at my father’s death.
“How did it go in Brighton?” he asked.
Before I could reply, Aunt Lovatt came to the door. “The tea is ready
,
Heather,” she said. She bridled up like an angry mare when she saw Snoad. I hoped she would not say something very rude to him. She said nothing. I knew she could not trust herself to speak.
“We’ll speak about it later, Snoad,” I said, and went out with my aunt.
Chapter Eight
With his own excellent bit of blood under him, and the lure of tea to hasten his trip, Bunny was back before the pot was cold. Nothing could be said about our work in front of my aunt, but as soon as she left, I asked him if he had found Depew.
“Mr. Martin is registered at the White Hart.” Bunny was right about which hotel he would choose. “Wasn’t in at the moment. Left him a note. Told him I’d be staying here for the nonce.”
“Good. I wonder how he’ll contact us.”
“We ought to select a place to leave notes. The old blasted pine—we could use that.”
It would have been my own choice. Lightning had split one of the ancient pines in the park. What remained was a topless trunk with one branch within arm’s reach, to provide concealment. The tree could not be seen from the house, but it was an easy dart to reach it. “I’ll suggest it to him next time we meet.” I told him about my interview with Snoad, and that I planned to go to the loft to continue it.
“I’ll go with you,” he offered at once.
“There is something more important you should do, Bunny. Do you have a gun at home?”
“A whole wall full of them. So has your papa, come to that.”
“A pistol is what I meant. Something easy to handle and conceal. You should go home and get it. And really, you know, you should visit your mother and tell her you’re staying here. There’s time to do it before dinner.”
“I’d best do it, or I’ll never hear the end of it. I need some clean linen besides.”
He left, and I went upstairs for my meeting with Snoad, thinking about what story I would tell him. I was to be ignorant of any spy dealings, which meant Papa’s murder must be either senseless, or involve Mrs. Mobley and a jealous lover. I could not like to lumber my father with a tasteless posthumous scandal involving that woman, so I opted for an accidental slaying.