Barnaby nodded. He took the descriptions of items to be filched and located the relevant entry. “Silver figurine of lady on the table in the library window…good Lord!” He met Stokes’s eyes.
Stokes raised a brow. “It’s valuable, I take it. How much are we talking about?”
Barnaby shook his head. “It’s worth…I have no clue of the figure. The word generally used in reference to that statue is ‘priceless.’ Literally priceless.”
He looked again through the items listed. “We’re not talking a small fortune here. If these other items are of the same caliber, Alert is setting himself up to rival the richest in the land.”
Stokes shook his head. “You’re telling me this statue—in the house of one of the peers overseeing the police, in a houseyouregularly visit—was sitting there on a table just waiting for some enterprising thief to make off with it?”
Barnaby glanced at him, then shrugged. “You’ll have to take that up with m’mother, but I warn you you’re unlikely to have much success. God knows the pater’s been after her to lock it away for years—he gave up decades ago. As Penelope pointed out, these things have been around us since birth, and we don’t even notice them all that much anymore.”
“Until someone nicks them.” Stokes looked disgusted. He turned back to Smythe. “So everything went smoothly, Alert picking up each piece in the carriage after every house, until the last. What went wrong?”
Smythe scowled and looked at the boys. “I’m not clear on that myself. Best you ask them.”
Stokes turned to Dick and Jemmie. “The last house. What happened—how did you two break away?”
The boys exchanged glances, then Jemmie said, “The first night, Smythe didn’t tell us where in the houses we had to go until we got to each house. So we couldn’t plan when to make our move. But later that night, after the first four houses, Alert took us up in his carriage, all three of us, and then stopped at a park somewhere to talk to Smythe about tonight’s houses. They left Dick and me in the carriage, but we listened.”
“We heard that one of us would have to go through the kitchen at the third house—that turned out to be me,” Dick said. “We arranged that whichever of us it was, we’d pick up a knife sharp enough to saw through the reins.” He nodded to the reins Smythe had been carrying, which now hobbled the big man’s feet. “He used them to keep hold of us when we were going between houses, and if one of us was left outside, he’d tie us to a fence or a post with them.”
“We also heard that the last house tonight would be only one of us,” Jemmie went on. “We was supposed to take a small picture off the wall in an upstairs room. Smythe put me in the scullery window at the back, and waited there for me to come out. Because I had to go upstairs, I knew he’d wait a while before getting suspicious—I went out the front door instead. But the front door bolt screeched.”
“I was nearly done cutting through the reins when he came out,” Dick said. “But Smythe heard the screech and guessed what it was. Jemmie helped me get free, but then we saw Smythe coming up the side of the house. We ran.”
“You did very well,” Penelope said, approval and admiration in her tone.
Smythe grunted. He looked back at Stokes. “So that’s it—all I can tell you. You find a gent who knows all those houses, enough to know all the details written down there—where the things were and exactly how to get to them—you bring him to me, and I’ll tell you if he’s your man.”
Stokes studied Smythe for a long moment. “You’ll recognize him, but then it’s your word against his. Is there anyone else who knows him?”
“Grimsby,” Smythe said. “He’s seen him more than I have.”
Stokes grimaced. “Unfortunately, gaol didn’t agree with Grimsby. He had a heart attack. He’s dead. He can’t help us.”
Smythe glanced down and softly swore. Then he looked across at the boys.
Stokes, following his gaze, asked, “Boys, think hard—did you see Alert, anything about him, well enough to recognize if you saw him again?”
Both boys screwed up their faces, but then shook their heads.
Stokes sighed. He was turning back to Smythe when Jemmie said, “Weheardhim well enough to know him again, though.”
Penelope beamed at them. “Excellent!” She caught Stokes’s eye. “That’s good enough, isn’t it?”
He thought, then nodded. “It should be.”
“So”—Barnaby had been concentrating on the lists—“all we need now—” He broke off at the sound of someone rapping on the door.
It was a politerat-a-tat-tat. Barnaby looked at Mostyn, who with a bow went to answer it.
Mostyn left the parlor door ajar. Nobody spoke, the adults waiting to see who it was, the boys too busy polishing off their sandwiches to care.
The latch on the front door clicked; a second later, a rumbling voice, too indistinct to make out, greeted Mostyn.
Mostyn’s reply was clearer. “My lord! We…er, weren’t expecting you.”
“I daresay, Mostyn, but here I am,” an urbane voice declared. “And here’s my hat, too. Now where is that son of mine?”
