“Vincent,” Penelope said. “What are you doing here?”
Her tone suggested she was merely curious, but Vincent colored, then glanced around in the same vague fashion he seemed to have been doing when they entered.
When he looked at them again, he’d managed to summon a bored expression.
When the three of them simply waited, plainly expecting him to answer, he shrugged. “Now Papa’s gone, I suppose this room will be mine. I came down to take a look.”
Knowing we’re interested in the contents of the study.
Barnaby glanced around. The three internal walls were lined with shelves, all packed with ledgers and account books with rolled maps tucked between. A heavy mahogany estate desk sat before one side wall, while on the opposite side of the room, facing the desk, a fireplace was inset between the bookshelves. The external wall featured a pair of glassed doors that gave onto a small, paved area beyond which the lawn rolled away to a distant line of trees. Long curtains framed the glass panels, which were flanked by two pedestals supporting ivory busts of Greek philosophers.
Penelope made for the desk. Walking past Vincent, she rounded one end and pushed aside the large admiral’s chair to stand directly behind the expanse. Studying the piles of documents stacked on the desktop, she frowned. “These have been searched.”
Vincent had swung to track her. “What?” He, too, frowned. After a second, he suggested, “Perhaps it’s just as Papa left it…although he was usually neat and tidy with his papers.” Frowning more definitely, Vincent nodded at the desk. “As you can see.”
“Indeed, I can.” Penelope started opening drawers, pausing to stare at the contents of each before closing it and opening the next. Going from one drawer to another, she shook her head. “People know where they keep things in their own desk. They rarely forget and so don’t need to rummage through everything to find whatever they’re after. They don’t need to disturb every pile, every drawer. So, I repeat. This desk has been searched. Recently. Since Monty was last here.”
She shut the last drawer and looked at Vincent.
Stokes and Barnaby also fixed their gazes on him.
His eyes now wide, Vincent shook his head. “It wasn’t me.” He paused, then added, “You saw me leave Mama’s parlor behind you. I came straight here, but I hadn’t even had time to decide what to look for before you arrived.” Somewhat sulkily—shades of his sister—he admitted, “I thought you were going to start talking to guests or something. If you must know, I came down to see if there was anything valuable lying about that I should take before you lot came and searched.”
Stokes tipped his head. “And did you find anything worth taking?”
“No!” Petulantly, Vincent insisted, “I just told you. You arrived before I had a chance to even look.”
For a second, they allowed silence to reign, then Barnaby mildly asked, “Given you are here, is there a safe?”
Vincent glanced at him from beneath his brows—as if wondering if there was some trap in the question—then he pointed at the painting of some ancestor that hung above the fireplace. “Behind that.”
As Barnaby crossed to the painting, Vincent added, “I don’t know where Papa kept the key, but I think he hid it somewhere in here.”
“Ah.” Penelope opened the top drawer of the desk and extracted a heavy key. She held it up. “I suspect this will be it.”
Stokes reached across the desk and took the key. “Let’s see.” To Vincent, he added, “As you’re here, you can bear witness to what we find inside.”
Vincent had lost his sulky look and, with every appearance of being perfectly amenable, followed Stokes to the fireplace.
Barnaby had swung back the painting, revealing a standard wall safe. He stepped aside to allow Stokes to fit the key into the lock and glanced at Penelope. “I take it our searcher would have found the key?”
“Most definitely,” she assured him. “It was tossed on top of everything else in the drawer, with no attempt at all to hide it.”
With Vincent holding aside the heavy painting, Stokes swung open the safe’s door.
Barnaby joined Stokes and Vincent in peering inside.
For Penelope’s benefit, Barnaby reported, “Jewelry cases, as one might expect. And cash—quite a stack of notes.” He reached inside and picked up a red pouch. It clinked. He hefted it, then replaced it. “Guineas—the pouch is full of them. Nothing else.”
“No ledgers or anything like that?” Penelope asked.
Barnaby shook his head. “Just the cash and jewelry.”
Stokes looked at Vincent. “Is this what you expected to find in here?”
Vincent grimaced. “I really don’t know.” His gaze returned to the pile of cash. “But such an amount doesn’t seem…well, unusual.”
Stokes looked at Barnaby. “What do you think?”
