Stokes sighed. “The only reason I’m going along with this is because—as you’ve been at such pains to point out—none of the guests, much less the family, are likely to consider themselves available for interviewing until at least ten o’clock.”
“Exactly!” Penelope nodded decisively. “So we have time to indulge my whim.” On reaching the study door, she paused and arched a brow at Barnaby.
Letting his amusement show, he halted beside Stokes and said, “I’m going along with your notion because, given our singular lack of insight into why anyone would want Monty dead, casting an eye over his private papers might yield some clue.”
Stokes grunted, opened the study door, waved Penelope through, and followed.
Barnaby stepped inside and closed the door as Morgan rose from the chair behind the desk.
The now-experienced constable nodded respectfully. “Morning, all.” To Stokes, he reported, “No attempt to gain entry overnight. Not while Walsh was here, either.”
Penelope halted by the desk. “That means that either the searcher found what they were looking for…” She wrinkled her nose. “Or that they didn’t and are now searching elsewhere.”
“Or have given up,” Stokes said. “At least while we’re here.”
“If,” Barnaby said, “as we’re assuming, the killer is the searcher and, presumably, killed for what he’s searching for, then he’s unlikely to simply give up and walk away.”
Penelope tipped her head in his direction. “True. So either way, it behooves us to search.”
Stokes asked Morgan, “Did you get anywhere with that stake?”
“Not really,” Morgan replied. “The gardeners were all out and about, and O’Donnell thought it more useful for us to take stock of the lay of the land immediately around the house rather than go searching for men somewhere farther afield.”
“Fair enough,” Stokes said. “But fetch the stake now and hunt down the gardeners and see what they can tell us. That’s our murder weapon, after all. O’Donnell and Walsh should already be speaking with the indoor staff.”
“Aye, guv.” Morgan snapped off a salute and made for the door.
Penelope rounded the desk and claimed the chair behind it. “Now, let’s see what we have.” She proceeded to retrieve an assortment of papers, documents, and letters from the desk’s drawers and set them beside the smaller stacks already on the desktop.
Barnaby and Stokes drew up armchairs and sat facing the desk.
“Here.” Penelope divided the piles roughly into thirds and pushed a pile each toward Barnaby and Stokes, then settled back in the chair to peruse her allocation.
After a moment of sorting and scanning, Stokes grunted and sat up. “Better you two read the letters. The people he mentions and any references made will mean more to you than me.” He worked through his pile, separating the letters and pushing them randomly toward either Barnaby or Penelope, who added them to their piles.
Silence descended, broken only by the crackle of paper and the shuffle of documents being rearranged.
Stokes came upon several banking statements and sent them Penelope’s way. Absentmindedly, she took them, then sat back and scanned them more carefully. On reaching the end of the last page, she sighed and dropped them onto the desk alongwith the other documents she’d studied. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing to suggest anything at all amiss.”
Barnaby tossed the letters he’d scanned onto the desk. “Monty seems every bit as unthreatening and innocuous as I’d thought him.”
Stokes reached the end of the last document in his pile and dropped it, too, onto the polished surface. “I’ve seen nothing the least bit remarkable.”
“Well, it was worth a try.” Disaffectedly, Penelope gathered the papers and returned them, more or less, to the drawers from which they’d come. After dropping the final set into the open bottom drawer on her right, she pushed the drawer shut, but it stuck.
She frowned, jiggled the drawer, and tried again. “This won’t shut.”
Frowning, she pulled the drawer all the way out, then slid from the chair to kneel on the floor. Ducking down, she peered into the opening. “Hello.”
Both Barnaby and Stokes rose to look over the desk.
“What is it?” Stokes asked.
Reaching into the gap, Penelope stretched her fingers along the bottom of the drawer above. “I think…” Touching the cover of the small black book she’d spied, she gripped, wiggled it, and managed to dislodge it from where it was wedged. Rocking back on her heels, she examined her find, then rose and dropped back into the chair. “This was tucked in a notch made to hold it on the bottom of the drawer above. It had shifted, and that’s why I couldn’t shut the drawer.”
The book was of the kind many gentlemen carried to keep track of names and addresses. She opened the cover and flicked through the pages.
After a moment, Barnaby and Stokes rounded the desk and stood on either side of her so that they, too, could see what was making her frown.
