Lady Wincombe stared at her. “Yes. How did you…? Oh!” Her face signaled she’d seen the connection. “Monty. He was there, too.” A second later, her frown returned. “But I still don’t see how he learned of it. It’s not as if we weren’t careful. Indeed, both of us were very discreet.”
“It seems quite a few of his secrets were learned there,” Barnaby said. “Exactly how he managed it, we don’t yet know, but there has to be some explanation.”
Stokes stirred and, when Lady Wincombe glanced his way, asked, “You said you left your payment in the cupboard by the croquet green?”
“Yes.” Lady Wincombe went on, “There’s a box inside that holds the balls. I was to leave the envelope under the box.”
Penelope caught Stokes’s gaze. “Even if people have played a game since then, there’s no reason they would have lifted the box.” She glanced at Lady Wincombe. “Your payment should still be there.”
Her ladyship all but bounced to her feet. “Let’s go and see.”
Penelope agreed, and Barnaby and Stokes were very ready to join them.
With Stokes bringing up the rear, as Barnaby walked with Penelope and Lady Wincombe to the door, he observed, “Your payment being where you say it is will also prove where you were when Monty Underhill was killed.”
The comment only added to Lady Wincombe’s eagerness, and she led the way out of the house, onto the terrace, down onto the lawn, and across to the croquet green, tucked behind a thick row of tall shrubs and effectively screened from the house.
Lady Wincombe led them directly to a green-painted wooden cupboard perched on short legs at one end of the green. She opened the door, looked inside, then stood back and pointed at the cupboard’s base. “That’s the box. The envelope should be beneath it.”
The investigators crowded around, and after they’d taken note of the simple wooden box in which the wooden balls were piled, Barnaby reached inside and lifted the box a few inches, and Penelope slipped her fingers underneath and drew out a simple envelope.
“There!” Lady Wincombe beamed.
“It’s still full.” Penelope handed the packet to Lady Wincombe. “Just to be sure, if you would check that the money’s all there?”
Her ladyship opened the envelope and peered inside, then flicked through the contents with her fingertips. “Yes. It’s all here.” She looked at Stokes and Barnaby. “Thirty pounds.”
“Good.” Stokes looked around, and Penelope and Barnaby did as well. Stokes said, “You mentioned seeing Kilpatrick. Where was he?”
Lady Wincombe walked along beside the green on the route she would have taken on her way back to the house. She stopped halfway along the green and pointed. “There. That section of the field visible through the gap in the trees. That’s where he was, walking toward the Grange.”
Along with Barnaby and Stokes, Penelope took note of the position. It was still a good distance from the Grange; it would have taken even Kilpatrick, with his long strides, several minutes to reach the front of the house. And judging by the timing of everything else, Monty had to have been dead by the time Lady Wincombe left her money in the designated spot.
“Thank you,” Stokes said. “We have no further questions for you.”
Penelope nodded at the envelope in Lady Wincombe’s hand. “It’s over now. You can forget your indiscretion. It will no longer be any threat to you in helping your niece make the match you and her mother would want for her.”
Lady Wincombe met Penelope’s gaze and smiled. “Thank you.” She nodded to Stokes and Barnaby. “And thank you, as well.” As they all turned toward the house, her ladyship sighed. “You have no idea how good it feels to finally be free of that weight.”
CHAPTER 7
In the warmth of the long summer afternoon, Richard sat with Rosalind, Mrs. Hemmings, Regina, Harriet Cranton, Leith, and Kilpatrick around one of the white-painted wrought-iron tables arranged on the rear terrace and partook of scones and raspberry jam and tiny cucumber sandwiches, washed down with cups of tea.
Sipping from his porcelain cup, Richard surveyed those at his table, then looked farther, scanning the rest of the company, all of whom, it seemed, had dutifully gathered for tea. No one was missing.
Safety in numbers, perhaps?
It was now more than twenty-four hours since their host had met his end, and given the company were prohibited from leaving until the investigation concluded, the general consensus appeared to be that maintaining some semblance of normalcy was the right thing to do.
While attempting to behave in a manner befitting such a summer house party created a superficial façade of calm in that everyone understood what options they had at any given hour, an unsettling undercurrent of uncertainty over what the nexthour or day might bring underscored how fragile that assumed façade actually was.
Seated beside him and also surveying while she sipped, Rosalind murmured, low enough that only he would hear, “It’s…interesting to see how our fellow guests are reacting to the situation.”
Richard’s gaze rested on his aunts, seated at a table farther down the terrace and chatting avidly with several matrons and a number of the older gentlemen. “Some seem more curious—even consumed by curiosity—while others are more watchful.”
“They know they aren’t the murderer and are wondering who is,” Rosalind returned.
“Certainly those who’ve lived rather longer,” Richard observed, “are avidly curious over what Monty did that led to his death.”
