English Trifle (31 page)

“Did she know about what was happening here at the estate?”

Grant shook his head. “No, Lord Melcalfe had made it very clear to all of us that Lacy was not to be party to any of this. We understood that he was protecting her from a side of himself he was not proud of, but when you work for nobility you come to expect such duplicity of character.”

Well, obviously Sadie had never come to expect such things. She called such duplicity hypocrisy. “Do you know why she left yesterday?” Sadie asked. “She said that someone told her to leave if something happened to John Henry.” At least, that’s what Sadie thought Lacy had meant.

“I’m sure Lord Melcalfe would have left her with that kind of warning,” Grant said easily. “As I said, he was protective of her. I’m sure he’s seen to it that she’s safely uninvolved in everything that’s happened in the last twenty-four hours.”

“I see,” Sadie said. She’d run out of questions and so she changed the subject. “You’ll come back, right? If I don’t tell the police about this until you’re gone, you will come back?”

Grant’s face softened, in fact he almost smiled. “Without Essie, this is all I have,” he said. “I’m prepared to see that justice is done, I assure you of that.”

Sadie considered that and although she dreaded explaining this to the police, and she knew it was likely not the best thing she could do, she’d received valuable information in exchange for her assurances that he could visit his wife. She smiled. “Have a wonderful holiday, Grant,” she said. “And give my best to Essie.”

~ ~ ~

Grant left the room first and Sadie followed him a few seconds later, looking around to see if anyone was watching. The earl’s sitting room, however, was empty, and the door to his bedroom was closed. It wasn’t until Sadie reached the top of the stairs that she learned what had happened while she and Grant had had their tête-à-tête in the countess’s bedroom. The front door was open and two paramedics stood alongside a gurney talking to Liam. Grant hurried down the stairs, reminding Sadie of Austin’s comment yesterday accusing Grant of being derelict in his duties. At the time she found it a rude thing to say in front of a crowd, now she wondered if he’d said it specifically to cover up his own secrets.

“My apologies, Master Liam,” Grant said as he hurried to Liam’s side. “What’s happened?”

Liam looked at Grant with surprise. “Um, nothing’s happened, Grant,” he said quickly, nervously, reminding Sadie that he hadn’t wanted to transport his father until all the staff had left. He must have assumed Grant had already gone. “I thought you’d left on holiday.”

“I can stay, sir, if it would help.”

“Thank you, Grant,” Liam said with a quick nod. “But everything is fine. Please don’t let me keep you.” One of the paramedics handed Liam a clipboard with some papers attached to it.

Grant paused a moment, then inclined his head. “Very good, sir. Will I be seeing you when I return?”

“Yes,” Liam said, signing the paper. He looked at the butler while handing the clipboard back to the paramedic. “I expect I’ll be here for some time. Enjoy your trip.”

Grant inclined his head one last time before turning toward the baize door and disappearing around the Christmas tree.

“Ready?” one of the paramedics asked.

Liam nodded and Sadie noted the look of relief on his face. “Yes,” he said, heading toward the stairs. “My father’s doctor is in his room with him, and we’ll both be going with you to the hospital.”

As Liam reached the landing, Sadie reached out a hand to stop him. He looked at her, perplexed. “I need to talk to you for a minute,” she said. She and Liam were forced to step aside in order to let the gurney go past them. Liam looked after it longingly, but for once Sadie wasn’t inclined to give in. “Just for a minute,” she said when it looked like he might just cut and run after them.

The gurney disappeared into the east wing and Liam grudgingly turned to her.

“I talked to Grant,” she said. “And he says there’s a safe in the floor of the library and that he saw your father put a large book into it a few weeks before he got sick.”

Liam took several seconds to make sense of that. “A safe?” he said. “My father has two safes and I’ve looked through both of them.”

“This is a new one,” Sadie explained. “Your father had it put in during the New Year holiday last year—when no one was around.” It was on the tip of her tongue to also tell him about the countess’s bedroom and the lady friend, but it didn’t seem directly pertinent to the here and now so she left it out.

“A secret safe,” he said under his breath. “Are you sure Grant can be trusted?”

“Not entirely,” Sadie said, though she trusted him more than most people right now. “But it’s easy enough to disprove.”

Liam nodded and scratched his hair. The boy really needed a haircut if he was going to keep messing with his hair all the time. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll have Dr. Sawyer go with Dad and we can look for the safe before I call the inspector. Breanna and I will meet you in the library.”

Sadie agreed and Liam headed up the stairs. But Sadie had another errand to do before meeting up with Breanna and Liam in the library. She headed through the baize door and down the staff hallway.

“Grant?” she called when she reached the door to Grant’s room. There was no answer, so she looked both ways and then knocked. “Grant?” she asked again. When he didn’t answer again, she took the keys from her pocket and let herself into his room. The poetry book was still on the nightstand—she was glad he hadn’t taken it with him—and she slipped the envelope back into place and then locked the door behind her. She was glad that was done and headed to the kitchen to see if there were any sausage rolls left—she might need her strength for the search ahead of them. Mrs. Kinsley was gone when Sadie arrived in the kitchen, but a note on the counter explained what she had left for the next couple of days—including sausage rolls that just needed to be reheated. Sadie’s mouth started to water.

At the bottom of the note Sadie was surprised to find her name written next to an arrow that seemed to indicate that she should turn the paper over. She did so, and couldn’t help but smile. Mrs. Kinsley had written out, in rather extensive detail, how to make crumpets. The words “A little bit of England to take home with you” were written at the bottom along with a P.S.: “This is the best—and easiest—recipe for crumpets I’ve found.” Things were definitely looking up. Now, if they could just find that safe, figure out what the earl was hiding, and get Austin to confess, they’d be good to go!

Crumpets

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon yeast (instant or regular*)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon sugar

2 cups warm water

Sift flour at least twice (this is a very important step in order to get the right density). Add remaining dry ingredients and mix together. Add water and stir with a wooden spoon or a heavy-duty whisk until the batter reaches a consistency similar to pancake batter. Cover with a dishcloth and set aside for about ten minutes or until a few bubbles begin to form on the top of the batter. Heat fry pan or griddle to medium-low heat (not quite as hot as for cooking pancakes).

Grease griddle and crumpet rings very well with non-stick spray. Put rings on griddle and allow to heat along with the pan. When thoroughly heated, add between 1/3 and 1/2 cup batter to each ring (about ½- to ¾-inch thick). Let cook 6 to 8 minutes or until the edges of the top are dry and the bubbles have popped, leaving the standard “holes” in the top of the crumpet. Remove hot rings with tongs and turn crumpets over, cooking 1 to 2 minutes until barely browned. The bottom of the crumpet should be golden-brown but not too crusty. Remove crumpets from griddle and allow to cool on a cooling rack. Grease rings between each use.

To eat , spread butter on the top of the crumpet so the butter is absorbed into the holes. You can also top with jam, honey, maple syrup, or fresh fruit. Once cooled, toast before serving. Warm crumpets are great company for soups, stews, or with melted cheese on top.

Makes 12 to 16 crumpets.

* If using regular yeast, combine 1/2 cup of the warm water, sugar, and yeast. Let proof 10 minutes, add with the rest of the water when called for in the recipe.

• In lieu of official crumpet rings, flat-bottomed cans like tuna fish and water chestnuts with the tops and bottoms removed can be used. Egg rings and wide-mouth canning jar rings can also be used, but only fill them half-way with batter.

• It’s always a good idea to make a test crumpet to ensure that the bubbles form and pop properly. If the bubbles don’t pop, resulting in no holes or a “blind” crumpet, add a tablespoon of water to the remaining batter and mix well. If batter is so thin that it seeps out from under the crumpet ring, add a tablespoon of flour to the remaining batter and mix well.

• Try adding 1/2 cup sugar and 1 teaspoon cinnamon to the batter for a sweeter, cinnamon-roll flavor.

~ ~ ~

Sadie, Liam, and Breanna looked at the safe door set an inch or two beneath the floor, and then looked at one another.

“I guess Grant knew what he was talking about,” Sadie said with satisfaction. When she’d first come into the library—her belly satiated with the yummy sausage roll, grapes, and an éclair Mrs. Kinsley had left—Breanna and Liam were discussing the possibility that the safe didn’t exist at all. Apparently they hadn’t yet learned that things like this were never easy.

It then took a few more minutes to find the bookshelf Grant had indicated. A small lever of sorts lay against the back of the shelf and triggered some kind of hydraulic system that lifted the entire shelf only a fraction of an inch, but it was high enough that the rollers made contact with the marble floor and allowed the shelf to be easily moved. Sadie found the whole thing ingenious. She hoped whoever came up with such an intricate design made a million dollars—and that they would find a way to implement it on regular furniture like the kind she could afford. It would be lovely to just flip a switch and push her piano wherever she wanted instead of huffing and puffing over the job until finally bribing someone into helping her.

Once they’d moved the bookshelf away from the hidden safe, Liam and Breanna acted as if they’d never doubted her. Aggravating, to be sure, but at least she had the self-satisfaction of knowing she was right. That counted for something.

“Grant didn’t know the combination?” Liam asked, standing and running a hand through his hair. He pointed to where the floor had been cut away and cement poured around the safe to hold it in place. “What good does it do us to have a safe we can’t open?”

The stress was beginning to show, but Sadie decided not to point it out. “Are you sure your father didn’t tell it to you? Send it to you? Somehow give you that information?” Sadie asked. “He’s mentioned the family Bible—could he have given you the combination too?”

Liam was shaking his head before she finished. “He’s never given me a combination of any kind,” he said darkly.

Sadie looked down on the hole with her arms crossed over her chest. “Could a locksmith break into it, do you think?”

“The estate belongs to the earl, and I’m not him; I can’t imagine they would simply open it for me—even if they could.” He knelt down and grabbed the dial, wiggling it back and forth as if testing how secure the safe was in the hole. It didn’t budge. “Aren’t there all kinds of safeguards on these things to keep people from breaking in at all?”

Sadly, Sadie’s knowledge of safes was terribly limited so she had no answer. They continued to stare at it, but then Breanna, who’d been unusually silent so far, leaned in. “There are instructions,” she said. Sadie leaned forward and squinted, but she couldn’t see anything but the black surface of the safe.

“‘To set a new combination,’” Breanna read out loud. “‘One; open safe using current combination. Two; with safe open, program new four-digit combination, pressing the interior “set” button after each number. Three; press the internal “store new combination” button. Four; close safe.’ ” She looked up.

“It doesn’t do us any good to know how to set a new combination if we can’t get it open,” Liam said.

“Right,” Sadie said with a “Duh” in her tone of voice. “But this basically tells us that your father chose his own combination.” She turned to Liam, “What’s your birthday? I read somewhere that most people use dates for combinations because they’re so easy to remember.”

“July fourth, nineteen-eighty,” Liam said, taking a step closer. Sadie crouched down while Breanna did the numbers exactly, but when she pulled on the handle, nothing happened.

“Try it with the year first,” Sadie said.

Breanna nodded and entered the numbers again. Nothing. Then she tried it with the month first, then with an extra turn between each combination of the numbers making up the date. Nothing.

“I didn’t think he’d use my birthday anyway,” Liam said, unable to hide his disappointment. “He didn’t tell me he had a secret safe hidden in the first place—why use numbers I’d figure out so easily?” Liam stood up and shoved his hands in his pockets. Sadie had thought that having his father and the staff gone would make him more comfortable, but he remained tense and on edge.

Sadie felt bad for having been wrong. “What’s your father’s birthday?”

“I don’t know, June sometime,” Liam said.

Men! Sadie thought. Shawn never remembered dates either. “Do you have his birth certificate?”

“It’s in the desk,” Liam said as he headed toward it. Sadie got to her feet and followed, while Breanna kept spinning the dial back and forth in different combinations of Liam’s birthday. Liam pulled a key from his pocket and used it to unlock the file drawer before pulling out a file marked “Official Documents” and laying it on the desk.

He opened it and began looking for the birth certificate. An old paper stored in a page protector slid out of the discard pile. Sadie picked it up, noting that it was Liam’s parents’ marriage certificate. Never having been divorced, she didn’t know how people regarded proof of a marriage they had dissolved, but obviously this had been important on some level or the earl wouldn’t have taken such pains to keep it.