Lord Scoundrel Dies (6 page)

He heard a sigh. ‘Harriet Honeywood.’ She
went to curtsey then changed her mind, offering a small bow
instead. She did it rather well.

The name did not ring any bells. ‘Honeywood?
I don’t believe I know your family.’

‘My aunt is Margaret Astley,’ she said
helpfully.

‘Ah! I see.’

‘Not that it signifies,’ Miss Honeywood
added. ‘I don’t know the etiquette involved in being discovered in
the company of a body but I can’t help but feel Mr. Lampforth is
right in saying that it would be better not to become involved. I
doubt my aunt would appreciate the scandal. And really, his
lordship seemed like a singularly unpleasant fellow. Any number of
people might have bludgeoned him to death.’

‘It does not offend your feminine
delicacies?’

‘I haven’t got a great deal of delicacy,’
Miss Honeywood replied wryly. ‘So no, I am perfectly content to
leave him there for some poor parlor maid to discover in the
morning.’

‘The boy’s clothing. What was the point of
it, if I might ask?’

Miss Honeywood glanced down at herself, then
dimpled. ‘A disguise.’

‘Not a very effective one.’

‘It was a perfectly marvelous one until Mr.
Lampforth pulled my hat off.’

There didn’t seem to be much to say to this.
Aubrey took a deep breath and tried to work out what was going on.
He seemed to have walked into a lunatic asylum but one where the
inmates appeared normal. His two companions certainly did not seem
unduly cast down to be sharing the room with a body. But it was
hard to get away from that body. Lord Sutton had been murdered and
now lay on the floor before them, staring blankly at eternity while
two extremely unlikely visitors were standing about, apparently
late arrivals on the scene.

He glanced at the rose again. ‘Is that
yours?’

‘Does this outfit say roses to you?’ she
returned wryly.

‘I suppose not.’ For the first time he
noticed the picture on the floor and the small strongbox in the
wall. He raised an interrogative eyebrow. ‘Lost something?’

‘We’re both after something Sutton should
not have had in his possession,’ Lampforth explained, correctly
divining the eyebrow. ‘We were about to look for the key to that
strongbox just as you entered.’

‘You know where it is located?’

‘Miss Honeywood seemed to think it might be
on his body. Possibly his fob chain.’

Aubrey glanced at the girl. ‘How very
enterprising of her.’

‘I’m not saying it is actually there,’ she
shrugged. ‘Just that it seems likely that he would have it on
him.’

‘Would you care to investigate?’ Mr.
Lampforth said, eyeing Aubrey hopefully.

‘Why would I want to do that?’

Now it was Lampforth’s turn to sigh. ‘No.
Why would you.’ Stepping forward, he knelt beside the body and
gingerly extracted the gold fob from inside the fob pocket of his
waistcoat. Next to the elegant gold watch was a small key. ‘Well by
God, there it is. ’

‘Excellent,’ Miss Honeywood said, clearly
delighted. ‘Try it in the lock.’

Aubrey watched with some
bemusement as Charles Lampforth and Harriet Honeywood hurried to
the small safe box that had been inserted – rather cleverly – into
the wall. In the sudden silence there came a distinctive
click
, and then Lampforth
turned the handle. Both he and Miss Honeywood, standing on tiptoes
to see better for she was by no means a strapping girl, peered
inside.

‘Lot of stuff in here.’

‘Well bring it all out,’ she instructed.
‘That necklace must be in there somewhere.’

‘What necklace?’ Aubrey inquired.

‘The reason I am here,’ Miss Honeywood
explained, helping to pull things out of the safe. ‘I am trying to
retrieve my cousin’s necklace.’

‘Why does – did – Sutton have your cousin’s
necklace?’

‘He stole it from her,’ she
replied darkly. ‘
Such
a scoundrel.’

‘He was a thief as well as everything
else?’

‘I daresay he was a great many things that
were unsavory,’ Lampforth said, carrying an armful of items he had
retrieved from the safe over to a low occasional table and dropping
them on its surface. ‘The man was loose in the haft and no
mistake.’

Miss Honeywood carried a box, a fine piece
of crafted wood inlaid with mother of pearl and several small
parcels. She brought them across to the table as well. After
sitting cross-legged on the floor, she began to sort through what
they had found. Aubrey, still uncertain what to do about the
situation but too intrigued to make any decision as yet, took a
chair nearby and watched the proceedings.

‘Look,’ Miss Honeywood said, having
unwrapped one of the small parcels. A brooch sat in the palm of her
hand, diamonds sparkling in the soft light. ‘I recognize this. It
belongs to Mrs. Butterworth. There was a great fuss not two weeks
ago for she thought she had lost it.’

‘It seems like your cousin’s necklace isn’t
the only thing he stole,’ Lampforth said as he unfolded various
papers that had been bundled neatly together. He took a letter out
of an envelope and scanned the contents. After a moment he gave a
peculiar squawk and stuffed it back in the envelope.

‘What is it?’ Miss Honeywood demanded.

‘A… a letter to Sutton. A lady... um…
writing to him.’

‘What kind of letter?’

‘Oh, you know. The silly stuff that females
write to their… to the men that they… you know.’ Aubrey eyed Mr.
Lampforth’s blush. Miss Honeywood raised an eyebrow and held out a
hand. ‘No, no,’ Lampforth said hurriedly. ‘Not the thing at all for
a young lady to be reading.’

‘Don’t be such a goose,’ the young lady in
question replied and, leaning forward, she snatched the envelope
out of his hand. Extracting the letter inside, she read it in
silence before tucking it back into the envelope. ‘He was probably
blackmailing the poor woman.’

‘I daresay,’ Lampforth muttered. ‘You really
don’t have any feminine sensibilities, do you?’

Miss Honeywood gave him a look. ‘Perhaps it
is more that I don’t shock as easily as you do, sir.’ She glanced
at Aubrey. ‘Aren’t you going to help?’

‘I have no idea what you are looking for.
Besides, it seems a bit much, going through a dead man’s
possessions.’

‘None of these
things
are
his
possessions,’ Miss Honeywood returned, hands fluttering over the
items strewn across the table. ‘They appear to be other people’s
things. Letters he was using for blackmail purposes, jewelry he had
stolen, gaming debts he was holding on to… why did he want to
collect people’s gaming debts?’

‘Influence,’ Lampforth
replied. ‘You own all of a man’s letters of note, he owes
you
a great deal. If he
decides to call them all in at once, you’re dished.’

‘Have you found your friend’s among
these?’

‘I do believe I have.’ Lampforth looked up
with a grin and flapped a small sheaf of papers. ‘Right here.’

The wrapped packages had all been opened
and, while they had offered various items of jewelry, none of them
was the Astley necklace. Miss Honeywood looked at the box, then
picked it up and tried to open it. The thing was, it had no
discernable top. Or bottom, for that matter. ‘It’s locked but there
does not appear to be any keyhole. And I can’t quite work out how
it is meant to go. Which way is up and which way is down?’

‘It’s a Chinese puzzle box,’ Aubrey
explained. His aunt had one and he had spent a frustrating evening
trying to work out the trick involved in opening it one tedious
weekend party.

Miss Honeywood handed it to him. ‘There you
are.’

‘I don’t suppose all of them are the
same.’

‘Well now would be an excellent time to find
out,’ she pointed out, giving him a sweet smile. ‘Wouldn’t you
say?’

He looked at her for a long moment. Those
green eyes – and now that he could observe more closely and the
candle had been moved to the table to shed more light, what a
unusual shade of green they appeared to be – were remarkably
shrewd. ‘Very well, but I can’t say I approve of this
enterprise.’

‘What enterprise?’ Lampforth demanded.

‘Riffling through the place like this. I
mean,’ he muttered, turning the box this way and that while he
tried to remember what the trick was to opening it. It was
something to do with a sliver of wood in the side that shifted when
pressed just so… ‘the man is dead on the rug and we all seem to be
ignoring the fact.’

‘It’s not that we’re ignoring it,’ Miss
Honeywood assured him earnestly. ‘It’s just that we would prefer
not to think about it.’

‘That’s right,’ Lampforth
agreed. ‘I mean, it’s not as if we can
do
anything for the fellow. So we
might as well get on with the business that brought us
here.’

‘That,’ Aubrey objected, as his long fingers
located the little recessed panel that he had been looking for, ‘is
a very casual way of looking at things. I can understand it in a
female –’

‘You can understand what in a female?’ Miss
Honeywood demanded.

Aubrey glanced at her. Now that the little
latch had been discovered, the box slid apart smoothly to reveal a
collection of things within. He passed it to her. ‘One cannot
expect a female to see matters in the same light as a man, Miss
Honeywood.’

‘Indeed?’ She upended the contents on the
table into a small pile of glittering gems. ‘I believe I can regard
a dead body in much the same way as any man can.’ She picked up a
necklace, a notable piece that contained a large, beautifully cut
teardrop diamond flanked by two smaller ones hanging from a
distinctive filigree setting. A smile curved her generous lips.
‘And there we are.’

‘Your necklace,’ Lampforth said cheerfully,
having pocketed the chits he had been hunting for. ‘So we’re done
here, then.’

‘Yes, but… what about all these other
things?’ Miss Honeywood was staring down at the pile of treasure
they had discovered. There was quite a collection; along with the
papers, there were necklaces, several bracelets and brooches, a
jeweled pin, a ring and a rather fine gold torque. ‘We can’t just
leave them here.’

‘Why not?’ Aubrey demanded. ‘Although I
suppose you could return the rest to the safe and put the picture
back. Stop anybody from thieving them.’

‘But what if somebody finds them? Somebody
as scurrilous as Lord Sutton? Why, these people would be in as much
trouble as they are now. And some of these pieces,’ Miss Honeywood
picked up a ring and another necklace. ‘These must be sorely missed
by their owners. It would be cruel to let them believe they have
gone forever.’

‘You’re a great deal more female than I gave
you credit for,’ Aubrey observed dryly, ‘if you are worrying about
jewels.’

‘More the sensibilities behind their loss,’
she retorted swiftly.

Lampforth eyed the items before him
doubtfully. ‘Even so, not much we can do about it.’

‘There is something
I
can do about it,’
Harriet Honeywood said with complete certainty. ‘I can return these
things to their rightful owners. Help me find something to put it
all in, would you? I can’t help but feel we have been frightfully
lucky that nobody else has tried the front door. If we don’t hurry
ourselves our luck might run out and we will have somebody else
discover us. And that might just prove to be
disastrous.’

Chapter Three

Both gentlemen tried to persuade Harry to
leave the ill-gotten gains of the now defunct Lord Sutton behind,
but she did not listen to them. Truly, they could not understand
how much anguish a person must feel, believing that somebody held
something over them that could be used at any time. Or to keep
wondering where it was that you had lost a well loved piece of
jewelry? Returning the items seemed the only decent thing to do.
For those that his lordship had been blackmailing, it would be
agony to hear that the man had died and all of their secrets might
be exposed to the light of day at any moment.

With this in mind, she had had no trouble
ignoring Mr. Lampforth’s pleas and Lord Talisker’s strictures.
Discounting the viscount, in particular, was remarkably satisfying,
as he seemed to believe that females were sadly mawkish in their
sensibilities. His comment about her being unable to fully
comprehend the situation – if that had indeed been the implication
– still rankled a little. Harry was quite pleased with her
levelheaded behavior throughout the night, although she was
exceedingly grateful that she had not given in and let Sarah come.
She really would have had hysterics at the discovery of a body and
then the whole world would have known that something was amiss. As
it was she had been able to discover the necklace, so really the
entire adventure had worked out well. Except for Lord Sutton, of
course. But when she considered all of the things that the man had
in his possession, all of the pain he must have been subjecting so
many people to… well, while she would not wish anybody dead, she
could hardly find it in her to be surprised that he had come to an
unpleasant end. He must have been a most unpleasant man.

When it had become clear that she intended
to take the items with her, Mr. Lampforth had grudgingly found her
a bag in one of the hall cupboards. His lordship continued to argue
but Harry had ignored him. Or she had tried to. He could be most
persistent. Finally she had rounded on him in exasperation. ‘What
if it were somebody you know that had lost one of these things?
Your mother or your sister or… or…’

‘I hardly think a relative of mine would
have written anything unsavory enough to be used by Sutton.’