The Peculiar Case of Lord Finsbury's Diamonds: A Casebook of Barnaby Adair Short Novel (The Casebook of Barnaby Adair) (8 page)

 “Aye, sir.”

 Stokes watched O’Donnell depart, then rose, resettled his greatcoat, picked up the file of evidence left waiting for him on his desk, and set off for the Old Bailey. He would never get used to calling it the Central Criminal Court, no matter what anyone said.

* * *

F
rederick and Gwen left the breakfast parlor together and took the corridor to the garden hall.

 “I’ve been thinking,” Frederick said, “that before we start on the more difficult task of searching for where the foot-trap came from, we should first confirm that the hammer used to end Mitchell’s life was in fact the one from the croquet-shed.”

 Reaching the door that gave onto the garden, he opened it and held it for Gwen. “We last saw the hoop-hammer when Agnes used it to set up the croquet course on the day before Mitchell was killed, but as far as I know only your butler and the police saw the hammer used on Mitchell, so how could they be certain it was the one from the croquet-shed?”

 Pausing on the gravel path while he closed the door, then joined her, Gwen arched her brows. “I would have thought they would have checked…but maybe they simply assumed. Regardless, it won’t hurt to look.” She waved toward the side lawn and the boxlike shed standing against the shrubbery hedge. “The shed is right there.”

 As they crossed the lawn, Frederick said, “I didn’t really look at the hammer Agnes used, but if I was asked to describe it, I would have called it a long-handled sledgehammer.” He glanced at Gwen’s face. “Is there anything that distinguishes it as a hoop-hammer?”

 Gwen grinned. “No—nothing at all. Agnes is the one keen on croquet, but as she grew older she found it difficult bending over to hit in the hoops, so she insisted on appropriating the sledgehammer and using its head to thump the hoops in. Ever since, she’s called the thing ‘her long-handled hoop-hammer,’ so everyone now refers to it as that.” Gwen’s smile grew fond. “According to Agnes, using a sledgehammer on croquet hoops is simply ridiculous.”

 Frederick chuckled.

 They reached the croquet shed; a simple wooden box about five feet high, three feet wide, less than two feet deep, and held off the ground on short wooden stumps, it resembled an outdoor cupboard on legs. Gwen lifted the latch and swung the door wide.

 Directly in front of them sat a long-handled sledgehammer, its heavy steel head resting amid a jumble of hoops, balls, and the wooden mallets used for the game.

 “It’s still here.” Gwen stared at the sledgehammer.

 His hands in his pockets, Frederick studied the sight. “Do you know if it’s the one Agnes claims as her own?”

 Gwen leaned closer, studying the sledgehammer, then straightened. “As far as I can tell, it’s Agnes’s—meaning the one that’s always here.”

 Frederick stepped back. He waved to Gwen to shut the door. “That means we have both the foot-trap and the sledgehammer to trace.” After a moment, he met Gwen’s gaze. “Where should we start?”

 Gwen’s brow furrowed and her gaze grew distant, then her face cleared. “Let’s find Penman. He’s the older gardener. He’s been here since Agnes was young and the estate was much larger—he’s the only outdoor staff left who would know what’s where in the outbuildings.”

 “So where do we start in our search for him?” Frederick asked.

 They began at the kitchen door and learned from Cook, just coming in with a basket full of freshly-pulled carrots from the kitchen garden, that Penman had said he was going into the orchard to tidy up the leaf-fall.

 Frederick and Gwen found him plying a rake beneath the trees.

 The grizzled old gardener had expected at some point to be asked about the foot-trap. “I’ve been thinking on it and I’m certain we used to have several, some of which I know we passed on, but it’d be unlike old Smithers—he was the estate manager in the days when we had one—to have given them
all
away. Always one to look to being prepared for anything, was Smithers.”

 “So,” Frederick said, “the foot-trap might have come from the estate’s outbuildings.”

 “Aye.” Penman nodded. “Can’t rightly see where else it might have come from. None of the farmers hereabouts would be likely to have cause to use such these days.”

 “And a sledgehammer,” Gwen said. “Could one of those have been found in the outbuildings, too?”

 Penman pulled a face. “I doubt it. We keep the big sledgehammer in the barn—still use it regular-like to settle the fence posts.”

 Gwen blinked. “Perhaps we should check if the sledgehammer is still in the barn. Could you show us where it’s kept?”

 “O’course.” Penman set his rake against a gnarled trunk, then waved them toward the back of the house to where a large barn squatted behind the stables. “Let’s take a look.”

 Frederick and Gwen followed the old gardener into the shadows of the barn.

 “Should be over here.” Penman led them toward one end of the huge barn. “On its pegs with the rest of the tools.”

 Rounding the last stall, Penman halted. Pulling off his cap, he scratched his head.

 Stopping beside him, Gwen and Frederick followed the old man’s gaze to where two pegs clearly set to support some large implement sat empty, leaving a blank space in the neatly regimented row of tools.

 “Well, I’ll be. P’raps it wasn’t Miss Agnes’s hoop-hammer that did for the gentleman—mayhap it was the estate’s sledgehammer.” Penman nodded to the gap. “The one that should hang right there.”

 Frederick and Gwen exchanged a look, then Frederick turned to Penman. “You said you’d been thinking of where in the estate’s outbuildings the foot-trap might have been.”

 “Aye.” Penman turned and beckoned for them to follow. “Let’s take a look and see if I’m right.”

 They followed him through the stable yard and onto a narrow, grassy track that led out and onward, along the edge of some fields.

 “Outbuildings are out a ways,” Penman volunteered. “This used to be a much larger estate, see, but the master, and his father before him, too, sold off bits here, bits there, until it came down to what it is now with barely an orchard left. But the outbuildings hail from when it was larger, so they’re close to our boundaries now. Can’t even see them from the house.”

 Frederick glanced at Gwen and met her arrested gaze. If the outbuildings couldn’t be seen from the house, who would have known they were there?

 Penman led them past one stone-and-timber building. “Not that one. Least, I don’t think so.” He nodded ahead. “If I’m remembering aright, the foot-trap should’ve been in that one over there.”

 The track they were tramping along had been curving around; Frederick glanced toward the house, at that point hidden behind the high hedges of the shrubbery. The old stone building Penman was leading them to lay tucked back against some trees. More trees grew thickly beyond and to either side of the structure. “Am I right in thinking”—Frederick nodded at the trees—“that that’s the edge of the wood?”

 “Aye,” Penman said. “The path where the gentleman met his end’s not that far.”

 Gwen sent a glance Frederick’s way. He caught it and nodded. This had to be it—the place from where the foot-trap had been fetched.

 The outbuilding had an old wooden door. Penman pointed to the ground before it. “Been opened recently. See the freshly scraped earth?”

 Frederick and Gwen nodded.

 Penman released the latch chain and hauled open the door. Inside, the light was poor. They entered and halted just over the threshold to allow their eyes to adjust.

 Penman was the first to move. He took three steps forward, then stopped and let out a low whistle. “Well, I’ll be.” He glanced back at Frederick and Gwen. “Looks like I remembered aright. This is where the foot-trap must’ve been, and whoever took it knew it, too.” He tipped his head toward an area screened from their sight by a pile of old crates.

 Taking Gwen’s hand, closing his fingers around her cold ones, Frederick walked with her to join Penman. Looking in the direction the old gardener had indicated, they instantly saw what he meant.

 Several large plow shares, an old iron trough, and a massive wooden yoke had clearly all been shifted and restacked to one side to give access to a specific spot on the floor. That spot now stood empty, just bare boards where something obviously had previously rested.

 All three of them edged past the piled plow shares to take a closer look.

 Penman pointed. “See there? Those round spots in the dust are the feet of the trap where the pegs go through to anchor it to the ground. And there?” He pointed to a smudged area to one side of where the trap had sat. “That’s where the peg bag was. Old Smithers was always careful with his pegs.”

 Frederick glanced around, then eased back, drawing Gwen with him. “We shouldn’t touch anything—the police need to see this, as near as possible to exactly how we found it.”

 Penman seemed to suddenly realize what their discoveries meant. “Aye.” Likewise avoiding disturbing the dust around where the trap had sat, he followed Frederick and Gwen back toward the door.

 Gwen looked back at the pile of old machinery the murderer had shifted to get to the trap. “Well at least we now know the murderer couldn’t have been a woman. No woman could have lifted all that.”

 “Oh, aye.” Penman gave the pile a cursory glance, then waved Frederick and Gwen ahead of him through the door. “A man’s work it was, getting to that trap.”

 After agreeing that for the moment they should keep their discoveries to themselves, at least until they could tell the police when they returned the next day, Frederick and Gwen parted from Penman, leaving him to get back to his orchard while they returned to the house via the shrubbery.

 Neither spoke, but both were thinking furiously.

 Pausing in the garden hall, Frederick caught Gwen’s eye. “As far as I can see the location of the foot-trap doesn’t only indicate that the murderer is a man, but also that it’s highly unlikely that any of the guests could have committed the murder—they couldn’t have known the trap was there.”

 Gwen forced herself to nod. “Or the sledgehammer. How could they have known where that was, either? It wasn’t visible even from the barn door.”

 Frederick hesitated, then in a careful voice said, “We’ll have to tell the inspector when he returns tomorrow.”

 Gwen drew herself up and nodded, stiffly but determinedly. “Yes, we must.” Even though that would highlight the fact that the one man who had known Mitchell, had known he would be walking up the woodland path at the specific time, and who could well have known where the sledgehammer and foot-trap were kept was her father.

 If her father was found guilty of murder…

 Gwen didn’t want to think about that.

* * *

“M
itchell. Mr. Peter Mitchell?” Jessup, the senior doorman at White’s, scrunched up his face in his effort to drag details from his copious memory; his ability to remember patrons was legendary.

 Leaning against the frame of the doorman’s booth just inside the club’s front door, Barnaby waited patiently. It was late morning and the club was open for business, but few gentlemen had as yet passed through its portals; from experience Barnaby knew that this was the best time to seek information from the staff, before they became too busy with the demands of the lunchtime crowd.

 Jessup’s gaze remained distant but his face slowly cleared. “Dark-haired gent, early thirties, perhaps. Bit on the lean side with a ready smile. Relaxed sort, he seemed. Easy-going.” Refocusing, Jessup looked at Barnaby in triumph. “He came in with Lord Finsbury a few times—couple of weeks ago, it’d be—but I can’t say as we know him. He’s not a member, and not a regular, either.”

 Barnaby straightened. “Did you see him with anyone other than Finsbury? Exchanging greetings, any exchange no matter how brief?”

 Jessup eyed him with mild curiosity. “One of your cases?”

 Barnaby nodded. “Mitchell was murdered two days ago and we’re trying to learn more about him. We knew of the connection to Finsbury, but his lordship can’t tell us much about the man.”

 Jessup widened his eyes. “Seemed right chummy when they were here, but that’s the nobs for you—begging your pardon an’ all. But to answer your question, I didn’t see Mitchell with anyone else, but you might try asking Cecil and Tom.” Jessup tipped his head toward the interior of the august club. “They were on the bar both times I saw Mitchell. They might have seen him meet with others inside.”

 “Thank you.” Flicking a sovereign to Jessup, who caught it with a grin, Barnaby saluted him and ambled on through the door into the club’s foyer.

 At that time of day the atmosphere was hushed, almost reverential. Amused, Barnaby wended his way through the smoking room, which played host to a smattering of older gents, some actually snoring. He entered the dining room where several groups of gentlemen were consuming late breakfasts. Some called greetings which he returned, but he didn’t pause. The bar lay around a corner off the dining room, and there he found Cecil and Tom.

 Barnaby leaned on the bar’s highly polished surface, told the pair that Jessup had sent him, and stated his query and his reasons for asking. He described Mitchell as Jessup had.

 “Mitchell.” Tom frowned. “Was that his name?”

 “Ah.” Cecil continued to polish a wine glass. “I do remember him with Lord Finsbury, but can’t say as I saw him with anyone else. Never heard his name—I did wonder who he was.”

 Barnaby hesitated, then said, “I got the impression Lord Finsbury believed Mitchell was a member, but apparently not.”

 “Nope.” Cecil shook his head decisively.

 “Could he be on the list pending, do you think?”

 “He ain’t—isn’t,” Tom said. “We get introduced to those bidding for membership, just so we know who they are. Mitchell wasn’t brought around.”

 Barnaby nodded, pushed two sovereigns across the bar, then digesting all he’d learned, he made his way back through the club. Waving to Jessup, he walked out into the damp chill of the December day.

 Halting on the pavement, he took stock. He’d heard of gentlemen like Mitchell before, outwardly respectable gentlemen who gained access to private clubs by passing themselves off as members to legitimate members… “To gain the confidence of legitimate members, in this case Lord Finsbury.”