With This Ring (31 page)

"Perhaps we should walk a bit closer to his lodgings,

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Elf. There is no point spying on a door if one cannot see clearly who goes in or out."

Elf's ear twitched, but he concentrated his attention on some grass at the base of the tree. The scent he found there appeared to interest him greatly.

When she tugged lightly on his leash, however, he willingly abandoned the tree to explore new territory. Together they crossed the street and started slowly along the pathway that would take them directly past Saltmarsh's lodgings.

Beatrice was not overly concerned that Saltmarsh would recognize her if he happened to be at home and chanced to look out the window. Her veiled hat and long woolen cloak provided ample anonymity. She was merely one more lady out for a stroll with her pet hound.

A tingle of excitement went through her as she and Elf walked directly past the front door of 21 Deeping Lane. She could not help but notice that in spite of the dreary day, there was no glow of lamp- or firelight in any of the windows.

A young boy with a mop of unkempt hair barreled around the corner and stopped short when he saw Elf. His eyes widened with a combination of dread and excitement. "Is that a wolf, ma'am?"

"What?" Beatrice glanced down at the urchin. "Oh, no, he's not a wolf. Just a large hound."

"Will he bite me?"

"I don't think so," Beatrice said. "You can pet him if you like."

"Bloody 'ell." Gingerly the boy patted Elf's head twice and then jumped back out of reach. "Wait until I tell the others that I touched a real live wolf."

An idea occurred to Beatrice. She opened her reticule and rummaged around for a coin. "Would you be so good as to knock on number twenty-one?"

The boy shrugged, took the coin, and dashed up the steps. Beatrice moved a little farther down the street and waited. I I

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The boy stood on tiptoe and banged the knocker several times. The door did not open.

"That will do," Beatrice said when the urchin sauntered back to her. "You've been very helpful."

With a last awed glance at Elf, the boy turned and raced off toward the park.

Beatrice studied the door of number twenty-one. "It appears that Mr. Saltmarsh is not at home, Elf."

Elf sniffed thoughtfully at a clump of weeds.

"What do you say, Elf? Shall we go around to the back to see if there is a garden?"

Elf said nothing. Beatrice decided to take his failure to respond as tacit agreement. They made their way around the far end of the block, turned, and ducked into a narrow alley.

Elf found a great deal to interest him in the odoriferous passage, but Beatrice dragged him on until they reached the walled garden behind number twenty-one.

She tried the iron gate. It was unlocked. "Do not make a sound, Elf."

Elf, who had not made any noise at all thus far, gave her a curious glance before he trotted through the gate.

A tingle of apprehension went down Beatrice's spine. The house would most certainly be locked, she told herself. Without Leo's assistance, she would not be able to enter. But she could peek through the windows. Perhaps she would spot something that might be a useful clue.

Elf showed considerable interest in a bedraggled kitchen garden. Beatrice allowed him to sniff around the edges of the small plot while she nerved herself to peer through a window.

The curtains had been drawn, but one edge had caught on a small end table. She was able to see through a narrow crack straight into what appeared to be a small, cluttered study not unlike her own. The bookcases were crammed full

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of leather-bound volumes. Several more books lay open on the desk.

Other than verifying Saltmarsh's scholarly inclinations, she could see nothing that looked particularly helpful. Disappointed, she started to turn away. She saw that Elf

was sitting patiently in front of the back door. He looked as if he expected her to open it for him.

"I'm sure it's locked, Elf." But what if it were not?

She went up the step. Tentatively, she reached out to try the knob. It turned easily within her grasp.

"I shall take it as an omen, Elf." She opened the door and stepped into a dark, narrow hall.

Elf loped eagerly through the doorway. Too eagerly. He did not pause. He kept going, claws clicking on the wooden floor. His forward momentum jerked the end of the leash out of her hand.

"Elf," she yelled sharply, horrified. "Come back here." The hound ignored her. He disappeared through a door halfway down the hall.

"Bloody hell." Beatrice picked up her skirts and dashed after the hound. "Leo will strangle me if I lose you. Come here, you bloody damned hound."

Leo came to stand in the doorway. He had a handful of letters in one hand and a pistol in the other.

"Hello, Beatrice."

Oapler 17

The horror of it all. To be sacrificed on the altar of

his unnatural lust ...

FRom CHAPTER SEVENTEEN OF The Ruin BY MRs. AmELiA YoRK

eo." Beatrice was chagrined by the breathless sound of her own voice. "What are you doing here?"

"Under the circumstances, I feel entitled to ask the same question of you.'

"I can explain," she said quickly.

"So can L" A laconic gleam appeared in his eye. "It will be interesting to see if either of us accepts the other's explanations, will it not?"

"I must tell you, Sir, you gave me a dreadful start." Beatrice's pulse slowed to a more reasonable pace, although it did not settle back into its normal rate. She was, after all, standing in the hall of a gentleman's house to which she had not been invited. "I vow, if I were at all

inclined to faint, I would succumb to a fit of the vapors here and now."

"But as you are not so inclined, we can dispense with the theatrics." Leo turned and went back into the small sitting room he had obviously been in the midst of searching. He cocked a dark brow as he opened the drawer of a writing table. "I assume you are here for the same reason I am?"

"To take a quick look about for clues, of course," she said crisply. "What other possible reason could I have for being here?"

He gave her one of his enigmatic, faintly brooding looks, the kind that never failed to irritate her.

She glared back at him. "Really, sir, what on earth is going through your head?"

"It merely occurred to me that as you prefer to think that Saltmarsh is innocent in this business-" He broke off, shrugging.

Beatrice was oulraged. "You thought I came here to warn him that you are prying into his affairs? My lord, I will remind you that we are partners in this endeavor. I would not do such a thing without discussing it first with you."

"I'm relieved to learn that."

She glanced at Elf, who had flopped down in the center of the hall. "I happened to be passing by on my walk with your hound."

Leo muttered something unintelligible and continued riffling through the papers he had found.

Beatrice cleared her throat. "When I noticed that there was no one at home-"

He looked up suddenly, a dark glint in his eye. "Hell's teeth. It was you who knocked on the front door a short time ago."

She lifted her chin. "I did no such thing." "Beatrice-'

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"I paid a boy to do it for me," she said quickly. "I wanted to be certain there was no one at home."

"Talk about giving a person a start." He closed the drawer and picked up a small statue of Aphrodite that sat on a table. "I very nearly fainted myself. I thought it was Sibson at the door."

"Why?" "I suppose he was on my mind. I have just come from his shop." Leo glanced at the bottom of the statue. "A fake."

"Mr. Sibson's shop is a fake?"

"No, this bit of statuary." He put the Aphrodite back down on the table. "No more than two or three years old, I suspect. Probably got it from Sibson."

Beatrice stood on tiptoe to peer behind an Italian landscape that hung on the wall. In her novels her heroines never failed to find safes concealed in walls behind paintings. "Tell me about your visit to Sibson's."

"There is little to tell. Sibson was out when I arrived. In fact, there was every indication that he may have left Town in something of a hurry."

"Why do you say that?"

"I went upstairs to his lodgings above the shop. Most of his clothes and his shaving articles were gone. Interestingly, Saltmarsh's personal things are missing also. I have already searched his bedchamber."

Beatrice frowned. "If they are both involved in this affair, as you suspect, they may have gotten nervous after Dr. Cox was murdered. Perhaps they both decided it would be wise to get out of London."

"Yes." Leo walked to the door. "I have finished with this room. There is only the study left to search."

Beatrice trailed after him down the hall. "Last night you suggested that we may have stumbled into a quarrel among thieves. It is beginning to appear that way, is it not?"

"It fits the facts that we have at the moment." Leo

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walked into the study and went straight to the desk. "Cox, Sibson, and S altmarsh may have worked together to find the Forbidden Rings. They each had something to contribute to such a partnership."

Beatrice perused the titles in the bookcase. Classical works in Greek and Latin for the most part, dealing with ancient history and old legends. "It appears that Mr. Saltmarsh is, indeed, a genuine antiquities scholar who could well have traced the Rings and perhaps the statue as well."

"And it is a fact that Sibson has connections that reach deep into the underground realms of the antiquities trade. He has been involved in more than one fraudulent scheme in the past. He would not scruple to join forces with Saltmarsh to get his hands on something as valuable as the Forbidden Rings of Aphrodite."

JW I suppose they must have paid Dr. Cox to concoct the poisons."

ff "Yes.

"Which one of them shot Dr. Cox, do you think?"

Leo hesitated. "I doubt that it was Sibson. He is a man who prefers intrigues and plots, not physical violence. His is a high-strung temperament."

"It has been my observation that nervous persons sometimes overreact in moments of great tension. If consumed by panic, such a man might well pull the trigger of a pistol that he had intended to use only as a threat."

"Very true." Leo closed one desk drawer and opened another. "The possibility of obtaining the Forbidden Rings would make any serious collector somewhat anxious."

Beatrice pulled a book off the shelf, opened it, and held it upside down so that the pages swung freely.

"What are you doing?"

"In my novels I frequently arrange for the heroine to discover ominous portents hidden in books."

Leo's smile was not quite a sneer, but it came perilously close. Beatrice decided to overlook his obvious disdain.

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Nothing of interest fell out of the volume. She put it back on the shelf and reached for another.

"You are a serious student of antiquities, Leo, but you do not appear to be overanxious about this affair of the Rings. Indeed, you are as steady as a chunk of granite."

"Only because my nerves have been recently tempered by continual exposure to a far more unsettling influence." She shot him a suspicious glance. "What influence is that, my lord?"

"You know very well that I refer to yourself, Mrs. Poole." "Rubbish." She yanked another book off the wall and held it upside down. "I do not believe that for one moment, sir. You are a gentleman who hunts highwaymen for sport after all."

"Only because there is so little in the way of conventional amusements to be had in that part of Devon."

She did not dignify that with a response. "Have you found anything of significance in that desk?"

"It depends on what you mean by significant," Leo said slowly.

She turned quickly and saw that he was studying a short stack of foolscap. "What is it?"

"It appears to be a portion of a manuscript." Leo picked up the first page. "A novel of horror and dark mysteries, if I am not mistaken." He began to read aloud in a deep, portentous voice.

"The ancient sepulchral vault was hewn from the very rock of the hillside. Tendrils of vines veiled the entrance, a shroud of verdant green designed by nature to conceal the unrelieved darkness on the other side."

A sense of relief swept over Beatrice. "Mr. Saltmarsh did tell us the truth. He is an aspiring writer."

Leo continued reading.

"Impelled by the great courage that was so deeply ingrained in her noble nature, the lovely Beatrice approached the crumbling ruin-"

"Beatrice. Let me see that." Beatrice hurried to the desk. She ripped the page from Leo's hand and stared at it. "Good heavens. He gave his heroine my name."

"Clever bastard." Leo yanked the paper back from her and dropped it onto the pile in the drawer. "No doubt he thought to impress you with his grand gesture."

"Well, it is rather touching, you must admit."

"On the contrary, it is cunning, crafty, and sly. Exactly the sort of ployl would expect from Saltmarsh." Leo slammed the drawer shut and went on to the next.

"Now, Leo, you cannot be certain that he intended anything other than a respectful tribute."

Leo looked at her. "Good God. I would have thought that a woman of your mature years would be too wise in the ways of the world to fall for that sort of thing."

"We women of mature years cannot afford to be too fussy about a gentleman's choice of tribute," Beatrice said coldly. "Such gestures are rather few and far between when a lady reaches a certain age."

He straightened abruptly. "Now, Beatrice, I never meant to imply-"

"Rubbish. But, never mind, I forgive you. One of the advantages of being a lady of mature years is that I am able to put certain things into proper perspective. You will not crush me with a few insensitive remarks about my age or na1vet6."

He said nothing. His gaze was shuttered and completely indecipherable. Beatrice went back to the bookshelf.