Page 43 of Marriage and Murder
Madeline, too, was smiling. “Poor Findlayson. Instead of a sale, he ended up being insulted.”
Barnaby humphed and looked at Stokes, who was regarding him questioningly. “Suffice it to say,” Barnaby informed him, “that Findlayson is not our crooked jeweler.”
Of course, Stokes demanded the full story, and Penelope and Madeline readily provided it, while Barnaby pretended to be greatly put out.
By the time Stokes stopped laughing, they’d reached Melrose Jewelers on Rollestone Street, and it was time for them to enact their charade again.
They did so with similar results and traveled on to Gisborne Jewelers on Bedwin Street and finally to the Crowe Jewelry Emporium on Castle Street.
At each establishment, their increasingly polished performance elicited the same shocked and scandalized response.
After they’d clambered back into the carriage and informed Stokes he could cross Crowe off the list as well, Barnaby sat back and remarked, “I suspect I’ve wrecked my reputation as a gentleman among Salisbury’s minor jewelers.”
Smiling, Penelope patted his knee consolingly. “Never mind. It’s all been in a very good cause. Having eliminated those four as possibilities, as well as Swithin and Carlsbrook, we can now confidently focus on our five jewelers at the market. One of them will most likely prove to be the jeweler we seek.”
Stokes had spent his minutes waiting in the carriage reviewing the facts they presently knew. As the carriage rolled out of Salisbury and took the road to Coombe Bisset with Tollard Royal some way beyond, he suggested, “Let’s use the time to the inn to go over the case.”
When the others looked willing, he went on, “From all we’ve gathered to this point, the only person with a known motive for ransacking the cottage was Viola’s secret admirer, H. Everything we’ve learned points to him calling on her on Thursday afternoon. By the evidence of the clock, she was killed at three-thirty-three or thereabouts. Virtually everyone in the village with the remotest reason to wish Viola harm has an alibi for that time. H is the only one unaccounted for. We therefore assume he’s Viola’s killer—for exactly what reason, we can’t know, but possibly because she threatened to expose him in some way—and after strangling her, H searched for the items of jewelry that effectively linked him to her, but because Viola had hidden the pieces in the churchyard, H didn’t find them.”
Penelope was nodding. “Presumably, he gave up and fled the scene and, most likely, was gone when Henry called at the cottage at about four-thirty.”
Stokes nodded. “So H is our man, and thanks to Viola, we have one clear avenue through which to pursue him.”
Her expression now starkly grim, Madeline said, “We need to use the clue she left us to hunt H down.”
Barnaby shifted, rearranging his long legs. “I agree that the most direct route to identifying H is to find the jeweler he commissioned to make the necklace and, presumably, substitute paste for the aquamarines in the bracelet.”
“It’s not as if,” Penelope added, “we’re following a lead that’s years old. We know the jeweler received the commission less than two months ago. He can’t have forgotten such a special order or who asked for the work in such a short time.”
“Indeed.” Stokes sat back. “So I take it we’re in accord that, tomorrow, we’ll return to Salisbury as early as we can and investigate our five prime candidates for the role of dodgy jeweler.”
The others smiled and agreed, and thereafter, as they bowled on into the countryside, a comfortable silence descended.
Idly, Barnaby stared out at the passing landscape, at the hedges and trees lining the road, with the gentle hills rolling across the distant horizon. Within the group, there was a palpable air of being on the hunt and that despite the negatives of the day, they were progressing step by steady step. He judged that they all felt a great deal more confident that they would soon learn H’s identity, and then, with any luck, they would have their murderer.
Dusk was closing in when Phelps finally turned the horses in to the yard of the King John Inn.
Penelope stirred and, through the gathering dimness, looked at Madeline. “It’ll be dark soon. You must allow Phelps to drive you back to the cottage.”
Madeline might have demurred, but both Barnaby and Stokes added their voices to Penelope’s, and Madeline subsided into the comfort of the carriage with good grace.
Barnaby followed Stokes down the carriage steps, then handed Penelope to the ground.
With Stokes, they turned to watch as Connor shut the carriage door, then climbed back up to sit beside Phelps.
Phelps nodded to them, then jiggled the reins and steered the horses into a turn, then drove back out of the inn yard and turned the carriage toward Ashmore.
“Well,” Stokes said, stretching his arms over his head, “I don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to another excellent dinner and an undisturbed night in a comfortable bed.”
Penelope laughed. “No babies to rouse you in the dead of night?”
Lowering his arms, Stokes nodded. “Exactly.”
Barnaby laughed and, trading stories of their experiences with their various offspring, they headed into the inn.
Leaning back against the leather seat, Madeline swayed gently as the well-sprung carriage bowled along. Without the others to provide distraction, her mind inevitably turned to her task for that evening, namely drawing together the elements of the burial service her older sister would have wanted for herself.
Unsurprisingly, she and Viola had never discussed the matter, so the best Madeline could do was to recall the points Viola had insisted on in the service they’d arranged for their father five years ago.
