Special Operations (Badge of Honor 2)

“And you believe he stole something?” Payne asked.

“I know he stole things,” she said. “I know exactly what he stole from me. All my valuable pins and pendants, and all of Mother’s jewelry that was in the house.”

“And where was your mother when this was going on?” Payne asked.

This earned him a cold and dirty, almost outraged, look.

“Mother passed on in February,” she said. “I would have thought you would know that.”

“I beg your pardon,” Payne said. “I did not.”

“Most of her good things were in the bank, of course, but there were some very nice pieces at home. There was a jade necklace, jade set in gold, that she bought in Dakarta, and this Williams person got that. I know she paid ten thousand dollars for that; I had to cable her the money.”

“You called the police, of course?” Payne asked.

“Yes, and they came right away, and I gave them a description of Stephen’s friend, and an incomplete list, later completed, of everything that was missing. Mr. Foster took care of that for me.”

“Well, I’m glad the firm was able to be of some help,” Payne said. “Would you take offense if I offered a bit of advice?”

“I came here seeking advice,” Martha Peebles said.

“I don’t think anything like this will ever happen to you again in your lifetime,” Payne said. “But if it should, I really think you would be much better off not to challenge an intruder. Just hide yourself as well as you can, let him take what he wants, and leave. And then you call the police.”

“It’s already happened again,” she said, impatiently.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Last Sunday, Sunday a week ago, not yesterday. I had gone out to the Rose Tree Hunt for the buffet—”

“I was there,” Payne interrupted, “my wife and I. And my oldest son.”

“—and when I returned home,” Martha Peebles went on, oblivious to the interruption, “and stepped inside the door from the driveway, I heard sounds, footsteps, in the library. And then he must have heard me…. I’m convinced it was Stephen’s young man, but I didn’t actually see him, for he ran out the front door.”

“You didn’t confront him again?”

“No, I called the police from the telephone in the butler’s pantry.”

“And they came?”

“Right away,” she said. “And they searched the house, and they found where he had broken a pane of glass in the greenhouse to gain entrance, and I found out what was stolen this time. A Leica camera, Stephen’s—I don’t know why he didn’t take it to France, but he didn’t, I had seen it that very morning—and some accessory lenses for it, and Daddy’s binoculars…and some other things.”

“Miss Peebles,” Payne said. “The unpleasant fact is that you will probably never be able to recover the things that were stolen. But if Mr. Foster has been looking after your interests, I’m confident that your insurance will cover your loss.”

“I’m not concerned about a camera, Mr. Payne,” she said. “I’m concerned for my safety.”

“I really don’t think whoever has done this will return a third time, Miss Peebles,” Payne said. “But a few precautions—”

“He was back again last night,” she interrupted him. “That’s why I’m here now.”

“I didn’t know,” Payne said.

“This time he broke in the side door,” she said. “And cut himself when he was reaching through the pane he broke out; there was blood on the floor. This time he stole a bro

nze, a rather good Egyptian bronze Daddy had bought in Cairo as a young man. Small piece, about eight inches tall. And some other, personal items.”

“Such as?”

Her face flushed.