“I had it from Cynthia Cunningham. She swore it was true.”
Their scandalized accents faded as his mind returned to the events of the day before.
He hadn’t intended to return to Montrose Place after seeing Stolemore. He’d left the shop in Motcomb Street deep in thought; when next he’d looked up, he’d been in Montrose Place, outside Number 14. He’d surrendered to instinct and gone in.
All in all, he was glad he had. Leonora Carling’s face when he’d told her his suspicions had remained with him long after he’d left.
“Did you see Mrs. Levacombe making eyes at Lord Mott?”
Lifting one of the news sheets, he held it before his face.
He’d shocked himself by his readiness, unquestioning and immediate, to use force to extract information from Stolemore. Admittedly, he’d been trained to be utterly ruthless in pursuit of vital information. What shocked him was that by some warping of his mind information pertaining to threats against Leonora Carling had assumed the status of vital to him. Previous to yesterday, such status had been attained only by king and country.
But he’d now done all he legitimately could. He’d warned her. And maybe her brother was right and they’d seen the last of the burglar.
“My lord, the builder from Montrose Place has sent a boy with a message.”
Tristan looked up at his butler, Havers, who had come to stand by his elbow. About the table, the chatter died; he debated, then inwardly shrugged. “What’s the message?”
“The builder thinks there’s been some tampering, nothing major, but he’d like you to view the damage before he repairs it.” Holding Tristan’s gaze, Havers word-lessly conveyed the fact that the message had been rather more dramatic. “The boy’s waiting in the hall if you wish to send a reply.”
Premonition clanging, instincts alert, Tristan tossed his napkin on the table and rose. He inclined his head to Ethelreda, Millicent, and Flora, all elderly cousins many times removed. “If you’ll excuse me, ladies, I have business to attend.”
He turned, leaving them agog, the room wrapped in pregnant silence.
The twittering broke in a storm as he stepped into the corridor.
In the hall, he shrugged into his greatcoat, picked up his gloves. With a nod to the builder’s boy, standing in awe, eyes wide with wonderment as he drank in the rich trappings of the hall, he turned to the front door as a footman swung it wide.
Tristan strode out and down the steps into Green Street; the builder’s boy on his heels, he headed for Montrose Place.
“You see what I mean?”
Tristan nodded. He and Billings stood in the rear yard of Number 12. Leaning down, he examined the minute scratches on the lock of the rear window at the back of what would, within days, be the Bastion Club. Part of the “tampering” Billings had summoned him to see. “Your journeyman has sharp eyes.”
“Aye. And there were one or two things disturbed like. Tools we always leave just so that had been pushed aside.”
“Oh?” Tristan straightened. “Where?”
Billings waved indoors. Together, they entered th
e kitchen. Billings stumped through a short corridor to a dark side door; he waved to the floor before it. “We leave our things here at night, out of sight of prying eyes.”
The builder’s gang was working; thumps and a steady scritch-scratch drifted down from the floors above. There were few tools left before the door, but the marks in the fine dust where others had lain were clearly visible.
Along with a footprint, close by the wall.
Tristan hunkered down; one close look confirmed that the print had been made by a gentleman’s leather-soled boot, not the heavy working boots the builders wore.
He was the only gentleman who’d been about the house recently, certainly within the time the coating of fine sawdust had fallen, and he hadn’t been anywhere near this door. And the print was too small; definitely a man’s, but not his. Rising, he looked at the door. A heavy key was in the lock. He took it out, turned, and walked back to the kitchen where windows allowed light to stream in.
Telltale flecks of wax were visible, both along the key’s shank and its teeth.
Billings peered around his shoulder; suspicion darkened his face. “An impression?”
Tristan grunted. “Looks like it.”
“I’ll order new locks.” Billings was outraged. “Never had such a thing happen before.”