The Confounding Case Of The Carisbrook Emeralds Read online

  “I must go.” Julia all but leapt to her feet. “I’ve been away from Mama for far too long.”

  Penelope quashed the impulse to seize Julia and wrestle her back down to the window seat.

  Julia turned to flee, then paused and looked back. “Please—will you tell Cara that, of course, not one of us thinks she took the emeralds, and we’re sorry Mama acted as she did, but Mama keeps us on a tight leash, so it’s difficult to get away…” Julia gestured. “I wouldn’t want Cara to think we’re turning our backs on her.”

  Reading Julia’s distress easily enough, Penelope inclined her head. “I’ll pass the message on.”

  “Thank you.” Julia whirled and hurried to the door.

  Penelope watched her go, then, thinking over their recent exchange, followed more slowly.

  Barnaby all but wilted with relief when Penelope returned to his side. He quickly brought his retelling of one of their old cases to an end—to the disappointment of the small crowd who had gathered about him—and when Penelope intimated that they needed to get on, he gladly took her elbow and steered her directly to their hostess.

  They took their leave and, minutes later, sat wrapped in the comforting shadows of their carriage. As Phelps, their coachman, tooled the horses through the Mayfair streets, Barnaby glanced out at the passing streetscape, then turned to Penelope. “So what did you learn?”

  She leaned companionably against his arm. “Several things.” After a moment, she went on, “Just before I rejoined you, I spent a moment observing Lady Carisbrook. I saw Julia return to her mother’s side, but her ladyship didn’t really notice. That said, she noticed me.”

  Penelope paused, then said, “I’m getting the distinct impression that, in spite of all the lovely attention the theft of the emeralds is directing her way, Lady Carisbrook seems increasingly uneasy. I think she’s genuinely anxious about the emeralds—the longer they’re gone, the more she fears she might not get them back, and I suspect they mean a lot to her, not purely because of their monetary worth but as a social symbol she feels naked without. On top of that, I’m sure she never imagined that accusing Cara of the theft would result in such a fraught situation—one that has pitfalls for her. I would even go so far as to say she truly believed Cara had taken the emeralds—possibly because she couldn’t imagine anything else. I wouldn’t style her ladyship as an imaginative person.”

  Barnaby humphed. “She strikes me as the product of a rigidly conventional and antiquated upbringing.”

  “Indeed. But her ladyship aside…” In a few short sentences, Penelope outlined all she’d extracted from Julia, concluding with, “I know we have to consider the possibility that the mystery man visits some other house, rather than the Carisbrooks’. However, Julia knew of his existence before I spoke of him. I would stake my sapphires that our mystery man does, indeed, venture into the Carisbrook house, yet Julia was speaking the literal truth when she said she didn’t know anything about him.”

  Barnaby grunted. “Another candidate to add to our suspect list.”

  The carriage slowed and drew up outside their house. Barnaby opened the door and handed Penelope down, and they walked into the warmth and soft lamplight of their front hall.

  After surrendering her cloak and his greatcoat to Mostyn, hand in hand with Penelope, Barnaby climbed the stairs. As they always did on returning at night, they headed for the nursery to check on Oliver.

  As usual, Barnaby propped his shoulder against the frame of the open door and watched Penelope as she leaned over their sleeping cherub and gazed down at Oliver with such naked love that it never failed to—just for an instant—stop Barnaby’s heart.

  He—and, he was quite sure, everyone else who knew her well—had wondered how Penelope would cope with motherhood. How she would juggle the demands of her eclectic but powerful intellect with the emotional and physical demands of being a mother. But she’d met every challenge and—to no one’s real surprise—had triumphed in creating a fluid balance that satisfied all sides of her personality, the maternal as well as the intellectual.

  Her success had supported his own interests, his own life’s desires, on every plane. On oh-so-many levels, they were a perfect team.

  Naturally enough, given their characters, now that they’d conquered thus far, they’d turned their minds to further expansion. To the next challenge.

  They’d been flirting with the notion for several months.

  When, with that glorious Madonna-like smile still illuminating her face, Penelope bent and pressed her usual goodnight kiss to Oliver’s golden curls, then straightened and came to join Barnaby, he reached for her hand and stepped back from the doorway. He waited until she’d closed the nursery door, then, with her hand clasped in his, turned and walked with her along the corridor to the stairs that would take them to their bedroom on the floor below.

  Neither said anything, not until they’d entered their room, shut the door, and Penelope had walked to stand before the uncurtained window. She looked out at the night, but Barnaby felt certain her mind remained in the nursery above.

  He halted behind her, slid his arms about her slender waist, and drew her back against him. Bending his head, he pressed a kiss to her temple. “Should we have another child?”

  They’d skirted the subject several times, but until now, he’d never been so blunt.

  As usual, her mind seemed to be following the same track as his; she wasn’t the least disconcerted.

  After a moment, she replied, “I had wondered if there would be…well, room in our sometimes-busy lives. But here we are, once more immersed in an investigation, yet with all the people we’ve surrounded ourselves with—such excellent friends as well as excellent staff—we’re managing almost without effort. Certainly with no extra or unexpected effort. On the domestic and familial fronts, everything’s rolling along and falling into place as it should without any fuss or bother, much less strain. So yes.”

  She turned within his arms, raised hers, and draped them around his neck. She captured his gaze and said, “I really wasn’t sure I—we—would ever get to this point, but Oliver is over two years old, and he’s happy and contented, and I adore him and being with him, and you do, too.” She continued in a rush, “And I do think he would like a brother or sister, and indeed, his life and ours won’t be complete—or as complete as they might be—without another child.”

  Barnaby felt a rush of joy fill him and let it infuse his expression.

  He watched as Penelope mentally stepped back—he could now follow the direction of her mind virtually without thought—as she considered again what she’d just said. She’d let her emotions speak, let her instincts and impulses guide her tongue, and now needed to take rational stock. But he was confident that would only strengthen her resolve—her commitment to, hand in hand with him, taking this next step toward enlarging their family.

  Then she blinked, focused on his eyes, and smiled. “Oliver and his generation—any more we might be blessed with and all the others, too—stand at the heart of it, after all. They’re the reason we do as we do.”

  Her smile was one of joy and decision, and she pressed closer, tightening her arms about his neck as she stretched up, offering her lips.

  He bent his head and accepted her invitation, kissing her long and deep. Letting passion rise slowly, as they preferred, letting it swell and broaden and fill them.

  They chose the route of established lovers, taking their time to savor, letting this moment, that caress, stretch, tightening their nerves notch by notch, ultimately building to dual climaxes that shattered their senses and stole their breaths and left them gasping, hearts thundering, minds fragmented, and souls united, irrevocably joined amid the rumpled sheets of their bed.

  Later, when they’d recovered sufficiently to climb between the sheets and slump in each other’s arms, Penelope murmured, “I might hope for a girl to even things up as Oliver grows older.”

  One palm gliding slowly, soothingly, up and down her
spine, Barnaby thought, then offered, “A little girl like you…” Might be more than he could handle. “Another boy might distract him more.”

  “Hmm.” Penelope settled her cheek on his chest. “A valid point. Luckily, it’s not something we get to decide.”

  Barnaby realized that, now they’d embarked on their new venture, the jackpot of life was, one way or the other, going to make their lives even more interesting. Regardless… Smiling, he dropped a kiss on Penelope’s curls, then relaxed into the pillows. “God willing, sometime in our future, we’ll get to add another crib to our nursery.”

  And he would continue to see Penelope with her Madonna-like love shining in her face for many, many nights more.

  A thunderous knocking on the front door jerked Barnaby from a deeply sated slumber. He half sat up, listening.

  Beside him, Penelope blinked awake, then frowned. “That has to be Stokes.”

  Jaw setting, Barnaby tossed back the covers. “Something must have happened.”

  The sun had risen, the day had dawned, but it couldn’t be that late.

  Barnaby shrugged into his dressing gown while Penelope scrambled into a nightgown, then thrust her arms into a frilly peignoir. After belting his robe, he threw open the door and strode down the corridor with Penelope rushing after him.

  James, their footman, was approaching along the corridor; he saw them coming and stepped aside. “Inspector Stokes, sir. With urgent news.”

  Barnaby nodded. He reached the head of the stairs and started down, Penelope on his heels.

  Stokes was pacing like a tiger in the front hall; he looked up and saw them. Immediately, he said, “Simpkins—Lady Carisbrook’s dresser—is dead.”

  “How?” Penelope demanded as she and Barnaby stepped onto the hall tiles.

  “I don’t yet know. Apparently, she was found on the back stairs with a broken neck.” Stokes’s gaze shifted from Penelope’s face to Barnaby’s. “But that’s only half the excitement. The Carisbrook emeralds have reappeared.”

  “Good God.” Penelope stared.

  His expression showing satisfaction that they were as stunned as he, Stokes nodded. “Indeed.”

  Barnaby stirred. “Give us ten minutes, and we’ll come with you.”

  “I don’t have ten minutes to give, not if we want to preserve the scene.” Stokes met Barnaby’s eyes. “I’ll go and hold the fort. Join me there.”

  With a crisp nod, Barnaby agreed. Stokes saluted him and strode for the door, which Mostyn was already opening.

  Grim faced, Barnaby turned to see Penelope rushing back up the stairs.

  Taking the stairs two at a time, he followed.

  On reaching the Carisbrook residence, Barnaby and Penelope were immediately led by a stricken Jarvis to the first half landing on the back stairs. There, they found Stokes crouched over Simpkins’s lifeless body.

  Barnaby and Penelope climbed up. Leaving Penelope on the lower flight, Barnaby stepped carefully over Simpkins’s splayed limbs onto the higher flight and looked down at the body.

  After observing that Simpkins had fallen on her back, facing squarely up the stairs, and that her eyes were still open, staring straight ahead, Barnaby glanced at Penelope, then looked down the stairs to where Jarvis stood in the open doorway that connected the tiny foyer at the bottom of the stairs with the servants’ hall. Many of the staff were clustered behind Jarvis, shock on every face.

  Penelope took Barnaby’s hint and turned and addressed Jarvis. “You may close the door. We’ll call if we need you.”

  Jarvis bowed, faint relief in his face. “Yes, ma’am.”

  He shut the door. The stairwell was reasonably illuminated by light falling through a skylight high above. Penelope turned back to the body and Stokes. “Odd that she fell that way.”

  “Indeed.” Stony faced, Stokes reached for Simpkins’s head, which was propped at an angle fully perpendicular to her shoulders and spine. “The wall broke her fall—and the impact with it broke her neck.” He grasped Simpkins’s jaw and tried to move her head, but couldn’t—not easily. “Rigor is already setting in.” He shifted, raised Simpkins’s hand, then bent her arm. “But it hasn’t yet reached her extremities.”

  “So,” Penelope said, “she died between approximately three and six hours ago.”

  Stokes nodded and rose. “It’s reasonably cool in this stairwell, so I’d say at least five or six hours ago.”

  “The early hours of the morning.” Barnaby met Stokes’s eyes. “What was she doing on these stairs, fully dressed, at that hour?”

  Stokes tipped his head. “That’s one question we’ll ask.”

  Penelope stepped up one more stair. She studied Simpkins’s face, then looked up, past Barnaby, to the top of the steep flight of stairs. “She fell backward—straight back from the top of the stairs. She didn’t try—or didn’t have time—to grip the bannister or twist about, as she would have if she’d stumbled.” She looked at Stokes. “Could she have been flung?”

  Stokes grimaced. “That’s possible, but I’ve checked under her nails, examined her hands and arms, and there’s no evidence I can see that anyone touched her.”

  Barnaby, too, was wrestling with devising a scenario that would account for what he could see. “If she’d been struggling or fighting with someone, she wouldn’t have fallen like that. It’s as if she got to the top, then simply tipped back and fell.” He glanced at Penelope. “What are the odds of a maid of her experience missing her footing and simply falling down the stairs?”

  Penelope thought, then said, “If she’d stumbled and fallen, trying to save herself but failing, I might have accepted that as possible. But falling like this? It’s hard to credit.”

  Stokes grunted, then waved them down the stairs. “That young tweeny, Missy, was the one who found the body. Let’s have a quick word with her and leave her to recover.”

  Penelope turned and started to descend. Stepping off the last stair, she looked at Stokes as he joined her. “You said the emeralds had been found—were they on Simpkins?”

  “No.” Stokes met her eyes. “They were discovered by her ladyship in her room.”

  Penelope’s eyebrows rose to significant heights. “Really?”

  Stokes reached past her to open the door. “Obviously, we’ll be reinterviewing her ladyship.”

  He opened the door and led the way into the servants’ hall. Although plates and pans continued to rattle, most of the staff were either seated about the long table or standing uncertainly around it. All looked up as Stokes, Penelope, and Barnaby came to stand at the head of the table—just as they’d stood the day before. The memory popped into Penelope’s mind and left her with another question she made a mental note to ask.

  Mrs. Jarvis was sitting beside Missy, a motherly arm around her, and Abby, the upstairs maid, sat close on Missy’s other side, patting the hand Missy wasn’t using to dab at her reddened eyes.

  Stokes glanced at Penelope. She read his plea and stepped forward. “This must have been a horrible shock for you, Missy.” When the girl glanced up at her through tear-drenched eyes, Penelope let reassurance seep through her sympathy. “All we need you to do is tell us what you did this morning. What time did you get dressed?”

  Missy stared at her, then hiccuped and whispered, “Just before six, ma’am. Then I came down the attic stairs—they reach the upper corridor just beside the top of the back stairs. I turned in to the back stairs…and then I saw her. I didn’t know what to do. I just stared for a time, then I went back up to the attics and found Mr. Jarvis, ma’am.”

  Penelope shifted her gaze to Jarvis; he was standing behind his wife.

  Jarvis cleared his throat and said, “Missy told me what she’d found, and I left her upstairs with Mrs. Jarvis. I took Jeremy, who was just getting up, with me and came down to see…”

  Stokes shifted. “Did you—or anyone else—touch the body?”

  Jarvis looked shocked. “No, Inspector…well, we didn’t need to, it being so obvious
she was dead.”

  Stokes nodded. “Good. So what did you do next?”

  Jarvis explained how they had got Henderson up, and he had woken Lord Carisbrook, and after his lordship had come and—from the top of the stairs—viewed the body, his lordship had dispatched Henry to Scotland Yard.

  The Yard had then sent to St. John’s Wood to summon Stokes. To Penelope’s mind, that accounted for the timing well enough.

  “In coming down this morning,” Barnaby said, “did any of you use the back stairs?”

  “No, sir. None of us wanted…” Jarvis hauled in a breath and pulled himself together. “In the circumstances, we all used the main stairs.”

  “Very good,” Stokes said. “So Simpkins is lying exactly as she fell—as she was when she was found by Missy, then viewed by Mr. Jarvis.”

  There were nods all around.

  “Right, then.” Stokes scanned the staff’s faces. “We know Simpkins died in the small hours of the night. Yet she was fully dressed in what appear to be her usual clothes. Had she gone upstairs to bed and later got up or…?”

  “No, sir.” It was Mrs. Jarvis who spoke. “I was the last to see her last night. She was sitting there”—Mrs. Jarvis nodded to the other side of the table—“sipping a mug of cocoa as she often did. She was often the last up.” Mrs. Jarvis paused to draw in a breath. “I left her sipping and went upstairs to bed—Jarvis had locked up and gone up ahead of me. I’d stopped to check on how much flour we had in the pantry.”

  Stokes was scribbling in his notebook. “You’re sure everyone else—all the rest of the staff—were upstairs by then?”

  “Yes, sir. I’m sure I was the last one up, barring only Simpkins.”

  Barnaby stirred. “I assume this was after all the family were abed?”

  “Yes, sir,” Jarvis said. “They’d all come in and gone to their rooms sometime before.”

  “Mr. Franklin returned as expected?” Stokes asked.

  “Indeed, sir. He arrived just before dinnertime, sat down to the table with the rest of the family, then he went out again, but he returned a little after twelve, not long before her ladyship and Miss Julia, and went straight to his room. His lordship had gone out, too, but he’d already returned and retired by then.”