Part 19 (1/2)
”Justin? Tanner, what's going on? Why would you ask Justin to come up here?”
”Lydia, please. Just do as I say. And don't speak of this with anyone but him.”
”But I-but-very well. I hate leaving you. Will you be all right?”
”I'll be fine. We'll be fine,” he said quietly, knowing he had just lied to her. ”Just fine.”
Only as he heard the sound of Daisy moving past him on the lane did Tanner drop onto his haunches to take a closer look at the body of his cousin. He'd seen many bodies on the battlefield, too many. Bodies with no legs, no heads, pieces of bodies, and bodies that looked untouched save for a small black hole marring a jacket or a temple.
But, somehow, this was different. Thomas Harburton held no saber in one dead hand. No spent rifle laid beside him. He'd been defenseless when his attacker had robbed him of his life.
He'd died here, not elsewhere. The amount of blood told that story well enough. But what had he been doing here? The path may exist because it had been used for generations of walkers drawn by the hills, but Thomas was never a walker. He was too bulky, for one thing, and his old injury didn't allow for recreational jaunts around the countryside on foot.
At the same time, Thomas did not like to ride. He traveled the estate in a pony cart Tanner's father had provided for him, and this path wasn't wide enough for a cart.
No, if Thomas had come to this spot, he'd come for a reason. To meet someone. Someone he trusted, or else there would be a weapon somewhere.
He'd come here, and he'd waited for the person he was to meet.
Tanner got to his feet and walked the perimeter of the small clearing amid the trees, looking at Thomas, judging distances, and then walking toward one particular tree. Yes, the weeds behind the tree were bent down, as if someone had stood there.
He saw all the signs of an ambush.
Hiding from sight, waiting, only to jump out when Thomas arrived, taking the man by surprise. Grabbing the man from behind, imprisoning him against his chest with one arm as he pulled him backwards, away from the path and into the trees. As he lifted his knife and drew it deeply across the man's exposed throat, then allowed the body to drop where it was, pumping blood onto the ground with each beat of Thomas's dying heart.
”Cowardly b.a.s.t.a.r.d,” Tanner swore softly. He'd no great love for his cousin, but n.o.body deserved to die this way.
The sound of hoofbeats on the path brought Tanner back to attention and he stepped onto the path just as Justin was gracefully swinging his leg up and over his mount's rump as he dismounted.
”Lydia says someone is dead,” he said as he looped his mount's reins around a branch of the same tree where Tanner had secured his own horse. ”And not of old age, not from the look on your face. Who is it?”
”My cousin Thomas,” Tanner said with a wave of his arm toward the body lying about ten feet off the path. ”Someone sliced his throat from behind.”
Justin shot the cuffs on his jacket as he moved to inspect the body, stopping a good five feet from the soles of Thomas' boots. ”Messy,” he said without inflection. ”But, then, murder is rarely neat. I rode almost entirely across country, or I could have spared Lydia this. I'm sorry. How long do you suppose he's been here?”
”I don't know,” Tanner said, joining him. ”I would imagine he arrived at Malvern last night. He said it was so we could be sure of our welcome.”
”Ah, yes, I can see that. Welcome home, Tanner,” Justin said. ”Well, shall we?”
Justin didn't have to explain. Nor did Tanner. Together, they approached the body, Tanner on the left, Justin on the right.
”I don't suppose you want to take a peek in his eyes,” Justin said, going down on his haunches, careful to keep his coattails from touching the ground. ”Did you know that some say if you look into a dead man's eyes, you'll see the last thing he saw? I don't put much faith in that, myself.”
Tanner lifted Thomas' right arm. ”He's cold, and his limb moves fairly easily. He may have been out here since last night, or very early this morning.”
”Well, that's good. I do hate it when they don't bend, don't you?”
”Justin, for the love of G.o.d...”
”I'm being gruesome? My apologies. Let me have a go at his pockets.” He carefully unb.u.t.toned Thomas's jacket and reached inside, somehow managing not to come in contact with any of the stiffened, blood-soaked cloth.
Tanner could see the pocket watch Thomas always wore. Moments later, Justin held the man's small purse in his palm, hefting it. They both heard the jingle of coins inside it.
”Not robbery,” Justin said unnecessarily, continuing his search of the body. He performed the moves as a man who'd had practice in such things, something that would have surprised most anyone who knew him by reputation only. ”I remember this fellow I came across in Toulouse a week or so before Wellington's victory,” he said conversationally as he worked. ”b.l.o.o.d.y battle, and a b.l.o.o.d.y waste, since Boney had abdicated four days earlier, but you know that. At any rate, the fellow was known to have been carrying a message to the Emperor, but n.o.body else seemed able to locate it on the body, so he was turned over to me. Clever thing, the slim metal cylinder he'd secreted up his-ah, and what have we here?”
Tanner watched as Justin raised a velvet pouch by the strings that secured the opening.
They both got to their feet and walked some steps away from the body before Justin handed over the pouch. Tanner pulled open the strings and dumped the contents onto his palm.
”Smallish stones, but quite lovely. I've always had a fondness for diamonds set around sapphires,” Justin said as the necklace glittered in the sunlight. ”Apparently, so did your cousin. Although I doubt they would have flattered him.”
”What was he doing with them, Justin? Stealing them? Returning them? Was he here to meet with some coconspirator? And if he did come here to meet someone, why didn't that someone at least take away the necklace? Are the jewels real, or are they paste?”
”So many questions spring to mind, I agree. I'm afraid I can only help you with that last part, and not until we get back to the house. Lydia is waiting for you.”
The mention of her name turned Tanner's attention away from the jewels in his hand, the body lying on the ground behind him and the trouble that had come to Malvern thanks to both of those things. ”I promised her...”
”Promised her what, my friend?” Justin asked as they mounted their horses and headed toward Malvern.
”Never mind,” Tanner said, knowing he could never explain, as the quiet, uneventful life he and Lydia envisioned spending together would bore his friend to flinders within a week. ”Jasmine isn't going to take this well. Thomas was her only living relative, save me, and some distant maternal aunt somewhere in the wilds of Wales. She runs a charity school for wayward females, or some such thing.”
”Reformed harlots? Sounds like a jolly place, full of sermons and penance and bread without b.u.t.ter.”
”Yes, I agree. Totally unsuitable for a sensitive young lady like Jasmine. So I suppose I'm stuck keeping her. I was going to give Thomas an allowance, send them both home. Now what in living h.e.l.l am I going to do with her?”
”Perhaps she'll decide to take herself off to a nunnery.”
”Once again, Justin, you're not helping.”
”I never intended to. I'm only here to observe, and perhaps enjoy myself. Except that I'm not, enjoying myself, that is. Those sapphires, Tanner? I'm afraid that's all you have of the Malvern jewels, save those few bits of gla.s.s and very minor pieces you took to London. The box I located behind the portrait was empty. Everything else is gone except for a few empty cases lying on the floor. Neatness didn't seem to be a priority. In fact, I believe you were supposed to find a mess. After all, otherwise it might have been weeks or months until you'd discovered the theft.”
Tanner reined in his mount, as they'd reached the scythed lawns. The entire collection numbered more than fifty pieces, some of them dating back over two hundred years. Everything was taken? Yes, of course it had been. But he had to ask anyway. ”Gone? All of it? The Malvern Pride?”
”I'm sorry, but yes. So what do we have here? A theft to cover a theft? I was pondering just that when Lydia arrived, and wondering if your cousin had insisted on coming back to Malvern ahead of us to do just that. Victim of a guilty conscience, he may have felt you had all but confronted him in London. He may have panicked, believed making the rest of the jewels disappear would help to cover the fact that any more of the stones had been changed. Unless they hadn't been, and he wanted them all for himself before you returned and found a better way to lock them away. I wouldn't have needed the key, you know. Anyone with even a modic.u.m of talent who found that portrait and opened it would have had the lockbox in his hands with very little effort. I can't imagine why your papa and ancestors didn't take more care with them. At any rate, I imagine he was going to greet you with the news that he'd discovered the theft. Except that something went fatally wrong for the man.”
”You're saying that Thomas took the remainder of the jewelry, and then ran afoul of some accomplice in the theft? Whoever had been helping him replace the stones?”
”I don't think I said that precisely, but, yes, it seems feasible, as we can be certain the man's death wasn't a suicide. The Malvern Pride alone could make a man consider murder a necessary expedient.”
”No reason to take the watch, the purse. Not when he had the jewels.”
”A mistake, I'd say. Although why your cousin had kept the sapphires separate I can't explain. Perhaps a sentimental attachment? Then again, if the stones had already been changed out, perhaps he separated it from the real stones?”
Tanner had another thought. ”Or he could have dropped the pouch in his rush, and then stuck it in his pocket rather than chancing he could be discovered by one of the servants. He was in a hurry to meet with his accomplice, hand off the jewels, and then hie himself back to Malvern in time to play the bearer of bad news when we arrived. That way, the man who killed him wouldn't have known about the sapphires.”
”Yes, I rather like that one, although we'll probably never know the truth now that old Thomas has c.o.c.ked up his toes,” Justin said. ”Have you ever considered a life of crime, friend? I think you might have the devious brain required to be successful at it. You know, if this being the duke business doesn't work out for you.”