The Baffling Burglaries of Bath

by Leighann Dobbs

  Pru swallowed audibly and shook her head. “I’ve been trying not to think of what a betrayal this is to her memory.”

  “Is it a betrayal? Or would she want you to be happy?”

  Pru didn’t answer.

  Katherine stood, using her hold on Pru’s hand to tug her friend to her feet. “I think, before you make any decisions or lack thereof about your future, that you ought to speak to Lord Annandale regarding the matter. See what he has to say about it. Perhaps he might be willing to wait.”

  Pru took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and nodded. “Very well. Do you know where his townhouse is?”

  “I was hoping you would be able to point me in the right direction.”

  Pru nodded and led the way from the room. With luck, Wayland would be inside as well, and Katherine would be able to complete her reason for visiting, too.

  Katherine adjusted her pelisse as she stared at the blue-painted door where Pru had informed her Lord Annandale resided. Their knock seemed to echo in her ears as she awaited an answer. Were the men at home?

  After what seemed an eternity, Pru seemingly unusually withdrawn next to her, the door opened to reveal a tall man with a full mane of ginger hair. He grinned. “Well, lass! Ye’re a sight fer sore eyes. M’laird will be some pleased to see you. Come right in!”

  “Thanks, McTavish.”

  Katherine raised her eyebrow at Pru, who shrugged. “He’s Lord Annandale’s valet.”

  The brawny man ushered them into the front parlor, where he bid them wait while he fetched the lord of the house. With a smile, Katherine asked, “Is Captain Wayland in as well?”

  She didn’t care for the twinkle in the man’s eye as he said, “Och, ye must be that lass he came to town fer. Wait yer wee pretty head right here.”

  Katherine frowned as the valet disappeared.

  Pru guffawed. “You should see your face!”

  “I’ve never been told to ‘wait my wee pretty head’ before.”

  “You get used to it,” Pru said, wiping her eyes as she grinned.

  Fortunately, the men didn’t take long to enter the parlor. Katherine turned to Pru. “Are you comfortable with me leaving for a moment?”

  Although she held her lower lip between her teeth, a sure sign of nervousness, she nodded.

  Katherine caught Wayland’s eye. “Can I speak to you in private?”

  He nodded, leading her into the corridor. There, he placed a hand on the small of her back and drew her toward the door. The door had a crack in it, unnoticeable from outside due to the vivid blue paint. A tendril of chill air drifted in through the crack, raising shivers along the exposed back of her neck.

  Wayland didn’t seem bothered by the hint of cold. He stood near to her, so she had to tilt her head up to meet his gaze. Before he said a word, she held up her hand. “I know you aren’t going to like what I have to say, but I felt I should inform you that I must look at Mrs. Julien again as a suspect. I’ve tried every other avenue, Wayland, believe you me. The story she told of visiting Bradford-on-Avon is a bald-faced lie. She or her husband were seen near the sites of all three thefts. I have to ask her for the truth or else have Scott search their residence. I—”

  Cutting her off, Wayland laid his hand over her mouth to silence her. When she pressed her lips together, piqued, he dropped his hand to his side and cocked an eyebrow. “If you’ll listen to me a moment, I’ll tell you what Scottie found in his grandparents’ home.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “You… you asked?”

  He nodded once curtly. “I did.”

  “But I thought…”

  “I didn’t enjoy it. Scott was none too happy to have been asked such a thing, either.”

  The muscles in her back tightened with anticipation as she awaited the verdict. “He searched the townhouse?”

  “He did. He found nothing. No stolen jewels.”

  Had he lied? Katherine nibbled on her lower lip. Could she trust Wayland’s results, or should she verify them herself? Mrs. Julien had lied about her whereabouts during the theft of Mrs. Oliver’s necklace. However, if she didn’t have the necklace…

  Damn! She still might have hidden it. If Katherine suspected Sir Hugh of the theft on that account, then she had to suspect the same of Mrs. Julien.

  “Thank you,” she said, even though his help had brought her no closer to solving the string of crimes. After taking a deep breath, she reached for the latch on the door, intending to leave Pru with Annandale to sort out her feelings.

  “Wait.” Wayland leaned his palm against the door, preventing her from leaving. The movement brought him close enough to her for her to smell the cedar scent of his cologne. “There’s something else.”

  She tipped her head back to read his expression. He seemed to be hiding something. “Regarding the investigation?”

  “Yes… but I think you might like to hear it from Mr. and Mrs. Julien yourself. Wait a moment for me to fetch my greatcoat, and I’ll take you to them.”

  Katherine sipped the weak, lukewarm tea in her cup as she stared across the low table to the elderly couple seated side by side on the couch. The house they had let was small, their flat on the ground floor to make it easier to move Scott in his chair in and out of the house. He wasn’t in the room with them, for which Katherine was glad. She didn’t want to have to confront the Juliens in front of him. Her spirits sank by the minute. The ominous tone of Wayland’s voice and the fact he’d brought her here to hear them in person indicated that the Juliens had something to confess.

  Since the couple didn’t seem forthcoming, and Wayland appeared to be waiting for her to speak first, Katherine lowered her cup and saucer to the table and dusted off her hands. “You lied to me, Mrs. Julien. You told me you and your husband were in Bradford-on-Avon at the same time a witness saw you enter a private carriage — not a public coach.”

  Mrs. Julien pressed her lips together and exchanged a glance with her husband. Neither spoke.

  Katherine drew herself up straight in the armchair. “You’ve been here since the thefts first began.”

  “Shortly after,” Mrs. Julien interrupted. “The first theft had already occurred and been publicized through the news rag, which was how we knew of the thief.”

  Katherine narrowed her eyes. “You’ve been spotted by witnesses at all three crime scenes since I’ve been in Bath. How do you care to explain that?”

  The air in the room grew stiff. When Wayland changed position, the rustle of his clothing sounded loud and ominous.

  “Tell her what you told me. You can trust Katherine.”

  She didn’t know whether to be relieved or baffled by his apparent support. But what would she do once they confessed? Keep it a secret? Is that what Wayland wanted? Had he brought her here knowing she would feel empathy for the old couple and not tell a soul that they were actually the Burglar of Bath? She could hardly do that. Could she?

  Mrs. Julien nibbled on her lower lip, glancing down. She groped for her husband’s hand. He held it tight as he answered, “The reason we’re in Bath is not only for Scottie’s sake. It’s to solve the mystery of the thefts.”

  “Solve the mystery?” Katherine frowned. “You mean you weren’t stealing jewels? But why keep solving it a secret?”

  His wife added, “We’re desperate for money, you see, and we met the Dowager Marchioness of Bath years ago. She’s always cared zealously for her tenants, and we hoped she might be willing to offer a reward. The private carriage we entered on the day of Mrs. Oliver’s theft belonged to the dowager. You can seek her out and ask her to verify the truth.”

  “She hired you to search out the thief?”

  The couple exchanged a worried glance. “Not precisely,” Mrs. Julien ventured.

  Her husband added, “She wanted to, but her grandson has control of the money. He hasn’t been willing to part with it for anyone other than that crock detective, Mr. Salmon.”

  “We’re still hoping…”

  “We didn’t
want to tell anyone in case they tried to hone in on our reward.”

  Katherine wasn’t able to provide them with a reward. However, they might be able to help her with the investigation, seeing as they had been in Bath longer than she. She glanced at Wayland, wondering. How long had he known of this? His impassive expression offered no answers.

  Mr. Julien harrumphed. “Mr. Salmon certainly won’t solve the crime with the way he’s sniffing around women’s skirts. If he hadn’t been so enamored with Lady Dalhousie’s maid, he might have caught the thief in the act a week ago at Mrs. Quicke’s house!”

  “What do you mean?” Katherine asked.

  “Well, you see, I was first on the scene of the crime that day,” Mr. Julien explained. “Not long before we spoke to you, in fact. I left the house to fetch Scottie’s wheelchair so we might take a stroll with him around Sydney Place. Lo and behold, Mr. Salmon!” He said the word scathingly. “I found it odd that he would be strolling alongside Lady Dalhousie’s maid. I didn’t know they knew each other at all, and if she’s hoping to find a husband, frankly, she can find better.”

  “Mrs. Quicke’s carriage, my dear. Don’t forget the carriage.”

  Mr. Julien nodded. “Yes, the carriage. I had to wait at the side of the road for it to pass on my way back with the bath chair, mere moments before I spotted Mr. Salmon. I passed the chair along so Scottie could ready himself, and hurried out to follow Mr. Salmon and see what he was about.” The old man shook his head. “Never trusted that fellow. He had a look to him.”

  Katherine pressed her lips together but shook her head. “He cannot be the thief. He was with me at the time of the attack on Lady Dalhousie.”

  “Yes, well, be that as it may, I followed him. He wasn’t far from Mrs. Quicke’s townhouse when she came out, shrieking to all and sundry over her missing jewels. Well, I was closer than he, and I zipped down that alley while he bid his ladylove adieu. See what I might see, as may be.”

  That must have been how he’d gotten clay on his shoe! But if so, he might have seen some clue that Mr. Salmon, in his ineptitude, had eradicated. “Did you find anything?” Katherine asked, the question pouring from her in a rush. “A footprint?”

  Mr. Julien nodded. “Looked like a boot print, yes.”

  “Small, perhaps? Belonging to a woman?” The imprint Lyle had managed to show on the sculpture jumped into the forefront of her mind, insistent.

  Her hoped dwindled as Mr. Julien shook his head. Perhaps it had been a mistake, after all.

  “It was a large boot, definitely belonging to a man.”

  Katherine sighed. “Just as well… Did you happen to find anything else?”

  He shook his head, but he added, “It took a confounded while for Mr. Salmon to arrive! I had ample time to go over the alley, but if someone entered the bedchamber by the window, I found no sign other than the boot print.”

  Tarnation. She needed some other clue, anything to point her in the direction of the thief. When she glanced at Wayland, he seemed remarkably calm considering that, with Mr. and Mrs. Julien omitted, they had no viable suspects. Nothing she could prove, at the very least.

  “Have you discovered anything else at any of the other thefts?”

  Mrs. Julien shook her head, seeming wan. “We’ve found nothing, save that Mr. Salmon isn’t to be trusted. Did you know this cloaked figure, the one he claims to be his most promising suspect, was not even in Bath until recently? No one appears to have seen the figure until Mrs. Oliver’s theft.”

  Katherine cleared her throat and nodded. She didn’t want to embarrass Mrs. Burwick by letting on that she was really the cloaked figure.

  Mr. Julien added, “And he seems far more interested in sniffing around the maids than in investigating. At least, so it has seemed for two of the thefts.”

  “But,” Mrs. Julien said, drawing out the word and raising Katherine’s hopes.

  “But?” she echoed.

  The old woman exchanged a glance with her husband. “Lady Dalhousie’s theft is different from the others, isn’t it? No one else was attacked. This… well, I have to wonder if someone else committed it.”

  Katherine had discounted Mr. Salmon as a suspect because he had been sitting next to her during the time of Lady Dalhousie’s theft. However, what if he had made an arrangement with Lady Dalhousie’s maid to rob her? His skirt sniffing, as Mr. Julien put it, might have been him arranging for the next theft on his roster. If he’d spent time with other maids, he might even have arranged to be let into Mrs. Quicke’s home while she was away — and speaking with Lady Dalhousie’s maid straight away after would provide him with the alibi he needed should anyone ever look in his direction. Could he be clever enough to have conducted these robberies?

  He knew Katherine was an esteemed detective. He would have needed to be present in front of her in order for her to discount him for the thefts, and he knew it. It was all the proof Katherine needed. Now, all she had to do was find Lady Dalhousie’s jewels in Mr. Salmon’s possession — or perhaps in the possession of his accomplice, her maid.

  Finally, Katherine had the clues she needed to proceed with this investigation!

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Katherine’s heels clicked on the cobblestones as she hurried from the Juliens’ townhouse to the Sydney Hotel. The night was still young. With luck, she would find Lady Dalhousie with her maid at this very moment, preparing for the dress ball at the Assembly Rooms. She might be able to end this investigation this very evening!

  Stretching his legs to accommodate her quick pace, Wayland turned to her. “Now, will you admit that I was right all along, and there was no need to suspect these people?”

  “Perhaps. I’ll have to ask Grandma Bath, but I’d like to discount them. You know I would.”

  “Is that where you’re off to all of a sudden? Your excuse in the drawing room was thin.”

  The hotel loomed ahead. “No. I have a different idea to pursue.”

  “Would you care to share that idea?”

  Katherine pressed her lips together. Considering that Wayland seemed bent on dogging her steps anyway, he would find out soon enough. “I discounted Salmon as the thief because of the assault on Lady Dalhousie. He was present at the table with me during the time it occurred.”

  “Yes…” Wayland drew out the word, clearly waiting for more.

  They reached the door to the hotel. A footman opened it in order to allow them to enter. Katherine stepped through first then waited a heartbeat for Wayland to follow before she resumed the conversation. “What if he convinced Lady Dalhousie’s maid to commit the thefts for him? The same could be true of Mrs. Quicke and Mrs. Oliver, different maids each time. Every household has them.”

  A few older women clustered in the corner of the common room, near the hearth. The drone of their conversation sounded like the ebb and flow of water on the shore. Katherine glanced at them briefly on her way to the stairwell; Lady Dalhousie was not among them. The afternoon was late, but evening had not yet blossomed, so Katherine had every hope of catching the old woman in her chamber before she left for the dress ball beginning at six of the evening.

  As they reached the first-floor landing, Wayland asked, “Are you certain confronting the maid is the best course of action?”

  She paused. “I’m not only confronting her. I’m searching her room for the necklace. If she stole from her employer…”

  “And kept the necklace where? It would be madness to stash it in the very room where Lady Dalhousie sleeps, and unless there’s a wing of this hotel I don’t know of, there isn’t enough room here for the maid to have been given a room of her own. She likely sleeps on the floor.”

  Katherine threw her hands into the air in frustration. “It isn’t as though a lady of Dalhousie’s stature would deign to rummage under the bed.”

  He shook his head, his mouth thin. “There is too much risk. I wouldn’t do it, and I’d like to think I’m at least half as clever as this thief. He did somehow manage
to slip in and out of the hotel without being remarked upon.”

  “What would you have me do? Mr. Salmon might have absconded with the necklace, but I don’t have any servants I can ask to search his room. Lord Bath would never believe that his beloved investigator was pulling the wool over his eyes. I have no other course of action for the moment.”

  Wayland hesitated for a moment. In a soft voice, he said, “This might be a mistake. You could be endangering this woman’s livelihood.”

  He was right, of course. Katherine gnawed on her lower lip as she thought.

  “I’ll bring Emma.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “I don’t see what your dog has to do with any of this.”

  “She’s a thief, as well.”

  “Perhaps, but she doesn’t know the item you hope to find. If she filches something, it might be anything.”

  Katherine resumed mounting the steps. From the vibrations in the stairs, she could tell Wayland followed her. She continued the conversation. “What she steals doesn’t signify, so long as she finds something. I can use it as an excuse to chase her about the room and search for myself.”

  He chuckled. “That will be quite a sight.”

  At the top of the stairs, she turned to glare at him. He smirked.

  After pausing at her room to let out the pug, who was altogether too happy to be freed, Katherine herded the animal down the corridor to Lady Dalhousie’s chambers. She rapped sharply on the door. Wayland stood to one side, waiting.

  “It’s about time! I ordered hot water half an hour ago. Come in.”

  Despite the fact that Lady Dalhousie was clearly not speaking to her, Katherine lifted the latch and let herself in. Wagging her tail, Emma bounded in and buried herself beneath the bed. Katherine tucked away a smile. The first portion of her plan was unfolding in precisely the right manner!

  As Lady Dalhousie twisted her head to look in Katherine’s direction, she yelped. She jerked away from her maid, causing the woman to fumble with the laces to the stays over the old woman’s underclothes. She caught the laces at the last moment, pulling them so tight that Lady Dalhousie released a loud gasp.