“As if they were wallpaper,” I mused.
“As if they werewastepaper,” he corrected. He straightened his tie and ran a hand over his unruly curls. “All right, then. Enough nattering. Let me go about my business and I will meet up with the lot of you later.”
We remained in the square, leaving Mornaday to his wooing. Although Stoker was the more obvious choice if we were to dangle one of our menfolk as bait in front of a hungry maid, Mornaday was by far the less intimidating. A young woman who might find herself tongue-tied with nerves before a Stoker would be immediately at her ease with a Mornaday.
We circled the square in a desultory fashion, and after some half an hour, Mornaday appeared, looking thoroughly disgruntled.
“Were you not able to discover anything of note?” I asked. I attempted a consoling tone, but even I could detect the edge of annoyance. If Mornaday could not accomplish seducing a bit of information from a maid with few prospects of conversation beyond what the soap bubbles had to say, there was no justice in the world.
He rolled his eyes heavenwards. “What do you take me for? Ofcourse I discovered something of note. I happen to be the only one here who is an actual detective,” he reminded me in a tone of injury.
“Indeed you are,” I soothed. “But you seem unsettled, and the most natural assumption is that you failed.”
“Or that success came at too high a price,” J. J. put in, eyes agleam with something between mischief and malice. Mornaday twitched uncomfortably, and J. J. gave a crow of exaltation. “I knew it. Tell us, Mornaday, are we to wish you joy? Are you a man betrothed?”
“Not yet,” he said in considerable gloom. “But I am engaged to return on Thursday as it is her half day, and I promised to take her for a walk in the park.”
J. J. crowed again, but I gave him a nod of approbation. “You would not have promised half so much if she hadn’t given you considerable information. Tell us her name, to begin with.”
“Minnie,” he answered.
“Minnie Mornaday?” Stoker lifted a brow. “Definitely do not marry her and inflict such a fate on the girl.”
“May. I. Finish?” Mornaday asked through gritted teeth. We waved for him to carry on and he did. “Minnie is sixteen and bright, brighter than she ought to be with such a job, but she is the orphaned eldest sister of five and must earn what she can to keep the younger ones in school.”
“Laudable,” Stoker murmured.
Mornaday carried on as if he had not spoken. “First, Lord Ambrose had no houseguests, of that she was entirely certain. Her mistress is something of a social climber and keeps a weather eye upon Lord Ambrose’s comings and goings. He lives quietly,veryquietly. Almost reclusive, to hear her tell it. Now, she says that yesterday when Lord Ambrose left, his staff had been instructed to say that he had gone to the country to be with his mother. Pig problems,” he said, pulling a face. “But Minnie reckons this to be a fib because Lord Ambrose ordered the carriage totake him to Waterloo, yet he must embark at Paddington to reach his mother’s house.”
“Interesting,” J. J. said with a grudging nod.
“Not as interesting as this: food has been disappearing from the larder at Despard’s. Minnie said Despard’s cook was grumbling about it to her cook and suggesting Minnie might have slipped in and helped herself.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time a servant has taken a crust to feed their own,” Stoker pointed out.
“Ah, but it wasn’t a crust,” Mornaday explained. “It was a raised veal pie. And a jar of caviar, another of pickled walnuts. A French cheese of exquisite age and delicacy. Minnie denied the charge hotly and I believe her. Not only did her expression and manner ring with sincerity, what sort of Cockney girl would steal caviar or French cheese to feed her kin? No, she would take a bit of mutton or some good honest Cheddar.”
“You think the thief is someone with a refined palate,” I surmised.
“No, I think the thief is Lord Ambrose himself,” Mornaday corrected. “Minnie observed him late one night. There is a window in the scullery which overlooks Lord Ambrose’s garden. She saw him sidling out the garden door in his dressing gown with his arms full. A box from Fortnum and Mason, a bottle of port, and a few peaches, she said.”
“Whatever for?” J. J. asked.
“A moonlight picnic in his own garden?” Mornaday hazarded.
“No,” Stoker and I said as one. We exchanged grinning glances. “What sort of outbuildings are there in the garden?” I asked.
Mornaday paused to think. “A coal shed. I asked Minnie a few pointed questions about the layout of the grounds, and she said the coal shed is all that remains. An old summerhouse used to stand at the end of the garden, but it was falling to bits, and Lord Ambrose had it knocked down a few years back to improve the garden aspect.”
“And there is no other building on the grounds? What of a garden shed?” Stoker asked, watching him closely.
“No, no other,” Mornaday insisted. “I asked about the staff in residence, and there is no gardener. The fellow who takes care of Lord Ambrose’s grounds comes twice a week with his own tools, and Minnie said all of the sheds were carried away with the remains for the summerhouse. The coal stores were moved into the cellar of the house, but the shed remained because it was supporting a creeping rose that Lord Ambrose is particularly fond of,” he said. “But as far as she knows it is entirely empty. Not so much as a bicycle stored inside.”
“Well done for inquiring so closely,” J. J. remarked.
Mornaday, never one to hold on to his irritation for long—except where Stoker was concerned—smiled in reply. “Well, Iamrather good at my job, you know. And there is something more.”
He paused, enjoying himself immensely, I could tell, as he prolonged the suspense.