‘Only the back of a man in dark clothing going out the window. I’m on the second floor but he used the drainpipe to climb in and out. I’d foolishly left the window open and lingered in the window before dinner, thinking.’ She shrugged. ‘Country habits.’
‘You aren’t foolish, Miss Austen. You weren’t to know. It sounds to me like they were instructed to take all writing matter without staying to read it. That raises the possibility whoever is behind this has hired others to help them.’ Dora turned to address their chief client. ‘Mr Austen, I believe word must be sent to your bank’s premises immediately, if it’s not already too late. The thieves will realise we are aware of their interest, and they only have a brief window of opportunity before we double our defences.’
‘I’ll see it done.’ Henry rang the bell to summon a footman.
While the message was composed and dispatched, Dora went up to Miss Austen’s room to see the damage. As the lady had said, no major harm had been inflicted; it was a focused search by a professional. Miss Austen didn’t have much in the way of fencible valuables but even the turquoise bead bracelet on the dressing table had been left unmolested. A normal thief would’ve pocketed that. Returning to the drawing room, Dora went to the window and watched a postboy collect the letter and sprint off down the street. Dora realised that she was lucky not to have been targeted. Perhaps this was because she had given them no opportunity, having got out of the hackney cab in front of the office and having taken another here. Running across town to go to Jacob had been unpredictable and they would have struggled to intercept her.
Miss Austen came to stand beside her. How Dora’s opinion of the lady had undergone a revolution in the last hour! The annoying shadow now felt like someone of substance.
‘You realise that none of us are safe until we solve this case,’ Dora said softly. ‘We wouldn’t want the author ofSense and Sensibilityto come to grief by being foolish and insisting she involve herself in the investigation.’
Miss Austen smiled, her hazel eyes full of mirth. ‘You really liked my novel?’
‘I fell in love with Elinor– she is who I want to be when I grow up.’
‘Don’t we all,’ said Miss Austen wryly.
‘I wanted to shake Marianne while also feeling her passion and pain, and I thought John Dashwood a ridiculous cipher to his poisonous wife. Why didn’t you punish Willoughby more?’
‘Oh, Miss Fitz-Pennington, I expected better of you.’ Miss Austen folded her arms and gave her a schoolmistress look. ‘In life, do you see cads getting their comeuppance or do you see them sail on, causing yet more wrecks?’
‘They sail on.’
‘And the women who fall for them, do they pay ten times over or get away scot-free?’
‘They pay.’ Miss Austen was right: the Willoughbys of the world never got punished, whereas their victims ended up on the town.
‘But he did pay, in a way,’ Miss Austen added in a thoughtful tone. ‘He had believed himself a man of sensibility, but he chose callousness and avarice. His true punishment was seeing Marianne married and in love. Think what he would see in the mirror each morning, if he dared look.’
‘You talk as if he existed.’
‘He does– and he doesn’t. To me my characters are real– I see glimpses of them in portraits and people. I imagine what happens to them after the close of the novel. And we all know Willoughbys and Mariannes, Elinors and John Dashwoods.’
‘Indeed, we do. You have an astute grasp of people. I must ask you, what kind of character do you think our attacker is?’
‘Miss Fitz-Pennington, you flatter me. How would I know? My world is a village. I have no expertise in international affairs, or in places where matters are settled with assassination. Drama in what I write comes from cross words or lost reputations.’
‘They can be deadly too. And what are villages but a microcosm of all that lies outside them?’
‘True.’ She thought for a moment, teeth worrying her bottom lip. ‘Then I would say it is likely that thecomtemight’ve known his killer. To be allowed upstairs suggests someone with access to the family rooms, a confidante.’
‘A lover?’
She nodded slowly. ‘No one mentioned a woman upstairs at the time but shooting someone can be done by either sex.’
‘Indeed, it takes no strength to pull a trigger, but you do have to have some skill not to miss.’
‘And the art of allurement to get so close that it seems like suicide.’
She made a very good point. Dora could see a female springing that surprise on Lorenzo. He would surely have pushed a man away. Unless Lorenzo had a male lover? Perhaps it was best not to mention that to Miss Austen. Dora’s world of the theatre was more liberal in that regard than the villages of England.
‘Miss Austen?—’
‘Please, call me Jane.’ She touched Dora’s wrist, a clear gesture of offered friendship. ‘“Miss Austen” makes me think of my sister. Do you have a sister?’
‘No.’
‘A brother?’ Jane looked fondly over at Henry. ‘I have six.’
