Perhaps he was recovering quite nicely.
Perhaps he was fully recovered.
And perhaps he was dead.
Jane dried her still-hot cheeks with a towel and sat down on the hard chair beside the washstand. She would wait, she decided, looking down at her hands in her lap—they were still shaking—until she had discovered the truth more definitely. Then she would decide what was best to do.
Was there a search on for her? she wondered. She pressed her fingers against her mouth and closed her eyes. She must stay out of sight of future visitors just in case. She must remain indoors as much as possible.
If only she could continue to wear her caps.…
She had never been a coward. She had never been one to hide from her problems or cower in a corner. Quite the contrary. But she had suddenly turned craven.
Of course, she had never been accused of murder before.
6
ICK BODEN OF THE BOW STREET RUNNERSwas standing in the Earl of Durbury’s private sitting room at the Pulteney Hotel again, one week after his first appearance there. He had no real news to impart except that he had discovered no recent trace of Lady Sara Illingsworth.
His failure did not please him. He hated assignments like this one. Had he been summoned to Cornwall to investigate the murder attempt on Sidney Jardine, he could have used all his skills of detection to discover the identity of the would-be murderer and to apprehend the villain. But there was no mystery about this crime. The lady had been in the process of robbing the absent earl when Jardine had come upon her. She had hit him over the head with some hard object, doubtless taking him by surprise because he knew her and did not fully realize what she was up to, and then she had made off with the spoils of the robbery. Jardine’s valet had witnessed the whole scene—a singularly cowardly individual in Mick’s estimation since the thief had been a mere girl with nothing more lethal than a hard object to swing at him.
“If she is in London, we will find her, sir,” he said now.
“If she is in London?If?” The earl fumed. “Of course she is in London, man. Where else would she be?”
Mick could have listed a score of places without even taxing his brain, but he merely pulled on his earlobe. “Probably nowhere,” he admitted. “And if she did not leave here a week or more ago, she will find it harder now, sir. We have questioned every coaching innkeeper and coachman in town. None remember a woman of her description except the one who brought her here. And now we are keeping a careful watch.”
“All of which is laudable,” his lordship said with heavy irony. “But what are you doing to find her within London? A week should have been time enough and to spare even if you put your feet up and slept for the first five or six days.”
“She has not returned to Lady Webb’s, sir,” Mick told the earl. “We have checked. We have found the hotel where she stayed for two nights after her arrival, but no one knows where she went from there. According to your account, sir, she knows no one else in town. If she has a fortune on her, though, I would have expected her to take another hotel room or lodgings in a respectable district. We have found no trace of either yet.”
“It has not occurred to you, I suppose,” the earl said, going to stand in front of the window and drumming his fingernails on the sill, “that she may not wish to draw attention to herself by spending lavishly?”
It would strike Mick Boden as decidedly odd to steal a fortune and then neglect to spend any of it. Why would the young lady even have stolen it, if she was living at Candleford in the lap of luxury as the daughter of the former earl and relative to this present one? And if she was twenty years old and as lovely as the earl had described her, would she not be looking forward to making an advantageous match with a wealthy young nob?
There was more to this whole business than met the eye, Mick thought, not for the first time.
“Do you mean she might have taken employment?” he asked.
“It has crossed my mind.” His lordship continued the finger-drumming while he frowned out through the window.
How much money had been taken? Mick wondered. Surely it must have been a great deal if the girl had been willing to kill for it. But of course there had been jewels too, and it was time he explored that possible means of tracing the girl.
“I and my assistants will start asking at the employment agencies, then,” he said. “That will be a start. And at all the pawnbrokers and jewelers who might have bought the jewelry from her. I will need a description of each piece, sir.”
“Do not waste your time,” the earl said coldly. “She would not pawn any of it. Try the agencies. Try all likely employers.Findher.”
“We certainly would not want a dangerous criminal let loose on any unsuspecting employer, sir,” Mick agreed. “What name might she be using?”
The earl turned to face the Bow Street Runner. “What name?”
“She used her real name at Lady Webb’s,” Mick explained, “and at the hotel those first two nights. After that she disappeared. It has struck me, sir, that she has realized the wisdom of concealing her identity. What name might she use apart from her own? Does she have any middle names? Do you know her mother’s maiden name? Her maid’s name? Her old nurse’s? Any that I might try at the agencies, sir, if there is no record of a Sara Illingsworth.”
“Her parents always called her Jane.” The earl scratched his head and frowned. “Let me think. Her mother was a Donningsford. Her maid…”
Mick jotted down the names he was given.
“We will find her, sir,” he assured the Earl of Durbury again as he took his leave a few minutes later.
