David led them down the crowded dock to the Waddley Spice and Tea Company warehouse. “I had the warehousemen put the luggage on the third floor and told them to mark it for the Earl of Soothcoor,” he explained as they approached the office door, away from the coming and going wagons, carts, and sleds near the open double doors. He would have escorted them immediately inside, except James and Lewis paused at the entrance to look around, observing the people on the wharf and their activities.
It was not as wildly crowded as it had been the previous day, but the sounds were much the same—shouting, hammering, screeching rusty hoists, metal-rimmed wheels along the wharf, and the ever-present sound of the lapping water. It was a din that had previously invigorated David Thornbridge. Now he yearned for rural sounds.
Once inside, David led them all to a side staircase, away from the platforms and pulleys used to bring goods to the higher floors. They climbed the narrow side staircase to the third floor. At the third-floor landing, he requested they stay where they were while he talked to the clerk on duty.
He crossed to a battered lectern near the gaping opening in the floor through which screeching pulleys hoisted the goods from below. A young man in a rusty black jacket and checkered waistcoat perched a hip on a high stool by the desk while he wrote in an account book.
“Mr. Comber, where might I find the luggage stored for the Earl of Soothcoor?”
“Oh, hello, Mr. Thornbridge, sir. One moment please,” that worthy said. His ink-stained fingers flipped back a couple of pages in the account book.
“Hey! Comber! Where’s this lot to go?”yelled a man from across the opening, as he pulled a swinging pallet toward himself.
Comber ignored him as he looked up the information for David. “Northwest corner, aisle two, sir.” The man’s brow furrowed deeply. “But sir, didn’t you come back last night?”
“Comber!”
Comber waved his hand at him as he looked at Mr. Thornbridge.
“No. Why do you ask?” David frowned.
The fellow shifted off the stool. “When I come in this morning, I walked the floor, like I always do. Things just looked shifted around.—Oh, not to worry, none of the pieces are missing,” he assured David. “I compared the inventory count, and it’s the same as when delivered.”
The pride in the man’s voice kept David from reprimanding him for not notifying him of the disturbance. “Very good,” David said shortly. “Thank you.”
“Comber! Get your arse back to da book and tell me where it goes lest I drop it back down the hole!”yelled the man, as David picked his way back across the floor cluttered with coils of ropes, spare pulleys, and winches.
“Something the matter?” Lewis asked David when he rejoined them.
“I don’t know. Possibly.” He looked back at the clerk. “He said the luggage has been disturbed, but all pieces are there. It’s this way.” He led them through a maze of equipment and past crates, barrels, and canvas bags of goods to the northwestern corner of the warehouse where the clerk said they’d stored the luggage.
Lewis dropped into a crouch beside the luggage. “Miss Rangaswamy, were all these bags and cases locked?”
She walked up beside him. “Just this and this.” She pointed to the two larger domed trunks, clad in embossed bare tin, with heavy wood slats along the edges, and leather handles at either end.
He studied the locks on the trunks, his head tilting from side to side as he examined each. “There are marks of tampering on these locks.”
“How can you tell?” asked James.
Lewis pointed to the telltale scratches.
“Interesting,” Cecilia said, as she, too, peered at the markings. “It looks by the scarceness of marks that the trunks were easy to open, or the effort abandoned.”
Lewis laughed mirthlessly. “Oh, they were opened, madam.” He pointed to the small scrap of fabric caught in the side. “These locks are not the best quality and they are easily opened. Do you have keys, Miss Rangaswamy?”
“Yes, yes! I have here.” Rani rummaged in the reticule Cecilia gave her and handed him two keys tied with a ribbon. “I look in other bags,” she said, moving around him to a portmanteau.
“Wait, miss.” Lewis reached back to stop her. “I would rather we do this methodically. I would like to see how the contents are before we search through them for what might be missing.”
“Oh!” She backed away from the bag she was going to open and clasped her hands together to still her impatience.
Cecilia laid a gloved hand lightly on Rani’s forearm. “I know just how you feel! I should be impatient to examine everything.”
Rani nodded. “I want to do. Do something.”
“In a moment, miss, I will need you to go through everything,” Lewis said as he unlocked the first trunk and lifted the lid.
Rani gave a cry of distress at the jumbled appearance of the trunk’s contents. Filled with Krishan’s clothes and possessions, someone obviously dug through the trunk, searching for something. On top, spilled across his jumbled clothes, was the contents of Krishan’s little treasure box of favorite rocks, toy soldiers, buttons, and other items dear to him.
