“Actually, Iamtoo preoccupied.” He pulled a push pin from his coat pocket and tacked up one more card at the end of an empty string.
She puffed her cheeks. It seemed as if the whole world were too busy. Curiosity mingled with her disappointment, though, and she stepped closer to the wall. “I assume this is your preoccupation.”
He grunted.
She touched the farthest card on the left. “This man here, Mr. X, has hired you. You’ve taken on the case you’ve told me about, then? The one you didn’t have any details on? Or scant details, as I recall. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I am now—and I think you will agree it is a viable project that will interest you as well. I don’t think you’ll have any qualms whatsoever about taking it on.”
Slowly, lest she snag the whole string from the wall, she followed the length of it to the next card. “Clearly he is connected to Company A. Employee, perhaps?” She scanned the other name cards—only two. Mr. X’s was a size larger. “No, he is one of the owners, maybe the sole proprietor even.”
“Easy enough to deduce,” her father grumbled.
She traced the string that connected the company to the next name, which had many lines attached—too many to make him an innocent. “Mr. Y is who you’re investigating.”
For a long beat, her father said nothing, then he shot her a sideways glance. “Go on.”
She tracked another length of twine to a different name. “A woman? Ahh, the plot thickens.” She waggled her eyebrows. “But is Mrs. Y an accomplice to her husband’s devilries or not?”
Air snorted out his nose as he folded his arms. “I haven’t decided yet.”
Well, good to know he struggled for information every bit as much as she did. She skimmed the next piece of string, which ended at a card that readGlyn Mills.
“A bank? Well, if money is involved, naturally Mrs. Y must have something to do with—wait a minute.” She shoved her nose closer to the card. Clearly her father had scrawled this one in haste. “No, I take that back. Mrs. Y is not implicated, not if your man is tangled up with the Old Pye rat pit.” She glanced over her shoulder at her father. “I didn’t know that was in operation.”
“Neither did I until this morning.”
She swiveled her head back to the wall, gaze traveling to the next card. “And the law has already been called upon, eh? Barrister Featherstone.”Featherstone.Mentally she held the name up to an imaginary lamp, examining it until recognition dawned. “He’s a counsel for the wealthy…which clearly is not Mr. Y, not if he’s hanging about Old Pye.” She snapped her fingers and whirled to face her father. “I’ve got it!”
He eyed her. “And that is…?”
“Your client, Mr. X, here”—she tapped his name card—“hired you to find a particular employee of his, one who has information on an embezzlement scandal or is maybe even in on the embezzling himself.”
Admiration flared in his dark gaze. “Very good. But for the record, I don’t think Mr. X is the culprit. I suspect it to be Mr. Y, though that’s a stretch at this point. He is a well-to-do gent and would bet on horses instead of rodents, so the pit connection doesn’t ring true.”
“Don’t be too sure about that. You’d be surprised at how much coin a pit draws in, especially if you’re the one running the ring.”
Her father stroked his beard. Judging by the purse of his lips, gears turned in his head, ones that may be missing a sprocket or two since his bushy brows knit together as well. “Kit, I think you should know this case intersects with yours.”
“Oh?” She tipped her head. “How so?”
“I was hired by Mr. X—or Mr. Willis, I should say.”
Her eyes widened. “Of Willis and Percival?”
“The very same. He’s charged me to investigate an employee of his—this Mr. Y—for possible embezzlement, which is rather difficult being the man has inconveniently turned up dead.”
Kit gasped. “Let me guess…Mr. Blade?”
Her father nodded. “Somehow he’s entangled with the rat pit and Featherstone, though I don’t think his wife—Mrs. Blade—has any knowledge of either. I have a meeting with Featherstone in half an hour that will hopefully shed some light on this.”
Kit couldn’t help but grin. “So we are working on the same case despite your gut feeling!”
He scowled. “Yes, we are, which is why I didn’t think you’d have any problem with me taking this one on. We can work from different angles.”
“We can, but you do know that the details of Mr. Blade’s death are still hazy, don’t you?”
Her father nodded his big head. “Yet that does not stop my—or your—investigation. Neither does it mean my instinct about Mrs. Coleman was incorrect.”
