Piers and April wentdown to breakfast together.But on the first-floor landing, she was distracted by a loud exclamation coming from the open drawing room door.Exchanging glances, she and Piers changed direction and hurried toward the drawing room, almost running into Mrs.Hubble in the doorway.
She had one reticule over her wrist and clutched another in both hands in front of her like a prize exhibit.
“Look,” she said in awed tones.“My reticule!”
Pale lilac silk and embroidered with tiny glass beads, it was indeed the reticule that had disappeared.April recognized it at once.
“Where on earth was it?”April asked.
Mrs.Hubble gestured behind her at the drawing room.“In there.Exactly where I had been sitting.Half-hidden behind a cushion.”
“But we looked behind all the cushions,” April said.
“I know.”Mrs.Hubble’s tone was neutral, but her gaze met April’s steadily.
Am I being accused?
“Bizarre,” Piers said.“You may have noticed that the vanishing candlesticks from the floor above have also made a reappearance.Is everything in your reticule that should be?”
Mrs.Hubble nodded.She had already checked.April knew a resurgence of curiosity as to what had been in the little bag to cause its owner such distress in the first place.
“It’s certainly an oddity,” April said.“But a happy one at least.”
Mrs.Hubble nodded again, smiling faintly, though to April she still looked worried.And suspicious.They walked together to the staircase, where Mrs.Hubble left them to go back to her room.Descending, April glanced at Piers, who arched one meaningful eyebrow.
“Ah, we’re all looking somewhat brighter this morning,” Professor Algernon greeted them in the breakfast parlour, rising politely from the table.
“Most of us,” Piers said, bowing to the ladies.“Good morning.”
Everyone but Fosterson and Mrs.Hubble was already around the table.
“You didn’t run into Katherine, did you?”Hubble said.
“Actually, yes,” Piers said.“She found her reticule in the drawing room.”
Claudia laughed.
“But it wasn’t there,” Meg said.“We all looked.”
“We did,” April agreed.“But it reappeared—like the candlesticks on the floor above.”
“Is someone playing tricks?”Mallory Keith asked suspiciously.
“I don’t see the point of them if they are,” April said, walking toward the sideboard where she helped herself happily to smoked fish, eggs, and toast.
When they were all seated around the table, and Mrs.Hubble was duly congratulated on the rediscovery of her missing reticule, Dr.Hale said, “Where’s Fosterson?Not riding again, is he?”
“I doubt it,” Piers said casually, while April kept her gaze moving from face to face.She had not discounted any of their guests from suspicion of the attack on Edward, though for most she struggled to imagine a motive.“He had to sit up most of the night with a patient.Edward, the footman, is gravely ill.”
Alarm was inevitable—no one wanted to be at risk of any contagion.It could easily disguise a more specific fear of discovery.A frown tugged at Claudia’s brow and vanished.Beside her, Dr.Hale lowered his eyelids over an expression April couldn’t quite read.When he raised them again, he appeared merely curious.
“What is his condition?”the professor asked.
“A severe blow to the head,” Piers said.“He has been unconscious all night.”
“Good grief,” Mal said, startled out of his habitual distraction.
“When did this happen?”Hubb asked.
