Andrew took pity on him. “This is where you ask my sister for her opinion. As your employee and a female, El is properly holding her tongue until asked otherwise. I do not recommend allowing steam to build. She may explode.”
“That is absurd!” Grey protested, turning to his usually perceptive assistant. “In what way have I indicated you are too feeble of wit to be heard?”
Eleanor lifted her long-lashed eyes to him, but they were too narrowed to catch a glimpse of topaz. “One, you invited potential killers to the table without warning, indicating I am of as little value as those poor innocents in the cellar.”
Grey started to object, but Andrew tapped his hand in warning. He shut up and listened.
“Two, you offered me no opportunity to ask my own questions. As Andrew says, it would have been impolite, ungracious, and reason for dismissal to have done so without permission.”
Grey waited for three. There was always a three. The first two were ludicrous enough. He couldn’t wait for three.
“And lastly, you let them all leave without answering your question about the cellar’s contents. Mrs. Comfrey merely said the boys used to play there. That is no answer. Everyone knows we found skeletons. They blatantly avoided the fact.”
Fascinated, Grey finally grasped the point. With excessive care, he asked pointedly, “And what do you make of this avoidance?”
Glaring at him, she nibbled at her bread before answering, a very female tactic, Grey concluded. He wouldn’t call her on it. He rather liked his head on his shoulders.
“I believe they have more than skeletons to hide,” she finally conceded. “This house isn’t cursed, it has secrets. The Bradfords hid their secrets by letting the house go.”
“And what has this to do with skeletons in the cellar?” Although Grey’s imagination had begun to fill in a few blanks.
Eleanor frowned thoughtfully. “We must do mathematics to understand the order of events. According to the church records the Uptons provided, the possibly abusive merchant, Bertram, died about 1780. His six children were baptized between the years of 1750 and 1766. Mrs. Comfrey—Arabella— was the youngest, baptized in 1766 and married in 1787. Assuming the skeletons were two of the siblings we’ve not heard mentioned, they may have been deceased between 1750 and 1766, or when she was still an infant.”
Andrew interrupted. “But didn’t you say Mrs. Comfrey looked guilty when the cellar was mentioned? Which makes it likely she knows something?”
“Quite possibly, but even if she recalls tales, she would protect her family name by keeping their secrets,” Eleanor agreed. “It is doubtful skeletons from half a century ago are relevant to her son’s murder now. More relevant might be how her older brothers kept the family fed after their father’s death. You will recall that roughly corresponds with the period of deprivation when the manor was empty.”
Grey couldn’t stay silent as she painted this grim picture leading to the obvious. “You are suggesting the brothers turned to lawlessness?”
“The father may have been more pirate than merchant,” Andrew warned. “All we know for fact is that one brother killed the other and was transported. Along with the murdered children, it does not speak of a civilized household.”
“None of this leads us to why George Comfrey was killed, accidentally or not.” Grey appreciated the tale they were concocting, but he wanted good reason to know they were safe in this accursed house.
“Money,” his intrepid assistant concluded. “Ezekial, the heir, was paying off the bank, feeding his younger siblings somehow. As Andrew says, evidence indicates river piracy might have been their mainstay. Pirates are not known for investing their funds in legitimate enterprises. If Mr. Bradford is to be believed, his father left a large sum of money to pay off the bank. Which was never paid.”
“And because the family has a habit of burying valuables, you think he buried the money in the cellar, possibly with other stolen goods?” Andrew asked. “But we found nothing and apparently no one else has either.”
Taking it a step further, Grey bit back a curse. “One brother dead, another in prison, leaving the sisters in charge of making the payment our Australian fishmonger insists would have left the house free and clear. One must ask, did the killer have time to tell his sisters where to find the money?”
“Depends on how quickly the law caught up with him, doesn’t it?” Andrew suggested. “The sisters were in Bath, but servants may have seen or heard the fight. Ezekial would have fled as quickly as possible—leaving the coins behind?”
His twin nodded, finally giving up her snit. “Fled, with or without the money, which evidently had not yet been applied to the loan. We need to know who was present at the time and where he was caught. I cannot imagine, though, that a reasonably intelligent man, running from the law, would head to the bank to pay off the mortgage.”
“We can’t know if he had the funds on him, hid them, or if he never took them out of their hiding place,” Andrew said in frustration.
“If he hid them, anyone present might have seen him do so,” Grey concluded. “Without knowing who was there at the time of the fight or even if it happened in the house, we’re right back where we started, except we have a little more insight on why George Comfrey may have been murdered, and it has nothing to do with us.” Grey dug into his meal, satisfied.
“So, we are not in any danger unless we stand between the killer and the coins?” Andrew did not appear to be happy with this non-solution.
“Exactly. They have to know by now that there is nothing to be found in the house or Comfrey would have found it.” Grey wanted to stay until he finished his book. He was enjoying the company. As long as they were in no danger. . .
“If you believe Mr. Comfrey and his killer were after the missing money, why were they only now searching for it, after all these years?” Eleanor asked demurely.
Grey glared at her. “That is why men believe women should be seen and not heard.”
Her full lips turned upward, and she finally looked straight at him. “Because we ask questions that disturb your complacence?”
“That, too.” Disgruntled, he tore into his meal, not knowing what he was eating. Or saying, apparently. He was considered quite erudite by the men of his world. He was a popular lecturer. But this female with her blunt intelligence had him off balance.
