Byron rubbed his temples. “Show me.”
Mary sighed and picked up her skirts, walking towards the back of the garden. Byron and Castel followed after.
Mira turned back to the window and the ladder indentations. The lock had been on the inside of the window, so how could a thief have picked it from the outside? She searched along the ground for any sign of a tool being dropped. Instead, she found two circular holes on either side of the doorway to the kitchen, about a halfpenny in size. Ignoring Mrs. Sherard’s sharp gaze, she removed one of her gloves and measured the depth with her finger. She didn’t touch the bottom of it.
“Perhaps this would be of some use.” Mrs. Sherard offered her cane, which was about the same width as the hole.
Mira nodded and used the cane to measure the depth—about six inches. The other hole measured the same.
She stood, handed the cane back to Mrs. Sherard and rubbed the dirt from her hand with a handkerchief. “Thank you. You don’t happen to remember making these holes with yourcane, do you?”
“No. I haven’t been in this courtyard since early January, and it has rained some since then.”
Silence settled between the two of them and Mira wasn’t sure what to do with it. The garden was quiet, with the exception of a few birds chittering away as they feasted at a porcelain bird feeder.
“There is something I’ve always wondered, if you don’t mind me asking,” Mira said, testing the waters.
Mrs. Sherard inclined her head, but didn’t look in Mira’s direction. She took that as invitation to continue.
“You named him Byron Ambrose Sherard, with Byron as the first name. Yet you all call him Ambrose. I know it’s a family name, but then, why not use Ambrose as the first given name?”
Mrs. Sherard smiled a little, her gaze growing distant and unfocused. “When I was a girl, I loved to read poetry. Lord Byron was a particular favorite of mine. As I grew older, I thought it would make a fine name for a son. Little did I know, I would marry a reverend.”
Mira was surprised at the warmth in her voice and her candor. It didn’t match her earlier demeanor whatsoever. She was so forthright.
“My husband didn’t care much for Lord Byron. Said he was overdramatic and his lifestyle scandalous. I suppose that was true, but his poetry was beautiful, and he died a hero in Greece. After Castel, Philip, and Simon, rest his soul, then Ralph, all family names, my husband agreed that if we had another son, I could name him Byron. When the time came, he wasn’t as agreeable to the idea, so we compromised. His middle name would be Ambrose, after the saint, and we called him that.”
“You mean, Ambrose isn’t a family name at all?” Mira asked.
Mrs. Sherard shook her head. “Whenever someone would ask, we would say it was. All the rest of the boys were namedfrom the ancestral line.”
Byron, Castel, and Mary were making the trek back across the lawn. Mira lowered her voice.
“Does he know?”
Mrs. Sherard glanced her way for the first time, a twinkle in her eye. “I’m not sure that he does.”
Once her children were within hearing distance, it was as if a wall came up between them again.
“The shed was unlocked,” Byron said, and Mira couldn’t help but make the comparison between him and the famous poet. Perhaps not quite so brooding, but certainly as handsome. “Did you find anything else here?”
Mira pointed out the holes on either side of the door. “I’m not sure if these are related, but they are too uniform to have happened accidentally.”
Byron crouched to the ground. “I’d agree. If I’m not mistaken, these holes were made by a couple stakes, driven into the ground, likely with a wire across them.”
“Why would the gardener do that?” Mary asked.
Byron looked up at his sister. “The gardener didn’t. The thieves did, to ensure their escape should anyone in the house notice them. Tripwires.”
“I’ve heard of that,” Castel said. “The burglaries at Bournemouth and Ascot last month used the same method.”
Byron stood, stretching his back. “I really ought to find time to catch up on my newspapers. What was stolen in those cases?”
“Jewelry,” Castel said. “I only paid attention to it because the first happened to the Austrian-Hungarian ambassador and the second to the Secretary of American Legation. The Foreign Office likes to keep track of those sorts of things. Almost ten thousand pounds worth of jewels between the two of them.”
Byron whistled. “That is quite a sum.”
“Could the burglaries be connected?” Mary asked.
