*
Clarion looked upfrom papers he was reading through. “Benson! Excellent. I have news.” He rose and stuffed the papers in a dispatch box.
“Where is Spangler?”
“Cooling his heels in the estate office with Corporal Goodfellow for company. I thought it expedient to let him think in solitude for a while. I also waited because I thought you’d wanted to be here when I questioned him.”
Rob liked the workings of the earl’s mind. “I understand your mother scampered.”
The earl’s lopsided smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I doubt she’d choose that word, but yes. She departed without notice before I rose this morning. And I was up at dawn.”
“Are you going to pursue her?”
“Lieutenant Gibbons took one of my grooms. I suggested he simply follow and watch. Dragging her back may not help us.”
“And you didn’t mention it to your house staff. Cautious that.”
“Two of my tenants reported a man matching Miller’s description housed in the shepherd’s hovel at the far north edge of the estate. We found it empty.”
“Of course, you did. He’s probably halfway to Scotland.”
“They told me something else.” The earl paused to be sure Rob listened closely. “One saw Higgins riding that way twice in the past few weeks.”
“Higgins left with the countess.”
“That he did. I always knew he was her creature, her eyes and ears, her hands attempting to control the running of my house.” The bitterness in the earl’s words carried longstanding anger and frustration. “I should have dismissed him soon after my father died, the first time he countermanded my orders. She forbad it.”
“Peace through appeasement never works.” Rob’s sympathy for the earl had limits.
“So I’ve learned, to my regret.” The earl closed the dispatch case with a snap. “When I told Spangler that I had words with my mother, he paled. I left him there to think about it. Shall we see what he’s prepared to tell us?”
The earl led Rob past the breakfast room, through a servants’ door, and past the kitchen and scullery, all familiar to Rob from his youth. From there, a brick-floored corridor bent to the right. At the end, Goodfellow stood guard at a closed door. Rob glanced to his left and saw a cellar of sorts, not quite below ground, stacked with barrels and bushels, paved in the same brick. Goodfellow moved to the side for Clarion and Rob to pass through.
A massive desk sat to the left, empty of any sign of work, reminding Rob that Caulfield Hall had no steward but the earl himself. Spangler leapt to his feet when they entered.
“Sir Robert! I don’t understand why the earl is holding me and on what—”
“A man is dead. The earl, as magistrate, wants to hear what you have to say about it. So do I.”
Spangler paled at the news about Robbins but claimed to know nothing. He had things to say as it turned out, but not enough, in Rob’s opinion. Not nearly enough.
“Skimming the bequests was her idea entirely,” the worm claimed. “She came to me before the will was even read, had me alter the amounts in the copy I read. She threatened me, my lord. Else I never would have. She claimed I tricked him, and she’d see me hanged. What could I do?”
“Tell me the truth?” Clarion suggested.
“She said you would agree with it. Said it was only justice. Justice. That was her word. Put the money back in the estate where it belongs.”
“How much did she pay you?” Rob asked.
“Ten percent.” Spangler’s eyes skittered away, regretting the admission.
“It explains your mother’s source of funds,” Rob said. “Or at least some of it. It can’t have been enough for what we suspect.”
“I might be able to help you locate those funds. And more.” Spangler’s gaze darted between the two men.
They stared at him. “What more?” Clarion demanded after a moment.
“I don’t know where the money came from, but she had a tidy bundle. I can identify the account. If you’re disposed to be kind.”
