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Seeing that Robert was still reluctant, he said seriously, “Let me, Rob. I feel responsible. After all, I invited him here. If I’d even suspected—well, I wouldn’t have, is all I’ll say. I know you think I’m a feckless fribble with no moral fiber, but this is an insult I can’t overlook.”

“I don’t think you’re a feckless fribble!” said the duke roughly.

“Just lacking your high moral standards,” said Kenrick with an ironic smile. “In Papa’s name, let me do it. You know he would say I should, if he were here.”

Robert stiffened and then nodded. “Very well.”

“Good.” He clapped his brother on the shoulder. “I’ll not let you down, Rob,” he said gruffly, his usual insouciance completely absent. He left the room and Deo said, “I still think we should make a push to find the items. We only checked the servants’ quarters. There are a hundred places he could have put them, if he hasn’t already taken them.”

“True, but I’d like to set a trap for him, catch him red-handed,” said the duke.

“We can still do that. But if we know where they are, we can concentrate our trap on that location. Not knowing where they are will make it extremely difficult to trap him. Forgive me for stating the obvious, but this is a big estate, Rob. They could be anywhere. Somehow, I doubt they’re in the house if he is planning to come back for them. I think if they were, he would have taken them with him. After all, everyone was in the drawing room at the time.”

“You think he’s buried them?”

“It seems the most likely to me, yes. Digging them up will take time. He wouldn’t have had that, leaving in daylight. And he wouldn’t have wanted to risk being seen by the outdoor servants, depending on where he put them.”

Robert nodded. “Any idea where to look first?”

“What about the piles of dirt we pulled off the burial mound?” said Em. “He will have known we haven’t had time to start the restoration process yet. It would be the easiest and quickest place to hide them and virtually undetectable, because the earth is in piles as we left it. Not tamped down and undisturbed, which would be obvious, if anyone were looking for a place he could have buried the items.”

“My God, Em, you could be right,” said Deo with an admiring smile that made her blush with pleasure.

“Would he have just dropped them back into the barrow itself?” asked Emrys.

“Possibly, and if so, that would be easy to check. Which is why I don’t think he will have done it. Too easy to find them. I think Em’s theory is the most plausible,” said Deo.

“Let’s go check then,” said Emrys with a grin.

All six of them traipsed out of the house and across the lawn toward the burial site, taking a lamp with them.

“I’ll check the inside of the barrow first,” said Deo. “Then I think we should survey the site for any clues before we just start randomly digging. If we want to trap him, we don’t want to tip him off we found the items.”

On arrival at the site, Deo climbed the mound and jumped down into the entryway. Reaching for the lamp, he ducked his head and ventured inside.

“As I thought, they are not here,” he said, reemerging a minute later.

“No signs that he has dug up anything in there?” asked Emrys.

“No, it’s as we left it,” said Deo, hauling himself out of the hole. They fanned out and inspected the piles of dirt. The tools they used, shovels, mattocks, a digging bar and trowels were still there.

“I suggest we use the digging bar to prod the mounds and see if there is anything inside them,” said Deo, picking up the six-foot-long heavy iron bar with a chisel end.

The duke nodded, “Good idea. That will disturb the earth the least and make it easy to disguise that we have been looking.”

There were a dozen sizable piles of earth scattered around the base of the denuded mound. Deo began a careful search of each using enough force to push the bar through the earth but not so much that it would cause damage to the items if he encountered them—he hoped. He checked eight of the twelve without finding anything of note. A couple of bits of tree root initially gave him false hope. He was beginning to think this theory was wrong, or he’d missed the items altogether, when he poked the bar into the pile on the south-eastern side of the mound nearest to the fallen tree and thought he detected something. In fact, some of the branches were lying on top of this particular pile.

He prodded carefully and Em came closer, “Have you found something?”

“I think I might have. Fetch me a trowel, will you?”

A trowel was fetched, and the others gathered round to watch him carefully remove some of the dirt from the pile to uncover a dirt covered cloth. He put his hand in and felt the cloth. “Yes,” he said with a grin. “I can feel the shape of the drinking horn. All right! Do we leave it here, or dig it out, rebuild the mound and let him dig it up and find nothing?”

“I think it will help the magistrate get a conviction if we leave it there and let him dig it up. There will be no doubt of his guilt then,” said the duke grimly.

“We can trap him nicely here, I think. We will discuss the details back at the house. Let’s find out what Kenrick has gleaned. If we are right, Bidenden will still be in the vicinity unless he’s decided to give up and flee.”

Deo was a little reluctant to leave the precious items there, having found them, but the duke’s argument made sense, so he spent another ten minutes ensuring his invasive tactics were camouflaged, and they made their way back to the house, where they met Kenrick returning from his errand. The duke dispatched a footman to stand guard over the mound, while the rest of them assembled back in his study to hear Kenrick’s news.