“I cannot believe this, the blackguard! The very devil!” He caught sight of me and flushed. “My apologies for my language, Miss Speedwell. It appears my brother”—he larded the word with sarcasm—“has disappeared.”
My heart thudded, striking my ribs so loudly I was certain they must have heard the thump.
“Disappeared?” I asked, arranging my face in a quizzical expression.
“No note, no explanation. He has simply vanished from the house.” Charles lapsed into silence as he threw himself into his chair. His plate was full but he pushed it away uneaten. From her seat, Mary Hathaway sipped quietly at her tea while Effie sat buttering slices of toast she did not eat, piling them at the edge of her plate.
“Surely he has simply gone to town,” I began.
“He did not order the carriage,” Mary said, setting her cup down with a gentle clink. “Which means he must have crossed the moor in the dark. His bed was undisturbed,” she added primly.
“And Granna is convinced he must have fallen to his death in the bogs,” Effie put in.
“Euphemia!” Charles said in a warning tone.
“Well, it is what she thinks,” Effie protested. She looked at me. “But there is more.” Something in her face warned me before she said the words.
“The jewels,” I breathed.
“Yes,” Charles said grimly. “He has gone—and the Eye of the Dawn has vanished with him.”
Breakfast was an uncomfortable meal. Stoker said little and Mary Hathaway even less, but there was an unpleasant serenity to her, as if something of a mess had been tidied away to her satisfaction. Justifiably distressed, Lady Hathaway had rung for breakfast in her room, carried by the faithful Anjali, and so we were free to speculate on what might have happened. The Hathaways seemed inclined to follow the dictates of Occam’s razor: the simplest explanation is the likeliest. And the simplest explanation was that Jonathan Hathaway had helped himself to his grandmother’s diamond and left.
“I suppose he might have taken it to be valued,” Effie suggested.
“It is not his to take,” Charles reminded her coldly. “And for God’s sake, stop buttering toast if you don’t mean to eat it.”
Effie surveyed the pile of buttered toast. “Don’t scold, Charles. I will put it out for the pigs,” she said in a contrite tone. “It will not go to waste.”
Charles made a harrumphing sound.
Stoker cleared his throat and addressed Charles. “In view of the current distractions, I think it best if Miss Speedwell and I return to London at once. You will not want strangers in your midst just now.”
Charles gave him a narrow look. “But you will take the thylacine? On Lord Rosemorran’s behalf?”
Before Stoker could reply, Mary Hathaway spoke up. “I say, take it with you. I doubt his lordship could resist the beast once he’s seen it if it is as remarkable as you say. And then perhaps his lordship might see his way to giving it proper pride of place when his museum is complete. Perhaps even a Hathaway wing?” she suggested.
For all her pretenses to gentility, Mary Hathaway had the keen instincts of a merchant, I realized. She had realized how much likelier Lord Rosemorran was to keep the trophy once it was already in his possession, a fait accompli, and it was apparent that she harbored a wish to associate the Hathaway name with the far more august Rosemorran title.
Stoker nodded. “Certainly, if you wish. I will build a suitable crate and pack it up this morning.”
Mary excused herself to supervise Mrs. Desmond in the stillroom with the making of jam whilst Charles went to find a railway timetable. Much discussion of trains followed before Stoker turned to me. “I trust that meets with your approval, Veronica?”
I blinked. I had been woolgathering, and for all I knew, he was asking if I wanted to take a slow train to John o’ Groats. I forced a smile. “Of course. I haven’t much to pack. I need only finish the list of the butterflies I believe Lord Rosemorran should acquire and I shall be entirely ready.”
“Very well,” Charles Hathaway said as he rose. “If you will excuse me, I have things to do. The farmwork will not wait simply because my brother decided to play the villain.”
He rose and threw down his napkin. Effie, who had been watching silently, collected his full plate and her own and excused herself to the piggery.
“Do you suppose the pigs got at him?” Stoker asked conversationally.
“I beg your pardon?” I surveyed him across the breakfast table.
“Pigs. They’re notoriously voracious eaters.”
“But an entire man—”
He shrugged. “Simplest thing in the world for a pen full of hungry porkers.”
I pushed aside my plate, staring suspiciously at the sausages as I did so. “That is revolting.”
“That is nature,” he said, finishing his kedgeree. He regarded me over the rim of his teacup. “You realize this means the fellow we have known as Jonathan Hathaway can be no such person?”
To busy my nerveless fingers, I took up a piece of toast and began to butter it. “Why do you say that?”
“If he has taken the trouble to steal a jewel he was meant to inherit anyway, he is clearly an impostor. And that would explain why you were uncertain of his identity, as were his relations.”
“Lady Hathaway believes in him,” I said.
“Lady Hathaway is elderly and no doubt sees what she wants to see,” he returned. He sat back in his chair and gave me a long, level look. “The more important question is, Who is this man pretending to be Jonathan Hathaway?”
The butter knife slipped through my fingers and crashed onto my plate.
He went on. “Well, I suppose it hardly matters now.”
“Doesn’t it?” I asked, retrieving the knife and plunging it once more into the butter. It was easy to pretend it was Harry Spenlove’s heart, I thought darkly.
“The theft of the jewel is a family matter, not a criminal one, since Lady Hathaway certainly does not mean to bring charges,” he said evenly. “Whether he ever returns again or simply vanishes into the night with his diamond, he cannot be arrested unless Lady Hathaway insists. And that will clearly not happen. So,” he finished with a broad smile, “that means we have survived this little favor to Sir Hugo without being stabbed, abducted, shot, or otherwise assaulted. I shall consider that a victory.”
* * *
• • •
As soon as Stoker had prepared the thylacine, we made our good-byes and the household saw us off. Lady Hathaway and Anjali stood at her ladyship’s window, waving, while Mary brought her children to lisp an interminable farewell poem. Every time one of them forgot a line, she made them begin again until at last I could bear it no longer.