Her voice was different—lighthearted, joyful, almost like a young girl in love for the first time. I ignored a prick of … it wasn’t jealousy this time. Was it fear? Of what?
“Tell me what’s going on with the investigation,” she said. “Any luck tracking down the húnpíng jar?”
“How much time do you have?”
“As much as you need, darling girl. James knows it’s you on the phone.”
I filled her in as well as I could while glossing over my encounter with the intruder at Hapthorn Lodge. I would tell her, just not at that moment, when she was so lighthearted. “The húnpíng is either on the Continent or in China by now,” I said. “We’ll never see it again anyway. As far as the murder is concerned, the police are focusing on the Australian nephew. He’s somewhere in England, and he’s the only one so far with a clear motive and opportunity. I’m wondering how he knew about the key bumping thing and jamming alarm signals.”
“Maybe he has a police record.”
“Maybe,” I said, remembering the frightened young man I’d encountered in Hapthorn Lodge. “The thing is, I can’t get the green maiden and the cottage by the river out of my head. I’m sure Tom thinks I’ve gone off the deep end, but I know Evelyn Villiers had a fascination with the legend. I keep asking myself why she had a photograph of River’s Edge Cottage over her bed if she blamed Colin Wardle for her husband’s death?”
“I’m not sure I follow you.”
“Colin’s mother in Dunmow Parva named her house River’s Edge Cottage, remember? And the photograph over Evelyn Villiers’s bed had ‘River’s Edge Cottage, 1912’ written on the back. Why would Evelyn want to be reminded of the man who caused her husband’s heart attack?”
“It could be a coincidence—two cottages named River’s Edge.”
“That’s not likely, is it?”
“Maybe you should try looking at things the other way around.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m talking about assumptions—not you in particular, Kate. We all do it. We construct a theory from the ground up, building logically on what we think we know. Every step in the argument rests on something that came before. But sometimes the logic collapses under its own weight, not because the conclusions we’ve drawn are faulty, but because the foundations on which they were built—the underlying assumptions we never questioned—are false. What if you worked backward, starting with the facts you’ve uncovered and tracing each one back to its underlying assumptions?”
“I think you’ve lost me.”
“Do you remember the diamond brooch I was asked to appraise a few years ago? The provenance was impeccable—and added greatly to the value because the brooch had once belonged to a famous German actress, a gift from her first husband, an Austrian arms dealer who supplied the Nazis with iron. The owner had bought the brooch at auction for a little over thirty thousand dollars and was hoping to sell it for twice that. He had everything—bills of sale, names, dates, photographs of the actress wearing the brooch. The white gold setting was marked eighteen carat and bore the patent of Schreiber & Hiller, the famous German jeweler of the 1930s. He even had the original pale blue silk presentation box. Only one thing was wrong. The stones weren’t diamonds. They were white sapphires—lovely to look at, but worth a fraction. In all the focus on provenance, the owners simply assumed the stones were diamonds and never questioned it. Of course, a gemologist would have spotted the sapphires at once.”
“So you’re saying I need to question the assumptions I’ve made—that we’ve all made—unwittingly. How do I do that if they’re unwitting?”
“I’m not saying you have made false assumptions. I am saying be aware of the possibility that you’ve gotten something wrong, something you took for granted and never questioned. For every statement you make, ask yourself, ‘Is that true? How do I know?’”
“Hmm.”
“Oh, sorry, darling—I will have to go. They’re ready to take off. Much love to you. Stick with it and question everything.”
As always, her advice was sound.
Timely, too, because tomorrow was the auction at Oakley’s Barn, and the assumptions everyone had made about the Oakleys might very well determine Lady Barbara’s future.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Tuesday, May 21
I had to hand it to them—Oakley’s had pulled out all the stops.
In spite of the rain, the tithe barn positively glittered. Bidders had arrived for the preview in droves, parking their BMWs and Range Rovers on the sodden gravel and dashing into the building under a sea of black umbrellas. Now, at nearly one PM, they waited for the auction to begin, wine spritzers or sparkling waters in hand. Runners stood ready to display the objects. A bank of phones and computers lined one wall, already connected to the overseas and online bidders.
Nigel Oakley was bursting with high spirits. “I have a good feeling about this, Lady Barbara.” He took her arm and escorted her to a chair near the rear of the bidding section. Vivian and I followed.
“I told you he’s top notch,” Vivian said, giving me a poke with her elbow.
“Let’s wait for the bidding, shall we?”
While Lady Barbara and Vivian chatted, I checked my phone. I’d texted Lucy first thing that morning to find out how her meeting with the solicitor went. She still hadn’t responded. “Excuse me for a moment,” I said and slipped away. I dialed the hotel.
A young man answered. “Premier Inn, Sudbury.”
“Could you ring Lucy Villiers’s room, please?”
After a moment, he said, “I’m sorry. We don’t have anyone by that name staying at the hotel.”
“How about Lacey Wardle?” I winced, knowing how that would sound.
“Miss Wardle isn’t in residence. She left her key
