“Probably another staff member, sound asleep and snoring.” He stepped over and carefully turned the handle, making no noise. “Locked,” he said with satisfaction. “Key is on this side, too.”
Adele eased open the top drawer of the bureau. It was empty. A ghost of lavender and herbs drifted upward.
Daniel bent and opened the other two drawers just enough to establish they were also empty.
Adele turned. There was little room between the bed and the bureau. She didn’t have to take a step forward to lift the bed cover and peer beneath.
Miss Ginny lay on the dusty floorboards beneath the bed, limbs outflung and folded enough to fit beneath the cover. Her eyes were open and unseeing.
Adele clapped her hand over her mouth as a tiny, breathless squeak tried to emerge and scuttled backward, cannoning into Daniel. He turned and caught her, keeping her on her feet.
“Oh, God, Daniel!” she breathed. “I think she’s dead!”
Daniel bent and peered, then dropped the cover back so it brushed the floor. He straightened, his expression stiff. “Yes, she’s dead, poor girl. She’s blue around the lips. I think someone strangled her.” The furrow between his brows deepened as he considered Adele. “This changes things,” he said slowly.
“Oh? You believe me now?”
“I believed you were up to something,” he replied. “Now I know that something is rather more dire than I gave you credit for.” He grimaced. “It seems to be my night for apologies.”
“You didn’t actually apologize,” she pointed out tartly. She looked around the room. “This room is right below the King’s. Perhaps that was why Ginny was murdered. They needed the room…”
“There’s nothing in it but her hairbrushes,” Daniel pointed out. “And Ginny, God rest her soul.”
“It wouldn’t be in the wardrobe,” Adele said, looking at the one big, enclosed space in the room. “She might have looked in there. But there is nowhere else.”
Daniel pointed upward. “People always try to hide things behind other things. Up above eye level is always overlooked.”
“Where did you learn to be so sneaky?” Adele looked up. “Is that a valise on top of the wardrobe?”
“What could be more natural than shoving an empty valise upon the top of the wardrobe to get it out of the way?” Daniel asked.
“Shoving it beneath the bed,” Adele said shortly. She hoisted her peignoir up and stepped up onto the bed, with mentally apologies to Ginny for disturbing her.
“You know I could just lower the case down, don’t you?”
“Not yet,” she said distantly. She balanced on the bed frame and examined the dusty top of the wardrobe. A small leather valise lay there, looking perfectly innocent.
Adele unbuckled the straps as Daniel hoisted himself onto the bedframe and clutched the wardrobe for balance.
She pulled the lid back.
White cotton lady’s underthings were revealed.
Daniel laughed at her expression. “What were you expecting?”
“A bomb,” Adele whispered. She reached for the garments.
“Oh, hey, the girl is dead!” Daniel whispered.
“And her garments are not folded neatly and that is just…wrong.” Carefully, Adele pinched the bastiste between her fingers and lifted it.
The bottom inch of the case was covered in dull red, round sticks with wires emerging from the end. The wires all ran together, disappearing beneath the linens.
Daniel gripped Adele’s wrist. “Let the clothes go,” he breathed. “That’s dynamite.”
Adele stared at the thing. “Can you tell when it will explode?” she breathed, as Daniel eased to the floor.
He reached up and plucked her from the bed frame and put her on her feet before him. “Not without pulling the clothes aside. I’ve only ever seen dynamite charges set once. I don’t know if we would set it off if we explore any further.”
“Then you can’t stop it?” Adele said. She chewed her lip. “I need Melville,” she decided and moved to the lamp and picked it up.
“Who?” Daniel pushed a hand through his hair, glancing at the top of the wardrobe. “Adele, we must leave and call the police, or the King’s guard or someone! There is a bomb!”
“I am calling someone,” Adele said, putting the lamp inside the dry washbowl. She put her hand between the lamp and the window. “Now hush a moment. I must concentrate.”
The message was a short one which Melville had prearranged with her and could be sent quickly. That didn’t stop Daniel from coming up beside her and gripping her left arm. “Adele, I mean it. Come on.” He tugged.
Adele pulled her arm from his grip and repeated the message one last time for good measure.
At the same time, from the corner of her eye, Adele saw the door between the two bedrooms open and the silhouette of a tall man outlined by the lamp in the other bedroom step through. He came up behind Daniel.
Daniel stiffened.
“Come away from the window, Lady Adelaide,” the man said.
Adele turned in the confined space between the now-open door and the washstand, for the three of them were crowded into the tiny area. “Baron Stroud!”
Peter Neville, the third Baron Stroud, held a silver gun up against the back of Daniel’s neck. The big fingers of his other hand gripped Daniel’s shoulder.
Daniel didn’t shift his head, for the gun was against it. But he did roll his eyes toward Adele. “Run.”
“No, I don’t think so,” Adele said. She remembered the heavy pistol in her evening reticule, back in her bedroom, with a touch of regret. Although, even if she’d had the pistol, she wasn’t certain what she could do when Stroud was pushing the barrel of his gun up against Daniel’s head. “I think Baron Stroud would shoot you before I got through the door.”
“I would,” Stroud
