“Something much larger than a robbery gone wrong,” Adele said. “Quickly, Mr. Slane…did your brother ever tell you about the work he did for the British Government? Was he on any committees? Directing working groups? Something rather hush that he swore you must never speak of?”
Instead of answering her, Slane grabbed another document and read it. “Theadore Krantz…” He tossed the sheet back in the drawer. “Eilish wouldn’t speak of such things. He nearly did, once, when he was relaxed. Then he remembered who I was and that we stood on opposite sides…”
Adele picked up the documents, refolded them and pushed them into her reticule. Then she opened the next door and paused, her breath catching. Laying upon all the men’s underthings was a large knife with a sharp edge.
“We really did catch him by surprise,” Slane said, his tone bitter.
“Don’t touch the knife,” she said. “We’ll leave that for the police when they get here.” She carefully lifted and probed beneath the white linen and felt the hard edges of an object.
She withdrew the little book and leafed through the pages, with Slane looking over her shoulder. The pages were filled with letters and numbers, most of them in long columns.
“What is this? I can’t make sense of it at all,” Slane breathed.
“I can,” Adele said. “This is a code book And look, that is the German see.” She pointed at the ß.”
Slane’s gaze swung back to her. “German agents killed my brother?”
She pushed the code book into her reticule. “I believe they may have, yes. The five hundred pounds would not have silenced them. Only His Majesty’s secrets would have satisfied them.”
Slane hung his head. “God…!” he breathed.
She heard a whistle, far off down the street. “We’re out of time.” She quickly searched the third drawer and found nothing more. She peered in the wardrobe, then reached up to pat the top of it, bent and peered under the bed. “I’ve got everything,” she decided. “Now we must avoid the Garda.”
Slane roused from his thoughts. “Hm?”
She pointed at the floor. “The Garda are about to come through that door, Mr. Slane. It won’t serve your brother or the King to have Adrian Cranston’s false or true nature revealed.”
Slane looked ill. “No, it won’t,” he admitted.
“I can make all this go away,” she added.
He studied her and she could see the hope in his eyes, mixed with puzzlement. “You…can make this go away? You?”
“I can,” she said with a great deal more firmness than she felt. “But not if I am found here by the Garda. Or you, come to that. And I believe the front door is the only door out of this house.”
“But there are windows.” He picked up her hand. “Come.”
As he led her to the same window Cranston had used and helped her through it to cling to the drainpipe next to it, she murmured, “I believe there is great deal more mischief in your past than any college professor has a right to claim, Mr. Slane.”
“Assistant summer professor, Lady Adelaide. Now, let yourself slide a bit at a time. Go on.”
She let herself slide to the bottom.
THE FOOTMAN HELD THE NARROW door aside for her and Adele slipped into the room that was both office and bedroom. Pureton looked up from the desk and frowned. “I am afraid that this is not a good time, Lady Adelaide. Please excuse me.”
“If this is about the robber found in Mountjoy this morning by the Garda, I can save you both time and a great deal of worry, Sir Godfrey.”
He looked up sharply, his brow wrinkling. “By God, you were there…? Why did you not present yourself to the Garda? Declare your interests? The Chief Inspector is beside himself trying to sort this out…”
“I left a large, ugly knife for him to find. What else must he know? It was the murder weapon, was it not?”
“The Garda surgeon says it is, yes.” He sat back, his hand upon the pages he had been writing upon. “What else did you discover?” His tone was silky smooth.
Adele squeezed her parasol handle. “You knew about Eilish Slane, didn’t you? That is why you did everything you could to make it look like a robbery. You didn’t want anyone looking closely into the matter.”
He didn’t move. Instead, he just sighed.
“The knife was not the only thing I found,” Adele added.
Pureton stiffened.
“Oh, I have the other items safely hidden,” she added and watched him relax. “I will present them to Melville. He will find them very interesting.”
Pureton brought his hands together and squeezed. “It was that sort of business?” He looked aghast and ill at the same time.
“It was,” she said. “It was fortunate I continued to turn over stones and look beneath them, instead of reburying them.”
“But you let the man get away,” Pureton added. “The King is very upset about Slane’s death. He wants the murderer found.”
“And you can assure Edward that we will find him.”
Pureton laughed. “If the man is who you imply he is, he will be long gone by now. If you had only arrived here with this information sooner…”
“I assure you it will be an easy matter to find him once more. Ask Chief Inspector McDermott to have his Garda check the hospitals, surgeries and doctors offices in the Mountjoy area. Look for a man who has been shot in the right calf. You’ll know you have your man when you find him. And with the knife among his clothes, he can be charged with murder.”
Pureton got to his feet. “If this is true, you must excuse me. I now have a dozen other different matters to deal with.”
“Of course,” Adele said. “I have a book to read, anyway.”
She hurried out of the room, and down the long corridor and the narrow stairs to the level beneath this one, to the room she had been assigned at Holyhead. She swept past the room and turned into the little privy room, shut the
