The Baffling Burglaries of Bath

by Leighann Dobbs

The middle-aged man expanded his chest with such a large breath that Katherine braced herself for a blistering admonishment.

  She hurried to spill out her theory, to prevent him from aggravating her further. “Sir Hugh, for instance, seems in a desperate way, and he wasn’t in the pool today. Neither were Mr. and Mrs. Julien.” She didn’t want to consider them, being as they were such congenial folk. However, they obviously loved their grandson and would do anything to see to his comfort. They appeared to have fallen on hard times in so doing. She wanted to discount them immediately… but they had motive enough to steal the jewels.

  Mr. Salmon harrumphed. “I highly doubt it was either of those people. As you said, they weren’t at the baths.”

  “I said they weren’t in the baths. The thief must not have been, in order to have stolen the necklace.”

  The wrinkle in his forehead deepened as he shook his head. “No, indeed. If you ask me, it is much more likely that someone at the baths would have stolen the necklace. Any woman has reason to enter the dressing room.”

  “And where would they have hidden the jewels?” Katherine snapped. “We questioned them all.”

  “We didn’t look in their bags or their bosoms.”

  Her mouth gaped like a fish as she imagined the indignity of asking the women to strip once more in order for them to check them for jewels. Reticules were small drawstring bags hanging from the wrist. They could barely hold a few handkerchiefs without creating a noticeable bulge, let alone such a long string of pearls, made to wrap several times around the wearer’s neck. Katherine had looked and seen no such bulge in anyone’s reticule.

  Unable to formulate a response to the image of Mr. Salmon using a magnifying glass to peer down the bodices of all the old ladies, Katherine stood.

  “I imagine we’re done here,” he said cheerfully before he strode out the door and into the street.

  This time, Katherine didn’t stop him. Her head throbbed as she tried to recall everyone she had seen in the King’s Bath. Had she spoken with them all?

  Movement across the antechamber, from the door leading to the men’s dressing room, drew her eye. Wayland separated from the shadows, where he’d been leaning against the wall. He carried his jacket, thrown across one forearm. His wet hair curled around his ears and dripped onto his collar. His damp shirt clung to his torso, much the way the one he’d worn to bathe had.

  “How long have you been waiting there?” Katherine asked, her voice sharp.

  Wayland shrugged. “A few minutes. You seemed deep in conversation, and I didn’t want to disturb you.”

  She pulled a face. “You mean you didn’t want to subject yourself to that dolt’s company.”

  He smiled, a wide and welcoming expression that made the dimple in his chin deepen. “That, too.”

  “Coward,” she said, but an answering smile curved her lips.

  He fell into step with her as they strode toward the exit, donning his jacket on the way. “How goes the investigation?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Why should I share my leads?”

  His smile shrank as he cocked an eyebrow. “You still don’t trust me, I see.”

  “You’ll get no reward out of this. I don’t see why you’re still here.”

  On the threshold to the street, Wayland paused. He rubbed a hand across his mouth. “Not everything is about money, Katherine.”

  “Notoriety, then? I thought you weren’t interested in that, either.”

  “I’m not.”

  She released a long breath as she studied his face. He seemed earnest, but he must have another angle, something he would gain from solving this investigation. No matter the cost, she refused to let him steal her glory this time. This case was hers to solve, and hers alone.

  However, unlike Mr. Salmon, Wayland was a keen investigator. If he hadn’t been, her father would never have taken enough interest in his doings to label him a rival. Wayland might have insight into this investigation — or perhaps even clues that she hadn’t yet found.

  “What do you make of the investigation? Salmon doesn’t seem to have made any headway, for all that he seems thick as three in a bed with Lord Bath.”

  Wayland chuckled. “The marquess does seem quite enamored with him.”

  “But why?” Katherine pulled a face. “I’ve never met someone so inept! You should have heard the questions he asked the witnesses.” She shook her head as she added, “Not to mention, he refuses to consider the possibility that the culprit might not have been in attendance in the King’s Bath. They might have snuck in.”

  The captain mulled over the information before nodding shortly. He held the door for Katherine to exit into the late-afternoon air. A chill gathered around her, necessitating the need to wrap her arms around herself. Where had her pelisse disappeared to? Perhaps she’d left it in the dressing room. Or perhaps she’d handed it off to Pru when her charge had seemed overly flustered even once Mrs. Fairchild’s erroneous accusations had been straightened away. When Katherine had begun interviewing the witnesses, she’d sent Pru back to the hotel with Lyle for an escort.

  Stepping out onto the street on her heels, Wayland shut the door and offered his arm. “To the hotel, I presume?”

  When she shivered at the unseasonable nip in the air, he shucked his jacket and laid it around her shoulders. She held him off with a raised hand. “Don’t be ridiculous. Your shirt is damp. You’ll catch a chill.”

  “I’ll chance it.”

  His jacket, when he wrapped her in it, proved to be a bit damp as well, but warm from his body heat. He didn’t offer his arm again, which was just as well, for Katherine’s arms were crossed beneath the fabric, huddled for warmth. They strode briskly out of the square, toward the Sydney Hotel. With luck, they would reach it in less than ten minutes.

  Wayland asked, “Are you hungry? We could stop nearby for a Sally Lunn.”

  Katherine’s stomach had been grumbling throughout the interrogations, when the scent of food had drifted in now and again from the Pump Room. By now, the refreshments and social niceties would be over, and the people would have disbanded to return to their beds for an afternoon nap, or else engage in some other planned activity. Admittedly, Katherine usually preferred to spend Sunday afternoon with a good book, a game of chess, or an unsolved mystery.

  “Thank you, but I’ll eat at the hotel.”

  “I’ll join you. I didn’t want to miss the interviews, so I forwent attending the luncheon at the Pump Room. I’m feeling rather peckish.”

  He wasn’t a friend. In fact, given that Lord Bath was a friend of her father’s, she should be avoiding Wayland at all costs, lest reports of her association with him reach Papa’s ears. Why did he want to take tea with her, if not to gain the upper hand in some way?

  Frowning, she asked, “You were listening in the entire time?”

  “Far from it. Since you were situated closer to the women’s dressing room than the men’s, I barely heard a thing. If it will help, I’ll happily volunteer my services to provide a sounding board for what you’ve learned.”

  “You’ve yet to answer my last question.”

  “Of whether or not the thief could have snuck into the baths to steal the necklace? Are you referring to the cloaked figure or someone else?”

  Katherine’s knees weakened with relief. She hadn’t known how much she’d needed to hear someone else acknowledge the figure’s existence until that moment. Perhaps, subconsciously, she had worried that her mind had played tricks on her.

  “You saw them as well?”

  “This time, yes, but only out of the corner of my eye. I’m rather cross with myself for being so obtuse. By the time I turned to look, you were chasing them. You nearly fell into the pool and…” He looked away, examining the people traversing a cross street. “Suffice it to say that I was more concerned with your safety than with the lurking figure.”

  Katherine frowned. “Why? I can swim, even in a dress.” It wasn’t so different from swimming in a s
hift, to be honest.

  “Can you?” He glanced at her, curious. “I heard from Mrs. Fairchild that you were too terrified to get in because of a lack of ability.”

  Of course the spiteful woman would say such a thing. She must have entered the baths directly on Katherine’s heels and lingered in the corridor as Katherine argued with the attendant.

  “That was a convenient lie to give me an excuse to observe from outside the pool. I can swim quite well.”

  “Oh.”

  They fell silent, walking on a short ways.

  She asked, “Did you see where the figure went? I collided with Mr. Oliver, and when I looked up, the lurker had disappeared.”

  “I’m afraid I was paying more attention to you. The cloaked figure escaped my mind for a moment.”

  Katherine sighed. “At least you saw them this time.”

  “Yes,” he agreed with a grin. “Unlike at the Assembly Rooms. That, I’m certain, was no more than an excuse.”

  Was he flirting with her? He must be extraordinarily bored with Bath if he sought her out for diversion. She’d never thought him much of a rake, being as he pursued a mystery with as much single-minded focus as did she, but given that his first assumption when she’d pulled him into the corridor was an amorous one, perhaps she’d misjudged him.

  In any case, she had yet to find a way to defuse that rumor, and walking with his jacket around her shoulders wouldn’t help one bit. She shrugged out of the warm fabric and held it out to him, bracing herself against the chill air.

  “Thank you. I’ve warmed up sufficiently now.”

  He hesitated but took the jacket from her and donned it.

  “Do you think the cloaked figure might have managed to enter the women’s dressing room while everyone’s attention was upon us?”

  “It’s possible…” Wayland said, drawing out his words.

  She completed his thought aloud. “But you don’t think it likely.”

  “Unless they then removed the cloak and hat, no. It is far too conspicuous an outfit for no one to have remarked upon it.”

  Katherine sighed. She hugged herself for warmth, though their brisk pace kept all but her fingers cozy. “And yet no one seems to have seen the figure.”

  “No one?” He sounded incredulous.

  “Not that anyone cares to admit.”

  He grumbled several insults about the self-centered leanings of polite society but voiced none clearly, so Katherine didn’t deign to comment. Technically, she and her father were a part of said polite society, as was Captain Wayland. However, she often shared his sentiments. There was much more to life than what color dress was all the rage or whose jewels would go missing next.

  “These peahens have been flaunting their jewelry enough that it’s a miracle nothing has disappeared from the King or Queen’s Bath before now. Someone as conspicuous as the lurker feels more like an amateur to me than someone who has preyed on these unsuspecting fools for months, but perhaps I’m wrong.”

  “I might be inclined to agree, were we not the only two people” — and potentially Mrs. Fairchild — “to have seen the cloaked figure. Even Salmon hasn’t, though he claims otherwise. And he spent little time on the subject, so there might have been a few men or women who slipped past without being asked. You’d think he would want to unmask the lurker, given that they might very well be the thief.”

  “His avoidance of the subject might have been by design,” Wayland mused.

  She frowned. “You think he is being deliberately obtuse?”

  The fellow investigator shrugged. “It’s hard to say. If I didn’t think Salmon was too stupid to fashion such an elaborate scheme, I might be inclined to believe him the thief all along. It would be ingenious, to ingratiate himself to the marquess enough to install himself as the sole investigator in this matter. Were you discouraged to pursue your line of inquiry?”

  Reluctantly, Katherine answered, “Yes.” Though in her case, Lord Bath had seemed to think it impossible that she had a sharp enough mind to contribute.

  “I was, as well,” Wayland added.

  He had been? She worried her lower lip as she walked. Perhaps there was some merit to the idea of Mr. Salmon being the thief. He had been in town for long enough, hadn’t he? Several months for certain, though she’d have to verify the time when the Marquess of Bath had hired him. Granted, the thefts would have to have already begun at that point, creating a problem that Mr. Salmon alone could solve. He’d been accused of taking bribes from the thieves who slipped through his fingers in the past; perhaps it was a small leap to thievery.

  However, Katherine had already asked Mr. Salmon about his whereabouts. She shook her head. “He can’t have been the thief. He was in the Pump Room with Lord Bath at the time of the theft.” Or at the very least, at the time Mrs. Oliver had screamed. Katherine would confirm who had been present in the Pump Room with Lyle, who had been there working on his invention. He’d been reluctant to leave with Pru earlier, stating that he was making good progress on the apparatus; however, given that the Pump Room was soon to be flooded by the bacon-brained members of polite society, he had masked his disappointment and capitulated.

  “No, he wasn’t.”

  Lost in thought, Katherine started. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Salmon. He couldn’t have been with Lord Bath at the time of the theft. Or at the very least, not at the time Mrs. Oliver had screamed. I imagine there isn’t a very large window between the theft and when it was discovered.”

  “I imagine not,” Katherine agreed, though her mind was on how he could possibly know that Salmon wasn’t in the Pump Room when he said. Wayland had been in the pool. What wasn’t he telling her? “Bess, the attendant, gave an approximate time of when she left the women’s dressing room unattended, and it was no more than five minutes before Mrs. Oliver found her jewels stolen.”

  Wayland nodded, his expression resolute. “Then he couldn’t have been in the Pump Room with the marquess.”

  “Whyever not?”

  “I spotted Lord Bath driving past in his barouche mere seconds before you took chase of the cloaked figure and diverted me.”

  “You were certain it was the marquess inside?”

  Wayland gave her a contemptuous look. “It’s a barouche. Open to the air, ridiculous when we haven’t had a proper summer this year to begin with. Lord Bath was the sole occupant other than the driver. He’s impossible to miss with his cuffs flapping as he waves to his tenants, and I know it was his carriage because of the silver-embossed seal on the door.”

  “You were in the pool. How could you possibly have seen him?”

  “The rear of the King’s Bath is more window than wall, none of it glassed in. It faces an alley, but if you’re on the north side of the pool, you can see onto the street just south of the baths. Those windows are likely how your lurker gained entrance unnoticed.”

  Katherine wondered if all those patrons realized how easily they might be spied upon.

  However, if Wayland was telling the truth, then the Marquess of Bath couldn’t have been in the Pump Room at the time of Mrs. Oliver’s scream. He couldn’t have been rendered distraught enough to dispatch Mr. Salmon to apprehend the thief. Someone here was lying. Was it Mr. Salmon?

  Could he be the thief all along?

  Chapter Eight

  For what felt like the first time all summer, the sun deigned to peek through the clouds. Sydney Gardens Vauxhall teemed with gossiping women, most swarmed around Mrs. Oliver as she recounted, yet again, the tale of her missing necklace from yesterday. Katherine had gathered what information she could in the afternoon and evening, but none of it brought her any closer to finding the thief. She needed her friends’ input.

  If only it weren’t quite so crowded in the garden! Emma pulled at the leash, her tongue lolling as she tried to peek between the legs of the old ladies. Katherine kept a firm hand on the lead, lest the wily dog slip out of her collar and wreak havoc again. As she wrangled the animal pa
st the knot of women, the old gossips’ laments peppered the air.

  “Why would the thief take pearls? My diamond bracelet is worth ten times as much!”

  “Your bracelet? The ruby in my ring is the biggest in all of England!”

  “My earrings have been passed down ten generations!”

  Lady Dalhousie was the loudest of all. “That can’t possibly compare to the heritage of my necklace.” She draped her hand across the fall of jewels.

  Katherine wondered if she ever took it off.

  “Did you know, after it left Empress Joséphine’s possession, a notorious band of highwaymen nearly took possession of it? It was en route to Britain, to me, at the time. I’m sure you’ve heard of Alexandre Montereau and his band of thieves? They’re infamous in France…”

  Katherine doubted very much that such a band of thieves had ever come within sniffing distance of Lady Dalhousie’s jewels. She steered Emma away from the gossiping group and around a bend in the gravel walkway. The hedges soared above even her head, soon shutting out the sound. Katherine let out a relieved breath, mirrored by her three companions.

  Harriet held her hand out for the leash. “Will you let me walk her, my lady? It is my job.”

  Shaking her head, Katherine informed her, “I’d like your full attention on the matter at hand.”

  She sighed. “You’re the detective. And Miss Burwick and Lyle. What can you hope to gain from my insight?”

  “A fresh perspective.”

  Striding on Katherine’s far side with his hands clasped behind his back, Lyle interjected. “I’m happy to give my opinion, you know, but I fear I must be quick. I have an appointment with Sir David this morning. We’re comparing notes regarding our inventions.”

  “That’s wonderful.” Katherine covered a momentary sting of envy that Lyle had someone new with whom to spend his time. After all, that had been her design, to have him occupied in completing one of the inventions he lamented often that he had no time to puzzle out. That he was doing so alongside a likeminded friend should have been for the better. “How is your invention coming along?” she asked, genuinely invested in its success. Lyle’s inventions had helped many a detective apprehend a criminal.