The Baffling Burglaries of Bath

by Leighann Dobbs

  Pausing at a crossroads in the garden, he turned to face her. His collar was turned up against his neck, tickling the bottom of his clean-shaven jaw. The dimple in his chin winked in and out of sight as he confessed, “I’m hoping if I ask often enough, you’ll request my assistance. My protection or my expertise.”

  “You want me to be in your debt?” That didn’t make much sense. What could he hope to use that for in the future? She didn’t trust… that was to say, she shouldn’t trust him. She had been trusting him with far too much information as it was.

  He corrected her, his voice firm, “I want to help.”

  Why? It made no sense. He had to have an ulterior motive. Unlike Katherine, he didn’t solve crimes and bring criminals to justice because it was the right thing to do. He did it for payment, of which there was none in this instance.

  He had no motive to want to help her that she could discern. He couldn’t be trusted. He inevitably did what benefitted him in the end.

  If so, why had he given credit for the capture of the Pink-Ribbon Murderer to Lyle?

  She didn’t know what to think of Wayland.

  Seeming to sense her misgivings, Wayland sighed. “Give it some thought. I can be a useful ally. You know where to find me.”

  Without another word, he turned and strode toward the hotel. He didn’t look behind him.

  Katherine paused, leaning down to scratch Emma, who seemed dejected that their companion had left so suddenly. “We don’t need him,” Katherine whispered as she scratched Emma’s favorite spot on her back, right above her tail.

  Because her nose was starting to ache from the chill, she returned to the hotel and stashed Emma in the room with Harriet. Pru, she was informed, had already gone below to the festivities in the Long Hall. Katherine endured her maid’s disapproving look as she handed over her pelisse and announced her intention to join. In order to catch the thief, she had to be near the goods he intended to rob.

  By teatime, Katherine was blinded by the amount of jewelry everyone insisted on wearing. The sky had clouded over again, chasing everyone indoors by the lit hearths. Some chose to dance to the music played by the quartet; most chose to mingle around the perimeter of the room. Plainer than the Assembly Rooms, the Long Hall held its own sort of charm. It felt more like a country ball than an elaborate affair. This atmosphere seemed to seep into the bones of those gathered. Once, Katherine even spotted Lady Dalhousie dancing, though the woman put a swift end to that when she stumbled over her hem and the proclamations of doom resumed.

  Katherine strolled past a table nestled in the corner. Pru was at its center, though there wasn’t a card to be seen. The men had proclaimed the day too risky to gamble. Katherine shook her head at the reminder that the men of Bath could be every bit as silly and superstitious as the women. Despite the lack of entertainment, the men seemed content to hold a rousing conversation, passing a flask between them. Sitting next to Prince Karl, Miss Newcomb accepted it from him and raised it to her lips. She coughed and spluttered, her eyes watering as she passed it along.

  Poor girl. Katherine winced in sympathy. She must be trying to emulate Pru’s success with the men and failing miserably. If Pru was correct, doing so wasn’t even the way to earn the prince’s affections. He seemed immune to the calf eyes cast his way by the debutante. She might have been his shadow, for all the reaction he gave her. Although Katherine didn’t know her, she did feel sorry for the girl, as she seemed particularly dejected the longer Prince Karl interacted with people other than her.

  Knowing that Mrs. Fairchild couldn’t be far — even though Katherine doubted she would condone the consumption of spirits had she been watching closely — Katherine vacated the area quickly. Unfortunately, that left her at the mercy of another matchmaking-minded woman.

  “Lady Katherine, over here!”

  The length of the Long Hall likely could hear Grandma Bath’s shout. Pasting on a smile, Katherine strode toward the table where the old lady rested. The crowd parted for her, whispering as she walked past. Katherine almost wished there would be a theft, so that she would no longer be the spectacle.

  Grandma Bath sat at a table with her grandson, which came as no surprise to Katherine. She was, however, astonished by the third person seated among them. What business could Mr. Salmon have with Grandma Bath?

  As Katherine approached the table, the old lady kicked out the fourth chair. “Come, sit and take tea with us. I’ve seen you bobbing around the hall since I arrived. You must be famished.”

  Katherine was a bit peckish but had decided that her duty to find the thief came first. However, she couldn’t deny the old woman’s request, especially when the marquess turned to her with a smile.

  He stood, taking her hand. “Yes, Lady Katherine, please do join us. It would be our pleasure.”

  He settled her into the chair before resuming his own. Mr. Salmon had also stood at her approach and waited for his employer to sit before he did as well.

  At Grandma Bath’s behest, Katherine helped herself to the cold meats, cheese, and bread on the tray at the table. The old woman turned over a spare teacup and filled it from the teapot at the table. Katherine took a bite of her collation, suspicious. Had Grandma Bath prepared to snag her?

  “Ernest has just been saying how he enjoyed your dance the other day.”

  Katherine highly doubted he had mentioned any such thing, but the marquess was nothing if not polite. He agreed with his grandmother and added his profuse hope to repeat the experience in the future.

  “I’m not much of a dancer,” Katherine answered, hoping to quell the subject.

  “Practice will help with that,” Grandma Bath said with a wink as she nudged Katherine with her elbow.

  Katherine didn’t care to practice her dancing. All she wanted, at this point, was to find the Burglar of Bath and retreat from Grandma Bath’s matchmaking efforts. She had been in town nearly a week! Shouldn’t she have more to show for her efforts?

  “Perhaps another time,” Katherine mumbled.

  “Have you seen Prior Park? Ernest loves the gardens. I’m certain he’d be willing to show you.”

  Unless the park also included a hidden cache of stolen gems, Katherine wasn’t much interested. “Thank you,” she said, looking from one to the other. “But that shouldn’t be necessary. Bath has kept me well entertained thus far.”

  “I hear there are more thieves on the loose,” Grandma Bath said in disgust. “And near here, too! Three of them, lurking up on Sydney Place, so says the old watch.”

  Oh dear. Katherine was fairly certain that those thieves were she, Lyle, and Wayland. How close a look had the patrol gotten to them?

  Not close enough to identify her, that much seemed true, given the look of worry that spawned on Lord Bath’s face. He leaned closer to her, lowering his voice. “My dear, are you certain you wouldn’t consider accepting a room in my manor? Your father wouldn’t forgive me if something should happen to you. Your friends are welcome as well, of course.”

  Given the smug look on Grandma Bath’s face, that was precisely what she wanted to happen. She would trap Katherine and her grandson into marriage by the end of the week.

  Katherine smiled tightly. “Thank you for the offer, but—”

  Her words halted, halfway out her throat, as a scream split the air. The quartet stopped with a screech. For a moment, the room was dead silent. Then chaos erupted.

  Katherine bolted between the panicking women, who clutched at the jewels adorning their throats and ears as if the Burglar of Bath would manifest from thin air and rob them blind in the middle of the crowded hall. The men turned in circles as if searching for a ghost. Katherine made it to the staircase, where the scream seemed to have emanated. As she searched for the source, she turned to find Lord Bath and Mr. Salmon on her heels.

  “Thief! It’s the thief! Somebody help!”

  The woman’s shrill voice emanated from the rooms above stairs. The Marquess of Bath looked horrified. “It can’
t be.” He exchanged a worried look with Mr. Salmon, who looked grim. Katherine didn’t have time to indulge her shock, not if she wanted to find the thief! She hiked her skirt to her knees and dashed up the steps as quickly as she could manage.

  In the corridor, which ended at Lady Dalhousie’s open door, she found the old woman on the floor by her bed, a bleeding gash on her forehead and a curious-looking statue on the floor next to her as she groaned. Her maid, with Harriet by her side, trying to comfort her, looked ready to swoon. Her eyes were huge, and her hands shook.

  “He came in and hit milady over the head before he took her jewels! Then he ran out.”

  “Where?” Katherine asked, ready to run. She might still be able to catch the thief!

  “D-Down the stairs next door.”

  Lord Bath looked grim. “He didn’t enter the Long Hall. We arrived from there.”

  “He must have gone down to the gardens,” Katherine snapped, turning away from the scene.

  Harriet abandoned the shaken maid and gripped Katherine’s arm in both hands. “Don’t go, my lady! Not today.”

  Katherine shook her off. “I have to.”

  This might be the lucky break she needed in the investigation.

  As she brushed between the two men, into the corridor, Mr. Salmon drew himself up. He looked every bit as shocked as the maid to find Lady Dalhousie thus attacked. In fact, Lord Bath looked ready to lose his lunch as he rushed forward to help the old lady. The burglar had never harmed any of his victims before.

  “Don’t touch anything,” Mr. Salmon ordered. “I must examine the scene precisely as the thief left it.”

  For once, he made a sensible choice.

  Katherine barreled down the steps, nearly tripping over her hem before she pulled it higher. Her heart thundered as she pursued the thief into the cool afternoon air. Where was he? Katherine spotted no cloaked figure, but unless he had gone around the side of the hotel to the front — in which case she would never catch him — there was only one path he could have taken, into the gardens proper. She raced along the gravel walk, the hedges soaring high to enclose her. Where would the thief have gone?

  At the bend in the path, she turned the corner and stopped abruptly as she nearly collided with Mr. and Mrs. Julien. Katherine lost her footing and fell, scraping her arms against the pebbles. Mrs. Julien straightened, her eyes wide.

  “Lady Katherine! Goodness me, are you all right?”

  Her hands and arms stung from her fall. The cold air raised gooseflesh on her exposed skin. She accepted Mrs. Julien’s help to stand. “Did you see anyone run past?”

  “No…”

  Tarnation!

  “Why do you ask?”

  “There’s been another robbery,” Katherine answered absently. She turned, searching for any sign of the thief, then frowned. The couple was barely dressed for the weather, their outer clothes unbuttoned as they puttered around the garden on a day deemed too dismal by the guests to go out. “Why are you out here?”

  “Oh, we wanted to see if the flowers had survived the early frost last night.”

  If Katherine would hazard a guess, she would say they had not.

  “And you saw no one?”

  Mr. Julien shook his head. “Sorry to say, we were much too engrossed by the plants. We didn’t think to look for anyone out here with us.”

  The thief must have gone around the front of the building, after all. Tightly, Katherine thanked Mr. and Mrs. Julien and turned to head inside. Had she just been lied to again by the elderly couple? Could Mrs. Julien have run so fast as to vacate Lady Dalhousie’s room and reach the gardens without being seen? No, wait — Lady Dalhousie’s maid had referred to the thief as a he. Had the young woman seen his face and identified him?

  Katherine’s list of suspects was a small one. Mr. Salmon had been with her at the time of this theft. As much as she would have liked to prove he was the thief, it wasn’t possible. Where had Sir Hugh been at the time of the theft?

  Taking the stairs two at a time, Katherine hurried up the narrow staircase to Lady Dalhousie’s room. She had gathered a crowd, Wayland among them. Katherine ignored him as she slipped past, into the room. Lady Dalhousie’s maid was still being comforted by Harriet. Katherine stopped beside her.

  “I know this is a difficult time, but I must ask you some questions. Do you think you would be able to answer them?”

  The maid nodded stiffly. “Anything, if it will help.”

  “Did you see the man who hit your employer? Did you recognize him?”

  “I’m sorry.” The maid glanced down. “I was down the hall. I ran at milady’s scream, but I only saw the back of him as he ducked down the stairs.”

  Across the room, where Lord Bath had now helped the old woman onto the edge of the bed, Mr. Salmon asked brusquely, “Did you see who attacked you? Was he wearing a cloak?”

  “A cloak,” the maid exclaimed. “Yes!”

  Lady Dalhousie, pressing her hands to her pale cheeks, took over the tale. “I didn’t catch a close enough glimpse of him to see his face, but I certainly saw that cloak. It was unmistakable. Black with thread-of-gold embroidery along the edges, wide enough to billow around him like wings when he swung the sculpture at me.”

  That was nothing at all like the cloaked figure Katherine had seen, but given Lady Dalhousie’s penchant for embellishment, it still might have been the same person.

  “You’re certain?” Mr. Salmon asked, dubious. “Could you have misplaced your necklace? Perhaps you’re feeling disoriented from your fall.”

  Katherine gaped, unable to believe her ears. Had Mr. Salmon just insinuated that a woman with a gash on her temple had merely misplaced her gems?

  “He snatched them right from my neck, you imbecile! I did not forget them.”

  Considering that the woman wore her necklace even in the King’s Bath, Katherine had every confidence that the woman slept with them at night. They were never away from her person.

  Yet the Marquess of Bath didn’t seem at all convinced, either. “This cloaked figure struck you with the sculpture and absconded with your jewels, you say?”

  Lady Dalhousie drew herself up. “Exactly so.”

  “And you saw him approach enough to recall his cloak but no other detail.”

  “Yes.” She paused, frowning. “He swooped in from behind me, and I was hit before I knew it. I am not lying! I was robbed!”

  “I can see that, Lady Dalhousie,” Lord Bath said. He held out his hands, cuffs flapping, to placate her. “But you must admit it is out of character for this thief. He has never before attacked someone.”

  “He must have wanted my jewels desperately! I never take them off, so he had no other opportunity. I cannot believe you are treating me thusly after I’ve been robbed in your town!”

  As Lord Bath tried to placate her in a calm, cajoling voice, Grandma Bath elbowed her way into the room. “Quite right! I’ve had enough of this nonsense. Ernest, we must hire someone to find this thief at once! I can’t have him harming people in my town.”

  “Grandmama, you should have waited below.” Lord Bath abandoned the injured woman in order to help his grandmother to the chair by the writing desk. He tried to convince her to sit, to no avail.

  “I am not here to rest my legs. I am here to seek answers!”

  The air rang with the force of the old woman’s conviction. Even the gossips outside the door quieted.

  With a nod of determination, Grandma Bath continued, “Ernest, this must stop. Let’s offer a reward—”

  “No reward,” he answered, his voice firm. “I have hired Mr. Salmon to find the thief, and he will do that very thing, won’t you, sir?”

  “Yes, my lord.” Mr. Salmon squared his shoulders, looking inordinately proud for a man who had never successfully caught a thief in his life. “Posthaste, I assure you!”

  Katherine stepped forward. “Lord Bath, I think it might be prudent if Mr. Murphy examined the sculpture with which Lady Dalhousie was struck.
He is one of Sir John’s Men, experienced in such matters, and will handle it with discretion. Not to mention, his invention—”

  “Oh!” Grandma Bath exclaimed. “His invention! Why didn’t I think of that? Yes, Mr. Murphy must take a look at the sculpture at once.”

  Katherine removed a handkerchief from her reticule before she approached the artifact. Although she expected it to be a fixture of the hotel or perhaps something Lady Dalhousie had brought from home, the sturdy six-inch-tall statue of a woman appeared far older. Time had worn away the features of the woman. Earth, reddish clay like that found near Mrs. Quicke’s townhouse, still resided in some of the cracks of the statue. Where had it come from? Had the thief brought it? Striking Lady Dalhousie seemed more a crime of opportunity than of forethought.

  Unfortunately, the woman had dissolved into a fit of vapors, pouring out every sordid embellished detail of how she was attacked for everyone to hear. Mostly, lamenting loudly how this theft was far more devastating than Mrs. Oliver’s because she had been harmed, whereas Mrs. Oliver had not. None of it was useful, and she didn’t seem fit for questioning again that night. Katherine would have to speak with her again in the morning.

  While Grandma Bath sent for Lyle, Katherine took advantage of everyone’s preoccupation to sneak down to the gardens once more. Although she couldn’t be certain which direction the thief had taken, he had certainly emerged from this stairwell. She examined the area immediately nearby for any clue she might use to identify the thief.

  She found a large button in the shape of a flower. Frowning, she picked it up off the ground. Where had she seen it before?

  Pru’s hideous dress! But Pru had been at the table with the other men during the time of the theft… hadn’t she? Confound it, Katherine’s back had been turned while she was with Lord Bath and his grandmother. Pru couldn’t have committed the other thefts, not being in Bath at that time. But this one was different…

  No, Katherine was being fanciful. Pru didn’t have time to become a thief. She was too preoccupied with her courtship — or lack thereof — with Lord Annandale. However, if she’d come outside for some air, she might have seen the thief as he ran away. Katherine slipped the button into her reticule until such a time as she could show it to Pru.