Page 88 of The Trick of the Treasure
He had begun to doubt Lloyd as the murderer, but the man was certainly capable of uncontrollable temper. He had torn the house apart on first discovering the loss of his treasure, scaring everyone from family to kitchen maid.
“You have learned something new?” Lloyd flung at Solomon.
“A great deal,” Solomon returned, “though I think we should wait for the rest of your family before we discuss it.”
“Where did you find my sister?” Lloyd demanded. “With this—”
“We found her alone in a respectably run boarding house,” Solomon said curtly. “Beyond that, you may, of course, ask Miss Lloyd for clarification.”
Lloyd did not ask at that moment, possibly because all three of his children had entered the room, conferring and arguing together.
“Aunt Aud!” Rachel exclaimed, rushing over to her aunt, who this time did not repel the embrace. In fact, a tear stood out in her eye and she hastily wiped it away. Jemimah went to her other side and touched her shoulder. Sydney grinned and saluted her from where he stood next to his father.
Then he noticed Constance and definitely flushed, though whether with shame or outrage was hard to gauge. He glanced at Devine, raising his eyebrows. Devine merely shrugged.
“Can we get on with this?” Lloyd said impatiently. “I have appointments this morning.”
“We still await Mrs. Lloyd,” Solomon pointed out.
“What on earth can she have to say about any of this?” Lloyd demanded.
It came to Solomon only then how little they knew about Christine Lloyd, who appeared such the devoted wife, delivering up her dowry to her husband’s adventures, waving him off and welcoming him home with wifely happiness. Only she probably enjoyed herself more when he was away. She held dinner parties, called on friends, took her daughter into Society. Solomon suspected it was a much more relaxed household when its master was absent. Had this submissive worm had enough, like Audrey, and turned?
Did she know about her sister-in-law’s renewed liaison with Joshua Clarke? Had she been the one to guess who had stolen the treasure and gone looking on her own?
“Audrey, go and hurry her up,” Lloyd snapped. “She’ll be all morning otherwise. She probably doesn’t realize you are even home.”
“I’m not,” Audrey said. “I suggest you go yourself for greatest effect. Otherwise, there are servants to convey messages.”
Lloyd looked at her as though she had grown horns. Constance wore an expression of approval. The silence was tense.
Perhaps it was fortunate that Christine Lloyd sailed through the door at that point, saying, “Barnabas, what is all this about? Is Audrey…?” She caught sight of her sister-in-law and her eyebrows flew up. “I see you are. What on earth were you about? Do we not have enough to worry about?”
“Are you worried?” Had Audrey’s voice been less vague, she might have sounded surprised. As it was, she merely seemed to puzzle Christine, as she was already puzzling Lloyd.
“Sit down, my dear, sit down,” Lloyd said impatiently, as his wife began acknowledging her odd variety of visitors, who had all, apart from Audrey, stood up at her entrance. There followed something of a flurry as she chose her chair and everyone else sat down again too.
“Well?” she said.
Inspector Harris rose with one of the bags into which they had piled the treasure at Clarke’s house. Sergeant Flynn had brought another two, and Solomon the last. They set them all on the table near the center of the room, and Lloyd’s eyes widened with both hope and shock.
“You found it!” he exclaimed. “My treasure?”
He strode up to the table, almost ripping open the straps of the nearest bag and forcing it wide open. His breath caught and he began to smile.
“Thank God.” He dragged his gaze from the glittering contents of the bag and met Solomon’s watchful eyes. “Didyoufind it? Or the police?”
“Strictly speaking, Miss Lloyd found it, in my presence and that of Mrs. Silver and Captain Tybalt. Since it is connected to a murder, we have handed it over to Inspector Harris here.”
“Murder?” Lloyd said quickly. “You mean the carpenter’s murder? Then hedidtake it! I must say, I never thought he had it in him.”
“But then, you underestimate many people,” Audrey said. “He took it from under your nose, and we hid it together beneath the floorboards of his front parlor. You couldn’t even find it after you shot him and ransacked his house.”
“What?”
Lloyd clearly acted most of his life—the perfect and generous head of his family, the joker, the great adventurer and explorer. But Solomon could almost swear the bafflement in his eyes was genuine.
Lloyd’s gaze flickered from his sister to Solomon, then to the policemen who still stood by the treasure on the table. “You thinkIkilled Clarke?”
