Page 90 of The Trick of the Treasure
“You’re alltellingher what she was going to do with the treasure,” she said. “Youtell us, Aunt.”
“Travel abroad,” Audrey said sadly. “Find somewhere quiet and beautiful to settle down and be happy where your father would never look for us… We would never have needed all that.” She waved one oddly disparaging hand at the bags full of treasure. “I was going to invest about three-quarters of it for you”—she lifted her gaze to her sister-in-law’s—“for you and the children, Christine. This time, so hemmed in with legalities and secrecy that Barnabas would not have been able to touch it.”
Some sort of communication passed between the two women then. Solomon doubted they had ever been friends, but they had lived together for a long time and they understood each other.
Mrs. Lloyd’s eyes fell first. “I’m sorry,” she muttered.
Sorry for what?Solomon’s skin, his very brain, seemed to be prickling. What was she sorry for? For misjudging Audrey? For her lack of kindness? Or for shooting Joshua Clarke to get her own hands on the treasure?
She could never have moved that sideboard alone. Had she still been looking when, early the next morning, Constance had blundered in and found Clarke’s body?
It could fit. But Constance was ahead of him.
“You told your husband,” she said to Mrs. Lloyd. “You knew about Audrey’s affair of the heart and you told your husband where Clarke lived.”
Chapter Nineteen
Mrs. Lloyd jumpedup, whirling away from gawping eyes so quickly that her skirts swayed like waves at sea. “I told him,” she whispered. “I told him I took your key to Clarke’s house from you.”
The silence was appalled.
Audrey said, “I had another. I had two cut because I am so forgetful.”
Everyone stared with varying degrees of incomprehension from Audrey’s calm figure to Christine’s back.
Except Ben Devine, who rose to his feet. “I really don’t see why I have been brought here to intrude on what is clearly a family matter, so with your permission, I shall take my leave.”
“No,” said Solomon. “You were brought here to eliminate certain possibilities. Just about everyone here had a motive to steal the treasure back from Clarke, and shoot him either in punishment for the theft or for daring to raise his eyes to Miss Lloyd. The only question is who knew Clarke lived in that house, and who could have been there around midnight on the night he died.”
“Miss Lloyd knew,” Constance said. “And apparently Mrs. Lloyd knew. Mr. Lloyd knew because his wife told him. Captain Tybalt did not know.”
“Neither did the children,” Audrey said quickly. “Christine would never have told them such a shameful thing.”
Mrs. Lloyd turned very slowly back to face the room, but her gaze avoided everyone.
“Very well,” Solomon said, though his brain still seemed to be running ahead like a series of photographs, examining and discarding images as he went. “Then let us consider who was out and about and who has an alibi for the time concerned. Mr. Lloyd, where were you at midnight last night?”
Lloyd’s gaze locked with his wife’s. Something was being conveyed, communicated…
But he turned quite suddenly on Solomon, his nostrils flaring with contempt. “You cannot seriously ask me that and expect an answer! You work for me!”
“Not anymore,” Solomon said mildly. “We were engaged to find your treasure—which we did—and then your sister, which we also did. Our agreement never extended to covering murder.”
“Your wife has just told us that you knew where Clarke lived,” Constance added. “So where were you last night around midnight?”
“In bed!”
“In my bed,” Mrs. Lloyd said hoarsely.
“Oh, for the love of…” Rachel began, bouncing to her feet. “Does no one tell the truth in this house, ever? He wasnotin your room! I and half the servants heard him snoring his head off in his own room!”
“And areyoutelling the truth?” Solomon asked. “Or covering for your parents?”
“Neither of them went out that night. I was awake and watching from my window. Papa came home before eleven and then went to bed. Mama did not go out at all.”
“Who did, Rachel?” Solomon asked quietly.
“We know Sydney did,” Constance said. “As did Mr. Devine.”
