I was eager to call on Mr. Folyot, and said, “I shan't take up more of your time, Mrs. Sangster. Thank you very much."

"Sorry I could not help you, Miss…?"

"Smith. Miss Smith,” I replied, and escaped.

I could not like to give my own name. Smith, the most common name in the country, popped out without thinking. Smith or Jones are the usual aliases. I thought of Mr. Jones, and wondered, was that also an alias?

I had Rafferty drive by the house Weylin had been coming out of. It was only a cottage, but a pretty one in the Tudor style, with plaster and half timber on the top floor, and brickwork below. There was a for sale sign posted. The windows were boarded up. I pulled the check string, and Rafferty drew to a stop. I peered out at overgrown grass. Well-tended roses along the border of the walk spoke of recent habitation.

While I was looking from the carriage window, a man came walking along and turned in at the house. The stuffed shoulders and pinched waist of his jacket indicated a lack of gentility. He wore his hat at a cocky angle, and had the strut of a man who thinks well of himself. He was actually holding a brass key in his hand. Mr. Folyot! I leapt out and accosted him.

"Are you the agent for this house?” I asked.

A pair of sharp, green eyes smiled at me. “That I am, madam. Are you on the lookout for a cottage hereabouts?"

"Indeed I am. Could I have a look at the inside?"

"Why not? I am about to go in and have a look around myself. You will find it a nice, snug place. The present owner had it done up over five years ago."

He unlocked the door and stepped into a perfectly dark house. “I shall just light a few lamps. I had the windows boarded up to prevent vandalism,” he explained.

When the lamps were lit, I peered around at an elegant hallway, still very dark due to the wood paneling. He led me through the saloon and dining room and library, pointing out the desirable features of the house. I had to take his word for it that the furnishings, included in the sale price, were of the quality he described, for I could scarcely see them in the gloom. My real interest was not in the house or furnishings, but anything that might suggest my uncle had been here.

After touring below, we went upstairs. All personal items had been removed. There was nothing to indicate habitation by Lady Margaret or anyone else. The dresser tops were bare, the clothespresses empty. The mysterious “nephew” must have tidied up. “Very nice,” I said to Folyot from time to time.

"Mind you don't delay too long if you're interested in buying, Miss Smith.” I was still, or again, Miss Smith. “I have another fellow coming to look at the house this very afternoon, which is why you found me here. Ah! That will be Mr. Welland now,” he said, when the door knocker sounded. He hastened along to the front door.

I had a horrible premonition who Mr. Welland would be. And indeed it was none other than Lord Weylin. It would be hard to say which of us was more shocked and embarrassed. We exchanged a long, silent look as Mr. Folyot introduced us.

"How do you do, Miss Smith,” Lord Weylin said in perfectly wooden accents.

"Good day, Mr. Welland,” I replied, and dashed out the door, with Folyot hollering after me that he would be happy to have the boards taken down to give me a better look, if I thought the house would suit me.

"Thank you. I shall let you know,” I said, and ran to the carriage. “Spring ‘em,” I called to Rafferty.

"Back to the hotel, Miss Barron?"

"Yes, as fast as you can go."

The whip snapped, and I was tossed around the seat like a pig in a poke all the way to Tunbridge Wells.

Chapter Twelve

In the depths of my embarrassment, the only thing I could think of was running away and hiding. Mama would have to sell Hernefield and move back to Ireland, where we would never have to face Lord Weylin again. He knew my uncle was a thief, that he had stolen Lady Margaret's necklace and a great deal more. When I emptied my budget to Mama back at the hotel, she was no more optimistic than myself, but more curious.

"What on earth was Lady Margaret doing at Lindfield?” she kept asking. “And with a young fellow, you say?"

"A Mr. Jones. She was calling herself Mrs. Langtree. Barry must have tumbled to it that she was up to something, and been holding her to ransom. As his thievery was never reported, at least to our knowledge, it stands to reason he was not only a thief, but worse. He ferreted out his victims’ secrets and made them pay him to keep mum. I daresay Mr. Jones was the secret."

"Do you think he was Lady Margaret's… paramour?” she said, blurting the last word out in an explosion of distaste.

A little smile seized my lips at having found some disrepute in Weylin's family to dilute the shame of my own. “Mrs. Sangster did say Mrs. Langtree was ever so fond of Mr. Jones. The name sounds like an alias."

"And she left him the cottage as well. She would not do that for no reason. The old fool took a lover half her age. Well, there is no accounting for taste."

"That was certainly foolish, but it is not indictable. We are in the worse pickle, Mama. What should we do?"

"Go home."

I wanted to, but that was a craven impulse. “If we could find Barry's money, we could pay Weylin for the necklace without mortgaging Hernefield. We must stay and try to find where he lived. Bradford said he had a cottage near Ashdown Forest. There are dozens of little villages tucked away there."

"I wager Steptoe knows more than he is telling,” Mama said. “I think it is time to bargain with him, Zoie. Oh, did I tell you he is here, in Tunbridge? I spotted him on the Pantiles this afternoon. I tried to follow him, but he moved like greased lightning. I think he was looking for us, for he popped into half a dozen hotels, and right back out again."

"He did not see you, then?"

"No, but he probably knows by now where we are staying."

"Then we have only to sit tight and he will call."

At that precise moment, a sharp rap came at our door. We both jumped an inch from our seats. I rose and strode to the door, wearing my sternest face to frighten Steptoe, flung the door open, and found myself staring at Lord Weylin.

"May I come in?” he asked, and walked past me into the room, before I had the wits to bar the door.

"Oh, you are still here, Lord Weylin,” Mama said. Her face was cherry red with shame.

"Did your daughter not tell you we met at Lindfield?” he replied mildly.

There was something very much amiss with this visit. Weylin should have come in like a lion, snarling and gnashing his teeth. His manner had a definite aroma of the sheep.

"Pray be seated, milord,” I said, but as I looked about the room, it became clear that if he took the other chair, I must either stand or stretch myself out on the bed.

"I came to invite you ladies to join me for tea, as we have all decided to remain another day and continue looking for our shameless relatives. Not that I mean to cast aspersions on Mr. McShane's character,” he added hastily.

This became stranger by the moment. “Mama?” I said.

"I could do with a cup of tea,” she replied.

Weylin accompanied us to the same parlor as before, leaving no opportunity for private discussion between Mama and myself, but mother and daughter do not necessarily require words to communicate. We both realized that Weylin was on the hot seat, and were on nettles to discover why.

He ordered a lavish tea, with enough sandwiches and sweets to feed a parish. He could not have been more attentive to our comfort if we had been a pair of duchesses. Chairs were drawn, and discarded due to an imaginary draft. Shawls were arranged, and at one point he even suggested we remove to a larger parlor. During these ludicrous goings-on, he kept flashing quick looks at me, as if to see whether I meant to attack him.

When he tried to change my chair for the second time, my curiosity could endure no more. “For God's sake, Weylin, what have you discovered?” I demanded. It was the first time I had dispensed with his title when speaking to him. I felt a little forward, but if he noticed, he was too shaken to show it.

His brows rose in a question. “Why, exactly what you discovered yourself, I should think. My foolish aunt had taken herself a young lover, and handed her diamond necklace over to him. Not only her necklace, but whatever monies she had. You are not privy to all the details of her will, ladies. The fact is, Macintosh left her a hefty fortune, which I understood was destined for myself. At her death, it was completely gone. Vanished-along with the necklace."

Mama and I executed one of those tacit communications. I nodded my consent, and she said, “We were wondering if Mr. Jones might be her paramour.” Mama disliked to use the word “lover,” but I think “paramour” was no better. It has a shady sound to it.

"I do not see what else he could be.” Weylin scowled. “The postmistress was quite forthcoming about how fond she was of the fellow. Buying him a gig and watches and I don't know what all. I am sorry I implied your uncle was involved in the theft of the necklace-but it is odd he ended up with the copy."

"What led you to Lindfield, Lord Weylin?” I asked.

"I assume it is the same thing that led you there. I noted your question, at lunch, as to whether I had visited any jewelry shops. I also noticed you did not believe me when I told a bald lie. I hope you can forgive me. It is extremely distasteful to admit one's aunt was such a fool, and a lecher, too, at her age. I hoped to keep it from you. I learned in Krupps Jewelry Shop that my aunt had sold her necklace. I told the jeweler my cousin had married, and I was unaware of her married name, but he recognized your sketch, Miss Barron. She used the name Mrs. Langtree. The address she gave was Lindfield. The postmistress there directed me to the house."

I wondered at her selling the necklace herself, and soon figured out that Barry had demanded cash, which occasioned the sale.

"Perhaps you are too hard on her, milord,” Mama said. “She might have married Jones, for all we know to the contrary."

"That is hardly an improvement, in my opinion!” he said.

We sat with our tongues between our teeth, not revealing by so much as a blink that we were already aware of this story, and certainly not intimating that Barry had been up to tricks of his own. But we were keenly aware of it, and it was this that softened our condemnation of Lady Margaret. She may have been a fool, but at least she was not a thief.

"There is really nothing to keep me in Tunbridge Wells now,” Weylin said. “I got the address of Jones's man of business from Folyot, the estate agent at Lindfield. I mean to find out Jones's address and call on him in London to rattle a few sabers. If he actually married my aunt, of course, there is little that can be done to recover her fortune, but if he was only her lover… well, her will left her entire estate to me."

"Then how did Jones get his hands on it?” I asked. “Mrs. Sangster said Mr. Jones had inherited the house."

"Yes, from Mrs. Langtree,” Weylin pointed out, with a tight smile. “She was not Mrs. Langtree, but Lady Margaret Macintosh. Any lawyer worth his salt could undo such a will with one hand behind his back. Much depends on what sort of fellow Jones is. If he is an out-and-out rotter-and really I do not see how he can be anything else-then I shall set the law after him. When a fellow in his twenties marries a lady nudging sixty, you may be sure it is not her beaux yeux he is after."

"He was passing as her nephew,” I said. “Is there such a relative in the family, even one with a different name?"

"No. I thought of that, of course. There is no nephew except myself. There is her stepson, Macintosh's son by his first wife, but he is a carrot top. No one ever accused him of being handsome, and besides, he has his estate in Scotland. He has not been dashing off to Lindfield four times a year for the past five years. Old Macintosh had no nephews. No, it is some scoundrel who preyed on Aunt Margaret's susceptibility for romance. She was always a fool for a handsome young man. But enough of my problems,” Weylin said. “You have not had any luck in following Mr. McShane's trail, I take it?"

"No. No, we have not,” Mama said warily.

Weylin said, “I spotted Steptoe as I drove into the yard. As he was leaving this hotel, I assumed he had called on you."

"He was here?” I asked, starting up from my chair.

Mama clutched her heart. “It is odd he did not call on us,” she said. “I wager we shall hear from him e'er long."