The Peculiar Case of Lord Finsbury's Diamonds: A Casebook of Barnaby Adair Short Novel (The Casebook of Barnaby Adair) by Stephanie Laurens Page B

“They would have had to have had knowledge of the foot-trap—where to find it, how to set it. And where to find the hoop-hammer.”
     “You said she.” Griselda met Stokes’s gaze. “Could a woman have set the trap?”
     Penelope looked at Barnaby. “Describe it.”
     Barnaby did.
     Penelope grimaced. “It sounds like a typical gamekeeper’s trap. Any lady or woman raised in the country would know how to set one, at least in theory. And if you know the knack of it, it doesn’t take that much strength. Even an older woman like Agnes could have set it.”
     “True.” Barnaby inclined his head. “But as to where it was, Stokes is right. Finsbury Court lies on what is now the outskirts of town. There’s not a lot of game about and Lord Finsbury doesn’t have a gamekeeper, although in decades past, he no doubt did. So it’s unlikely the trap was simply lying around, waiting to be used, and, in fact, it looked rather rusty and definitely old.”
     Stokes was nodding and scribbling in his notebook. Closing it, he looked up. “We’d better go. I’m due at the Old Bailey tomorrow over another case, so we won’t be able to get back to Finsbury Court until the day after.”
     Barnaby shrugged. “I’ll use tomorrow to see what I can learn about Mitchell.”
     “And perhaps,” Penelope said, struggling upright, “a day away from the scene and the people involved might allow some of our plethora of facts to settle into a more recognizable pattern.”
     “That’s happened in the past.” Griselda shifted to the edge of her chair. “Stepping back is sometimes the best way to spot the right path forward.”
     “Amen.” Barnaby rose, held out his hands, and when Penelope gripped them, hauled her to her feet.
     Stokes stood and helped Griselda up, then the four strolled out to the front hall.
     
    * * *
    T he conservatory at Finsbury Court wasn’t large, but that evening it provided a place of quiet shadows and shifting moonlight perfect for the sharing of private thoughts. And personal fears.
     “How do you see the investigation proceeding?” Gwen glanced up at Frederick’s face. They had slipped away from the gathering in the drawing room; she’d needed to get away from the avid speculation simmering beneath the surface of every comment, every glance, and Frederick had gallantly offered his arm and opened an escape route.
     He’d rescued her tonight, just as he had on the afternoon Mitchell had all but attacked her—there, beneath the palms.
     She cleared her throat. “I can’t imagine who could have done such a thing, can you?”
     Frederick remained silent for a moment more, then softly said, “No. I wish I could.”
     They’d reached the end of the glassed-in room. Frederick halted and turned her to face him. He studied her face, then said, his deep voice low, “I know the most important things I need to know—that you weren’t in any way involved and neither was I.”
     Gwen grasped his hand and pressed his fingers, her gaze steady on his face, on his eyes. “I never for a moment thought that you might be involved—that you could be involved.”
     He held her gaze, then his lips, almost reluctantly, lifted. “If I’d wanted to murder Mitchell, I would have…I don’t know, challenged him to a duel or some such thing. But he wasn’t worth it. He wasn’t worth risking the future I want— our future—for.”
     They hadn’t previously spoken of that future, not in words. Gwen’s heart swelled at the realization that all the dreams that Frederick’s reappearance had resurrected—dreams she’d thought dead and buried, the fruits of an innocent girl’s fanciful imaginings that had never been slated to come true—were his dreams, too.
     Her wishes and his matched, were complementary, two halves of one whole, and so if they wished, if they had the courage to, they might bring each other’s dreams to life…if they could get past the potential social quagmire of