Waiting Game by Sheri Cobb South Page B

Robinson, seeing Pickett cast a wary eye in the big dog’s direction, made haste to reassure him. “Pay no heed to Brutus, there. He’ll not harm you.”
    “I hate to disagree, but as it happens, I’ve already made Brutus’s acquaintance,” Pickett said, lifting his bandaged hand.
    “Have you, by gad? Well, I’m that sorry for it. I trust your injury isn’t serious?”
    “I don’t believe it is. In any case, your daughter did a fine job of dressing it, and I am confident that the patient will live.”
    “Aye, she’s an excellent nurse, my Nancy,” boasted the linen-draper.
    “I’m sure of it. Just as I am sure Brutus makes an excellent watchdog,” Pickett said, steering the conversation back to the matter at hand. “Still, I can’t find that anyone heard him barking or growling on the night of the robbery.”
    “Aye, well, recollect that it was Christmas night,” Mr. Robinson pointed out. “We’d all had a drop or two of wassail in celebration of the season, you know. I don’t doubt we were all sleeping a bit more soundly than usual.”
    “What about bloodstains?” Pickett asked, as his gaze settled on a couple of bright red drops on the wooden floorboards where he had been standing just inside the door, safely out of sight of Lady Fieldhurst. “If Brutus felt compelled to defend the premises with his teeth, surely there must have been some evidence left behind.”
    “I confess I was more concerned with the condition of the safe than the state of the floorboards,” the linen-draper said. “Still, if there had been any bloodstains, you can be sure my daughter would have seen them, and would have cleaned them up. A fine little housekeeper she is, my Nan.”
    “Er, I don’t doubt it. But about the safe,” Pickett said, determined not to be diverted into a discussion of Miss Robinson’s domestic virtues. “I hope your losses were not too great. Is there any chance that you might be recompensed for them?”
    “Insured against loss, you mean?” The linen-draper raked long fingers through his thinning hair. “If there had been a fire, aye. I pay dues to the Sun Fire Company—you may have noticed their mark mounted on the wall, just outside the door—but only the largest commercial ventures can grease the palms of Lloyd’s underwriters sufficiently to persuade them to insure against theft. It happens so frequently, you know, and the likelihood of their having to pay out is so great that the dues for that sort of protection would cost more than most thefts do. No, most of us just take what precautions we can—doors locked and bolted, a bell over the door, even a dog on the premises—and hope for the best.”
    “And yet all your precautions failed,” Pickett noted, not without sympathy. “Tell me, Mr. Robinson, how many people have keys to the shop?”
    “Three, but all of those keys are accounted for: mine, my daughter’s, and Andrew’s.”
    “Andrew’s?”
    “Aye, my apprentice. He comes down early every morning to light the fire, and locks up at night after me and Nancy have gone upstairs.”
    “He ‘comes down,’ you say?”
    “Aye, for he has a room in the attic. So does Jem, for that matter. Jem is the lad who summoned you from Bow Street,” he added, anticipating Pickett’s next question.
    “I see. But about Andrew—is it possible that he forgot one of the locks that night? Someone must have heard the bell if the front door had been opened, but the one at the back—”
    “No, for I checked that first thing, as soon as I saw the money was gone from the safe. Everything was locked up tight as a drum.”
    “Even the safe?”
    “Aye, it was,” the linen-draper said, much struck. “A curious thing, the thief taking the time to lock the safe back. I should have thought he would have wanted to get out as quickly as possible, wouldn’t you?”
    Pickett nodded. “Exactly. Whoever he was, he had no fears of being caught out before he was done.” He also had no fear of