Read Online Home by Nightfall by Charles Finch - Free Book Online Page A

believe it without any cavil? He might be losing his grip on reality.”
    â€œHm.”
    â€œThen again,” said Lenox, as they strolled onward past a small churchyard, its trees pleasantly orange and red, the whistle of wind in them just audible, “there is the matter of the call to Chichester. That, at least, is verifiable. Indeed, I think we must verify it for ourselves before we proceed.”
    Edmund nodded. He was taking tobacco from a small pouch in his coat pocket as they ambled, and packing it in a pipe with two fingers, face full of thought. “There are three possibilities, then,” he said. “First, that Hadley is mad, or badly mistaken. Second, that one of these things is suspicious—the face in the window, say—and the rest are easily explained, the chalk figure a child’s drawing, the sherry mislaid or stolen…”
    â€œAnd third,” said Lenox, “that it is all connected, and something very strange indeed is afoot in your little town.”
    Edmund smiled. “Our little town, I think you are entitled to say, Charles, given that you have permanently returned. Tell me, is it wrong that I hope for the third possibility to be true?”
    â€œHa! No, of course not. It is exactly always what I hope for, you know—secretly.”
    As the brothers walked on, talking about poor Hadley’s troubles, Lenox almost thought he saw a look of peace in Edmund’s face—the absence, anyway, of that carefully managed anguish that had drawn it inward for the past five weeks.
    They ate a pleasant lunch at the Bell and Horns (Lenox was congratulated on his return to the parts by three different people), and after they had scraped their plates clean of the delicious spongy cake with which they rounded off the meal, and sipped their pint pots of ale down to nothing, they betook themselves to Hadley’s house.
    â€œAre you sure you can spare the afternoon?” asked Lenox of Edmund on the way. “I’m happy to proceed on my own—or drop it altogether.”
    â€œThere’s nothing on earth I would rather be doing,” said Edmund. Then, a shadow passing over his brow, he said, “Other than spending time with the boys, obviously.”
    â€œThat goes without saying,” said Lenox, and then added quickly, in the hopes of distraction, “We’re skipping over the most intriguing question of all, by the way.”
    â€œWhat’s that?”
    â€œHadley’s collection of gemstones. How much is it actually worth? And how carefully did he look to see that none of them were missing?”

 
    CHAPTER TEN
    Hadley’s neighbors on Potbelly Lane were an unfortunate combination: useless and extremely talkative. All of them knew Edmund by sight, as their Member of Parliament, and more than one had some issue they thought ought to be brought before the Commons—the Land Act, taxes, suffrage, in one instance a missing cat. They all admitted cheerfully that they had seen nothing, not the previous Wednesday nor the previous Thursday.
    With one exception. Opposite Hadley’s small, well-maintained house, which was white with a handsome blue trim, there was a ramshackle place, the remnant of an earlier architectural era—not a row house, but a gingerbread cottage with smudges of green garden on either side of it.
    Here they discovered a retired solicitor named Root. He hadn’t seen anyone entering Hadley’s house on the previous Wednesday or Thursday. Intriguingly, however, he had seen the chalk drawing.
    â€œYou did?” said Lenox.
    Root nodded. “Yes. I spotted it coming out of my house on Wednesday evening. It was still light out, so probably not after a quarter to seven. Awfully peculiar, you know. I wasn’t likely to miss it.”
    â€œCould you draw it for us?” asked Lenox.
    â€œI’m not much of a hand at drawing.”
    â€œEven a rough approximation would help.”
    Root