Lucifer shook his head. "Why do we do this?"
"God only knows."
They exchanged glances, then smiled and lengthened their strides.
It was Flick who, late in the afternoon, put what they were all independently thinking into words. She waved her arms at the library's bookshelves. "If the murderer's after something here, why don't we just let him come and get it?"
She faced the rest of the room. "I don't mean let him get away with it, of course, but what if we organized a household picnic or some such affair, made sure the whole village heard of it so everyone would know there would be no one left at home, and then we'd go, but circle back and keep watch?" She looked at them. "What do you think?"
Demon looked at Lucifer. "I think there's some merit in the idea. We need to accept that there's a definite possibility that the murderer's taken care of that loose shoe in some way other than bringing the horse to Thompson."
"The village fete is two days from now."
They all looked at Phyllida.
"It's on Saturday," she said. "Everyone for miles around attends. It's virtually compulsory." Standing, she crossed to the window; Flick joined her as she waved. "It's held in the field just behind the church."
Both Lucifer and Demon joined them at the window, looking up the slope of the common to the church. Demon narrowed his eyes. "That's a very attractive proposition."
"Easy enough to arrange for a watch to be kept on the house-and on the possible suspects, too." Lucifer slowly nodded. "And the doors here, while locked at night, are never locked during the day, even now."
"On the morning of the fete, we'll all be coming and going, taking food and trestles up." Phyllida faced the others. "It should be easy for anyone to watch unobtrusively and note when we're all out of the house."
They considered, exchanging glances, then Lucifer nodded. "Right. Let's do it. But we'll need to work out all the details first."
They spent the whole evening planning, and were still arguing over the details of who should watch whom, when and from where, the next morning when the mail arrived. Bristleford brought the letters into the library on a salver and placed them on the big desk by Lucifer's elbow.
When they paused in their deliberations to consume tea and a plate of Mrs. Hemmings's butter cakes, Lucifer sifted through the pile. He tossed some to Phyllida and started opening the rest. "More replies from other collectors."
He'd finished opening and perusing those he'd kept and laid them aside with a shake of his head when Phyllida sat bolt upright, staring at the sheet she was holding in her hand. "Good gracious! Listen to this! It's from a solicitor in Huddersfield. He writes that our recent letter to one of his late clients was brought to his attention. In the circumstances, he felt he should bring to our notice the fact that his late client, an associate of Horatio's, died at the hands of an unknown assailant some eighteen months ago."
"Heavens!"
They all rose and went to read over Phyllida's shoulder. She held the letter out so they could see. "It says the other collector was strangled late one night and his records were ransacked."
Lucifer reached out to steady the sheet. "Shelby. I wonder…" He returned to the desk and sat. From a bottom drawer, he retrieved a stack of cards. "Horatio always noted on his name-cards what sort of items he'd most recently traded with each person. The notes refer back to his ledgers." He flipped through the cards. "Shelby, Shelby… hullo!"
The shock in his voice had the other three looking up at him. Lucifer sat, frozen, a card in his hand. "Well, well." He glanced at Demon. "Sherring."
"Sherring?" Demon came to look over his shoulder. "The Sherring Corporal Hastings thinks Appleby shot?"
"More likely his father." Lucifer laid the card down, then checked the stack further. "There's entries for Shelby, but they're more than three years ago and it looks like they were only trading furniture."
He restacked the other cards and put them back in the drawer, then returned his attention to the card for Sherring. "Books. One buy, just over five years ago."
"Almost immediately after Waterloo," Demon added.
Lucifer nodded. "Where are those ledgers?"
Demon laid a hand on his shoulder. "Before you do that, write a letter to this solicitor. Give him Appleby's name-see if he recognizes it."
Lucifer hesitated, then pulled out a sheet of paper. "We won't hear in time, presuming that horseshoe falls, but if all else fails… I'll include a description of Appleby as well. If it was him, he might not have used his real name."
The letter was quickly written. Dodswell was dispatched to race it into Chard to catch the night mail.
Then Lucifer unearthed Horatio's ledgers-this time, they had a date and quickly found the entry. It listed nine books. They wrote the list on four scraps of paper, then they each took one and started along the shelves.
Jonas arrived. Amazed at the news, he joined in the hunt. Covey did, too. He checked the inventory they'd made thus far, which cut down the bookshelves they needed to search.