Mrs. Jellops helpfully filled in the silences with endless praises of Mrs. Broadbent, which reliably put Mr. Bellamy in a grim state of mind. Then, as if to ensure Lord Dalton would be equally grim, she pointed out that he seemed to have some sort of animal hair on his trousers and suggested Tate use a ball of damp bread dough to pull them off without too much trouble.
Lord Burke and Miss Minkerton arrived in good time, the lady prettily dressed in a fine white lawn that set off her complexion wonderfully. Her maid had accompanied them in the carriage and was sent below stairs to the kitchens where Mr. Flanagan would supply her with a supper. Daisy only hoped the poor girl could keep her appetite amidst the various complaints from her butler and footmen about how badly they were treated.
They had gone through to the dining room without further delay, Daisy taking the head of the table and Lord Dalton taking the bottom. As was custom, Lord Burke was seated to her right and Miss Minkerton to Lord Dalton’s right, while Mrs. Jellops was to her left.
As the first course was brought round, the party was oddly silent. This would have been the moment to speak of the weather, a very reliable topic at every table, and yet all seemed to be waiting for the real subject to be raised.
Once the soup had been delivered and the footmen stepped out to look for the next course, Lord Dalton said, “I believe Burke and I have discovered something, but we are not certain what it is.”
“That is very mysterious,” Daisy said, fiddling with her napkin and attempting to appear composed. She was leery of hearing anything at all of her father’s business. Had there not been a break-in, his bedchamber door would have remained closed forever.
“Miss Danworth,” Lord Burke said, “are you at all familiar with the name Dagobert?”
“No, not at all,” Daisy said, “though if it were one of my father’s cronies I might not be. So many of them were unsavory and if they were not often about the house, I might never know their names.”
“Mrs. Jellops?” Lord Burke asked. “Does this name sound familiar?”
“Not at all,” Mrs. Jellops said. “An odd name, though. It does not sound particularly lyrical.”
Daisy suppressed a smile, remembering that the staff in the London house used to refer to Mrs. Jellops as Mrs. Jellies, which they thought suited her ample frame far better than Jellops.
“We do not actually know that it is the name of a man,” Lord Dalton said. “It was never referred to as ‘Mr.’ or ‘sir,’ or any rank of service, only on its own or withthein front of it. As in,the Dagobert.”
“What was the nature of the discussion about Dagobert?” Miss Minkerton asked. “Was it an argument?”
“Not an argument, so much as a questioning,” Lord Dalton said. “There were very many letters between Lord Childress and Lieutenant Farthmore about where Dagobert was or who might know.”
Daisy shivered at the mention of the lieutenant. Of all people, why must he be brought into this?
“Is the lieutenant known?” Miss Minkerton asked.
“Unfortunately, he is,” Daisy said. “He was one of the worst people my father ever associated with and we have seen him since.”
“Wait,” Lord Burke said, “was he the fellow that…”
“That was thrown from the premises,” Daisy finished for him.
“A nasty piece of work, that one,” Mrs. Jellops said.
“He seems to be involved in this conversation with Lord Childress,” Lord Dalton said, “because Dagobert, whoever or whatever it is, returned to England on a boat coming back from the disastrous siege of Tarragona.”
“Perhaps Dagobert owed them a deal of money,” Miss Minkerton said.
“Perhaps,” Lord Burke said. “But there were some references that did seem to imply that Dagobert is a thing, not a person. Things like,whoever has possession of the Dagobert, andget the Dagobert back.”
“Well,” Mrs. Jellops said, “if it is some artwork or other, I cannot think what it might be. Lord Childress was never much of a collector, aside from those books he bragged of to all and sundry.”
“Books,” Lord Burke said. “Could that be why the library was sacked? Did not your father purchase the Palaskar collection?”
“Indeed he did,” Daisy said, “and talked about it everywhere. Though I never heard mention of a Dagobert book or collection. Had he acquired it, he would have advertised it had it the least amount of value. He liked people to know what he had.”
“If he acquired it through usual means he might advertise it,” Lord Burke said. “But if he did not…”
Lord Dalton sighed. “If we looked for a person, inquiries might be made with the navy. But if it is a thing, a thing we do not even know the sort of, I have no idea how we would identify it.”
“Though,” Daisy said, an idea having just come to her, “if it is a thing, it must be of some great value or there would not have been so many questions about it. Or someone to come looking for it in the dead of night, if that is what they were after.”
Lord Dalton nodded in a way that said she had just stated the obvious.
