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Maximus took the emerald pendant from his waistcoat pocket and put it on the table between them. “I’m told that this used to belong to you. Where did you get it?”
Alderney’s mouth dropped open. He blinked several times, staring at Maximus as if he expected some further explanation, and when none was forthcoming, at last stretched out his arm to pick up the pendant.
Maximus growled.
Alderney snatched back his hand. “I… er… what?”
Maximus took a breath and deliberately let it out slowly to try and release some of the tension in his body—a move that seemed to alarm Alderney. “Do you remember this pendant?”
Alderney wrinkled his nose. “Ah… n-no?”
“It would’ve been some years ago,” Maximus said, holding his patience with both hands. “Thirteen years or so.”
Alderney calculated, his lips moving silently, and then suddenly brightened. “Oh, Harrow! That’s where I was thirteen years ago. Pater hadn’t the money himself, of course, but Cousin Robert was kind enough to send me. Jolly place, Harrow. Met quite a lot of fine fellows there. Food wasn’t what you might call elegant, but there was lots of it and I remember a sausage that was simply…” Alderney looked up at this point and must’ve read something on Maximus’s face that alarmed him for he started. “Oh, er, but that’s perhaps not what you want to know?”
Maximus sighed. “Lord Kilbourne said that he had this pendant from you.”
“Kilbourne…” Alderney laughed, high and nervous. “But everyone knows the man’s mad. Had an attack of some kind and killed three fellows.” Alderney shuddered. “I heard that one man’s head was nearly severed from his body. Bloody. Never would’ve thought it of Kilbourne. Seemed a nice enough fellow at school. Remember he once ate an entire eel pie. Not something you see every day, I can tell you that. The eel pies were quite large at Harrow and usually—”
“So you did know Kilbourne at Harrow?” Maximus asked to clarify.
“Why, yes, he was in my house,” Alderney said at once. “But there were many other quite sane fellows in my house as well. Lord Plimpton, for instance. Quite a bigwig in Parliament now, as I understand. Though”—Alderney’s brow knit on a thought—“he wasn’t a very nice fellow at school. Used to gobble rare beefsteak with his mouth half open.” Alderney shuddered. “Surprised he didn’t turn out to be a bloody raving madman, now that I think of it. But there you are: can’t predict these things apparently. Perhaps it was all that eel pie.”
Maximus stared at Alderney for a moment, trying to decide if the man were lying or really as foolish as his words seemed to paint him.
Alderney appeared to brighten at his confusion. “Was there anything else?”
“Yes,” Maximus gritted out, making the man cringe back. “Think: when could you have given that pendant to Kilbourne?”
“Why…” Alderney knit his brows. “Never, as far as I know. I don’t remember even talking that much with Kilbourne beyond the usual ‘Good morning’ and ‘Are you eating your portion of sausage?’ We weren’t really friends. Not,” Alderney hastened to add at Maximus’s growing scowl, “that I wasn’t friendly or anything, but he was the sort who actually read things in Latin, and I was more interested in sweets and smuggling tobacco into the house.”
Alderney stopped abruptly and stared at Maximus rather helplessly.
Maximus closed his eyes. He’d been so sure that here at last was the trail he could follow to find the murderer—only to be stopped by a fool’s faulty memory. Of course, that was supposing that Kilbourne had even been telling the truth. He was a madman, after all.
Maximus opened his eyes, scooped up the pendant, and stood. “Thank you, Alderney.”
“That’s it?” The other man didn’t hide his relief. “Oh, well, glad to be of help. Don’t have such illustrious visitors, as I said, only Cousin Robert, and he hasn’t been by since Michaelmas of last year.”
Maximus halted on his way to the door and slowly turned on a sudden thought. “Who is your cousin Robert, Alderney?”
His host grinned, looking quite idiotic. “Oh! Thought you knew. He’s the Duke of Scarborough.”
ARTEMIS HAD JUST sat down to dinner that night with Phoebe and Maximus at Wakefield House when her world came tumbling down about her ears.
She’d only taken in the dear sight of Maximus frowning over his fish when the commotion began. Armageddon was heralded by voices in the corridor outside the dining room and the hurried footsteps of the servants.
Phoebe cocked her head. “Who could that be at this time of night?”
They hadn’t long to speculate.
The door was flung open to reveal Bathilda Picklewood. “My dears, you should’ve seen the roads! Simply awful, all of them. I thought we would be stuck forever in a mud hole at the turnpike near Tyburn. Wilson actually had to get down from the box and lead the horses out, and I won’t even repeat the language he used.”
Belle, Starling, Percy, and Bon Bon all trotted over to greet Miss Picklewood, while Mignon rumbled from her arms at the other dogs.
“Hush, Mignon,” Miss Picklewood scolded. “Goodness, you sound like a bumblebee! Where did all these dogs come from? Surely you didn’t bring them from Pelham?”
“We thought they’d like the change of scenery,” Phoebe said brightly. “I’m so glad you’ve arrived! We didn’t expect you back for another fortnight or so.”
