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“Doesn’t it just?” Jeb sighed. “I am just trying to remember who is ton around those parts. Apart from my father, who has long since turned his back on all of them, there are only three others.”
“Who?” Barnaby’s voice was sharp.
Jeb wrinkled his nose up. “Well, there is Lord Burlington, the Earl of Campdean; Lord Kinton, the Earl of Chislem is about ten miles away, and then there is Viscount Wendlebury, Derek, I think his name is. They are all within about twenty miles of each other.”
“Three of the aristocracy who haven’t been burgled yet,” Barnaby mused. “Do you know if they have houses in London?”
Jeb sighed. “Lord Burlington’s home is over at Cheshire Mews. I think it is that cream house on the corner. Viscount Wendlebury, I really don’t know at all. Daniel Kinton is someone I really believe that you need to see. As I remember, he is an affable chap but a little strange.”
Barnaby’s ears pricked up. “Oh? In what way?”
Jeb coughed uncomfortably. “He has somewhat eclectic tastes, in all things, if you know what I mean?”
He watched Barnaby’s brows lift and knew that he did indeed catch on to his meaning. With his boots on, Jeb paused in the doorway.
“I take it that I am free to go to investigate?”
“Please do,” Barnaby mused, handing Jeb the parchment. “I want you to let me know what items have been taken, how often the thefts have occurred, and while you are there, see what you can unearth about Wendlebury, Burlington, and Kinton. I am not saying they are involved, but this all sounds remarkably similar to what’s going on here. I don’t have a good feeling about this. No, I don’t have a good feeling at all.”
“Me neither,” Jeb sighed.
“When do you plan to leave?” Barnaby asked, once again eyeing the exhaustion evident on his friend’s face.
“No time like the present,” Jeb replied crisply.
It didn’t occur to him to stop to question why he was so determined to leave quickly. His earlier tiredness had swiftly vanished, almost to the point that Jeb felt re-energised and ready to go again.
“Do you not think you should rest first?” Barnaby asked but suspected now that Jeb had scented home nothing was going to stop him from leaving.
“No. From the sound of my father’s letter, the sooner I can get there the better.”
For both the investigation and yourself, Barnaby mused as he watched his friend tug his cloak on.
Moments later, Jeb ignored his rumbling stomach, said his farewells to Barnaby, and slammed out of the kitchen.
“Time to go home,” he sighed with a hint of relief.
As he rode toward the outskirts of town, he mulled over his reaction to his father’s letter now tucked away in his cloak pocket. His eagerness to go home was something he had never thought he would feel. Was it because he was exhausted, and knew the only place he could relax would be in Framley Meadow? Or was his determination to leave London down to nothing more than his total disgust with cloying London smog that made his work virtually impossible?
His thoughts inevitably turned toward his father. To date, Algernon had pestered, blackmailed, coerced, lectured, worried, and downright ordered Jeb to make Briggleberry his home. It was all in the hope he would learn how to run the family estates, and be able to take over the running of the family business once his father had left this mortal realm. The fact that Jeb had absolutely no interest in what went at Briggleberry, any more than he visited, say, a modiste, didn’t seem to register on his father.
Of late, though, his father’s letters had been more of an enquiring nature rather than demanding. It was as though he had given up and accepted his son had no interested in what went on at home. Jeb had never discussed it with another living soul, but deep inside he had worried why his father had suddenly given up.
Now that he had received the rather strange note about the thefts, Jeb decided it was time to satisfy his curiosity and go home. It wasn’t that he had any intention of ever staying; he just needed to have a rest for a while, enjoy some good food, and find out what was happening. Then he could return to his duties with the Star Elite refreshed, re-energised, and ready for anything.
He just hoped Algernon wouldn’t be too disappointed that Jeb hadn’t changed his mind toward marriage and using Briggleberry as a permanent
base.
“Marriage,” Jeb muttered with a shudder. It had always been something others did. He always wished his friends well if they chose to enter into it, but never once stopped to consider that it might be something he should do.
Now, though, he began to wonder if he might just be missing out on something.
“It's not good enough, Sophia,” Hooky grumbled, his ample girth wobbling with the strength of his annoyance. “She has to be made to understand she cannot keep spending like this. I know she is already in her fifties, but she could live for another thirty years. There is barely enough left in the account to last for a third of that. What is to happen then? She cannot rely on receiving anything from me because everything I have will come to you when I pass on.”
“I don’t think she will listen to me, Papa,” Sophia replied softly.
She adored her father and would do anything to help him, but there were limits to what she could do.
