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“We had the missing pieces,” Ben added with a sigh. “They couldn’t finish it without those gems they had at the lodgings. This piece must be worth a small fortune.”
“There must be several ounces of solid gold in that,” Barnaby added.
“It would earn them a heck of a lot of money,” Marcus sighed. “Not only that but those undoubtedly re-cut gems are now untraceable. We have no idea where they came from.”
“Just how much more is this Sayers person involved in?” Jess asked, deeply troubled at the thought that she had been living in such close confines with hardened criminals.
“All sorts of things,” Marcus replied, dragging her into his arms again. “It is over now, and guaranteed never to happen again.”
“He is dead,” Jess said with no small measure of satisfaction.
Unfortunately, Marcus hesitated.
She looked at him. “He is not dead?” she asked in confusion.
“We don’t know if Gillespie is Sayers after all,” Marcus murmured. “Sayers is a chameleon. He changes persona so smoothly that nobody can be sure just yet. We need to investigate the man we called Gillespie. Until we have questioned his co-conspirators and find out their true identities, it is difficult to find out who our dead man is.”
“We have to rely then on the co-conspirators being honest. To say they are prepared to lie to protect themselves is an understatement,” Barnaby added. “They are, after all, the very dregs of society.”
They all returned to the kitchen. Marcus then turned his attention to the papers on the table.
“These are drawings of plates, notes of equipment they needed, and some bills for something. We need to take a closer look at these later. Right now, we can get the others to jail and let them understand the harsh reality of their future,” Marcus reasoned.
“They will get hard labour for this,” Barnaby growled.
Marcus nodded. “I hope they do. For now, they need to be questioned.”
“What happens to Lloyd now?” Ben asked. “He is, or was, the magistrate around these parts.”
“We will notify the War Office, and someone will be sent up to act as magistrate until a permanent replacement is found,” Barnaby assured him. “There is a lot of clean-up work to do here. By the time we have finished, the interim magistrate should have arrived. We can then hand over to him, and take our investigation back to London, most probably.”
“Or onto wherever the investigation leads us,” Joe added.
“This is a major coup for us. Whether Sayers is alive or not, we have cost him, and his network, a considerable amount of money today,” Marcus added quietly with no small air of satisfaction.
“Good,” Jess sniffed defiantly. “I hope they suffer.”
“Meantime, we need to go and get cleaned up at the tavern. Then we can have something to eat, get some rest, and we need to talk.” Marcus said the last meaningfully at Jess and waited for her to nod.
“You can go too, Ben. You need to get some sleep while we gather this lot up. Then we can go over to the jail and start to question the convicts. We will catch up with you later, Marcus,” Barnaby said.
He suspected Marcus was going to be busy for a while, but that didn’t bother him. Both he and Joe deserved a well-earned rest for this massive achievement.
In Marcus’ case, he rather suspected that rest period would precede a permanent change in circumstance. He hoped so anyway because Marcus had been a good friend for many years. He deserved a little happiness.
Hours later, Jess lay in Marcus’ arms while their bodies cooled. They had been fed and were now clean, warm, and blessedly safe.
Now that she was away from danger, she was able to look back on the events of the day with something akin to shock. It felt like it had all been some kind of bad dream. However, she knew the lingering effects of what had happened to her would remain with her for the rest of her life.
“What happens now?” she asked, staring across his chest at the raindrops slithering down the window.
“We have a day or two here while we clear everything up. Mr Grant’s body has been found in the woods at the back of the house. We will try to find out if the man has relatives nearby. If not, we will hand over the body to the interim magistrate to arrange the burial, and deal with trying to trace the wider family. Meantime, we have to question the prisoners. As soon as we find out just who their contacts are, and who supplies the gemstones, we can move on.”
Jess sighed and rolled onto her back. Marcus rolled with her and prevented her from leaving by draping one leg over her flat tummy.
“I need to decide what to do about the house,” she whispered.
“There isn’t much you can do with it now,” he cautioned. “Not after the roof collapsed.”
