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Harry, who knew all the clues, came to the same conclusion as me. “She buried the coat and hat. She placed the bag on the ground as she dug the hole and it got dirty. She probably took a garden spade with her, then brought it home in the bag.”
“She must have discarded it,” I said, absently. “We didn’t see one in the flat.”
Harmony sighed. “Then you’ll never find the hat and coat. The Elms estate is big, isn’t it?”
“Enormous.” I smiled. “But we have an area to focus on. Mr. Liddicoat told us he saw a man dressed in a brown coat and hat in the vicinity of the stables, but changed his story when we realized he couldn’t see the stables from there. He then told us the truth—that he saw the man in the woods where he was walking. I worried he was lying about the whole thing, but he wasn’t. He was wrong about it being a man, however. It was Rosa, dressed in a man’s clothing. Then this morning, Bert mentioned seeing a woman and Mr. Liddicoat when he was in the woods around the time of the murder. I assumed he meant the woman waswithMr. Liddicoat, but I recall now he said he saw Mr. Liddicoatanda woman.”
Harry nodded slowly as he followed along. “I worried about that, too, thinking I’d missed something in my investigation of him. He seemed so decent, so honest, and there’d been no hint of a woman in his life other than Miss Hessing. Then Bert said he saw him with a woman, so I thought I was wrong. But I wasn’t. It’s as you say, Cleo, Bert never said he saw Liddicoatwitha woman, just that he saw them both in the woods. He must have meant he saw them separately.”
“Why didn’t you clarify with him this morning?” Harmony asked.
I bit my lip and lowered my gaze. “I was distracted by what he’d just told us.”
“Oh?”
“I’ll explain later,” I whispered.
Harry started walking again, his strides long and purposeful, leaving Harmony and me behind. “We have to find the coat and hat. I’ll return to the Elms now.”
I picked up my skirts and raced to catch up. “You’re not going without me.”
“You told me you have an afternoon tea.”
“I have a dreadful headache that means I can’t get out of bed. Harmony?”
“No need to ask,” she said. “I’m already thinking up a reason to stop Miss Bainbridge from checking on you.”
I looped my arm with hers and hugged it. “You are a good friend.”
“Because I lie for you?”
“Because you protect me.”
Beside me, Harry loudly cleared his throat.
While the situation wasn’t entirely parallel to the way he protected me from Mr. Miller, I saw his point. I couldn’t take his arm and hug it, so instead I cast him the ghost of a smile so that he knew everything was all right between us.
Where a lesser man might respond with a gloating smirk, he did not. He merely gave me the wisp of a relieved smile in return.
Harryand I returned to his office to telephone Detective Forrester at Scotland Yard and brief him on our evidence. Although he wasn’t in charge of this investigation, he was our best chance of convincing the incompetent detective who was that we ought to be taken seriously.
We met the police at the front gate of the Elms Polo Club. The detective, Fanning, insisted on speaking to the manager before we looked for the coat, so we went in search of Major Leavey, only to see him striding towards us, Watkins in tow. At first, I wondered how they knew we were there, then I realized they were leaving. It was nearing five o’clock.
“What is the meaning of this?” the major bellowed.
Detective Fanning did a poor job of explaining why his men carried shovels, so it was left to Harry and me to fill in the gaps.
“We’ll need to speak to Bert,” I finished. “He can tell us precisely where he saw the woman.”
Watkins went to fetch him from the stables and returned with both Bert and Robbie.
“Why didn’t you tell the police you were in the woods at the time of the murder?” the major asked him as we walked.
Detective Fanning growled in agreement. “You could have saved us time if we knew we were looking for a woman.”
Bert’s face paled. “I, uh…”
“He never saw anyone wearing the coat,” Harry pointed out. “So he didn’t connect the woman he saw to the person Liddicoat saw. No one did.”
