Joan Smith: Gather Ye Rosebuds

"I did not come to beg, Lord Weylin!” Yet if I left now, my job would still be unaccomplished. The library seemed a good place to hide the necklace. “Well, perhaps if you have some novels you are finished with…"

He wafted his hand to indicate the library was down the hallway. I said, “Thank you,” and began to move along. Weylin followed behind to curtail my depredations on his library.

"I must commend you for your endeavors, Miss Barron. It is a good idea for you ladies to keep your minds busy,” he said, in a hatefully condescending way.

"Yes indeed, for we do not all have a dog to keep us occupied,” I replied. His head jerked around to look at me. I ignored it and kept walking.

When we reached the library, Lord Weylin stopped at the door. “You may help yourself to any of those,” he said, gesturing toward a heap of books on a table. “I am discarding them to make room for new books. One must keep abreast of the intellectual life. Philosophy, poetry…” He bowed and left, with a chilly smile.

One quick peek at the discards was enough to tell the tale. Bubbums had been tasting them all-and some of them were fine books, too, with leather and gilt bindings. I took a quick look about the room to choose my hiding spot. The library was just that-a library and nothing more. All the walls were lined with books. There were two tables with chairs in the middle of the room, but I could hardly just lay the necklace on the table. There was a French door leading to a small garden bordered with yews, with a few rosebushes.

The best I could come up with was to hide the necklace behind the books, and hope that it would be discovered in the near future. Those books had the neat, unused look of decorations. The necklace might lie undetected for a hundred years, until someone needed a quotation, or Bubbums got hungry.

I peered out the doorway and saw, across the hall and down a few yards, another room that offered more choices. It was a small room, whose sole function, so far as I could tell, was to provide a showplace for more Chinese porcelain. It held glass-fronted cabinets filled with all sorts and colors of vases. Perfect! Whatever of books, Lord Weylin did take an active interest in his porcelains, and would find the necklace. I darted to the nearest cabinet and tried the door, only to find it locked. I tried another cabinet, and another, until I had toured the room. Every one was locked up as tight as a safe.

Right in the middle of the room there was a big, square table with a porcelain horse and some other statuary on it; none of the items with a cavity, however. If Lord Weylin ever sat in this room, he sat on one of four wooden chairs with ladder backs and no padding. How was it possible I could not find a hiding place for a small necklace in the whole room?

I did not hear any footsteps in the hallway, which makes me wonder if Lord Weylin and his mama did not creep up on me to catch me out, stealing the vases. The first I learned of their presence in the library across the hall was the sound of excited voices. They were speaking in low tones, but with enough emotion that the words were audible.

"Where can she be?” Lord Weylin demanded. “I left her here not five minutes ago."

"Let us hope she has given up and gone home,” his mama replied sharply. “It is clear as the nose on your face she is running after you, Algie. She never darkened our door for a quarter of a century, and the minute you get home, she is here every time you turn around. The gall of her!"

"It is not me she's after! She's trying to help herself to something from my collection. I knew I should not have submitted to that interview in the Observer. My insurance agent complained of it. The Chinese Room! I wager she's there!"

This was followed at once by the sound of running feet, and before I could recover from shock, Weylin came hurtling into the room at full tilt. I don't know which of us was more shocked and outraged. For a full sixty seconds we stood, glaring at each other like a pair of pugilists.

"So I was right!” he crowed.

"Your Chinese vases are safe from me, Lord Weylin. I did not come to steal-"

"What are you doing in here?” he barked. “I left you in the library."

"I did not realize I was supposed to be a prisoner there. You forgot to lock the door."

"I am afraid I must ask you to turn out your pockets."

I gasped in disbelief. “How could I steal anything? You have all the cabinets locked."

"So you were trying!” he exclaimed triumphantly.

It was the last straw. If he suspected thievery, let him know the real thief, and not suspect me. I had done my best to conceal Uncle's black character, but I would not go to jail for him. Lady Weylin chose that moment to join us. She looked a question at her son.

"I was right,” he said over his shoulder.

"Miss Barron! I am shocked at you!” Lady Weylin said in her severest voice.

I already had the troublesome necklace in my hand. The only way to escape without involving the constable was to hand it over. I held out my hand and opened the fingers slowly. “I did not come to relieve you of your knickknacks, Lord Weylin, but to return this. I believe it belonged to your late aunt."

He took the necklace and looked at it, frowning. “Where did you get this?"

"I found it at Hernefield when I was clearing out the tower room to turn it into a studio."

Lady Weylin reached out and took the necklace. “But where did you get it? This is my sister's necklace."

"I have no idea how it came to be there,” I said. “Steptoe found it in the bottom of a drawer."

"Steptoe!” Lady Weylin exclaimed. She and Weylin exchanged a very strange, knowing look. “But I had already let him go before Margaret's necklace was stolen. He was with the Pakenhams at that time."

"Who else could it be?” Lord Weylin said uncertainly. “I fear we must set the constable on him this time, Mama."

"No! It was not Steptoe,” I said, very reluctantly. If he had stolen it, he would not have shown it to me. He would not have hidden it in my uncle's room, and if he had, he would have removed it sooner. Turning the room into my studio had been discussed for weeks. I was interested to hear, of course, that he was apparently recognized as a thief. I think the Weylins might have warned us when we hired him.

"How did it get there then?” Lady Weylin demanded.

"I cannot say."

"Oh, come now, Miss Barron,” Lord Weylin said, in a jeering way. “If you did not suspect some chicanery, you would have returned it in the normal way, instead of this game of cat and mouse. Your mama…” he said, examining me with some sign of pity.

"Certainly not! What we think, Mama and I, is that my uncle, Barry McShane, must have got hold of it somehow. It was found hidden in his dresser. Steptoe found it, but he made no effort to conceal it. He gave it to me, and told me it had belonged to Lady Margaret, which is why I-I have been-trying to return it."

To my considerable astonishment, Lord Weylin put his sleek head back and emitted a very natural-sounding burst of laughter. “We were both wrong, Mama,” he said. Then he put one hand on my elbow, the other on his mother's, and led us both back to the Blue Saloon.

"It is no laughing matter, Algie,” Lady Weylin said.

"It has its comical elements, though Miss Barron was not amused,” Weylin replied, shooting a peculiar glance at me.

We sat, Lady Weylin on her sofa with Bubbums at her feet, Lord Weylin and myself on the hard chairs. Weylin unbent enough to pour us a glass of excellent sherry.

"But what a delightful mystery!” he said, shaking the diamonds in his palm as if they were no more than a handful of salted nuts. “How do you think your uncle got them?"

"He obviously stole them,” Lady Weylin said.