Bath Belles Read Online Free Page A

sum of money—I don’t know exactly what it was. It wasn’t in the papers, but there were police officers searching the house for money—a whole bag of it. They asked me if I had seen anything of it, but I could not learn from them how that nice Mr. Sutton came to have such a sum. It stands to reason he was not rich, buying a tiny little place like this for his wife. He was to have been married very soon.”
    She didn’t leap to the conclusion that I was to have been the bride, and I saw no reason to tell her. My mind was occupied with her more interesting statements. She soon rose to leave and said she hoped we could all come to call on her after we had settled in.
    “Or will you be staying at all?”she asked, remembering the sign in the window.
    It began to seem we might be staying longer than we had planned. I meant to discover what this bag of money was that Graham was supposed to have had the night he was murdered.
    When we were alone again, Esther said, “What can it mean?”
    “It must have something todo with his legal business,”I decided. “I thought it odd anyone would kill him only for the contents of his purse.”
    “And leave his little diamond stickpin behind, too,”Mama reminded me.
    “Graham had no partner—there is no one to ask.”
    Mama was frowning, biting her bottom lip. “If the man came back several times and came again just last week, Belle, it looks as though he did not getthe money,”she pointed out.
    I felt a moment’s weakness from fright, but it was the tyrant’s job to be in charge, so I assumed a bold front. “How nice! Then we can look forward to more visits from him. I shall have the locks changed this very day. We shan’t sleep tonight in a house without safe locks.”
    “Mrs. George said he didn’t use the door,”Esther reminded me.
    “Mrs. George is a goose. He used the back door—or that cellar window. We’ll have the locks changed anyway, and a bolt put on the cellar door as well.”
    After a frowning pause, Mama said, “I do wish Hotchkiss were here.”
    I pointed out that Hotchkiss would not even have my letter yet and couldn’t reasonably be expected for a few days. “I’m going down to Bond Street this, minute to see if I can find a locksmith.”
    “I’ll go with you,”Esther volunteered eagerly.
    Mama blanched and shrieked, “I’m not staying here alone!”
    “We cannot all go and leave the place empty. Someone might come to see the house,”I reminded them. “I’ll stay.”
    “Not alone, Belle,”Mama objected. “There is no saying all the customers will be ladies.”
    “Very true. We haven’t had a real lady so far,”I said, but of course it was a gentleman caller she feared, and I had no wish to tour the place alone with a gentleman. “We’ll all go together this afternoon. It won’t take more than an hour.”
    Just after we got the breakfast debris cleared away, we heard a third tap at the door. Things move quickly in the city. At home, the Barrows had their house up for a month before they had a caller. It was Esther who pranced to the door, gold curls bouncing, when she spotted the handsome black carriage in the street and the elegant, many-caped greatcoat emerging from it.
    “This is Mr. Desmond,”she said, showing him in. “He wants to see the house.”
    Why? was the first thing that popped into my head. A gentleman who drove that elegant carriage outside our door and who emanated such a strong air of wealth and fashion did not belong in this toy house on Elm Street. He belonged in a mansion in the very heart of fashionable London. He was exceedingly handsome in a dashing way that was new to me, and to Esther, too, to judge from her adoring gaze.
    The thing that set Mr. Desmond apart from Bath gentlemen had to do with his manner as well, his open way of appraising us all, not trying to hide his curiosity; yet the manner was friendly enough. Short, dark hair sat smoothly on a well-sculpted head. The word “sculpted”suited