Year’s Eve.’
‘If he has been away for months, how can he know what you ate?’ Denise asked with a hitched brow.
‘Oh, before he leaves, he hands out strict instructions to all the staff to run the household as frugally as possible in his absence. I am to be fed on nothing more extravagant than soup, meat with vegetables and a fruit dessert of the indigenous variety. Pineapple is out of the question, and so are hats with ostrich feathers.’
‘I am glad to hear it,’ an ironic voice said behind her back.
Alkmene spun on her heel to meet the speaker’s inquisitive gaze. Since her adventure with Jake Dubois in Dartmoor looking for a missing heir and a cold-blooded killer, she had only seen him once, during a charity luncheon where she was representing her father, who was one of the charity’s patrons. Dubois had covered the event for his paper. He had barely acknowledged her, as he had been busy following an actress around who had become interested in the charity recently and was contemplating staging a play to benefit it.
Feeling thoroughly ignored, Alkmene had decided she did not want to see Dubois any time soon, and now seeing him perusing her hatless persona in what was supposed to be man-free territory, goaded her to no end.
‘Here to buy a hat for your sister?’ she asked sweetly.
Jake opened his mouth as if to ask since when she believed he had a sister, but then he noticed Denise’s wide-eyed interest in him and said meekly, ‘Just handed in the order at the desk. I would like to speak to you if it is at all possible. It is about…’
‘Phalaktae pelopenosensis,’ Alkmene said with a charming little smile. ‘Father will be so delighted that you managed to solve the mystery of its origin. I will write your results to him this afternoon. Denise, I am so sorry, but I have to run.’
She leaned over and gave her friend two air kisses, hovering before each cheek, so as not to disturb her make-up. Then she waved a hand and ran out of the store, Dubois in tow.
‘Phalaktae what?’ he asked outside.
‘Oh, I have no idea. I only made it sound like some Latin plant name. Denise knows next to nothing about green stuff, whether it is in the wild, in her garden or happens to lie on her plate. She will surely find some other friend she can force into buying the hat with the ostrich feathers so she can borrow it from said friend whenever she feels like it.’
‘Not as wealthy as you are?’ Jake asked cynically.
Alkmene smiled. ‘On the contrary. In theory Denise has more money than I will ever have. She is the daughter of Hargrove, the oil magnate, who is also dabbling in aviation.’
‘Ah. But what do you mean “in theory she has more money”?’ Jake asked, falling into step with her, his hands folded on his back.
‘Well, at the moment she is his only daughter, so she stands to inherit it all. But he is about to change that fact, having married a much younger woman who can no doubt bear him a male heir for all of his fortune. In that case Denise will probably be forced to marry a rich man to have any money to spend.’
She batted her lashes at him. ‘I thought you knew how that worked.’
Jake shook his head but said nothing.
Alkmene swung her arms energetically. Suddenly she halted, grabbing for her head. ‘Oh, dear, now I have left my own hat in the store and…’
‘You can go back for it later. I want to talk to you about a friend of mine.’
He sounded rather insistent, so she could hardly say no. Alkmene sighed. ‘If I don’t go back now, Denise will take my hat home with her and I will be obliged to go visit her to get it back. She is not so bad, but her stepmother is. She is always asking these rather awkward questions about my ancestors. About duels and stuff, you know.’
Jake grinned. ‘Madness in the family, by any chance?’
Alkmene cringed. Jake had no idea what a sore spot he touched with that casual remark. She said quickly, ‘Talk about your friend now, will you?’
He sobered at once and stared ahead. ‘Perhaps you have read about it in the newspapers?’
Alkmene tilted her head. ‘Let’s see. If it was an engagement, I might have read it, but I don’t recall it, because engagements never stick with me unless they are unconventional, but when they are, they are usually not announced in the papers but handled rather secretly because the family feels mortified. Now if it was business-related, a new venture in something adventurous…’
Jake halted her with a hand gesture. ‘Robbery gone wrong.’
Alkmene frowned. ‘I did read something about a theft outside a theatre, a gnarled figure taking off with a lady’s purse. Isn’t he the same one who robbed ladies earlier this year but then outside the church of St Mary of the Humble Heart? Did they not call him the hunchback of the Notre Dame then to make it more sensationalistic?’
‘Could be, but that’s not the one. I mean the robbery gone wrong at Lord Winters’ estate.’
Alkmene froze. Right on top of the remark about madness in the family this was very awkward indeed. She said slowly. ‘Lord Winters, who has returned from India after his father died? The one who is said to have…killed his wife while he was there.’
She knew full well there was only one Lord Winters and this was the one. But his untimely demise at the hands of a burglar was one violent death she had no intention of getting involved with. It hit too close to home.
Jake sighed impatiently. ‘If they claim he killed his wife in India, it is probably high society gossip. I am talking about the very real robbery in his country estate that turned sour.’
Alkmene frowned as if she had dredged it up from her memory. In reality the newspaper article had shocked her to the core. Winters dead, in exactly the same way as his late wife. The one he was rumoured to have murdered. It could not be a coincidence. ‘Oh, you mean the burglar who was caught standing over the dead body? The piece mentioned as an aside that this man is suspected of having perpetrated various daring robberies over the years, but he had never been caught. Until now.’
‘One of the finest professionals in his trade,’ Jake said.
Alkmene shook her head. ‘How professional can he be when he gets caught red-handed? And with a dead body at his feet too.’ She clicked her tongue.
Then she glanced at Jake. ‘You knew he was also behind the other robberies? I mean, you suspected him earlier? Did you write pieces on the earlier robberies perhaps, and had a hunch he was involved?’
Jake shook his head. ‘I knew he had committed those robberies. They were all trademark crimes.’
‘Trademark?’
Jake gestured with both hands. ‘Bearing certain identifying traits that mark them as his, like a signature underneath a document. But the police are too stupid to see it. In two cases they even arrested a servant as the culprit, because, and I quote, it was impossible to commit the crime from outside the house. But that is right what Mac did.’
Alkmene whistled. ‘Impressive. Never once caught and now like this. Kind of sour. But I guess when
