Garden of Lies(80)

The door opened before Lilly could respond. Slater entered the room, icy determination electrifying the atmosphere.

“I have devised a plan,” he said.

He explained quickly.

Ursula was horrified.

“You mustn’t,” Lilly said.

“Are you mad?” Ursula demanded.

“I understand that theory has been put forward in the press from time to time,” Slater allowed.





FORTY-SIX




The vast gardens at the rear of the Fulbrook mansion were choked with moonlit fog. Slater paused for a moment on the top of the wall. A low growl emanated from somewhere in the shadows.

“Ah, there you are,” he whispered. “Good dog.”

He unwrapped the large chunk of beef that he had brought with him and dropped it. There was a soft thud when it hit the ground. A moment later a large, furry body rushed through the mist. The mastiff pounced on the meat.

Slater tied off the rope and repelled lightly down the brick wall. The dog stood, front legs braced over the beef, and growled a warning.

“The meal is all yours, my friend. Take your time.”

The dog went to work on the large snack. Slater turned his attention to the job at hand.

The thick foliage combined with heavy mist provided ample cover. In fact, Slater concluded, it would have been all too easy to get lost. Fortunately, he had a decent sense of direction.

He also had Ursula’s detailed description of what she had seen of the ground floor and the gardens. She had been alarmed upon hearing that he intended to let himself into the mansion and had tried to dissuade him. But eventually logic had won out. She had conceded that the information they needed was most likely concealed inside the house. There was no other way to search for it.

It took some time and a couple of close encounters with assorted garden statues but he managed to make his way to the back wall of the house. He found the French doors that marked the garden entrance to the library exactly where Ursula had said they would be.

Turning, he paced along the wall, counting the casement windows until he came to the third set. If Ursula was right, he had located Fulbrook’s study.

There was only a crack and a ping when he used the pry bar to snap the lock and open the windows. He was inside within seconds. A surge of energy spiked with amusement heated his blood. Now that he was back in London he had not expected to find himself using the skills he had perfected recovering lost, strayed and stolen artifacts.

He paused in the darkened room, listening intently. There were no shouts of alarm, no pounding footsteps on the stairs. No rumblings from the servants’ quarters.

He definitely had a talent for this sort of thing. And there was no denying that he got a bit of a thrill out of it. It occurred to him that he had missed the work.

The gas lamps had been turned down very low but there was enough light for him to make out the big desk and the heavy floor safe. He decided that if there was anything of great interest to be found, the odds were excellent that it would be in the safe.

He crossed the room to the door and was reassured to discover that it was locked. He would have at least a few seconds’ warning in the event someone heard him and came to investigate.

He went to the safe, crouched and took the stethoscope out of his pocket. He fixed the earpieces in place and planted the other end of the device near the combination lock. He listened to the tumblers click into place as he turned the dial.

He got the safe open and reached inside. His fingers brushed against a large envelope and a leather-bound volume. There was also a thickly stuffed packet.

He withdrew the book, the envelope and the packet, rose and went to the desk. He opened the packet first and found a large supply of banknotes. He stuck the money back into the safe and returned to the desk to open the envelope. Several photographs and the negatives fell onto the blotter. It was too dark to make out the images.

He waited a few seconds, listening carefully to the sleeping house. When he was satisfied that no one had been awakened he turned up the lamp suspended over the desk. He studied the photographs for a moment and then he opened the journal. It did not take long to understand what he had found.

He turned down the lamp, closed and locked the safe and went back through the window.

The dog trotted up to him with a hopeful air. He scratched the mastiff’s ears and then he climbed the rope to the top of the garden wall and descended to the ground on the other side. He paused to retrieve the climbing equipment and then he faded into the night.

It was gratifying to be back in business. He had missed the exercise.





FORTY-SEVEN




Blackmail,” Slater said. “That answers one question about Fulbrook. We knew he was supplying the drug to the members of the club. Now we know why.”

Ursula looked at the photographs spread across Slater’s desk. Outrage swept through her. The images were of naked lovers entwined and asleep in bed. What made them so potentially damaging was that both people in the erotically themed photographs were male.

“Fulbrook is despicable,” she said. “No wonder Valerie will go to such lengths to escape him.”

Lilly picked up one of the photographs. “I recognize the bald man in this picture—Lord Mayhew.”

“He was one of the members of the Olympus Club who was reputed to have taken his own life in recent months, according to Brice,” Slater said.