"Good morning, Lieutenant Niles." Phyllida gestured at Lucifer. "Allow me to present Mr. Cynster. He's come to live in Colyton."
"Oh?" All innocent inquiry, Niles shook Lucifer's hand.
"Does that mean you'll be taking an interest in the Colyton Import Company?"
"A benign interest," Lucifer returned. "Purely in an advisory capacity."
He knew when Phyllida let out the breath she'd held. Niles turned back to her and she reclaimed his attention. "I just wanted to check the overall totals with you, and whether we need to change any of our payments."
"Indeed, indeed." Niles waved them to the door. "If you'll just come this way?"
He bowed them into his office, then he and Phyllida settled to a brisk discussion of the various goods the Company had brought in and expected to bring in in the near future, and the levels of the duties payable on the differing cargoes. Lucifer sat back and listened, intrigued by how, once she'd been given the opportunity-given the right to lead-Phyllida managed the interview, and Niles, so well. She was a businesswoman to her toes.
He was inwardly smiling by the time she'd finished with the Lieutenant. Tucking a list of the latest tariffs into her reticule, she stood, turned, and caught his eye. She waited until they'd taken their leave of Niles and were out on the quay before asking, "Now, what so amuses you in that?"
"Nothing at all. I'm appreciative, not amused. It just occurred to me that, in the same way I could be of assistance to you with the Company, you, too, could to great effect assist me with my business." Taking her arm, he turned her toward the Mermaid.
"Business?" She looked up at him. "What sort of business do you engage in?"
It took all of lunchtime and more to tell her. By the time he'd finished and they were in the curricle heading east along the road that would eventually take them home along the coast, she was intrigued.
"I had no idea. I thought you were a London swell-that all you ever did was waltz around ballrooms and charm ladies."
"I do that, too, but one has to have something to do to while away the days."
"Humph." She shot him a measuring glance. "So this interest of yours in a cattle stud is quite genuine?"
"Given I've now got the land, it seems a pity not to use it, and establishing a stud seems the farming equivalent of being a collector."
"I hadn't thought of it in quite those terms, but I suppose that's true." Phyllida looked ahead.
Then she gripped his arm. "Stop!"
Drawing on the reins, Lucifer looked at her. "What?"
She'd swiveled around on the seat, staring back along the road. Reins tight, Lucifer shifted and also looked back. A tinker was ambling along, heading into Exeter.
"The hat!" Phyllida swung to face him, eyes wide. "That tinker's got the hat!"
He turned the horses and set them trotting back along the road. "Quiet," he warned Phyllida as they drew level with the tinker. She stared hard at the man-at his hat-but didn't argue. Lucifer drove a hundred yards farther on, then turned the curricle again. He drove back, almost to where the tinker slogged along, then drew rein.
"Good day."
The tinker stopped and touched the brim of the hat-the hat that even the most cursory glance declared was not his.
"Good day to you, sir. Ma'am."
"That hat," Phyllida said. "Have you had it long?"
A wary look passed through the tinker's eyes. "I found it, fair and square. I didn't steal it."
"I didn't think you had." Phyllida smiled reassuringly. "We were just wondering where you found it."
"Along the coast a ways."
"How far back? Before Sidmouth?"
"Aye-it was a ways before. I'd left Axmouth and decided to go inland a bit. There's a sleepy little village there, name of Colyton."
"We know it," Lucifer said.
"I sharpen knives." The tinker gestured to the packs on his back. "After I finished in the village, I headed on, west, then northwest-there's a path leads on to Honiton, which was my next port o'call. I found the hat along the way, a bit out of Colyton."
Phyllida nodded. "You must have gone up the lane, past the church and the forge-up the hill-"
"Aye, that's right."
"And then there's a bit of a dip, a shallow valley, you eventually get to the next ridge-stop me when I get to where you found the hat-and then there's tall gateposts, and then the lane narrows, and winds down and around toward the sea-"
"That's it! That's where I found it. It was rolling along at the bottom of the hedge just short of where that seaward leg ends. I picked it up, dusted it off-wasn't no name in it. I looked around, but there was no house or hut for miles. Then I walked but a few yards on and the lane turned into a path and swung northwest for Honiton."
The tinker beamed at Phyllida; she beamed back.
"Here." Lucifer held out two guineas. "One for the hat, one for your help. You'll be able to buy yourself a good cap, find a comfortable room, and have a good dinner and a few drinks on us."
The tinker's eyes, fixed on the largesse, gleamed. "My lucky day-the day I found that hat." He handed it to Phyllida.
Lucifer handed over the coins. "And which day was that-the day you found the hat?"
The tinker screwed up his face. "I left Axmouth on a Monday, and spent a day between there and in and about Colyton. I slept in the lych-gate and set out for Honiton early the next morn-that was when I found the hat."
"So you found it on Tuesday?"
"Aye, but not this Tuesday. 'Twould have been the one before that-I was nearly a week in Honiton, and then I went down to Sidmouth."
"Tuesday before last." Lucifer nodded. "Our thanks."
The tinker looked down at the coins in his hand. "I'm thinking'twas my pleasure entirely."
They left him bemused by his good fortune; Lucifer set the blacks pacing smartly, then glanced at Phyllida.
She was holding the hat in her lap, staring down at it. "No wonder we couldn't find it-never saw it. He must have got rid of it straightaway."
Her tone was distant. Lucifer frowned. "Those tall gateposts you mentioned-that's the entrance to Ballyclose Manor, I take it."
Phyllida nodded.
"So what is at the end of the seaward leg of the lane?"
She exhaled. "It's a rear entrance to Ballyclose. It's not even a gate, just a gap in the hedge, but it's been there forever. Everyone who rides at Ballyclose uses it to come and go unless they're riding directly into the village."
"So if someone was out riding from Ballyclose and didn't want to return by riding through the village, they'd use that entrance?"
"Yes."
The tone of the word had Lucifer glancing at Phyllida again. "What are you thinking?" He couldn't tell from her face.
She drew in a breath. "It must be Cedric after all."
He looked to his horses. "There are other possibilities."
"Such as?"
"That it's not Cedric's hat, for a start."
Phyllida held the hat up, turning it around. "Just because I can't recall seeing him wearing it doesn't mean it isn't his. You saw how many hats he has. I didn't recognize half of them."
"Equally, just because he has a hat fetish doesn't mean that one's his." Lucifer looked at the hat again. "I really don't think it is."
"If I can't be sure, I can't see how you can be."
Lucifer swallowed his explanation of why he didn't think the hat was Cedric's-he was, after all, only guessing. After a moment, he said, "Very well, consider this. The murderer, not Cedric, knows that the books in Horatio's library leave Cedric with a real motive for killing Horatio, which, I admit, is more than we've been able to uncover for anyone else. The murderer, however, has another motive-one we have no idea of. Needing to get rid of the hat, he plants it at a place where enough people come past, so that, at some time, it'll be discovered and all will point to Cedric, not him."