“Yes.” He stared into the fire for a moment, then startled them all by raising his hand and shouting, “I was ordered into battle!”
“Oh, dear,” Cecily murmured.
Phoebe merely looked exasperated. “Frederick, I don’t think-”
“There I was,” the colonel bellowed, “surrounded on all sides by the enemy. I took my trusty sword and I had at them.”
Phoebe uttered a little scream as her husband lunged forward with an imaginary sword, narrowly missing her head with his fist.
“Colonel-” Cecily began, but now the colonel was at full throttle and cut her off with an expansive flourish of his hand.
“I caught up with one of them and charged!” Once more he dove forward, and this time Phoebe managed to lean back out of harm’s way.
“Frederick!” She sat up, tugging on her hat to straighten it. “Stop this nonsense at once!”
“I stabbed at the blighter and…” The colonel paused, his face going blank. “And then…”
Both Cecily and Phoebe stared at him in expectation. After a moment, Phoebe prompted, “And then?”
“He flew off.”
Phoebe rolled her eyes. “Flew off?”
The colonel gave her a sheepish smile. “Must have been a blasted pheasant.”
Cecily hid a smile, while Phoebe uttered a guttural sound of disgust. “I don’t know why I humor him so.” She glared at her husband and stood up. “Come, Frederick, it is time we went home. We have inconvenienced these good people quite enough for one day.”
“But what about my brandy?” Colonel Fortescue appealed to Cecily. “You did send for brandy, didn’t you, old girl?”
“I did, and you are most welcome to it.” Cecily glanced at Phoebe, who gave her a fierce shake of her head. “I think, however, that it will have to wait for now.” She rose. “I will make sure there is a snifter waiting for you when you bring Phoebe back for rehearsal tomorrow.”
The colonel sighed. “Oh, very well. Much obliged, old bean.” He took hold of Phoebe’s arm. “Come along, then, ducky.”
Phoebe looked as if she would like to resist but allowed him to escort her to the door. “Until tomorrow, then, Cecily!” She waved, then disappeared as the colonel tugged her out into the hallway.
A few minutes later Cecily opened the door to find her husband standing outside with a tray of glasses and a bottle of brandy.
“I passed Gertie on the way up,” he said, as she stood back to let him in. “Thought I’d save her a trip.”
“That’s very accommodating of you, my love.”
Baxter looked around the room. “Everyone gone home?”
“Yes.” Cecily walked back to the fireplace and sank onto her chair. “It’s been rather a long day.”
“Aren’t they all?” Baxter placed the tray on the side table. “Since we have a bottle of excellent brandy right here, we might as well enjoy a sip, don’t you think?”
She smiled, feeling suddenly weary. “Excellent idea.”
He gave her a hard look as he handed her a glass. “Investigation not going well?”
Deciding there was no point in keeping everything from him, she told him all that had transpired that day. “I don’t seem to be getting any closer to solving this one,” she said, while Baxter sat stern-faced and silent. “If only I could understand the reason behind the killings, and by what criteria the Christmas Angel selects his victims, perhaps I could pinpoint the culprit. He is clever. Except for the angel stamp and the missing lock of hair, he is meticulously careful to leave no clues.”
“You don’t have any suspects?”
Cecily took a sip of the brandy, wincing as usual as it burned her throat. “Oh, I have suspects. I just can’t seem to connect them to all of the crimes. Each suspect has a motive for killing one of the victims, and none of the others.”
“Maybe they’re all copying the first one.”
“I thought of that.” Cecily sighed and put down her glass. “But that would mean there are four killers running around out there. I find that hard to believe.”
“It does seem improbable.” Baxter tipped his head back to savor a mouthful of brandy before swallowing it. “So, what’s the answer?”
“I don’t have one.” Cecily fought a wave of depression as she gazed at her husband’s troubled face. “For the first time since I began this questionable pastime, I really believe I am out of my depth. This killer might be just too clever for any of us. If that’s so, we are all in terrible danger.”
The following morning, Cecily woke up early, determined anew to attempt to track down the Christmas Angel. Her destination, she told Samuel, was to the paper factory in Wellercombe.
She had to wait more than half an hour for Basil Baker to join them in the drafty entrance. He seemed ill at ease and refused to look Cecily in the eye when she greeted him. Instead, he pretended to have an intense interest in a printed advertisement for soap that hung on the wall.
“I spoke to your manager the other day,” Cecily said, coming straight to the point. “He tells me you have Sundays off. Is that right?”
Basil shrugged. “Yeah? So what?”
Samuel made a movement, and Cecily held up her hand before he could say what was on his mind. “Jimmy Taylor died on a Sunday.”
Basil didn’t answer, but his mouth started twitching at one corner.
“You were not working that day, Basil. I want to know why you lied.”
For a moment she thought he was not going to answer her, but then he turned so suddenly he made her jump. “I lied because I knew you wouldn’t believe me when I said I didn’t kill Jimmy. I knew you’d find out we had that fight, and I thought you’d blame me for his death. I wasn’t anywhere near him that day. It wasn’t me what threw that rock, I swear it.”
“Very well, but there’s something else I need to know.” Cecily watched him carefully. “What I want to know is if you paid Colin Mackerbee a visit this week.”
Pure amazement crossed his face. “Mackerbee? Why would I go over there?”
“You used to work for him, I believe.”
“Yes, I did, but-”
“I understand that he considered you unsuitable for farmwork.”
Basil’s face darkened. “He had no right to tell me that. I worked hard, I did, and that man got rid of me even though I was taking good care of his animals. He should have been grateful, but instead he threw me out like I was a criminal or something.”
“And you were angry with him about that.”
“Not only that.” Basil swiped at the advertisement with his hand, knocking it to the ground. “He told every other farmer I went to that I wasn’t cut out for farmwork. He cost me a lot of jobs, and I have him to thank for me ending up in this rotten hole.”
“So you decided to punish him.”
“What?” Basil looked straight at her for the first time since the conversation began. “I’ve never punished no one. I haven’t seen that miserable bugger since the day I left the Mackerbee farm.” His eyes narrowed. “Why are you asking me all these questions about him, anyway? What’s it to you?”
“Colin Mackerbee was killed the other day. Someone took a knife into the barn where he was working and stabbed him.”
Basil’s jaw dropped. “Blimey, not another one.”
“So you’re saying you didn’t know?”
“No, I didn’t know.” Basil thrust out his jaw. “And don’t you go putting this on me, neither. I ain’t been near that farm since the day I left, and that’s the truth. Now I’ve got to get back to work or I’ll be losing this flipping job as well.”
Cecily let him go, knowing there was nothing else she could get out of him. Disgruntled, she said little to Samuel as they made their way back to the carriage.
She was getting tired of spinning her wheels with nothing to show for it. She could neither pin down a suspect nor eliminate one entirely. The only logical conclusion was the theory that the killer was totally unrelated to his victims and therefore an unknown factor in the investigation.