Del had heard that Lucifer was now something of an expert on antiques and curios. He nodded. “I’ll fetch it and meet you in the billiard room.”
Lucifer inclined his head.
Del went with the others down the corridor, then parted from them and went up a secondary stair to his room.
Ten minutes later, Del strode into the billiard room. At the sound of his footsteps, all conversation ceased. Gyles, bent over the billiard table, about to place a shot, froze, then straightened. Devil and Richard, standing by the table, cues in hand, swung around, alerted.
All eyes locked on Del as he halted just inside the doorway.
Grim-faced, he met their questioning gazes. “The scroll-holder’s gone.”
There was silence for a moment, then Devil asked, “How?”
When Del shook his head, Lucifer asked, “Where was it?”
“In the top drawer of the tallboy in my room. It’s not there, nor anywhere else in the room now, and Cobby hasn’t seen it since yesterday.” One hand rising to his hip, Del plowed the other through his hair. “Before, until Royston, either Cobby or Mustaf-one of my staff-carried it with them, strapped to their body. Once we reached here, there didn’t seem any reason not to leave it in the room.” He looked at Devil. “How in all Hades did the Black Cobra reach it?”
“Are we sure it’s him?” Gabriel asked. “Could the scroll-holder itself have attracted a thief?”
“Unlikely,” Gervase replied. “I wouldn’t have said it’s all that special.”
“It isn’t,” Del said. “It’s at best a curiosity. I don’t think anyone would imagine it had any intrinsic value.”
“So the letter is the only attraction.” Gyles met Del’s gaze. “But who could have taken it? Could someone unknown have slipped inside?”
“Given the snow, I doubt it.” Vane looked at Devil. “But before we go further, perhaps we should check?”
Devil nodded. “Let’s go up to the tower and see.” Laying down his cue, he headed for the door.
His cousins fell in in his wake. Del, Tony, Gyles, and Gervase all exchanged mystified glances, but the Cynsters strode forward with purpose, so they followed.
Into the central part of the mansion, then up a narrow spiral stair that led up and up, eventually opening into a small square room. Del looked around as he stepped out of the stairwell, and realized they were at the top of the tower that stood high above the Somersham Place roofs. The wide windows on all sides gave magnificent views over the surrounding lands.
It was a tight fit with all nine of them in the tower room. They stood shoulder to shoulder, and looked out. Over an unbroken blanket of white.
“The snow fell the night before last.” Devil stood at the windows facing south. “Anyone see any tracks, footprints, signs of a horse?”
“None to the east,” Demon said.
“Nor the west,” Gabriel said.
“The north is untrammeled, too.” Vane glanced at Del. “Whoever took the scroll-holder, they arrived before or on the same night you did, and, most importantly-”
“They haven’t left.” Devil swung to meet Del’s eyes, and smiled in wolfish anticipation. “Buck up, lads-the scroll-holder’s still here, and now we get to go hunting.”
They repaired to the library to consider the suspects and plan their strategy.
Del paced before the fire. “It has to be one of the staff. The Black Cobra is inventive, relentless, and entirely without morals-the thief might be someone we would normally trust, but they’ve been threatened, or, as is more frequently the case, their family has been threatened. That’s the Black Cobra’s style.”
“Let’s start with the obvious,” Gervase said. “How well do you know Miss Duncannon?”
Del stopped pacing, stared at Gervase, then shook his head. “No-it can’t be her. Her part in this, her appearance in Southampton, had to have been in train, passage booked at least, before MacFarlane even found the letter.”
“But are you sure she is in fact Miss Duncannon?” Tony asked. “The lady you were supposed to meet?”
Del thought of all the snippets of their past lives they’d shared, her intimate knowledge of Humberside and the Wolds. “Yes, it’s her. I’ve known her family since childhood, and I even recall her, albeit distantly, and everything about her fits my picture of what she should be like too closely for her to be an imposter.”
“Very well. Not her, then,” Gervase said. “If she is who she’s supposed to be, then the enemy couldn’t have had any knowledge of her before you met her in Southampton, and so couldn’t have had any chance of subverting her.”
“By the same standard of when the opposition would have known about people currently under this roof,” Tony said, “we can exclude all those who traveled here with the vari ous Cynster families-” He broke off, looked at Devil. “But that assumes there was no chance our enemy could have learned the role Somersham Place was to play in Royce’s plans earlier-in time to arrange to bring pressure to bear on someone here, or someone who has traveled here. How sound is that assumption?”
“What you’re effectively asking,” Devil said, “is how secure Wolverstone’s plans are, and you’d know that better than I.”
Tony grimaced. “More secure than the Crown jewels.”
“And in organizing all this”-Devil waved at those gathered around-“nothing was written down. Wolverstone rode over with Minerva-outwardly one of the occasional social visits we exchange when they’re in residence in Suffolk. Nothing to alert anyone, even had they been watching, but how the Black Cobra could have guessed what was going on months ago…” Devil looked at Del.
Who shook his head. “That’s drawing an altogether-too-long a bow. Wolverstone communicated with me by letter, but that was long before we found Ferrar’s letter.”
“And as for Royce’s security,” Gervase said, “while he’d be the first to tell us not to count on anything, he was the one we-all his operatives-constantly relied on for absolute secrecy, and he never let any of us down. Why his security would be breached now, by someone who, no matter how brutal, is really not in his league experience-wise…” He shook his head. “I really can’t see it.” He met Del’s eyes. “We’ll have to look elsewhere for our thief.”
“I agree.” Tony looked at Del, too. “That leaves your staffs-yours and Deliah’s. Let’s take yours first. How can you be sure none of them have been subverted?”
Del’s impulse was to shrug the question aside, but the matter was too grave. He forced himself to consider what to him was the unthinkable. “Cobby…he’s been with me for years, from long before Waterloo. I don’t think anyone here could imagine him being subverted by the enemy, in this case an enemy of England.”
He started pacing again. “Other than him, there’s only Mustaf and his wife, Amaya, and Mustaf has been carrying the scroll-holder for much of our journey here. If he’d wanted to, he could have opened the holder, seen the letter wasn’t the original, and reported that to the enemy long ago-in which case I seriously doubt the Black Cobra would have been chasing us through Cambridgeshire. The same applies to Amaya-she would have had opportunity aplenty to act before now. No reason for either of them to wait until we’re trapped here. And in terms of the cult’s usual means of bringing pressure to bear, namely through family members, Mustaf and Amaya hail from a region of India entirely free of the Black Cobra’s influence.”
Gervase nodded. “So not them. What about the girl?”
“Alia?” Del paused, then allowed, “Normally I would count her as a likely prospect, but she’s an orphan, and her only living relatives are Mustaf and Amaya. And Amaya keeps a very close eye on her-she’s very protective, worse than any mother hen. It’s part of their culture to keep girls close, almost cloistered.”