No Graves as Yet_ A Novel - Anne Perry [9]
“Yes, of course,” Joseph agreed, rising as well. They had better give Judith something to do. She had no need to know anything about this yet, and perhaps not at all. He turned to her. “Would you go through the household accounts with Mrs. Appleton and see if there is anything that needs doing? Perhaps some orders should be canceled, or at least reduced. And there may be invitations to be declined.”
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
“You’ll be staying?” Mrs. Appleton said with another sniff. “What’ll you be wanting for dinner, Mr. Joseph?”
“Nothing special,” he answered. “Whatever you have.”
“Oi’ve got cold salmon and summer pudding,” she said a little truculently, as if she were defending Alys’s choice. If it was good enough for the master and mistress, it was certainly good enough for the young master, whatever had happened in the world. “And there’s some good Ely cheese,” she added.
“That would be excellent, thank you.” He then followed Matthew, who was already at the door.
They went along the passage and across the hall to John Reavley’s study, overlooking the garden. The sun was still well above the horizon and bathing the tops of the orchard trees in gold. The leaves shimmered in the rising wind, and a swirl of starlings rose into the sky, black against the amber and flame, turning in wide spiral arms against the sunset.
Joseph looked around the familiar room, almost like an earlier pattern of his own in Cambridge. There was a simple oak desk, shelves of books covering most of two walls. The books dated back to John’s university days. Some were in German. Many were leather-bound, a few well-thumbed cloth or even paper. There was a recently acquired folio of drawings on the table by the window.
A Bonnington seascape hung over the fireplace, its color neither blue nor green, but a luminous gray that holds both at its heart. Looking at it, one could draw a cleaner breath and almost feel the sting of the salt in the wind. John Reavley had loved everything in this room. Each object marked some happiness or beauty he had known, but the Bonnington was special.
Joseph turned away from it. “I’ll start over here,” he said, taking the first book off the shelf nearest the window.
Matthew began with the desk.
They searched for half an hour before dinner, and all evening afterward. Judith went to bed, and midnight found the two brothers still sifting through papers, looking in books a second or third time, even moving furniture. Finally they admitted defeat and forced themselves into the master bedroom to look with stiff fingers through drawers of clothes, in shelves where toiletries and personal jewelry were kept, in pockets of the clothes hanging in wardrobes. There was no document.
At half past one, head throbbing, eyes stinging as if hot and gritty, Joseph came to the end of places to investigate. He straightened up, moving his shoulders carefully to ease the ache. “It’s not here,” he said wearily.
Matthew did not answer for several moments. He kept his eyes on the drawer he had been going through for the third time. “Father was very clear,” he repeated stubbornly. “He said the effect of it, the daring, was so vast it was beyond most men’s imagination. And terrible.” He looked up at last, his eyes red-rimmed, angry, as if Joseph were attacking his judgment. “He couldn’t trust anyone else because of who was involved.”
Joseph’s imagination was too tired and too full of pain to be inventive, even to save Matthew’s feelings. “Then where is it?” he demanded. “Would he trust it to the bank? Or the solicitor?”
Denial was in Matthew’s face, but he clung to the possibility for a few seconds, because he could think of nothing else.
“We’ll have to speak to them tomorrow anyway.” Joseph sat down on the chair by the desk. Matthew was sitting beside the drawers on the carpet.
“He wouldn’t give it to Pettigrew.” Matthew pushed his hair back off his forehead. “They’re just family solicitors—wills and property.”
“Then quite a safe place to hide something valuable and dangerous,” Joseph reasoned.
Matthew glared at