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Someone had carelessly—or deliberately—left the sneck off for the intruder to get in.
    Other than that, nothing seemed to have been disturbed or taken.
    Then who had been here and what did he want?
    She made a more thorough search and found that something
was
missing—a folder with Chloë’s notes for back copies of the
Journal
.
    A name flashed into her mind—
Waldo Bowman
. She remembered how, not many hours ago, he had demanded to know who supplied her with information for the back-page gossip column, then he had threatened to take action against her.
    Waldo Bowman! Her temper began to sizzle. She had no need of the poker now. She wasn’t afraid of Waldo Bowman.
    She didn’t think for a moment he’d come in person to burglarize her offices. A man like that would hire others to do his dirty work for him. Besides, she couldn’t see Waldo Bowman creeping away from anything, not even if he were caught in the act.
    First the visit from Bowman, then the letter from Lady Langston, then Chloë’s cryptic note, and now the break-in. She was thoroughly rattled.
    London wasn’t so far away. If she left early in the morning, she could be there by nightfall. Mac was capable. He could take care of things in her absence.
    When she left, she made doubly sure that all the windows and doors were securely locked.

C hapter 4
    W ith one thing and another, they did not leave for London till almost noon of the following day. There were simply too many things to do, too many details to take care of. One of those details was to collect a parcel of clothes from the vicar’s wife, a parcel for Master Foley that the vicar had inadvertently left behind that morning when he set off with the boy. Since Barnet was not far out of their way, Jo was happy to deliver it.
    All these delays meant that they would not reach London that night, not unless they were prepared to cross Finchley Common at dusk and risk being accosted by highwaymen. This neither Jo nor her aunt was prepared to do. Travel on the king’s highways was risky in the best of circumstances so Mrs. Daventry, much to Jo’s amusement, never set out on a long journey without her late husband’s pistol concealed in her reticule—not that she knew how to use it, but it made her feel safe. But Finchley Common was so notorious that only seasoned soldiers or duelists thought nothing of crossing it after dark. There was nothing for it but to stay the night at Barnet, preferably at the Red Lion if a room was available. Once they reached London, they would stay at her aunt’s house.
    As their chaise bowled along, Jo paid little attention to the hamlets and villages they left behind. She was going through all the letters she had received from Chloë in the last month or two, looking for clues as to what could have prompted her friend to write that cryptic note. But there was nothing odd or out of the ordinary. Chloë loved shopping, entertaining, and going to parties. There wasn’t a hint of anything suspicious or sinister, until that last letter.
    She felt as though she were on a seesaw. One moment she felt confident that Chloë would turn up, hale and hearty, and be shocked to discover how she had alarmed all her friends. The next moment she feared the worst.
    Waldo Bowman.
    Now that he had Chloë’s notes, he would know that Chloë was the author of London Life. If, in fact, he was responsible for the break-in . . .
    “Why the sigh?”
    Jo looked up with a start. Her aunt was gazing curiously at her. She’d told her aunt as much as she knew, but those were facts. She hadn’t confided her suspicions.
    “Waldo Bowman,” she said simply. “I’m almost sure he was responsible for the burglary last night.”
    Mrs. Daventry was taken aback. “Surely not.”
    “He was determined to find out who supplied me with information for London Life.”
    “All the same, I can’t believe he would stoop to that, not the Mr. Bowman I know.”
    Jo stared at her aunt.