Read The Peculiar Case of Lord Finsbury's Diamonds: A Casebook of Barnaby Adair Short Novel (The Casebook of Barnaby Adair) for Free Online Page B

can’t help you there.” As for the diamonds, Rattle had absolutely no idea what they were talking about; he had no notion a necklace known as the Finsbury diamonds even existed and, patently, didn’t really care. As for his alibi, he’d been with Harriet Pace, her mother, and both the Shepherd ladies all through the afternoon.
     Rattle was followed in quick succession by all the other ladies, who verified his alibi and those of each other. None of them had succeeded in prizing anything of Mitchell’s background from him, but, in the usual way of well-born ladies, all had tried. 
    Sitting back as the door closed behind Mrs. Shepherd, the last of the female guests, Barnaby met Stokes’s gaze. “It’s starting to look like Mitchell was being not just careful but obsessive over deflecting all interest away from his background.”
     “Indeed,” Stokes replied. “Which raises the question of why?” He paused, then glanced at a clock on a nearby shelf. “Let’s interview the rest of the gentlemen, then see if a break for lunch and digestion results in any fresh insights before we continue with questioning the staff.”
     Barnaby agreed.
     The two older gentlemen had spent the previous afternoon in the library, dozing over the news sheets. Although the conversation had been sporadic, both were quite sure the other had not left at any point throughout the critical period.
     On the question of Mitchell, from Mr. Pace they heard, “Asked him if he was related to the Helmsley Mitchells, but he said not. Didn’t volunteer much of himself, now I think of it.”
     Mr. Shepherd was more definite. “I couldn’t place him, and when it came down to it, he couldn’t place himself, if you know what I mean. I started to wonder if there was something havey-cavey about him—when I heard he’d been murdered, I wasn’t all that surprised.”
     Both men knew of the Finsbury diamonds, but neither had seen the necklace in years, and neither showed the slightest interest in it now, beyond the fact that it had been found in Mitchell’s possession.
     That occasioned an exclamation from Mr. Shepherd. “Gads! Whoever killed him left a fortune behind!”
     “Which,” Stokes said, as he and Barnaby rose and headed for the door after Mr. Shepherd had left, “is a fair comment.”
     Rather than remain at the house and impose on the staff who they would later be interviewing, they ambled back down the woodland path to the village. While they’d been up at the house, the police surgeon’s men had arrived and had taken Mitchell’s body away, along with the foot-trap and hoop-hammer. A patch of flattened grass and disturbed leaves was all that remained to mark the spot; Barnaby and Stokes skirted it and walked on.
    When appealed to, Duffet, trailing respectfully behind, directed them to a smaller tavern which, he assured them, served better fare than the bigger and much busier coaching inns.
     Barnaby and Stokes were pleased to approve of the tavern’s ale and rabbit pie.
     Pushing away his empty plate, Barnaby sat back. “You know, the usual murder has only one mystery attached to it—who killed the victim? In this case, we not only have that mystery, but also a mystery over who the victim was, as well as the joint mysteries of how he got the Finsbury diamonds and why he was bringing them back.”
    Stokes grimaced. “And given the mystery over Mitchell himself, I find myself less inclined to believe Lord Finsbury’s rose-tinted theory that Mitchell somehow stumbled on the diamonds, managed to secure them, and was bringing them back to right his standing with the family. That’s too far-fetched.”
     “Indeed.” Barnaby pushed back his chair and rose. “Let’s get back and see what the staff can tell us.”
     They returned to the estate office to discover the neat list of all the staff Agnes had promised to provide waiting on the desk. They started with Riggs. As the butler had already seen the body and knew