No wrinkles within the sheets, no hole within the pillow. ” “Oh hell. It looks like he spent the evening with girl Wentwater, then. ” “Looks love it, leader. Her ladyship’s maid, omit Barstow, used to be the one one as went upstairs among dinner and the chambermaid placing hot-water bottles within the beds at part ten. woman Wentwater ordered her to attract a tub after which pushed aside her for the evening. ” “But the earl may need walked in on them at any second! probably Astwick didn’t care. He was once doing a moonlight to Rio besides, so the social outcomes wouldn’t trouble him, and he’d have his revenge on woman Wentwater someway. i have to admit, no matter what it was once she did that gave him a carry over her, I’m sorry for her. ” “His lordship didn’t stroll in on them, though,” Tom reminded him, “at least by way of his personal account. and she or he couldn’t’ve chopped a gap within the ice if she used to be having just a little nooky with the sufferer, so it shall we her out. ” “Except that her simply witness is lifeless. We’ve no evidence he was once together with her, finally. He could have been exploring your Dilys’s charms in a few garret. There’s a lamppost. rattling it, the place the satan are we? ” The sergeant glued his nostril to the bespattered part window, then permit it down and fixed his head out. “Alresford,” he introduced. “Next correct, then directly forward. now not my Dilys, leader, no longer yet what she’d hardly’ve instructed me approximately his mattress if he’d been in hers. ” “He might have been in the other lady servant’s,” Alec stated with a sigh, looking for a fashion out for the countess. He became correct into the large major highway of the little city. “Don’t imagine so. truth, I’m beautiful convinced no longer. Like woman Josephine instructed you, I haven’t picked up the slightest trace he used to be drawn to the maids. Someone’d’ve tattled if there has been owt to tattle approximately, I’ll be sure. There’s continually jealousies lower than stairs such as you wouldn’t think, leader. No, Astwick in basic terms fancied upper-crust women and at Wentwater he hadn’t eyes for nowt yet her ladyship. ” “Nonetheless, we’ve no proof he spent that evening in her mattress. I’m no longer relatively able to brush off the potential of his having spent it in woman Marjorie’s, if now not in a maid’s. We’re quite no additional ahead than prior to. I don’t see how I’m ever going solve this situation except Payne comes up with anything startlingly new, which turns out not likely. ” “He could lead us to the loot from the Flatford task, or even if he don’t, we picked up the great things from the opposite burglaries,” Tring reminded him cheerfully. “True. ” “That’s a feather on your cap, leader, whether chummie’s no support with the Wentwater enterprise, if it’s all within the relations, like. ” “As turns out possible. ” Gloom lower back. “It’ll take a sheaf of peacock feathers to make up for arresting the earl, if that’s what I turn out having to do. believe he overheard Astwick and his spouse making love? His dressing-room’s correct round the corner to the bed room. He may have reckoned that establishing an twist of fate may let him to get his personal again with out ever admitting to figuring out he’d been cuckolded. ” on the police station in Winchester, a stout, grizzled constable who regarded way past the age of retirement used to be nodding off on a excessive seat at the back of front table.