Theo followed them as they went through a small doorway and began to climb a spiral staircase. ‘If you don’t mind?’ he said over his shoulder to the count. ‘I would be most interested.’ And taking advantage of every legitimate opportunity to study the layout of the chateau was essential. He had no intention of creeping about in the small hours with a dark lantern any more than he had to.
He did not stop to see what the other man’s response might be, but ducked through the doorway in the wake of Mademoiselle Julie’s slight figure. There was silence behind him for a second, then the sharp snap of booted feet on the stone floor. Count Leon was coming to keep an eye on him, or was it Elinor?
The turret stair wound up, passing small doors as it went. At one point Aunt Louisa gave an exclamation and pointed to a change in the stonework. ‘Interesting!’ Then, when they had reached what Theo estimated must be the third floor above the ground, the countess opened a door and led them through into a dark, narrow passageway, through another door and into a tiny chamber blazing with coloured light.
Even Theo, who had some idea what to expect, was startled by the rose window filled with red and blue glass that occupied almost the entire end wall. On either side ranged columns with richly carved heads. ‘They are so like those at Vezelay!’ Elinor exclaimed, darting across to study one. ‘But in such good condition, and low down, so we can see them.’
Lady James, for once in her life, appeared speechless. ‘I must study this,’ she pronounced finally. ‘In detail.’
Theo strolled across to Elinor’s side and stooped to whisper, ‘Do what you can to engineer an invitation to stay. For all of us.’ She looked up, startled, then nodded. ‘I would appreciate it.’
The count was standing in the middle of the room, unmoved by Lady James’s ecstasies, his eyes on Theo. ‘Are you really interested in this, Ravenhurst?’ he enquired, his voice puzzled. Theo chose to treat the question as a joke, smiled warmly and continued to study the walls of the chapel. No cupboards, no niches, no apparent changes in the stonework to indicate a blocked-up hiding place. But then, he had not expected to find it here. It would take an atheist, or someone with a careless approach to their faith, to hide that thing in the family chapel.
There was another door on the far side from where they had entered. He strolled across, passing the count. ‘Shall we leave the ladies? There is something I would appreciate discussing with you. Through here, perhaps? I would prefer not to have to spin round another tower.’
Silently Leon led the way, opening the door on to a broad corridor. Theo followed as slowly as he dared, looking about until they reached a panelled door and passed through into what was obviously the study.
Theo suspected it had been the old count’s and hardly changed by his son in the month since he had succeeded. He took a chair on one side of a vast desk, noticing he was not offered refreshment.
‘To what do we owe the pleasure of this visit? Your letter was somewhat lacking in detail beyond your aunt’s interest in architecture,’ Leon remarked, dropping into the chair with its carved arms and high back. Darkly saturnine, he looked like the wicked prince in a fairytale as he frowned across the wide expanse of desk.
‘You will know I assisted your father in recovering some of the family artefacts lost during the Revolution?’ The other man nodded. ‘There was an item I wished to purchase from him, something that had remained in hiding throughout the family’s exile from France.’
Theo watched the count’s face for any betraying sign that he knew that Theo had in fact purchased that item and had lost it, in violent circumstances, a week after the transaction. He rubbed the back of his neck as he waited. The bruising and the torn muscles had healed, but the pain of having been taken completely off his guard still lingered. He had had not so much as a glimpse of the person who had struck him down. Was he facing him now?
’If you speak of the object I assume you are, it has vanished.’ Leon’s frown deepened, his well-modelled lips thinning. ‘My father was murdered the day after he arrived in Paris, having removed it from this chateau in circumstances of extreme secrecy. No sum of money equivalent to even a tenth of its worth was found on him, nor in the Paris house, nor with our bankers.’ He shook his head, his face grim. ‘I still find it hard to believe he could ever have sold it—it was an heirloom. And yet it is gone.’
‘Indeed? I can assure you he intended to.’ Either the man was a damn good actor or he did not know that Theo was the purchaser. ‘What use is an heirloom so shocking that you could never openly admit you had it? An heirloom that none of the ladies of the house must ever catch a glimpse of? Your father intended to sell it because he needed the money. I wish to buy it as the agent of an English collector who will pay handsomely.’
Who had, in fact, paid very handsomely indeed and was expecting the arrival of his purchase days ago. No one else knew about the sale except three rival treasure seekers, one of whom had been sharing his bed. He had not believed Ana, or the English couple, had realised why he was in Paris, his security had been so tight.
‘Perhaps he had already sold it,’ he ventured, probing. ‘Was there no receipt?’ Theo had certainly exchanged them with the count. His had been taken along with the item as he had lain unconscious on the inn floor.
‘There was no receipt in my father’s papers or on his person.’
‘How did your father die?’
‘A blow to the head. We hushed it up as the result of a fall. He was found across the hearth, the back of his skull against the iron fire basket. It may have been an accident,’ Leon conceded as though it caused him pain to do so. ‘But I want the Beaumartin Chalice back.’ He regarded Theo through narrowed eyes. ‘You think I killed him, don’t you?’
That was precisely what Theo thought. That the count had quarrelled with his father, had taken back the Chalice and was now pretending it had gone to cover his actions.
‘Indeed, that had seemed the most logical explanation to me. That you quarrelled with your father when you discovered that he had sold the Chalice, that there was a terrible accident.’ It seemed odd to be naming the thing out loud after months of secrecy, code words and whispers.
They sat looking at each other in silence, contemplating Theo’s cool suggestion. It was the count whose eyes dropped first. ‘I disagreed with him about this. Violently. But we exchanged words only, before he left Beaumartin. I did not kill him, even by accident.’
‘Of course,’ Theo said, injecting warmth into his voice. Now he spoke to the man he was inclined to trust him. Leon had been raised in England—did that mean he shared the same code of honour as Theo? Perhaps.
‘Why do you want it back—other than the fact you cannot trace the money that was paid for it if it was sold and not stolen?’
‘Do you imagine I want that thing out there, bearing our name? It has taken years for the rumours about the family to die down.’
‘It is a work of art and was no doubt destined for a very private collector.’
‘It is an obscenity,’ Leon snapped.
‘Indeed. And a valuable one. Too valuable to melt down and break up.’
‘When I get it back, it will go back into safe keeping, in the most secure bank vault I can find. My father, and his before him, kept it hidden here, in this chateau. After his death I checked—it had gone.’