From her room, Tassie watched them go riding down the wide drive between the trees with their collars turned up against the bitter north-east wind. At least Marcus had listened again, with a little more patience, to her continued insistence that her friends would not, could not have stolen the pictures; though whether he believed her or not she could not tell. ‘I’ll take up the matter with the Gloucestershire constables, and in London, too,’ he said curtly. ‘It’s likely that whoever stole them will try to pass them on at one of the city auction houses. And I’ll arrange for a couple of local men to keep watch on the Hall from now on.’ ‘So you’re not setting up a hue and cry for my friends?’ He hesitated. ‘I would need to have evidence first. Fortunately all the truly valuable works were locked away when Roderick moved out of the Hall; the stolen paintings were not of great worth.’ That, at any rate, was something she should be grateful for. But there was nothing for her to be grateful about in the way he had then told her, curtly and coldly, that while he was in London he would meet his lawyers to see if there was any other way to stop Lornings going to Sebastian in September.
What do You think about The Major And The Pickpocket?
