Geoffrey left the breakfast room in a pensive silence that did little to hide the fact he had the urge to walk around the estate a few times, just to answer some burning questions in the back of his head.

Telling himself he wasn't on duty didn't seem to be helping.

He cleared the steps and found his oldest son busy frowning at a long plate of marble stretching across one end of the hall to the other. Geoffrey frankly thought it was the most glaring display of wealth outside Buckingham Palace—even the Palace used wood for wainscoting. Mahogany, probably, harvested by a tribe he couldn't pronounce that hadn't been discovered yet…but it was wood…

"Something wrong, Martin?"

Martin looked up quickly, prepared to be guilty at snooping. "Looking at the sea-shells, Tad." He explained quickly. "There's lots peppered through. Take a look." He held out the small magnifying lens procured from the combination of his birthday, the gloom of a broken hand, and nonstop persistence on his grandfather.

Geoffrey obliged, but he could see for himself the tracings in the stone. He got down to one knee in order to better see where Martin was pointing. It looking like small, white scallops lining traceries into the stone.

All right. Geoffrey very grudgingly conceded that the stonework looked like very pretty white lace with the string of slow-dancing shells frozen in time against the iron grey of the base marble. They hovered in the stone like slow-spiraling snowflakes, occasionally translucent against the rising sunlight.

"I wonder what happened?" Martin wondered softly.

"Probably a storm." Geoffrey ventured. "Something that kicked up the soft bottom like a cloud, and when it settled it buried everything else with it."

Martin was quiet, studying the long, slow sweep of time across the wall. "It's still beautiful, like a piece of art."

"That it is." His father agreed. "Have you been here all morning looking at this?"

"No, sir. I looked up the snake for Nick. It's an Aesclapius."

"I don't know the name, just recognized it."

"The book says it doesn't belong here." Martin told him, almost embarrassed.

"It doesn't?" Geoffrey resisted the urge to sigh. If Nick ever survived his encounters with animals, he really would have a promising career as a naturalist…

"Well, it used to be here, but not any longer…" Martin fumbled inside his jacket and pulled out a slim little book—unsurprisingly, considering the subject: Reptiles and Amphibians of Great Britain. "I found it in the upstairs library." He explained.

Sherlock Holmes could find a broken needle in a moldy haystack. Nicholas could find the only exotic species within a hundred leagues of the palace. And Martin, bless him, needed no more than a few minutes to ferret out a book. It was probably because it was made of paper. Martin had a bond with paper…

"I don't like the way it's made," Martin added as if in apology. "His Lordship's writing style's like he's trying to impress somebody, not educate them."

"Plenty of those out there, aren't there?" Geoffrey was unsurprised that their fellow table-guest of the previous night extended his stuffiness to writing. He obligingly went to the page his son indicated. "Yes, that does look like the fellow…" The dramatic artist had depicted the snake with its mouth hanging open. "Can't say I've ever seen them hold their mouths that wide."

"No?" Martin wanted another reason to dislike the book.

"No. We used to scare them to see how wide they'd defense…" Geoffrey cleared his throat at his son's expression. "Weekends at Plymouth aren't very interesting," he explained. "We never hurt them, Martin. Your grandmother would have thrown us in the soup-pot before that would have happened."

"A lot of women aren't fond of snakes." Martin again displayed his gift for summary.

"I don't think it would occur to her to like or dislike one of God's creatures." Geoffrey said carefully. "You didn't hurt something for the fun of it…but she did say those snakes were special. I've never understood why."

"The book says the Druids took them with them wherever they went." Martin offered. "They were supposed to live in every place that had a temple to healing." He was excited. "That's why they have that name."

"They do?"

Some children are very impatient with being raised by much-slower elders. Martin was a different stripe. "Aesclapius was the Greek God of healing."

"Oh." Geoffrey pondered this, slowly rising to his feet. "If it was the Greek God of healing, why were the Romans lugging them about?"

"The Greeks and Romans were always doing stuff together. Sort of like Canadians and Americans."

"Well, that explains that."

"I'd like to read more about it, but not by the Viscount."

"Can't say as how I blame you. Mind if I look at this a bit?"

-

Clea was in the bath when he came in—a moment all men understood as sacred and not defensively interruptible by Man or God. He settled himself into the lounging sofa by the window and paged through the book in question. Nick, of course, was nowhere to be seen but Martin knew where his brother was. He always knew.

Something light and clattery smacked full-force against the other side of the door.

"Geoffrey, find me a comb that's worth the money!"

"Yes, dear." Geoffrey kept his amusement on the inward side of his mouth where it was safe.

"Stop smirking!"

"I wasn't smirking!"

"Like you weren't."

"Do you want your hair combed or not?" Geoffrey was smiling as he stepped inside, quickly shutting it against the draught.

"You trying having hair so thick it breaks combs."

"Thank you, no. It's one of the reasons why I'm glad I'm a man." He took in the size of his wife against that of the tub. "Good thing you know how to swim." He mused. "If this place ever goes up on auction, we ought to try to grab the tub. The Mews needs a new watering-trough for the oxen."

"Aren't you the clever one this morning." Clea leaned back and closed her eyes as her husband found a resistant-looking comb of wood, not shell. He pulled up a stepping-stool and began on the tips of her hair, working his way slowly upwards to her scalp. By now her hair was waist-length; an undertaking for more than one person. "Still no grey in there," he mock-complained. "What's your secret?"

"Marry an older man."

"Ouch!"

Clea chuckled deep in her throat. She was physically recovering from Margaret's birth, but there was a pleasing roundness that said "new mother" and she hoped to keep it a bit longer. "So where are Salt and Pepper?"

"Running amuck somewhere…Martin was parsing the Geologic Timeline in the hallway when I came back up…" Geoffrey concentrated on a snarl. "Found an odd little book written by our friend, His Lordship the Great Trout-killer." Clea snickered from behind a soapy hand. "Identifies that snake you fell in love with—ow!—and Martin's furious because the book says it's not native to Great Britain and doesn't live here."

"Martin can find a cause, can't he?" Clea sighed. "How typical."

Geoffrey explained the book and some of the details about the mess. "He's quite upset." He finished. "I think he still holds the idealistic belief that a person who can write a book has the urge to write a good book."

"He's still a boy." Clea pointed out. "And still imagining the best of people. Wait till he learns people write for fame, glory, and the satisfaction of their own base urges."

"I'll stick to just writing reports." Geoffrey found the three towels needed to wring-dry his wife's hair and on her orders plaited it up damp. It would take the entire day to finish drying, but when it did the effect would be a waving waterfall of gloss that would look painstaking and professional at the night's dancing.

"Reports, my feyther's blind eyes. What you've got in your daily journals is the stuff of nightmares, dramas, and dare I say it, operas."

Clean and momentarily content with life, Clea donned a wrapper and curled up on the lounging sofa. Geoffrey pulled the drapes to allow the warm sunlight into the room. Geoffrey went to the table and pulled out his small notebook. Clea pretended she didn't see him writing things down.

"Hello." Geoffrey said with surprise evident in his voice.

Clea looked. "It looks like they're trying to transplant the first row of the orchard to the front of the estate," she commented.

"…morons." Geoffrey said under his breath. "No appreciation for the labor and care that went into the growing of those trees."

"No…they haven't that." Clea agreed.

Click. Geoffrey set his pencil down and his chin sank into his hand. The other hand tapped against the surface of the table.

"What a mess." He said at last. "I wish like anything Mr. Holmes hadn't set up this particular sort of holiday."

Clea gave a guilty start. "Who told you that?" She asked. It was far more innocent and less damning than "how did you find out?"

"Baynes."

"Oh." Her spirit-level of respect for her husband's companions wobbled. "How did he find out?"

"Probably broke into the guest-book and read through the records if I know him." Geoffrey sighed. "Now it looks like a case of favoritism. I'm not keen on it, Clea."

"Perhaps it's something else." Clea urged. "You needn't be trapped here with me while I'm waiting for my hair to dry."

"I would think you needed some amusement to keep from ripping the paper off the walls."

"Go on, you." Clea pretended to throw the nearest vase of silk flowers at him.

-

Geoffrey pondered his options, and re-checked the time. Holmes would be long-gone to wherever he was supposed to be, unless…

Oh, dear.

The small man stopped in the middle of the hallway (still deserted; still not noon and the rising-time for the majority of these silly guests). He stood there, thinking, but it was a hard go of it.

While he liked the results of working with Mr. Holmes, there was a great deal to tolerate about the man.

And for every waking moment of his professional relationship with the man, Geoffrey Lestrade had insisted—insisted on a stack of Bibles—that it was impossible to put together an entire case on just a tiny handful of facts.

You needed all the pieces together in order to get the puzzle. He'd sworn that over and over again.

And now he was beginning to suspect how terribly wrong he had been.

The worst part of it was that he had come to this enlightenment not while he was being a police inspector, but while he was being a civilian on holiday.

Convalescent holiday. That made it even worse somehow.

A sense of dread walked cold little feet up the back of his throat. He found a nearby library-table and sank into the stuffed leather, yanking out his notebook and pencil for the second time that morning.

* Owner of Arbors married to Lady Woodrow.

* Both Woodrows not supposed to be owners of estate.

+Financial secrets

* Sir George and his wife: No love lost. He beat her; she would die before she confessed to having the shame of such a lout for a helpmeet.

* Sir George made wife give up dogs. Cruelty in a way to save money? Purebred dogs weren't cheap. Nothing with status was cheap.

* Sir George's widow had connexions. Connexions he couldn't chase away. Like the Viscount.

* L.M. seemingly without any morals but what is expected of him.

He hesitated a long time, and finally decided to finish it:

* Sir George's favorite horse being fed arsenic.