Pippa spoke to me quietly. “Did you have to bring everyone?”

  “You try and keep them away.”

  Mum came in carrying a large tray bearing a teapot, coffee carafe, jugs of milk and cream, and a bowl of sugar with a small silver spoon. Jayne followed with cups and mugs. “Wow!” she said, “that’s a heck of a kitchen.” While she asked everyone what they wanted and poured the drinks, Mum went back for another load and reappeared with plates of fresh croissants and jars of strawberry jam and butter.

  We took seats, balanced cups and plates on our laps, and dug in. Horace seemed to be well trained and didn’t try to snatch the pastries off anyone’s plate, but he did sit close to Dad with an expectant look on his face.

  “Oh my gosh.” Jayne wiped flakes of pastry off her blouse. “This has got to be the best croissant I’ve ever had.”

  “And that’s saying a lot,” I said.

  “Mmmmuummm,” said Donald.

  “They’re from Paul’s Boulangerie,” Mum said. “I made a run this morning. I cowardly ducked out the back door, leaving Pippa to answer the knock from the police at the front.”

  “What’s the story between you and DI Morrison?” I asked my father.

  Dad could be blunt when he wanted to be. He wanted to be now. “He’s a fool. Do you get completely incompetent and slightly crooked cops in America, Ryan?”

  “Now and again,” Ryan said.

  “Incompetent was immediately obvious,” I said. “But not crooked.”

  “He’s been known to turn a blind eye in return for a monetary favor,” Dad said. “All minor stuff, so somehow he seems to get away with it without coming to anyone’s attention. As you surmised, Gemma, he and I have clashed before. More than once. We started on the force around the same time, and were assigned to the same station. Even back then, I thought he was sloppy and lazy. I rose through the ranks far faster than he did, and he never forgave me for it. As I recall, he didn’t come to my retirement party.”

  “Would he frame you?” Pippa asked.

  Dad sipped his coffee and thought about that. “I’d say no. If I was still on the force, maybe. But I’m no threat to him now. No, what we have to worry about with Sam Morrison is that he’ll be too lazy to do much more than follow obvious clues.”

  “And you’re the most obvious clue,” Ryan said.

  “ ‘There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact,’ ” Donald said solemnly. “The Boscombe Valley Mystery.”

  “Thank you, Donald,” Grant said.

  “You still don’t remember anything, Henry?” Ryan asked.

  Dad shook his head. “I’ve been racking my brains, but nothing helps. It’s all a fog.”

  “Don’t try so hard to remember,” Mum said. “It’ll come to you when you least expect it.”

  “Hard not to,” Dad said.

  “So,” Jayne said. “What are we doing to do?”

  “We,” I said, “are going to do nothing. We don’t know the people involved in this. It’s not like back in West London where I can ask around of people I know, and half the people in town know the business of the other half.”

  Jayne’s pretty face fell. “You mean we have to sit and wait for something to happen?”

  “Gemma’s dad didn’t kill Randy,” Grant said. “Maybe this Morrison is an idiot, but the rest of the Metropolitan Police are not. They’ll find Randy’s killer soon enough.” He was looking around the room, but he was speaking to Pippa. He still seemed to be under the impression she could be comforted by platitudes.

  “Grant’s right,” Pippa said, appearing to be comforted. “We’ll let the police take care of it. Dad, you have plenty of contacts in the Met. Tap into them and find out what’s going on. Maybe drop a word or two into friendly ears that you don’t trust Morrison.”

  “I can do that,” Dad said.

  “Excellent plan.” Donald reached for another croissant. “Even the Great Detective himself was not averse to asking for help when he needed it.”

  “Not everyone who goes to a Holmes convention,” Grant said to Pippa, “thinks everything in life has to be done according to Sherlock.”

  She gave him a warm smile as she stood up. Horace scrambled to his feet. “I don’t know about you,” Pippa said, “but before I do anything more, I have to get home and out of these clothes. I must look a total mess.”

  “Not at all,” Grant said.

  He was rewarded by another smile. I caught Ryan trying to smother a laugh.

  “Gemma,” Pippa said, “help me with the dishes, will you? Mum, I think Dad can be left alone for a few hours today as long as you keep your phone close. Perhaps you could take Jayne to see some of the sights.”

  “Would you like that, Jayne?” Mum asked.

  “If you’re sure I can’t do anything to help. There’s nothing like a local guide.” Jayne’s phone rang, and she checked the screen. “I’m sorry, but I have to get this.” She hurried out of the room.

  “How about a visit to the Sherlock Holmes Museum on Baker Street?” Donald said.

  As a barrister, Mum had to be a competent actor. It required all her skills not to look completely horrified at the suggestion.

  I gathered cups and plates, indicated to Ryan to stay where he was, and followed Pippa down the hall and into the kitchen. Horace followed me.

  The kitchen was at the back of the house, overlooking the small garden, neatly put away for the winter, and Dad’s workshop. We were a good distance from the library, but I kept my voice low. “What do you want me to do?”

  Horace went to his water bowl and began slurping.

  “Unlike your extremely handsome and overly optimistic friend—and when we have time, I want to hear the story there—I do not trust the Met to always get the right person. My office cannot be involved in any of this. The conflict of interest is simply too great.”

  “So you want me to be involved in your place?”

  “I’ve been kept appraised of some of your activities in West London.”

  “From more than Uncle Arthur, I presume.”

  “Did you doubt it?”

  “No.”

  “You seem to have made a name for yourself as one who can get to the bottom of cases the police cannot.”

  “Ryan’s a good detective,” I said. “None better. I work faster because I can be pushier, that’s all.”

  “And pushy is what we need here. I will monitor the progress of the official investigation from a distance and keep you informed. In the meantime, the best place for you to start is Randy’s apartment.”

  “Considering I don’t know where that is, I assume you do.”

  “The police arrived there a couple of hours ago. They’ve taken some items away, which may be a problem for us, but you might still be able to find out what he was up to in the way of illegalities, and if he had any enemies.”

  “From what I observed in two days, he did. Have enemies, I mean. I don’t know about him breaking the law, although Dad tells me he had a history of doing that. Before searching his place, I’d like to go back to the conference. I saw two, three, different people arguing with him. This might have been a simple quarrel gone wrong and when I confront her, or him, she’ll break down and confess.”

  “Stranger things have happened,” Pippa said.

  “If that doesn’t produce any results, how am I going to get into his apartment?”

  She checked her watch. “At fifteen minutes past one this afternoon, the electronic locks on the front door of the building and on his flat will be inactive for two minutes.”

  “Convenient.”

  “It is, isn’t it?” She gave me an address in the East End of London. “Oh, one more thing. Do not call me at my office or on my usual phone with updates on this matter. Use this number.” She rattled it off. “Actually, two more things. Ditch the entourage.”

  “How am I going to do that?”

  “Up to you. You can’t have a gaggle of Americans traipsing around London after you. Thus I suggested Mum take Jayne on an outing. If you want someone to watch your back, your boyfriend can do it.”

  “You’ll have to distract Grant.”

  Something lit up in her eyes. “I’ve been assigned less onerous duties.”

  “That includes Donald.”

  “Oh, yes. Donald. I suspect he means well, but …”

  “Ryan too. Jayne will come with me.”

  “Why?”

  “I need a wingman, but that can’t be Ryan. If things go pear-shaped”—such as us being arrested for break and entry—“he could be seriously compromised.”

  She was about to argue, but read my face and let it go.

  We went back to the library, leaving the dishes undone. We found Donald examining the bookshelves, Ryan and Grant asking Dad questions such as how many officers the Met would be likely to assign to the case, and Mum and Jayne flipping through a huge glossy cookbook. I had no idea why there would be any cookbooks in my parents’ house. Must have been a gift.

  Pippa clapped her hands. “I’ve had a marvelous idea.” Her voice rose two octaves from when we’d been talking in the kitchen. “Donald, you want to go to the Sherlock Holmes Museum, but I have something much, much better in mind.”

  Donald looked thrilled, Grant pleased, Ryan dubious.

  “A private tour of Scotland Yard! You don’t mind if we leave you for a while, do you, Dad? I had to pull a lot of strings to get us into the Yard on such short notice.”

  “I’m fine,” he said. “I might have a short nap.”

  Donald looked like a kid who’d found the biggest and shiniest bike under the tree Christmas morning. Then again, maybe even as a child, Donald would have preferred a Junior Sherlock detective set. “Might we possibly see records from the Jack the Ripper case?”

  “I’ll see what I can arrange,” Pippa said.

  “I’ll bow out, thanks,” I said. “I need to go back to the conference. I arranged to meet with a vendor to talk about selling his items in my shop.”

  Indecision crossed Grant’s face. He still had business to do at the conference, and everything shut down at three this afternoon. But on the other hand, Pippa was offering a day together.

  Pippa, who’d also read Grant’s face, turned her smile on him. “Please say you’ll come, Grant. It wouldn’t be as much fun without you.”

  He gulped and nodded.

  “We can meet for dinner here,” Pippa said. “To exchange news about our day.”

  “Anne and I were planning to go to the Portrait Gallery,” Jayne said.

  Mum started to nod, but Pippa jumped in. “On second thought, I’m not sure Dad should be left alone.”

  “I’m—” Dad said.

  Mum could also pick up on unspoken signals. “You’re right, dear. Maybe tomorrow, Jayne.”

  “Great,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  “I’ll pass on Scotland Yard,” Ryan said. “I’ll go with Gemma to the conference. The people who attacked Henry and Randy might still be there, and I don’t want her to be alone.”

  “Oh, no,” Pippa said. “You’re coming with me. I want to hear an American’s impression of the way we do things in the UK. Gemma will have to manage without you.”

  “Jayne can come with me,” I said. “She’ll protect me, won’t you, Jayne?”

  “I will? Okay, I can do that, I guess.”

  I grabbed Jayne’s arm. If I wanted to be at Randy’s apartment by quarter after one and spend time at the conference first, we needed to leave now. “We’ll coordinate dinner by text,” I called over my shoulder. I almost dragged Jayne out of the library and down the hall. I shoved Jayne’s coat into her arms and grabbed mine. I opened the front door and looked down. Horace had followed us. He stood still, simply watching me. “Guard Henry,” I said to him.

  I swear he nodded in reply.

  “Guess who that was calling me?” Jayne said as we hurried up Stanhope Gardens.

  “I have no idea.”

  “Jack!”

  I stopped walking. “Why?”

  “To check in. Wasn’t that nice of him?”

  “I thought he was out of the picture.”

  “He wants to be back in it.”

  Jack was Jack Templeton, whom Jayne had dated for a short while last summer. I didn’t like Jack much, and I still maintain that’s not because the first time we met, when he didn’t know who I was, he called the Emporium pretentious and me a nutty Englishwoman. Jayne had, in my opinion, appalling taste in men. Then again, to be fair, her boyfriends probably thought she had bad taste in best friends and business partners. Jack was rich, having made his money in an Internet start-up that had been bought by a big firm. He was as snobby and, dare I say it, pretentious as only the nouveau riche can be. He’d tried to charm Jayne with expensive presents, dinners in the best restaurants, and offers of a quick run down to Bermuda on his yacht, but they soon broke up when he couldn’t understand how important her job was to her and the amount of time she needed to devote to it in the summer tourist season.

  Jayne might have bad taste in men, but she never took them too seriously, and she’d casually told me about the breakup over an industrial-sized mixer churning chocolate cake batter.

  “I phoned him last night when we got back to the hotel, while you were still downstairs with Ryan, and told him what happened. He called me just now to ask for an update. When I said we were going to stay a while longer, he said he’ll try to get away and come over to help.”

  “Marvelous,” I said.

  “Do you really think so?”

  “No.”

  * * *

  The patrol car we’d seen earlier was still parked in front of the hotel. Police officers in plain clothes as well as dark-navy uniforms and hats with black-and-white-checked bands mingled with the conference-goers, but they weren’t an overwhelming presence. Most people seemed to be simply going about their business, more interested in the cases of Sherlock Holmes than the real-life drama of last night.

  On the walk to the hotel, I’d told Jayne I wasn’t really going back to the conference for store business.

  “I wondered what you and your sister had to talk about for so long,” she said. “What’s up?”

  “A bit of minor poking around.”

  “Yeah, right,” she said. “You and your sister look a lot alike. You’re both tall, the same brown eyes, oval-shaped face, same hair color, although hers isn’t curly like yours.”

  “That’s only because she spends an excessive amount of money and time to keep her hair under control.” I flicked one of my curls off my cheek. My hair was never under control.

  “There’s something else different about her I can’t quite put my finger on.”

  “Thank heavens for that.”

  “How much older is she than you?”

  “Seven years. Enough that she always thought she could boss me around.”

  “She seems to like Grant.”

  “So she does,” I’d replied.

  I checked the notice board in the lobby as soon as we arrived, and all the day’s planned activities seemed to be continuing. A small note had been stuck to the bottom letting us know that the small meeting rooms and business office were not available today.

  Jayne and I went down the main hallway. A uniformed police officer stood outside the meeting room where we had found Randy, and blue police tape had been strung across the doors. The business office had a sign on it that said CLOSED.

  We next went to the dealers’ room. Randy’s booth was covered in a drop cloth. Most of his sketches were probably gathering dust in a police evidence locker somewhere.

  I stopped at the booth next to his. It sold clothing—Inverness capes, ulsters, deerstalker hats. I flipped through the pile of hats while Jayne pretended to be interested in the coats. “Terrible about what happened yesterday,” I said when the vendor approached me.

  She shivered and gave Randy’s booth a sideways glance. “Yeah.”

  “Did you know him?”

  “Not before this weekend. We sat at the same table last night at the dinner, but didn’t talk except to say hello. Just goes to show, doesn’t it?”

  I didn’t bother to ask what it went to show. “Did he seem to be bothered about anything?”

  “You mean at dinner? Not that I noticed. He drank a lot, but that doesn’t mean anything, does it?”

  “Did he have a date?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Are you going to buy one of those hats?”

  “I have a friend who’d love it.” I plucked a deerstalker off the top of the pile and asked her the price. About three times what I’d pay to get a similar item into the Emporium. I pulled money out of my bag.

  She took the bills and popped the hat into a plastic bag. “He was trying to make nice with a woman at our table, the Polish one who’s selling the jewelry, but she was having none of it.”

  That would be the woman I’d seen throw her drink in his face, the one who hadn’t been able to get her table changed for dinner.

  “Anyone seem unduly interested in him over the last few days?”

  “Are you with the police?” she asked me.

  “Just curious.” I hadn’t put my conference pass around my neck this morning.

  She turned and began to tidy a display of overly large magnifying glasses.

  “Maybe I’ll take a second one of these hats,” I said. “My father would absolutely love it.” I peeled off more bills.

  “This one woman got into his face so much on Friday, security had to be called. She was babbling on and on about him stealing her ideas. He seemed to think it was dreadfully funny, and that only made her madder.” She chuckled. “You don’t think I came up with the design for these hats all on my own, do you?”

  “Nothing original under the sun,” I said.

  “So true.”

  I took my two unwanted deerstalker hats and wished her a good day.

  Jayne had been listening to the exchange. “You didn’t learn anything new, did you?”

  “No. The argument sounds like the incident we saw. The woman with the dreadlocks upset about him apparently stealing her ideas.”