Free A Lady Never Trifles with Thieves by Suzann Ledbetter Page A

brick walkway leading to a side drive partially overhung by a porte cochere. Beyond it was a sandstone block and clapboard stable. Lifting my skirts, I wandered across the lawn to the rear of the house.
    Cows lowed in the pasture beyond, their night sounds less pronounced than the odor of fresh droppings. I jumped at voices raised in argument, then realized they were drifting from the front lawn, not closing in from behind me. From the overheard snatches, it seemed a constable was giving the reporter, Glover Rudd, a heave-ho out the front door. The French doors were closed, but the rope still hung from the balcony rail outside Belinda Abercrombie’s bedchamber. To my dismay, crushed walnut hulls lined the flower beds adjacent to the exterior wall. In the darkness, it was impossible to tell whether the shrubbery had any broken branches. I dared not strike a match.
    To my right, a shadow moved across a wan rectangle of light on the grass. I shrank back, peering up at the source. A silhouette loomed at the window in the room next to Mrs. Abercrombie’s. By the height and shape, I surmised it to be Avilla. She couldn’t see me, but it didn’t keep my heart from pounding.
    When I reached the buggy, Izzy was dozing, his head a-droop in the harness. An undertaker’s wagon with black-draped isinglass side windows, a few saddled horses, and another buggy had joined the parked cavalcade.
    Constable Hopkins stood guard at the entrance. The spectators had been shooed away or quit the scene of their own accord. I departed with more questions than answers.
    As I’d expected and dreaded, Won Li was waiting up for me. Jack was the unknowing recipient of a series of Occidental insults for abandoning me to my own devices at such a late hour. Mentioning my obviously unscathed condition did naught to stem the tide. While I waited for Won Li to lose his voice, or a lung to collapse, I stoked the woodstove and put on the kettle. Rifling the pie safe devoted to his herbal pharmacy released fragrances both pleasing and noxious.
    The long, complicated day had sapped my energy. Sleep was the sensible antidote, but there was research to be done, requiring a lively, agile brain. In addition, if Jack perchanced to retrieve his horse from our stable in the wee hours, slumbering through his visit would not achieve an informational exchange in regard to the Abercrombie case.
    He’d proven himself egregiously tight-lipped about police matters. Coming at him from ambush and a subtle application of friendly enticement should alleviate that minor character flaw.
    Won Li watched as I measured gotu kola, red clover, damiana, ginseng, kava kava, red raspberry, peppermint, and cloves in a teapot.
    “Have you taken a chill?” he asked. “Or are you desirous of plowing a field by moonlight?”
    I laughed. Changing out of my rumpled suit into my thinnest cotton gown before the elixir fired my blood was imperative. However, his remark confirmed I’d remembered the recipe correctly.
    We took chairs at the kitchen’s round, pine table, where I discoursed the rudiments of the LeBruton divorce and Abercrombie robbery/homicide. His interest was as plain as a spinster’s shimmy, but he said, “Your father would not approve. I do not approve.”
    “Neither do I.”
    In my experience, no race of people on earth could scowl as menacingly as those of the Chinese persuasion.
    “I do not approve of men who thrash women physically and emotionally,” I said, “and I do not approve of a life being extinguished for a pillow slip full of jewelry.
    “Furthermore, I don’t give a fig whether what’s happened to Penelope LeBruton and Belinda Abercrombie is my bailiwick, my duty, or my responsibility to resolve. They deserve a champion. I may not be equal to the task, but I can’t turn my back and hope for the best.”
    Won Li folded his hands on the table. “That is not the type of disapproval to which I referred.”
    Steam flumed from the kettle’s spout. “Oh,