Lessons in Solving the Wrong Problem - Charlie Cochrane Page 0,26

the latter, naturally.” Orlando, never happier than when he was teasing Jonty, swung his legs as if he himself was a little boy.

Jonty would have to choose his words carefully, given that his lover was himself—or had been when they first met—a similar mixture. Although, in his case, the precocity had been cerebral and the backwardness emotional. “Then I’ll explain. This lad was rather withdrawn and uncommunicative, but his ability to draw from memory was extraordinary. It would have been so for an adult, let alone a wee boy of eight. I always got on well with him: it was a pleasure to see him set to work and Mama has one of his sketches of the pagoda at Kew in her dressing room.”

Orlando nodded. “You see a similar thing in some of our students. One might take them for—and you’ll excuse me using the expression—a simpleton in some contexts, but give them a set of calculations to deal with and they not only solve the problem but make new connections we mere mortals don’t make.”

Jonty snorted at mere mortals. Orlando was constantly producing the sort of work that would baffle many people. “I don’t meet them in my English tutorials. You must hide them away with the slide rules and Napier’s Bones.”

“Was your point about your brothers true, by the way, rather than a statement in aid of our investigation? Would you have persuaded yourself into thinking a dragon had been there if they’d said so?”

“Yes, when I was a mere tiddler.” So easy to forget that Orlando hadn’t benefitted from the family upbringing Jonty had. “And if Papa had said we’d been riding unicorns in search of manticores, I’d have not only sworn that every word was true, I’d have described my mount, saddle, bridle and all. Did you never have occasions when a child when you wondered if something was real or whether you’d dreamed it?”

“If I did, I don’t recall. I do sometimes speculate whether I imagined you talking sense or if it truly happened.”

“Look at me ignoring that. Anyway, none of that brings us nearer to finding out what happened to the treasure and I wouldn’t be inclined to waste much time on it, given that it’s not the primary reason we’re here. We’ll have to keep up the pretence, naturally.” Jonty eyed the field again. “Dr Panesar doesn’t happen to have a machine ready to hand that can detect whether there is anything still buried here?”

“It would be worth asking him. His knowledge appears to have few limits. I’d be inclined not to bother, though.”

Jonty, noting the confidence with which Orlando had spoken, asked, “Why is that, my light of love?”

“Because, were this the Derby and I was ready to place a bet, my money would be on Herron having come along here, dug it up and tidied up all the evidence. He knew about the find, had the skills required and would have known how to make money from it. If he wished to make money, rather than just have his revenge in which case he’d have hidden the stuff away, to take out and gloat over when he felt inclined.”

“All of which seems reasonable, although it immediately begs a question. If the solution was so obvious, why didn’t strike anybody at the time or since?”

To which question Orlando had no answer other than a shrug.

Chapter Six

Orlando timidly knocked on the door of the drawing room, like a little boy approaching the headmaster’s study. While he was confident his hostess wouldn’t be administering corporal punishment, this wasn’t an interview he relished, even in the cause of solving a mystery.

“Thank you for your note,” he said, as he settled into the chair he was offered. “I’ll confess we had our suspicions that there was more to things than we’d been told.”

“I did try to persuade Henry to be more forthcoming but, bless him, it’s not straightforward.” Beatrice gave Orlando a smile then poured him a cup of tea.

“Then ostensibly this interview will be about Herron and the nurse maid, Mary.”

Beatrice paused, mid-pour. “You know about them?”

Orlando, feeling as he might if he’d been hurtling down the stairs and missed a step, said, “I don’t quite follow.”

“The girl who thought it acceptable to sleep in the field when she should have been minding a child went to work for Herron’s sister immediately after she left here. The rumour was that Herron wanted her to come to him as a housemaid but allegedly she thought it