72. Eavesdropping
In which Fenella Burnish is called to account…
Still concealed by the hedge, the Bluestocking crew watched Fenella Burnish put down her lead knife and climb down the scaffold one rung at a time. Three of the four windows had been installed, and the Sainte-Chapelle panel was propped underneath its opening.
Without any warning, @DauntlessDamson leapt onto the outside sill of the open middle window and pressed her body closely against the outside edge to listen to the conversation.
“How did she do that?” asked Gumshoe. “She was standing next to us less than a minute ago.”
“No-one ever knows,” said Guile.
Damson watched as Gloriana Gräfin unbuttoned her gloves, laid them on the prie-dieu, and walked round the octagon, stopping under each of the windows in turn. She stopped longest at the empty middle opening, where the crew could see her from the hedge. Gantry opened her mouth. Marie de Gournay put a finger to her own lips and looked at Gantry until she closed it again.
“I count only four windows,” said Gloriana Gräfin.
“Yes,” said Fenella.
“You came to us that night without an appointment, Fenella. You, who will not open your own door to anybody who has not written first.”
“It could not wait for a letter.”
“No. You told us somebody had copied our spreadsheet onto a data stick, that you had no idea whose stick it was or where it had gone. You then told us you had locked three gerbils in your storeroom with the Winchester window. You asked us what to do with them.”
Griffin gasped aloud then whispered, “I knew it was Fenella who locked us in!”
“We told you what to do,” continued the Margrave. “The gerbils were to stay where you had put them until you could question them in the morning. Gemma Glasswing’s copy was to be installed into Winchester Cathedral within the week. The Winchester window was to join the windows in Sweden and then all five were to come here together.”
“I went back in the morning to question them,” said Fenella. “The courier was not due until ten, but she was early.”
“Then you should have been there at nine,” said the Margrave. “By missing the courier you have jeopardised the entire operation. A copy of our spreadsheet is in the hands of whoever has that data stick.”
“ @AngleofRepose has it on her laptop,” whispered Gimbal.
“Nobody can open the dispatch register without the password.”
“Fu55buck£t,” whispered Griffin.
“A gerbil who knows how to copy a spreadsheet to a data stick will be more than capable of opening it,” said the Margrave. “The full details of every window we have removed and replaced with a copy since 1763 are on that register. Anybody who can count the number of rows in that spreadsheet will know what has been happening to hundreds of cathedral windows for nearly three centuries. We have had to bring everything forward to finish this part of the work urgently before anyone realises exactly what they have and what they can do with it.”
Fenella lowered her head.
“Where is my window now?” said the Margrave.
Fenella gave no answer.
In the hedge, Gimbal began to count seconds under her breath. She reached six, lost count, and started again from one. She had reached three for the second time when Fenella spoke.
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t know either,” said the Margrave, “but I do know where it will end up.” She picked up her gloves from the prie-dieu. “I went to the Bluestocking last night. There was a great deal of birthday cake and hardly anybody there to eat it, and when I asked where everybody had gone, a gerbil told me ‘windows’. They are hunting for my windows, Fenella, and whoever has the fifth window will eventually bring it here.”
“And when they do?”
“We will be ready for them. I have other business right now, but I will be back before dark.”
Gloriana Gräfin fastened the top button of her coat and walked out of the door and over to the Daimler. The crew watched the car pull out into the lane and kept staring until they could no longer hear its engine.
Fenella climbed the scaffold again, unwrapped the window from Sainte-Chapelle and began to fit it. She was no longer humming.
“They think we are still on our way here,” whispered @Hedgehogforshort.
“Which means they don’t know we have already arrived,” said Gosie, “and that is to our advantage.”
A little before five the churchwarden’s estate car returned to the chapter house and moments later the Daimler drove in alongside it. Gloriana Gräfin stepped out of the vehicle, exchanged a few words with the chauffeur then walked over to the churchwarden’s car.
Fenella switched off the generator and the arc lights shut down. She walked down the path and opened the rear passenger door of the churchwarden’s car to allow the Margrave to take a seat. Fenella then opened the front passenger door and stepped into the car. The churchwarden locked the door, wound the chain through the gate and fastened the padlock. Then she slipped into the driver’s seat and drove off with the Margrave and Fenella.
The Daimler was parked in the lane between the gate and the field. Its lights and its engine were off. The stoat removed her cap, took a thermos from a bag tucked under the dashboard, unscrewed its lid and poured herself a cup.
@thehorticulturalHussie looked at the gate, and then at the stoat in the Daimler.
“That,” she said, “is a problem.”
https://myrtlelion.substack.com/p/72-eavesdropping