“I would never suggest fleeing the courts of law!”
That was a bright red lie. Financing the flight of a guilty woman was exactly what the man was proposing.
Rex stood. “I shall give them to Miss Carville, that she might be comforted. She can wear them as soon as she is cleared of all suspicion.”
“Of course, of course. If you would not mind signing for them?”
“You do not trust me?”
The solicitor looked toward Duncan, who was holding the sapphires up to the light.
Rex signed.
Fine, now he had another worry. Not that Duncan would scarper off with the jewels, but that Amanda might.
“Are you going to give them to her?” Daniel wanted to know as they left the office.
“They are hers,” was all Rex replied.
“There will be the devil to pay if she takes French leave.”
But more if she hangs.
Sir Frederick’s banker nervously licked his lips while he read the official documents. He did not like having his bank invaded by gentlemen of ill repute, or former bank robbers. Nor did he have answers to Rex’s questions. He had no record of what Sir Frederick had done with his money, no transfer to another financial institution, only copies of recent withdrawals and fewer deposits, likely from the estate.
“You noticed no hint of irregularity?” Rex asked.
“Not in my bank!”
Which set Daniel to scratching his scalp and gave Rex a red-haze headache. “I wonder what would happen if we got writs to inspect the bank’s books.”
Mr. Breverton quickly recalled that he had once written a bank draft to a land brokerage office.
Rex was certain that Breverton could find the name of that realtor, and where they were located.
“Yes, of course. But it might take some time. That was over three years ago, I suspect. Gathering the correct books and ledgers out of storage will take a great deal of effort.”
“Really?” Rex tapped the official papers he already had, indicating a few more search warrants would not be hard to obtain.
Breverton mopped at his forehead. “I’ll have the information as soon as possible.”
With the bank behind them, Rex and Daniel considered what they had learned. “Why would Sir Frederick be buying property when he did not care for his own estate?”
“To put his second family?”
“He could purchase a palace for the sums gone missing. I doubt he was setting up orphanages or hospitals, either.”
Duncan Fingers made a rude sound. Everyone knew the not-so-dearly-departed baronet was a penny-pincher.
“So what the deuce was the man doing? I pray there are deeds and documents in his office.”
There were not. All they found in the fake bottoms, hidden shelves, and locked compartments of Sir Frederick’s desk were a small purse of coins, bills, and correspondence that Rex gathered up to read later. In the wall safe Amanda had mentioned—and which Duncan had opened in a flash—were a pair of dueling pistols, not at all similar to the weapon that had shot Sir Frederick; a copy of Miss Carville’s mother’s will; and a small journal. The little book had sums recorded, with dates and initials beside them, but no indication of income or outlay. Rex tucked the small volume inside his coat, along with the jewelry and the letters, to take with him. Perhaps Inspector Dimm or Harrison could connect the initialed entries to known swindlers or smugglers. Rex knew too few men in town.
“There has to be another secret hiding place somewhere,” Daniel swore, tapping walls, moving paintings, lifting the carpet to look for loose floorboards. He avoided the section of the rug that still had bloodstains. Someone had placed a chair over the blotches.
Hareston, the butler, was not being helpful. He’d resigned, in fact, the moment he saw that Daniel Stamfield had returned, with his scarier, scarred relation and court writs. He ignored the introduction to the wizened Mr. Fingers altogether, as being beneath his dignity, but announced he would pack his belongings immediately.
Rex did not think Hareston’s leaving, with his dignity or the family silver, was a good idea. He waved the legal papers in front of the fellow. “Do you know what these say?”
Hareston raised his red-veined nose. “I do not have my spectacles at hand.”
Which Rex took to mean the butler could not make out the legal terms. “They give the right of search and removal of any evidence, and demand the cooperation of every citizen.That means your cooperation, or you could be held in contempt of the courts.”
“I have not been paid. I am therefore no longer employed by the household. You have no right to threaten me.”
Daniel’s size and Rex’s determination gave them the right, and they all knew it. Rex removed a gold coin from his pocket. “If you tell us where your master was hiding his cache, you will be paid, and given this as a bonus.”
Hareston did not know, even for the reward. Rex sent Daniel and Duncan up to the baronet’s bedchamber to search the clothespress, under the mattress, atop the canopy.
Rex kept looking in Sir Frederick’s book room, and kept asking Hareston questions. He had the butler recite the details of the murder scene as he recalled them, and judged the man’s statements to be true. Then he asked where the valet had been at the time. Hareston swore he did not know, which was also true. He’d been abed, himself, with a bottle, thinking he had hours still before the ladies’ return.
“And Brusseau’s current address?”
“I do not have it.”
“But I am guessing that you might know where I can find him. Think hard before you attempt to throw dust in my eyes. It will not work, and I shall only get mad. You do not want to see me angry, so do not lie.”
The danger in the viscount’s voice had the butler backing toward the door. “All I know is that someone sent him to a wealthy shipowner. That’s all the Frenchman said when he collected his things. That and the merchant had aspirations of being a gentleman.”
“His name?”
“Johnston, or something like.”
There was a J.J. noted in the little ledger book. “James? Jonathan? Joseph?”
“I do not know, and that is the truth as God is my witness.”
And as Rex saw blue.
Daniel and Duncan returned then, empty-handed except for the dead man’s signet ring, his purse, a pearl stickpin, which Daniel retrieved from Duncan’s pocket, and a woman’s pink silk stocking.
“Did Sir Frederick bring his ladybirds home to roost?”
Hareston pulled himself up. “Never. This was a decent Christian household, until recently.”
Daniel and Duncan had not found any hiding spots, and no other safe. “He’s got to have one, with all the money he withdrew. Stands to reason a clutch-fisted chap like Hawley would keep some home, even if he was investing most of it. Maybe it’s behind the books here,” Daniel said, starting to pull volumes off the shelves.
Rex agreed that the solution had to be in the office, where the baronet spent most of his time, alone. He did not entertain, according to the butler, and the servants were not permitted to clean the room, as evidenced by the dust clouds stirred up as the bookshelves were disturbed.
Rex stared around, considering other possibilities, idly trying to spin a large globe of the world on its stand in the corner. Like everything else in the room, the thigh-high globe was dusty and obviously too long without oil, so it barely turned on its axis. “Try the hearth, Daniel. Maybe you’ll see loose bricks or a false back.”
Daniel came out of the fireplace with his head covered in soot. “It’s a wonder the place hasn’t burned down, with the chimneys going uncleaned that way.”
“He did not wish the bother, or the strangers, or the dirt,” Hareston said with a sneer as Daniel shook soot and ashes across the room.
Rex was almost ready to concede defeat. Before they left, however, he asked the butler who he thought killed Sir Frederick, if not Miss Carville. Did he have enemies? Debtors? The butler had no guesses.
Rex stopped spinning the ornate globe. “You saw her with a man?”
“I saw her sneaking out of the house after everyone was abed, all right. I knew her by her blue cape. Lined with fur, it is, and sent Sir Frederick into paroxysms when he got the bill. I saw the man in the street lamp’s light, too. Fair-haired, he was.”
Rex smashed his fist into the globe, which split into two halves: one filled with gold, the other with banknotes.
Chapter Seventeen
They retraced their steps, with the addition of a satchel Hareston found to put the money in.
“You are going to put the cash into that shifty-eyed banker’s vault?” Daniel hefted the weighty bag onto his lap in the hackney, while Rex moved his cane to make room for Duncan on the opposite seat. “Is that wise?”
“We’ll deposit it to a new account, with my name as trustee for Hawley’s estate, after we watch Breverton count it and hand over the receipts. The rightful heir will be able to withdraw it, but not without my signature.”
“Can you do that?”
“Legally? I have no idea. But I am doing it anyway, both to protect the money and hold it as evidence of heaven knows what. We could not very well put it back in the broken globe and leave it in a half-empty house.” He eyed Duncan with suspicion as the small man looked out the window, innocently watching the scenery—or planning the best routes to and from Hawley House. “Nor would I trust the butler. As far as that goes, I do not want anyone wondering about my motives in taking the money away.”
“Or wondering where you are stashing it, eh? Royce House would be the target of every cat burglar in London.”
“Exactly. The bank is the best place for it, especially until we discover where it came from and why Sir Frederick had it at home. I am hoping Sir Frederick’s son will do the right thing and restore Amanda’s mother’s money to her, plus her dowry. I also want to read Breverton’s name on the bank’s door. There was an L.B. in the journal.”
Daniel frowned. “I thought he spoke true when he told us he did not know what Sir Frederick was doing with the money.”
“No, he said he had no record of what the baronet was doing. There is a difference. The truth can be as narrow as it can be broad. Maybe he did not even know where the dead man was stashing it, and that was the question to which he replied. Who would have thought the fool had a fortune in a globe of the world?”
“Not the butler, that was for sure. I thought the fellow would cry when the gold fell out. He must have been searching for days.”
Duncan spit on the hackney floor. “He never found the journal, neither. Amateur. It took a real expert to open that safe without the combination.”
“But it took a clumsy oaf to find the money.” Daniel sounded glad his cousin was the bumbler, for once. “I wonder why Hawley hid it instead of leaving it in the bank?”
“Maybe he did not trust Breverton?” Rex considered. “But he could have moved his accounts to another institution more easily. Who knows if this is all of his money, anyway. He could have been investing it, and merely squirreling away the profits until the next shipload of smuggled goods or whatever.” Rex was still holding to the theory that Sir Frederick was connected to the Free Traders somehow, since his name had been mentioned by Harrison. The property he was buying could have been warehouses near the docks, or isolated farmsteads on the outskirts of town, depots for unloading illegal goods for distribution in the city’s higher-paying markets.
“Maybe he was just dicked in the nob. A chap would have to be batty, hoarding his gold at home like that. Someone might have found it. Or no one might ever have found it if you hadn’t smashed the globe.”
“No, the solicitor distinctly said Sir Frederick planned on taking the money with him. I doubt even Sir Frederick thought he could carry all of this”—he tapped the bag with his cane—“through the pearly gates. And he was buying property, remember. He had plans, perhaps ones requiring sudden moves. I wish we knew what they were.”
Breverton refused to answer, if he knew. He counted the money in front of the cousins—twice, to be certain— and filled out the correct documents of proof of deposit and Lord Rexford’s trusteeship, but he told them his dealings with Sir Frederick outside the bank were private, not subject to whatever writ or warrant the viscount produced. As for smuggling, how dare they ask if Sir Frederick had anything to do with that foul business, besmirching a dead man’s honorable name?
Was Breverton himself connected to the illicit trade with France?
The banker angrily shoved the receipts at Rex and showed them the door, instead of replying.
“Perhaps you’d be helpful enough to give us your first name?” Rex asked, in case the name on the door belonged to Breverton’s father or brother. “I am sure that is not an insult, just idle curiosity.”
“Lloyd,” the banker snarled, pointing to the gilt lettering right beside Rex’s still swollen nose. “As any blind man can see. Lloyd, with two Ls.”
One was enough, as in L.B.
They took a different hackney to the solicitor’s office next, to inform the lawyer of the transfer of monies, so he could notify Edwin Hawley, the new baronet. Rex also asked him to try to estimate how much of the money belonged to Miss Carville. The solicitor was happy to oblige, and his initials were not on the list.
Then they went to Bow Street, to deliver Duncan Fingers with a handsome gratuity for his day’s work, after asking if the old man had anything in his many pockets that did not belong to him.
“A’course not. I went straight, don’t you know. I works for Bow Street.”
Daniel rubbed his nose. Rex picked the little red man up by his ankles and shook him. Coins, a stickpin and a watch fell out his pockets, along with files and picks and skeleton keys. Rex took the stickpin and the pocket watch to give to Amanda for her stepbrother. He let Duncan keep the coins, for a promise not to speak of what he’d seen or heard that day.
“No one’d believe me anyways,” the old man said, scuttling away.
Inspector Dimm was glad to hear they’d found something. But they still needed a motive for the murder.
“Being attics to let is not call to get shot. Half the members of the royal family could be in danger if that were so. Robbery? Who would have known the blunt was there?” He studied a smoke ring above his head, an odd halo for Bow Street’s senior detective. “Maybe your young lady did, member of the family and all. She could have come to demand what was hers by right after they argued about her dowry and the to-do with her suitor at the assembly rooms. She admitted they had words. Couldn’t rightly deny it, when six people heard the shouting in the afternoon.”
“Words do not pull triggers, and neither did Miss Carville. Hawley was involved in something illegal, with cohorts.” He showed Dimm the journal with its initialed entries.
“I still say they could be names of his mistresses,” Daniel said, “and the illegitimate children he’s supporting.”
Dimm considered the possibility. He supported any number of nieces and nephews—all born on the right side of the blanket, thank goodness—on a great deal less money. “Hmm. Could be.”
Rex disagreed. “The snake cheated his own son and heir. He wasn’t liable to pay for his by-blows. No, I think these initials represent partners in some kind of crime. Any one of them could have had a falling out over shares of the profits or something.”
Dimm puffed on his pipe. “Maybe they were just gambling debts. Toffs keep records, don’t they?”
“Then why keep it so quiet and hidden away? Why does no one at the clubs recall him as a heavy gambler? Sir Frederick was dealing with the Devil.”
“Know that for a fact, do you?”
“No, damn it, just by instinct or intuition.”
“Or by wanting it to be so? That won’t free your lady.”
Rex
knew that all too well. “I’ll keep looking.”
Their last stop was at McCann’s Club, where he left a note for a man the manager swore never came there. The manager lied. He also took the coin and the note, which consisted of the list of eight sets of initials. One was possibly the banker, Lloyd Breverton. Another, J.J., might be a merchant named Johnston, Johnson, or Johnstone, who might have hired Brusseau, the valet who might know more than he’d said. A third was N.T. The only man Rex knew with those initials was his father’s nemesis, Amanda’s prosecutor, Sir Nigel Turlowe. The coincidence was damning.
Daniel wanted to stay at McCann’s for a snack, while Rex wanted to see if the note was delivered and where, or if an answer might come. The meal came, but no reply. Afterward, Rex wanted Daniel to take the sketch of the murder weapon to Manton’s Shooting Gallery to see if anyone could identify its maker or owner, but Daniel was having none of that. “Leave you with a bad leg and a pocket full of gems for any London cutpurse to steal? After leaving that Fingers fellow to spread the word among his cronies? I ain’t the one with a breeze in the belfry.”
So the pistol would have to wait for another day. Still, they were closer to unraveling the knots; Rex felt it. He could go back to Amanda with good news, and bad questions.
Amanda was waiting with his dog in the front parlor. The drugged sleep had not refreshed her, so she had gone back to bed in the morning. The gentlemen had already breakfasted and left without telling her their plans, according to the butler, saying only that they expected to be back before dinner.
After her nap, Amanda helped Nanny move her things to another chamber, insisting the older woman would sleep better on a full bed and a softer mattress, and truly, Amanda was well enough not to need constant nursing. She did not say that the noise of Nanny’s snoring would set her recovery back a week, at least.
She ate and rested, and dressed in a muslin gown sprigged with blue flowers that reminded her of the color of Rex’s eyes. She found a workbasket and some sheets that needed darning, so she sat with that, as a tiny way of repaying Lady Royce for her hospitality.
Truly Yours Page 15
