by Louise Allen
‘No numbers, like the coded book?’
He narrowed his eyes, thinking. ‘No, nothing like that.’
I went back to the calculations I’d been making. I wanted my incident boards.
We got back to Albany, trooped into the sitting room and Garrick went in search of the boards I had used last time, when we were looking for an abducted young woman. He set them up, found me thumb tacks and paper then went off muttering about food, which sounded good to me.
‘Right, I said, pen poised. ‘What we need is a timeline.’
Chapter Four
‘I’m pretty sure that George cannot have killed Philip,’ I said, dividing a sheet of paper into two columns. ‘If we believe Mrs Kentish and Dora, and I can’t pick up any hint that they are lying to us – why should they? – he came home at nine in the evening seeming tired or depressed and wasn’t seen or heard again. The landlady finds him dead at eight in the morning. We see him stiff and cold at nine thirty. There was no sign in the room that he did anything except set up the rope and chair and write that short note.’
I wrote times down the side of the page at half hourly intervals and filled in what we knew for certain. ‘The doctor must have been killed this morning and late enough for only the slightest trace of rigor to be present when James found him. It seems impossible to me that George could have left the lodging house, made his way to Talbot’s surgery, killed him late enough to account for the lack of stiffening, got back into his own rooms and hanged himself early enough to be fully in the grip of rigor himself.’
There were nods of comprehension and agreement so I pressed on, working it out as I went. ‘Besides the matter of rigor, I can’t believe he was still alive at six when the maid took up the water. She must have been up before that, heating it, getting ready for the day. Surely she’d have noticed someone else moving about in the house, coming and going through the front door.’
‘But why did George kill himself?’ James demanded, shoving one hand through his hair as I filled in what we could in the column for Doctor Talbot and pinned the sheet up. ‘It’s a relief that he didn’t murder Philip, but that makes the note even less understandable.’
Garrick came in and began setting plates of food on small side tables within easy reach. ‘Possibly the mention of the doctor’s name in his note was simply a cry of anguish directed to the friend who could no longer help him because of the gravity of the situation,’ he suggested.
‘Come and join us.’ Luc waved a hand at a chair, then picked up a chicken leg and chewed on it thoughtfully.
Garrick set out wine bottles and glasses and took the remaining seat with a nod to Luc. I found myself wondering, yet again, what the background to their friendship was.
‘I think we need to brainstorm this.’ I pinned up a fresh sheet and went to stand by it, pencil in hand. They stared at me blankly. ‘We take it in turns saying the first idea that comes into our heads. We don’t criticise each other’s ideas. I write it all down then we stand back and see what has emerged. Trust me on this, it can work.’
More blank stares.
‘Right then. I’ll start. George was suffering from a mental breakdown because of pressures at work. His suicide had nothing to do with Philip.’ I wrote down George/work pressure/suicide/no connection to PG.
‘Whatever it was he’d done led to the Doctor’s murder,’ Garrick began, catching on to the idea. ‘No, that can’t be right – he’d have warned his friend before he killed himself.’
‘Don’t edit what you’re saying,’ I said and wrote down, George’s action >PG’s murder.
‘George killed himself before his enemy could get his hands on him,’ James offered. ‘So the enemy kills Philip instead.’
‘Talbot spurns someone who kills him out of jealousy.’ Lucian was leaning forward intently now, elbows on knees. ‘Perhaps George precipitated it by saying something to the murderer.’
‘They are both being blackmailed.’ That was James again. I was writing frantically to keep up. ‘George hangs himself, Philip won’t pay up, threatens the blackmailer who therefore kills him.’
‘Doctor Talbot is the target all along. The killer wants to destroy him, somehow forces George to hang himself then kills Talbot after taunting him with this.’
They all stared at me. ‘You have a lurid imagination,’ Lucian said eventually.
I shrugged. ‘Too many Scandi Noir thrillers. Ignore that.’ I went to perch on the edge of the table and gnawed a chicken leg while I thought. ‘I can’t believe these two deaths aren’t causally connected somehow. It is too much of a coincidence.’ I looked at James. ‘They were currently a couple? Or they had been?’
‘They were and had been involved for over a year,’ he said curtly.
‘If anyone else has any ideas, you can just add them,’ I said, and pinned up another sheet. ‘Actions.’
‘The code in those ledgers,’ Garrick suggested.
‘George’s work,’ I said and added both. ‘We need to establish who were his boss and co-workers. Er, superior and colleagues.’
‘Discover their social circle, both the private and the public,’ said Luc. ‘And we’ll need to attend the inquests, see who is called to give evidence and what they say.’ He grimaced. ‘Although I expect we will be called in any case.’
‘There are the other lodgers,’ James said. ‘We have no idea what they might have seen or heard. And we need to interrogate that ratty little manservant of Philip’s. He’s surprisingly nervous.’
‘I might be nervous if I found his lordship with his head beaten in on his own hearthrug,’ Garrick observed.
Luc snorted. ‘I somehow doubt it. But it is a fair point. The man manages to look as though he’s guilty of something, even if it is only helping himself to the contents of the cellar.’ He shrugged. ‘But if this is the first time he has encountered real violence, that could explain it. Right. James, you tackle the lodgers. Garrick – see what you can do with the timorous Bromley. Cassandra and I will investigate George’s place of work and his contacts there.’
‘How?’ I asked, not unreasonably, given that my understanding of how the departments of state worked in 1807 was vague, to put it very kindly.
Luc went to the bookshelves, took down a very small volume and passed it over. ‘That should have it. The Secretary of State for Home Affairs has just changed with the new administration. It’s Liverpool now.’
‘Earl of?’ I ventured, wrestling with The Court and City Register or Gentleman’s Complete Annual Kalendar for the Year 1807. I had no idea why Kalendar not Calendar. It was packed with such vital information as the name of the Collector of Excise for Barnstaple and Moveable Fairs for 1807 and was completely lacking in a useable index. Or a calendar, come to that.
‘Yes.’
‘I know about him, he was a complete bastard,’ I said, dredging through my memory. ‘Peterloo… No, you don’t want to know about that.’ It was twelve years in the future, the Peterloo Massacre, when mounted militia rode down a crowd of peaceable protesters in Manchester and the government responded with savagely repressive legislation.
‘I will endeavour to forget it,’ Luc said drily. ‘But with the change of Administration on the twenty fifth of March, and the Secretaries of State changing in all departments, there might have been alterations further down the tree.’
‘Here we are.’ Having ploughed through the Houses of Parliament and the Royal Households I finally arrived at Secretary of State’s Office. Whitehall. Home-department. ‘No mention of Lord Liverpool. Under Secretaries, Chief Clerk, Senior Clerks… Clerks. Here he is, George Coates, Esquire. £100.’
‘That’s essentially last year’s information,’ James said. ‘So, there’s the possibility he got a promotion, or more responsibility with the change of Administration, which accounts for the better apartment.’
‘And more pressure to go with it, no doubt.’ Luc said. ‘Who are the Under Secretaries? They are the ones who actually run things.’
>
I squinted at the tiny type, resisting the urge to tap or swipe to make it more legible. ‘Sir Thomas Reece, bt. That’s baronet, right?’ Everyone nodded. ‘And Thomas Salmond, Esquire.’
‘Reece I’ve come across,’ Lucian said. ‘He gets about, seen in all the right places, belongs to several of my clubs. Dreadful wife, as I recall. Daughter of the Earl of Reston and never lets anyone forget it. They’ve a daughter to bring out so they ought to be easy enough find at evening parties.’
‘It’s May – isn’t the Season almost over?’
James made a sort of gesture with one hand. ‘Everyone’s staying in Town because of the political manoeuvrings. There’s an election going on, after all, so the political hostesses are making an effort.’
‘Parties?’ I asked, hopefully.
‘Parties,’ Luc agreed. ‘There’s a reception tomorrow and the hostess is political, which helps. We can all three go to that. I have accepted nothing for today, however. I’ll go down to Brooks’s and see what I can find about Reece and Salmond and any gossip about the Home Office generally.’
‘I’ll go round to George’s lodging house, get Mrs Kentish to give me dinner and talk to the other lodgers,’ James suggested.
‘And I’ll tackle the coded ledgers.’ There wasn’t much else for me to do, not that I knew the first thing about codes, other than that E was the most common letter of the alphabet. But, if this was a list of names, that rule might not apply anyway.
‘Will you be dining in, my lord?’ Garrick asked.
‘No, I have no idea where my search for the two Under Secretaries will take me.’ Luc gave me a look that held enough smoulder to make the hair on the back of my neck stand up. ‘But I’ll be back by midnight. You will be all right, Cassie?’
‘Of course.’ I did my best nonchalant, just leave me to get on with code-breaking, expression and picked up a ledger. He’d said he wanted to talk. All I wanted was to be quite clear in my own head whether I could cope with having this man as my lover.
Luc and James left, Garrick went off behind the green baize door to perform whatever miracles of organisation were required. Or possibly to clutch the brandy bottle and dream about a nice quiet life as the valet of a country clergyman.
I assembled paper, pencil and ledgers and wrote a column of figures from one to twenty six. Then I wrote A against one, B against two, all the way to Z and twenty six and looked at the first page in the first ledger. It began:
1722131618138
1518771522 192623192614
192699188
722141182112923
The there was a space and then a similar set of four lines, so presumably each was a separate entry.
If it was a substitution cypher, and he hadn’t started numbering somewhere at random, then probably we were looking at numbers one to twenty six. I remembered Dorothy L. Sayer’s detective novel, Have His Carcase. That has a complex substitution cypher where a code word which does not have any repeated letters is used first, written in the squares of a grid and then the rest of the alphabet filled in, leaving out any letters already in the code word.
I sucked my pencil a bit. How complex would this code need to be? The books had been very well hidden. The room had restricted access. If I was Doctor Talbot I would want to be certain that anyone glancing at the book, perhaps if I forgot and left it out, wouldn’t see anything they could read. On the other hand, I wouldn’t want to make life difficult for myself.
‘Let’s try a straight A = One,’ I muttered. It was complicated by the fact that there was no spacing between the numbers, except the two blocks in the second line. The numbers couldn’t be larger than twenty six, but did line one start 1, 7, 2, 2… or 17, 22… or 17, 2, 2 or...?
I tried all the possibilities and got results including AGVAC, QBB and AGBB. ‘All right. Not A = one, then.’ Could he have put a code word first? What would have significance for the doctor? George wouldn’t work, there were repeated letters. I tried Coates. That produced rubbish. What about medical terms? Lancet? Labour? Cervix? Womb?
I almost jumped out of my trainers when Garrick brought in a lamp and began lighting candles. When I looked around me the table was littered in paper. And in this time paper was handmade and expensive, I recalled. ‘I’ve probably used up every sheet in the house,’ I apologised. ‘This is not working out.’ I thought longingly of the internet. There would be a code-breaking app somewhere, surely…
‘I believe his lordship can bear the expense,’ Garrick said, with the twist of his lips that stood for a broad grin. ‘Are your labours not bearing any fruit, Miss Lawrence?’
‘Not so much as a shrivelled grape.’
‘Would it help to talk it though?’
We ended up two hours later with an empty wine bottle, a great deal more wasted paper and – at least as far as I was concerned – a definite tendency to find most things amusing.
‘Dinner,’ Garrick said, pushing his chair back. ‘Look at the time.’
It was nine and we were most certainly in want of a microwave, if not a takeaway menu.
‘Steak, mushrooms, onions,’ he said, heading for the door. ‘There is an apple pie only half-eaten.’
‘Chips,’ I contributed. ‘Um, fried potatoes. I can do those.’
Yes, I know. I should have been looking for something high in protein and vitamins – a large bunch of kale and some lightly steamed fish if nothing else. But I’d had a trying – and very long – day and I wanted comfort food.
We worked in companionable silence while Garrick did miraculous things with gravy and I managed to approximate chips, then we sat down at the kitchen table, opened another bottle of his lordship’s excellent wine – or possibly it was two – and proceeded to get quietly kettled.
At least, I did. Garrick’s head is probably made of marble.
‘Has he missed me?’ I asked abruptly.
Garrick put an earthenware mug of evil black coffee in front of me. ‘Yes, Miss Lawrence, he has.’
‘It’s complicated.’ I stirred in rather too much sugar.
‘That would appear to be the appropriate word.’
‘It’s more complicated for me,’ I complained. ‘Luc’s in his own time. He’s not going anywhere. I have no idea how often this is going to happen. I have no idea where I am, when I am, from one day to the next.’
‘Might I offer some advice?’
‘Yes, of course.’ I took an unwary gulp of coffee and felt every nerve ending in my body scream.
‘There is only now. The past has gone, the future hasn’t happened. The time you are in at any given moment is your time. I do not suggest that you should be careless of consequences, but too much cogitation might not be helping.’
I wasn’t up to long words. ‘You mean I’m over-thinking this?’
‘Yes.’ Garrick began to clear the table, dumping the greasy plates into a bucket of water for the unfortunate maid of all work to deal with in the morning. I mentally added washing up-liquid to my list of Things To Be Grateful For along with tampons, soft loo paper and hot showers.
‘I think,’ I said with dignity, getting to my feet, ‘I think I might have had one glass of wine too many. I shall retire for the night.’
Garrick hefted the kettle off the range where it had been singing quietly and led the way to my room. ‘Is there anything else you need, Miss Lawrence?’
Lucian? ‘No, thank you, Garrick. Good night.’
I washed, then rinsed out my twenty-first century underwear and hung that on the wash stand. Then I pulled on the rather fetching white lawn nightgown that Garrick had put out for me and climbed into bed, remembering to pop a pill as I did so. I’d sit and think, see if letting my mind roam freely would solve the cypher problem. Or any other problem, come to that. The clock struck eleven. Luc would be home soon and I would be ready to have a mature, calm discussion about relationships…
‘Cassandra?’
‘Worrit?’ I blinked up at Luc who was holding a lamp and looking
absolutely and completely not like Florence Nightingale. ‘Did I fall asleep?’
‘You did.’ He shifted to sit on the edge of the bed by my feet. ‘Garrick says you were a trifle mellow.’
‘Just a bit. More tired,’ I said defensively. ‘It’s been a long day. I’m awake now.’
‘No, you aren’t.’ He was in his shirt sleeves, I realised.
I wriggled up on my elbows and peered down the bed at him. Bare feet. A wave of lust, pure and simple, washed over me, followed by a jaw-cracking yawn. ‘Are you coming to bed?’ I managed, sounding about as seductive as an advert for anti-dandruff shampoo.
‘Bed, yes, if I may. Sleep, yes. Anything else, no. Not until you are awake, sober and we can talk it over.’ Lucian stood up, shed his evening breeches – and left his shirt on. And those shirts… the damned thing came down to mid-thigh. I flopped back on the pillows trying to deal with my rocketing pulse rate, my pleasure that he was an ask-first person and the urge to just grab hold and drag him into bed and to hell with talking. But the room was still circling vaguely and I wasn’t at my best.
Yes, we’re going to be lovers, I realised as I closed my eyes and felt the bed dip. Tomorrow. Behind my lids the room went dark and I turned over, towards the warmth. Lucian gathered me in, all soft linen and hard man. There was the scent of his skin and the thump of his heart under my cheek and the scratch of hairy calves against the soles of my feet and the sense that I was home. Which was terrifying.
There was only one thing I could do about it. I went to sleep.
I woke with my nose buried in something soft. I opened one eye and got a view of a stubbled chin, a bare throat and a curl of chest hair. When I lifted by head I realised that Luc was asleep and that if I just stuck out my tongue it would reach his left nipple, showing faintly brown through the thin shirt. I licked.
He came awake with startling speed. I found myself flat on my back, a considerable length of man on top of me and two large hands curled around my throat.
‘Cassandra.’ He stopped throttling me, but he stayed where he was.
