The Earl's Mortal Enemy

by Issy Brooke

  Edith groaned and sagged back on the table. “Must I?”

  “Let’s set the bone and ask you again how you feel about going anywhere,” the lady doctor said with a smile, and Adelia knew that it was already decided.

  A hefty nurse was then admitted, carrying a large bucket of plaster and some coarse linen cloth. Edith wanted to know what they were doing, and the doctor kept up a running commentary, again mostly to keep Edith’s mind occupied. She was not the sort of women who would be comforted by her mother’s hand, Adelia thought with some regret as she half-listened from her perch on the other side of the clean, bright room.

  But luckily for everyone, the chloroform took effect before the strong nurse got hold of Edith’s ankle, and she sank into a murmuring sleep. Adelia could not watch. Just the sound of the leg being straightened out made her stomach heave, and she began to wonder if she could request a little laudanum or ether or anything for herself.

  When it was all over, and Edith was laid out flat on the bed, still asleep, her leg now a huge white monstrosity of slowly-drying plaster of Paris, Adelia went to stand beside her.

  “She will hopefully be asleep for a while,” the nurse told her. The lady doctor looked up from where she was making notes in a book.

  “We will take care of her,” the doctor said. “Come and see her tomorrow; just leave your details with the matron when you go to pay.”

  Adelia thanked them both profusely and finally managed to tear herself away. It was late afternoon now, and she was starving and yet curiously the thought of food made her nauseous. She had a lot of urgent telegrams to send, and now she had to work out how they were going to return to Ivery Manor and Thringley House. She could hardly spend the next six weeks in London.

  As for the investigation, well, that was just going to have to go on without her for the time being.

  Thirteen

  The next morning, Harriet Hobson appeared to be about to come to blows with the doorman and the receptionist on the ground floor of the hotel. Adelia could hear her friend’s voice as she descended the stairs, and she rushed into the lobby just in time to see Harriet reaching over the polished wooden counter to try to grab the guest book out of the receptionist’s hands.

  “Harriet!”

  “Adelia!” Harriet dropped the book and spun around. She was dressed in a thick travelling cloak over a sober dark gown, and her hair was escaping her hat in wisps around her lined and tired face. “This utter cad of a man was refusing to tell me which room you were in!” She turned and jabbed a finger at the quailing member of staff. “My husband is a bishop, you know!”

  “Harriet, calm down. And that’s hardly a threat, anyway. He can’t exactly curse anyone.”

  “Are you so very certain of that?” Harriet said.

  “Yes, because it’s the truth.” Adelia embraced her old friend and as she did so, she was able to look over Harriet’s shoulder and mouth “Sorry! Thank you!” at the traumatised receptionist. “Come now. It’s barely nine o’clock. How on earth did you get here so quickly?”

  “As soon as the telegram arrived last night, I set out. I’ve come by carriage, coach, train, more train, a cab, and finally the underground railway which I fear I shall never recover from. The fumes, Adelia! The fumes!”

  “You haven’t slept?”

  “I dozed. Now, what are we to do? Where is Edith?”

  “She is in a hospital but first, let’s get you fed while we work out how to get us all back to Thringley House. Oh, and Harriet, I am so glad you came...” Adelia linked her arm into Harriet’s and she pulled her into the breakfast room of the hotel, filling her in on everything that had happened while they took their fill of food and drink. Harriet was almost slumped in her chair by the end of it, and looked grey around the eyes. Adelia insisted therefore in taking her back up to her suite of rooms and leaving her in the care of the indomitable Smith, with strict instructions not to allow Harriet to do anything other than have a nice hot bath and then a sleep.

  Harriet had no energy left to protest.

  BY ONE O’CLOCK THAT Sunday afternoon, all four of them were in a privately hired coach of some luxury and vast interior space, on their way back to Thringley House.

  Adelia had expected to use her title to obtain such a mode of transport but a note was sent up to her from the reception desk informing her that it had already been arranged. At first she suspected Harriet but she denied it. Nor was it the work of Gregory. In fact, when the coach turned up at the hotel, the servants who were sent with it informed Adelia that it had all been arranged by Miss Angelina Edgbaston.

  When Adelia told Edith, her daughter merely sniffed and closed her eyes, saying, “I suppose she expects an invitation to stay in return for her generosity, doesn’t she?”

  “Perhaps she is simply being a nice person. Not that you deserve it.”

  Edith winced and Adelia reminded herself that her daughter was in pain. She let the matter drop.

  The journey was going to be a great deal slower than using the railways, but it was far easier to keep Edith’s leg elevated in the privacy of the coach, and it meant they did not have to run the gauntlet of changing trains and rushing across platforms. Smith fussed over Edith and to Adelia’s slight annoyance, Edith allowed it. She would not have allowed her own mother to be as maternal as Smith was being.

  But there was no use in making a scene about it, Adelia thought, especially as they were now all stuck in the coach for the rest of the day. They’d find an inn on the way where they could spend the night, and hopefully arrive back at Thringley at some time in the following afternoon, allowing for a slow pace and the regular changes of horses.

  Edith nestled back into a cocoon of blankets and let herself doze off while Smith watched her, poised next to a basket packed with all the tempting food and drink a person might want. She was still hazy from the pain-relieving drugs she had been given.

  Harriet had brightened up after her enforced nap, and wanted to know all about the murder.

  “I can hardly tell you a thing,” Adelia said. “I rather fear that the poor inspector is out of his depth and he doesn’t know what to do next, but cannot admit it. Meanwhile the culprit – or culprits – remain in the house.”

  “And growing more confident by the day, I shouldn’t wonder!”

  “How do you reason that?” Adelia asked.

  “Well, from their point of view, they can see that no progress is being made, and they will begin to feel that they have got away with the crime. Soon the inspector must admit defeat or make an arrest but he can only arrest someone if he is confident that he either has the right evidence or he will soon have it. The longer this goes on, surely the less likely that is?”

  “He does say that most murder cases take a long time. But he must soon allow the others to leave the house and go about their business. We are six days on from the murder now.”

  “I would suggest that he ought to let them go immediately,” Harriet said. “Then the possible murderer will be freer to act and potentially incriminate himself. They must all be watched, of course, secretly. All three of them.”

  “Three?” said Edith, suddenly opening her eyes. She had been listening all along. “Mr Montgomery – he’s awfully clever and he could have done it. Mr Froude – oh, he thinks he is someone, but he’s really not, so he’s the second suspect. But as for the third suspect, mama, you can’t possibly be suspecting Uncle Alf?”

  “I don’t suspect him. But I am afraid that the police must indeed consider all three men as possible suspects. They were all linked and they all had rooms alongside one another.”

  “Well, that’s just nonsense.” Her voice was slurred and her eyelids fluttered. Before she sank back into slumber, she managed to say, “What about the enquiry agent?”

  “I was coming to that.” Adelia pulled out the wad of notes that had been sent to the hotel while she had been out sorting the coach to take them home. Mr Nett had provided her with half a dozen sheets of informat
ion and she had sent a generous payment to him by means of a boy from the hotel. She wanted to thank him in person but it simply wasn’t possible.

  She read them through in silence first, trying not to annoy the others with noises of surprise or alarm as she came across revelation after revelation.

  “If you do not tell us what it all says this very minute then I shall be forced to push you out of this coach,” Harriet said in a low voice.

  “That is not very Christian of you.”

  “On the contrary, did Jesus Himself not turn the moneylenders out of the temple?”

  Adelia put the papers down and stared at Harriet. “But that is not remotely the same thing! Unless you simply sleep through all of your husband’s sermons and don’t have the first idea about the Good Book?”

  Harriet shrugged. “The Bible stories are there for us to use in many ways, to deliver all kinds of messages. Enough of that. It was not an idle threat. There is a look on your face which tells me that you have learned some important information.”

  “Very well.” Adelia broke into a wide grin for a moment before composing herself. “Sorry, I should not be happy about this – but the summary is that Mr George Montgomery is a cheat, a liar, a fraudster and therefore could very well be a murderer, to boot!”

  Even Smith’s usually placid face registered interest, and Edith stirred.

  “Stop taking the stage like a ringmaster and tell us everything,” Harriet said, still threatening violence.

  Adelia waved the papers at the other occupants of the coach. “Here it is, then. Mr Montgomery was a leading professor, as we know – this much is true. He was a world-renowned expert on palaeontology. What does the bishop make of dinosaurs, Harriet?”

  “Make? Probably a very large casserole, if he could. Tell us the important stuff.”

  “He was the very first person to discover ancient remains in British chalk.”

  “Nonsense,” Edith said, groggily. “I have listened to the men as they have been talking. The chalky rocks are teeming with dinosaurs. That’s why they have come down to us.”

  “This is rather beyond me,” Adelia agreed, peering at the paper. “Let me clarify. It seems that Mr Montgomery’s claim was not that he had found dinosaur remains. Instead, he found the remains of early mammalian creatures alongside the remains of the dinosaurs, from around, uh, around one hundred million years ago. Apparently this was a significant discovery which brought him a great deal of publicity. It challenged the accepted view that there were no mammals living at the same time as the dinosaurs.”

  “Unless God put it all there at the same time,” Edith said, shooting a look at Harriet, who merely shrugged.

  “Mr Montgomery sent his sample to the Natural History Museum and they agreed that the tooth was from a small mammal. They took his word that it had been found where he said it had been found, and it was named Plagiaulax montgomerii.”

  “Gosh. Imagine having a rotten old tooth named after you,” Harriet said.

  “Hush. It’s more than you’d ever deserve,” Adelia retorted. “Now, can you all guess where this is going?”

  “Yes, you’ve already told us,” Harriet said. “It was fake, wasn’t it?”

  “Indeed it was. He had fooled the Natural History Museum and he had fooled many important journals and other men of science too. But not before he had embarked on a very lucrative lecture tour. A tour which he did not organise himself...”

  “Bablock Halifax?” Harriet said in delight, clapping her hands.

  “The very same. Halifax must have said he knew all the right people in all the right places, and put together this trip which took Montgomery all over the country and the continent. He was supposed to go to America, too. But he was exposed before he set sail and everything came crashing down.”

  “Why have we not heard about this? It must have been a scandal,” Harriet said.

  “A very small scandal in a very small world, the world of natural historians,” Adelia said. “And Mr Nett’s view is that much of it was hushed up because the museum and the journals did not want their own lack of diligence to be exposed.”

  Harriet laughed. “They were embarrassed, in short?”

  “Yes, they were. And so it suited everyone to quietly let the matter drop. I am sure pressure was applied by the right men in the right circles. You know how it is.”

  Edith struggled up out of her blankets again. “But why would Mr Froude and Uncle Alf let such a conman into their business venture? His bad reputation could ruin them all.”

  Adelia nodded and spread her hands wide. “I imagine that they did not know. I don’t expect that they know the full truth, even now. It explains all of Mr Montgomery’s evasive answers to our questions, and ... and of course, it is a perfect motive for him. He has killed the man who knew all about his past, and thereby secured his future.”

  “Or so he thought,” Harriet said. “How perfectly delicious. Now all we need to do is get back to Thringley House and have the cove arrested!”

  “How easy that sounds,” Adelia murmured, and read through all the notes once more.

  Fourteen

  When the telegram came to Theodore on Saturday night, he was just sitting down to dinner. Montgomery, Alf Pegsworth and Froude were all there and Theodore had also invited the inspector to join them. He regretted that decision as soon as they began to assemble in the dining room. The presence of the policeman made everyone uncomfortable and no one seemed willing to make any conversation. Getting everyone talking together amiably was certainly a task beyond Theodore’s own skills; he needed Adelia for that sort of thing. Instead, the noise of cutlery and china sounded loud in the tense, silent room.

  He was only just lifting his soup spoon when the butler sidled up alongside him with the telegram on a tray.

  As soon as he read it, he experienced a rush of different emotions all at once. He shot to his feet as if he could do something useful right then and there.

  “Sir! Whatever’s the matter?” Inspector Prendergast said in horror.

  Theodore looked around the table and didn’t want to say anything. He quickly begged everyone’s leave and dashed out of the room, urging them to continue the meal without him.

  Prendergast caught up with him outside. Of course, the policeman would not be put off, Theodore thought, almost sourly.

  “I – oh, it’s nothing, really,” Theodore said. “Edith’s had an accident, that’s all.”

  “At Ivery Manor?”

  “No, she’s in London with Adelia.”

  Inspector Prendergast frowned. “You said that Lady Calaway was visiting your daughter Charlotte. You didn’t mention she had taken Lady Ivery with her. What sort of accident? Look here, sir, something is going on and you need to tell me about it.”

  “She’s broken her leg – not badly, it says here, and they hope to return as soon as they can work out how to do so. What should I do?” he said at the end, a little plaintively. The telegram was painfully short and very light on details.

  “Do you know where they are staying?”

  “Yes, it would be Claridge’s, I assume. But I am not sure. It doesn’t say.”

  “There is nothing that can be done tonight. I know that Lady Calaway is a capable woman. You still have not told me why they were in London, for I am certain that it was not on account of your daughter Charlotte.”

  Theodore looked at Prendergast. This was not the keen young man he had watched with pride as he grew up. This was not the boy who had studied diligently under a scholarship at the local Grammar School; this was not the youth who had so nervously accompanied Theodore to meetings at his local club, quivering with pride at the patronage being so magnanimously shown by the local lord.

  No. This was a determined police officer with more experience in terrible matters than Theodore could ever hope to imagine. Theodore broke.

  “Adelia and Edith went to London to look into George Montgomery’s past.”

  “Indeed? And what have they d
iscovered?”

  “I do not know. But we had our doubts about his previous business dealings with Bablock Halifax and she has gone to make enquiries at the very source.”

  “And how do you know that I have not already done so? What if your independent enquiries now raise suspicions among those we are investigating?” Prendergast’s voice rose a little. Theodore shushed him, pointing at the closed dining room door. By mutual unspoken assent, they both moved further away.

  “And have you made such enquiries?”

  “No. That is not the point.”

  “That is entirely the point!” Theodore said. He did not like arguing and he was not used to it, but all the fear and anxiety he was feeling about Edith had to go somewhere. He turned it against Prendergast. “When you came here, you assured me that we would work together, as a team. Yet I find myself increasingly put to one side. If I am not informed about what is going on, how can I avoid stepping on your toes? I do not understand why I have been excluded from this investigation unless – dare I say it? – unless I am a suspect too. Am I?”

  “Good God, no! Not for a minute, sir, have I suspected you to have had a hand in all of this.”

  “Then what prevents you from allowing me to assist you?”

  “I have allowed you to assist me.”

  “But...?” Theodore put out his hand and gripped Prendergast’s upper arm in what he hoped was a reassuring and fatherly way. “I have told you about Adelia. Now please tell me why you are holding back. Have you been warned against me?”

  Again Prendergast looked startled. “No. It’s not that.” He seemed to be having an internal battle and finally he smiled, just briefly. “Very well, then. Let us move forward. I will do anything I can to assist you and your wife in bringing your daughter home from London. She has funds, I assume?”