“She’s not here. And hasn’t been here since right after Joe died. And I don’t take kindly to your frightening off my best seamstress, Mr Lynes.”
“She hired me,” Julian said.
“To do what?”
“That would be her business,” Julian said.
“Well, it’s my business, too, now that she’s run out on me.” Murtaugh leaned on the counter as though that would keep him from doing something more drastic. “I won’t hold her place open – I can’t afford it, and the girl can’t do all the work. You tell her that, when you find her.”
Julian nodded. “She hasn’t collected her pay, then?”
“Just tell her that,” Murtaugh retorted. “I don’t have to answer to you.”
“Which means she hasn’t,” Julian said, and smiled at Murtaugh’s glare. “But when I find her, I’ll definitely give her your message.”
He turned without waiting for an answer, and headed down the stairs. Halfway down, the door swung open to admit a burly man in a workman’s rough coat and cap. Not Murtaugh’s usual run of customer, Julian thought, and something in the man’s movement made him stop on the stairs, shifting his grip slightly on his cane. In the tight space, it wasn’t much of a weapon, and retreat would only bring him to Murtaugh’s door, a doubtful refuge if ever there was one. In Murtaugh’s current mood, he was more likely to lock his door, or, worse, join in an attack.
“Mr Lynes?”
The big man’s voice was unexpectedly polite, but Julian didn’t move. “Sorry.”
“Oh, I hope not,” the big man said. “I’ve a message for you.”
There was no point in lying, then: he’d clearly been recognized. “Well?”
The big man reached into his coat, and pulled out a folded piece of paper, held it out with a smirk. Julian shook his head.
“Let’s do this outside. If you please.”
For a moment, Julian thought the big man wasn’t going to agree, but then he laughed. “He said you were a downy one.”
Who said? There was no point in asking. Julian forced a smile. “And not fool enough to be flattered, either.”
The big man reached back and pulled the door open, hesitating just long enough that Julian murmured, “After you.”
The other man grinned, and stepped out into the road. Julian followed, ready to catch the door if it was slammed on him, stick ready in his hand. But the big man stayed back, waiting until Julian had joined him on the sidewalk. He held out the folded paper again, and Julian snatched it, retreating quickly out of reach. He unfolded it awkwardly, glanced down to see Bolster’s familiar writing.
Stay out of this, for Annie’s sake.
Julian swore under his breath. The last thing he wanted was to put Mrs Makins in danger, but he wanted to know – The big man was walking away, and Julian shouted after him. “Hey! Tell Bolster –”
He stopped, knowing it was pointless. Bolster had delivered his message quite clearly, the messenger meant as a deterrent if concern for Mrs Makins wasn’t enough. And he couldn’t force Bolster to meet with him, at least not without losing the delicate relationship he’d worked so hard to build. But if she was in danger, and he believed she was – there had to be something he could do. Except Bolster said there wasn’t.
He took a deep breath, controlling his thoughts with an effort. He would write Bolster again, ask for another meeting, and perhaps now that he’d let himself be warned off, Bolster would be willing to talk. In the meantime, though – in the meantime, he needed to tell Ned that Wynchcombe was still in London, which might spare him some trouble. Julian shifted his grip on the heavy cane, turning it into just another gentleman’s accessory, and started for the telegraph office at King’s Cross.
Ned announced himself at the front desk of Albert’s hotel and settled into a chair to wait. He wasn’t about to give Albert the chance to leave town again without talking to him, even if it meant devoting his Saturday evening to crime. Albert came down promptly, and pumped Ned’s hand when he offered it.
“Good to see you, Mathey. Look at you, all turned out in your best. Or do your clients expect you to dress like you’re attending a funeral?”
“I’m afraid they do,” Ned said. “Dignity of the profession, and all that. I hoped I’d catch you. Lynes said he’d heard you were still in town.”
“It’s taken longer than I hoped to work everything out,” Albert said. “And I’ve got a man to see Monday morning about an order, so there wasn’t any point in going home between. I’ve packed Violet off home on the train, or I’d ask you to join us both for dinner. But come and have some dinner with me. Tell me what you’ve been up to.”
“Just a drink, to start with,” Ned said. “I’ve an impertinent question to ask.”
Albert’s eyebrows rose, but he nodded in the direction of the bar. “Come and tell me all about it.”
Once they were settled, Ned took a sip of his whiskey and soda. “Lynes tells me that you’ve kept in touch with Reggie Nevett,” he said.
“That’s right,” Albert said. “I’ve stayed at his club from time to time, and normally I’d take myself there now, but it doesn’t seem like the time to impose. The poor beggar’s got enough to worry about.”
“He had a violent quarrel with his father the night of the murder,” Ned said frankly. “And he hasn’t been willing to tell me what it was about. I wondered if you knew.”
Albert frowned. “If I did, it would be because he took me into confidence.”
“I know that,” Ned said. “I know that makes it a hard call to make. But if it’s an unsuitable young woman, or something along those lines, I’d understand that. It wouldn’t have to come to testimony in court, if it’s…well, if it’s something he can’t possibly admit to in public.”
“If it were, he’d have a fair motive, wouldn’t he?” Albert asked. As usual, he didn’t miss much, even when Ned might have preferred for him to.
Ned turned up his hands in surrender. “He might. But he might also have an alibi, if he was in a lady’s company…or company of whatever sort…the night of the murder. I don’t think the candlestick was accursed before he left the house. The question is whether he came back. If there’s someone who could rule it out…”
“There’s that,” Albert said. He let out a frustrated breath. “And it’s not what I’m getting the impression you’re thinking. But it’s breaking a man’s confidences, all the same.”
“Do you believe he even could have done it? Did he know enough metaphysics?”
“Not as far as I know. The little we all picked up in school, yes, but he didn’t keep it up at Oxford. He wasn’t much for the books. I helped him with his translations a few times. I don’t think he was hiding any particular talent.”
“Then whatever you can tell me will only help to clear him. If he didn’t do it, the Yard can’t prove he did.”
“It doesn’t always work out as neat and tidy as that,” Albert said. “You should know that well enough from school.”
Ned shifted in his chair. “We’re not schoolboys anymore. And Hatton at the Yard isn’t a bad sort. Besides, now that Victor’s confessed, he’s going to need more than a hypothetical motive to consider someone else as a suspect.”
“Has he now?” Albert asked, his expression sharpening.
“He has. And he didn’t do it. And if Lynes and I don’t find out who did, he’ll most likely hang.”
“You think Victor might have been protecting Reggie?”
“I hope not,” Ned said. “But there’s this quarrel sitting in the middle of things, and it’s damned hard to ignore.”
Albert set his drink down. “He met a girl by the name of Cora Prince. Worked in a tea shop, and they started a romance over the pastries. Absurd but true. Violet knew the girl, as it turned out. She comes from good decent people, but not his class, and no money to make up for it. He was head over heels for her, but he knew how his father would kick if he tried to marry her. And Reggie’s got no stomach for fi
ghting.”
“I suppose he didn’t tell his father he was going about with her?”
“He didn’t tell his father that he married her last fall.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Dead serious. They were married as quietly as they could, and rented a little place in the suburbs. As I understand it, he meant to tell his father right away, once they’d done it and it couldn’t be undone, but he kept losing the nerve.”
“For the better part of a year?”
“I know, it sounds mad. It is, a bit, but it’s the sort of thing a man’s driven to when he has a father like Reggie’s. If he were a brave man he’d have come right out with it, and if he were more of a coward he’d never have married her in the first place. Instead he’s made himself a mess.”
“He said he’d been staying at his club most nights.”
“Now and again. Most nights he goes home to his wife. Some of his friends at his club know, and cover for him. I’m surprised he managed to pull it off as long as he did.”
“Could he have been with her the night of the murder?”
“He could have been. It’s likely enough. But she can’t speak for him in court, not when they’re married.”
“I’d still like to hear it from him,” Ned said. “Would you give me his address?”
“I’d better take you to him,” Albert said. “Better to apologize myself right off. And, no, don’t apologize yourself. I see it’s the best thing. That still doesn’t make it sit well.”
Ned paid for a cab rather than wrangling with train schedules, feeling it was the least he could do. It deposited them in a long terrace, the houses small but their little gardens neatly kept. Albert was leading him toward one of the houses, where a spray of clematis climbed halfway up the wall, when he stopped.
“The train must just have gotten in,” he said. Ned followed his gaze to see Reggie walking down the street, carrying a brown paper parcel under one arm. He was nearly to his own walk before he saw them, and then stopped, betrayal plain on his face.
“I told him the truth,” Albert said flat out. “I’m sorry to have done it, but it’s for the best.”
“You still think I killed my father,” Reggie said.
Ned looked him in the eye. “Did you?”
“No!” Reggie swallowed hard. “I don’t expect you to understand how it was, Mathey.” He glanced nervously at the house.
“Tell me, then,” Ned said.
Reggie led them reluctantly inside and into a tiny parlor, clean but cheaply decorated, with pictures that might have been out of magazines pinned up to the walls. Ned was reminded suddenly and sharply of Reggie’s room at Toms’, where he’d tacked up pictures of sailing ships and tigers in India, a suggestion of some more colorful inner world. Ned folded himself onto the uncomfortable sofa.
“What’s this, then?” a young woman said, appearing at the parlor door. She was fresh-faced more than beautiful, her cheeks brushed with freckles and her hair in a fringe with strongly set curls. She was wearing an apron over her day dress, with her sleeves rolled up. “Oh, Mr Wynchcombe, Reggie never said you were in town. You’ll stay for dinner, won’t you?” She shot Reggie the look of a wife who would have to scramble to manage any such thing, and would have appreciated warning.
“We’re only here to talk to Reggie for a moment,” Albert said. “We’re engaged for dinner already, I’m afraid.”
“That’s a shame. I’d better let you have your talk, then.” She retreated, shutting the door behind her.
“So that’s Mrs Reggie Nevett?” Ned asked after her steps in the hall had retreated.
“We’ve been married this seven months. I wasn’t thinking of marrying her at first – I just wanted to talk to her, and then to take her out and spend an evening with someone who smiled at me. And then it came to me that…well, that I loved her, and she loved me. But I knew if my father started in at me, I’d give in to him in the end. He was always stronger than any of us were. He got what he wanted, and if you crossed him, he’d make you sorry for it.”
“So you went and did it before he knew anything about it,” Albert said, sounding like he approved. Ned found he did himself; he wouldn’t have credited Reggie with that much backbone.
“We did. I was going to tell him the week after, but…we were so happy together, and I didn’t want to spoil it all, and I just…I kept putting it off. And then after a while I realized I’d waited too long, and he’d be furious at me for lying to him. So I had to go on lying. I didn’t know what to do.”
“It might have been simpler just to tell him,” Ned said. “Although then I suppose he might have cut you off.”
“It’s not as if he gave me an allowance,” Reggie said. “We’ll be all right now, with what he’s left me…” He flinched at his own words. “I know how that sounds. But I’d made up my mind that I’d manage if he wrote me out of his will. Cora was willing to have me without any expectations. I just hadn’t worked myself up to say it to his face.”
“You could have gone away.”
“With what? I can barely afford the rent on this place on my salary, and the bank’s in the City; if we went away I wouldn’t even have that. Cora makes do with just a girl to come in, but I know it’s hard on her. At least she hasn’t had to deal with the family yet, or with talk about how she’s not good enough and never will be. That’ll come, now, I suppose. I wish there were a way the two of us could get clean away, but there isn’t.”
There probably wasn’t, for a man like Reggie, Ned thought. He might cherish daydreams of running off to South Africa or Australia, or at least of getting a job outside of London, but he wasn’t ever likely to do it. And he wouldn’t cut his friends even if they were cold to his wife. But he had married her, which suggested a streak of defiance Ned hadn’t known he possessed.
“I expect the money won’t hurt,” Albert said.
“No. But I didn’t kill him for it.”
“What happened that night?” Ned asked, as gently as he could.
“He asked where I’d been the evening before, and I said I’d been with a girl I met in a shop, a girl I liked. He…well, he made some indecent remarks about what I ought to do with a girl like that, and said it was time he found me someone to marry. I said that he couldn’t tell me who I’d marry, and he said he’d be…” He dropped his voice. “Be damned if he couldn’t.”
“Not what you hoped.”
“What I expected,” Reggie said, unexpectedly dryly. “But I had to get out of the house somehow. I had a dinner party to go to with Cora. I’d been meaning to make some excuse to leave, but I couldn’t think of one, and the guests were arriving, and it seemed that starting a quarrel was the only way to get out of there. I barely made the train as it was, and we were late to dinner.”
Ned frowned. “Do you mean to say that you actually met friends for dinner, that very night?”
“The Thwaites, next door,” Reggie said. “We haven’t been able to see anyone who knows my family, but it seemed safe enough to visit the neighbors, and Cora wanted so badly to get out for the evening. We were there until after midnight.”
It was still remotely possible he’d come back into town in a cab late that night, Ned supposed, or that he was lying about seeing the candlestick still in its accustomed place before he left the house. But he simply couldn’t believe it of Reggie. If he’d ever contemplated murder, he would have gone on dreaming about it for years without screwing up his courage enough to do it. Ned wasn’t sure whether to consider that a fault or a virtue, under the circumstances.
“Then you can’t very well have been sneaking around cursing a candlestick,” Albert said.
Ned let it rest at that. “I don’t suppose you know who did do it?”
“Poor old Victor,” Reggie said. “I never thought he hated the pater the way Freddie and I did, but I suppose he must have. Only he had the nerve to do something about it.” He bit his lip, looking suddenly twelve years old again, and embarr
assingly near tears. “It’s going to be awful, with the trial and the…well, afterwards. I don’t know how we’ll stand it.”
Ned started to say there was hope, but stopped himself. If the murderer wasn’t Victor, at this rate it seemed likely it was someone else in the family, and that wouldn’t be any better.
“You’ll get through,” Albert said, and that was probably all there was to say.
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CHAPTER ELEVEN
After standing Albert to dinner at his club, Ned saw him into a cab and made his own way homeward on the omnibus, feeling a twinge of concern about the way his expenses on this case were mounting. If his client were convicted of a murder he didn’t commit, his own purse ought to be the least of his worries, but he couldn’t help being aware that he could ill afford not to be paid at all.
The omnibus was crowded, and several couples out for the evening were squeezed into its lower deck, turning the bench seats into a crush of bright skirts. Whether the ladies were married to their companions or merely keeping company, he wasn’t sure, but their laughter and looks fondly exchanged with the gentlemen made him sharply aware that he was going back to his rooms alone.
It might be worth dropping by Julian’s lodgings so that they could compare notes. It was really the responsible thing to do, he told himself, and began working his way out onto the omnibus platform, trying to tread on as few toes as possible in the process.
The streets that bordered the British Museum were still populated even at this time of night, but it was quieter once he turned the corner into Coptic Street. He found himself aware of the sound of his own footsteps, and then, the back of his neck prickling, of a sound familiar from school but not since: someone was behind him, far too close, matching their footsteps to his.
He turned in time to see the hard-faced stranger behind him swing something short and heavy at his head.
Ned threw up a hand but couldn’t entirely ward off the blow. The thundering pain made him falter, and the man came at him hard, driving him back against a wall, his arm bruising Ned’s throat.
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