“Devilish generous,” I said in surprise. “From my brief acquaintance with Armitage, I cannot believe he’d pass Isherwood money out of the goodness of his heart.”
“Of course not.” Brandon scraped his plate clean, took a final bite, and laid down his fork with satisfaction. “Armitage exacted a price, and I believe that price was letting the French retreat without hindrance. Isherwood was to have issued commands that day—the story is that the commands went astray or were misunderstood, but I don’t believe that. Wellington doesn’t either, but he had no proof that Isherwood deliberately disobeyed.”
I stared at him, mystified. “I dislike Armitage intensely, but I cannot fathom a reason for him to help Bonaparte, and drag Isherwood into the mess. Armitage comes from an old lineage and a family with plenty of blunt. Lady Aline told me a bit about him, and her information is always spot on. And anyway, the tide was turning for Napoleon at that point. Russia was already going badly for him, and Wellington rode into Madrid soon after Salamanca, overturning Bonaparte’s best-laid plans. Armitage had no reason to betray us.”
Brandon shrugged and lifted his coffee. “I’m not certain of all the twists and turns, but the money Armitage gave Isherwood came actually from Desjardins, who has pots of it. He keeps those pots by playing all sides of the fence. He’d be all for Bonaparte one day, all for Louis the Eighteenth the next. Now, I believe, he’s backing the Duc d’Orleans, reasoning that the duke is the strongest man to take over whenever Louis dies, never mind he’s a few steps down in the line of succession. Desjardins does not try very hard to keep this a secret. Armitage is in his pocket, believe me. Perhaps Armitage’s finances are worse off than he lets the world believe.”
“So Armitage owed Desjardins, and Desjardins found a way Armitage could pay, using Isherwood. This way Isherwood would stand in the debt of both men.” I laid down my knife. “If you are saying you believe the pair of them killed Isherwood, I can see them doing such a thing, though I’m not certain why they should. If Isherwood owed them, and they had him doing as they pleased, why murder him?”
Brandon swirled the dregs of his coffee. “Perhaps they feared he’d grown a conscience and wanted to confess. Perhaps Isherwood threatened them with this.”
“They could easily deny everything. It was Isherwood who gave the orders.” I pondered. “Or were they fools and kept a written record of all they did?”
“No idea. I can only tell you what I heard, and what I think.”
I warmed with anger. “I wonder if Marguerite knew. Perhaps that is why Isherwood abandoned her. If she went to Wellington and told him what her husband had done, her accusations might be dismissed as the bitterness of a woman who’d been set aside.”
“Wellington is no fool,” Brandon said. “He’d have at least listened.”
“If she was even allowed to speak to him.” I growled. “Damnation. That is why Armitage insisted she was a spy and a liar. They feared she had known everything and had relayed it to me. They have been waiting for me to denounce them.”
“And did she tell you?”
I cast my mind back to the warm days in Salamanca, the heady laziness inside the high stone house while I celebrated being alive after fierce battle.
“Nothing at all of this. If anything, Marguerite was happy to be free of Isherwood. If she did know what he’d done, I doubt she’d think I could help. But later, if she threatened to use the knowledge against him …” I let out a breath. “I am happy I convinced her to return to England. That was a dangerous secret to hold.”
“Still is,” Brandon pointed out. “But it was a long time ago, Isherwood is dead now, and nothing can be proved. I only know of it because of overheard conversations and whispers afterward—put two and two together, don’t you know. But no one has evidence of it. It would be Marguerite’s word against Armitage’s, and as you point out, his is an old name, and he’s a trusted diplomat.”
“Unless Isherwood left a confession.” I tapped the table, lost in thought. “Perhaps he threatened to betray Armitage or Desjardins—both of them. They decided to lure him to the Pavilion, and there they cornered him and killed him.” And tried to fit me up for the murder, in case I did know something about the Salamanca business, damn them. “But what if Isherwood already passed on this knowledge? To Major Forbes, his most trusted man? Or his son …” I rose in agitation. “Good Lord. I need to warn him.”
“If Isherwood left a letter about it, his son already knows,” Brandon said reasonably, remaining in his seat. “He must guess they are the culprits, but how to prove it?”
“Young Isherwood asked me to prove it.” I began to pace. “He might not know—Isherwood did not necessarily tell him, but would Armitage realize this? And Marguerite must be warned.”
“Racing around half-cocked only brings you trouble,” Brandon said, too calm for my taste. “As usual.”
I halted, making myself think. If Armitage had killed Colonel Isherwood, wouldn’t his troubles be over? Marguerite might know of the orders at Salamanca, young Isherwood might know, and I might. But as Brandon said, it would be our word against his. It would be too risky for Armitage to kill us all. He’d never cover up four murders.
He had wanted me to be found over Isherwood’s body, had drugged me for the purpose. Even if I didn’t go to the gallows for the murder, who would believe me when I bleated about betrayal at Salamanca? I would not have much credit after being found standing over his body.
I had shared port with Isherwood. Perhaps the dose had been in that, put there by Armitage—or Desjardins, who’d admitted he’d been in the room—starting to work as I walked in the Steine with Grenville …
But why would I have returned to the Pavilion? If I’d felt odd and unwell, wouldn’t I have simply returned home and gone to bed? And why had I stopped in the public house where Captain Wilks had seen me?
Armitage obviously hadn’t believed I’d be able to flee the Pavilion before being discovered, and they hadn’t expected Isherwood’s son to keep silent about the crime.
When I hadn’t been arrested, Desjardins had tried twice to shoot me. He’d claimed accident the first time, and that he’d shot at Marguerite in anger the second. But he’d hardly confess to trying to murder me when I taxed him with it.
Marguerite, if she now attempted to tell her tale, might be dismissed as a vindictive woman. Young Isherwood, on the other hand, was highly respected, well liked.
“I am off to see Isherwood’s son.” I drained my coffee and clattered the cup to the table. “Will you send word to Marguerite for me? Brewster knows where she’s lodging. He can tell you, or Bartholomew, if Brewster refuses to run the errand himself.”
Brandon rose, a frown in place. “Have a care, Lacey. Armitage is dangerous. If you accuse him, he’ll have the best solicitors and barristers on his side, and he can turn around and accuse you of whatever he wishes. At the least, he’ll have you in lawsuits the rest of your life for slander, your wife along with you.”
He had a point. “Then we will have to catch him without a doubt,” I said fervently. “Make sure he’s ruined if nothing else.”
I had plenty of ideas on that score, none I would share with my former commander. Brandon would only try to talk me out of them.
Brewster would by no means allow me to walk across Brighton without him. He waited like a bulwark outside, and so Brandon would have to send the message to Marguerite through Bartholomew.
I also sent a footman running for Quimby, telling him to meet me at young Isherwood’s home, urgently.
Except Isherwood wasn’t home. He was at Preston Barracks, his footman stiffly informed me, on duty today. The footman was contemptuously surprised I would not know this.
Nothing for it but to hire a hackney to drive us north out of Brighton to the barracks.
It had been a long time since I’d been in an army camp. This one was permanent, not the temporary bivouacs I’d stayed in throughout Portugal and Spain. The barracks reminded me of the on
e I’d been assigned to in Kent, where I’d trained others in the lull in the war before I’d been sent to the ill-fated campaign in the Netherlands.
Long brick buildings housed both horses and men, enclosing a yard where soldiers drilled, cared for the horses, or vigorously polished tack.
I was directed after inquiries to an office above the stables. There I found young Colonel Isherwood conferring with Major Forbes on a shipment of buckles that had gone missing.
Army life was mostly this, not the excitement of battle many young men dreamed of—endless training, disciplining bored troops, and finding out what had become of a gross of bridle buckles.
The aid-de-camp unfortunate enough to announce me endured a blistering stare from Forbes and quickly retreated.
Isherwood, who was both more polite and more steely, shook my hand. “What news, Captain?”
“I believe I know who murdered your father,” I said. “But I will need your help to draw him out and prove it.”
Chapter 21
Absolutely not.” Major Forbes thrust himself forward, his scowl sending the ends of his mustache to touch his chin. “I wanted the murder reported, but Isherwood made me see sense in not making his father’s death a sensation. Now you want to spread the tale far and wide, disgracing my friend and his family?”
“In a few ears only, Major,” I said. “And let it be known I am beginning to remember events of the night.”
“Beginning to remember?” Forbes looked confused—I hadn’t related to them my entire part in the affair. “Ah, you mean you were drunk.”
“Something like that.”
Forbes gave me a disgusted sneer. “You were field promoted, weren’t you? From nothing to captain, because you were friends with Colonel Brandon and didn’t run away in the heat of battle.”
“It was a decisive flanking move,” I said stiffly, remembering the blood, terror, and my fury at Talavera. “My men were courageous enough to surround and capture artillery, which kept the battle from becoming a rout. The unit that was supposed to have done it was nowhere in sight. My decision won me my promotion, sir.”
Isherwood raised a hand. “I have read Captain Lacey’s record, and it is without stain. But you are saying my father’s shouldn’t be.”
“Which is absolute poppycock,” Major Forbes said loudly.
“I am sorry to report it.” I broke through his blustering. “From what Colonel Brandon has told me about Lord Armitage, I believe he corrupted your father, promising him freedom from debt, and then probably blackmailed him into changing the orders to troops guarding the retreat. Mephistopheles to his Faustus.”
The reference was lost on Forbes, who likely never read anything but army manuals, but Isherwood nodded.
“My father, unfortunately, could be easily influenced.” He gave me the pained look of a man used to the truth not being what he wished. “Well I know this, to my regret, though he managed to cover his sins well. Lord Armitage, however, is a lofty personage. A diplomat, trusted by the king—or at least the Regent and Pitt, who sent him to Austria all those years ago. How will you make anything stick?”
I gave him a thin smile. “By letting him try to kill me, of course.”
“Bad idea, guv.”
I hadn’t expected Brewster to go along with my scheme, and he did not disappoint me.
“I’ve heard again and again that Armitage is untouchable,” I said as we left the barracks to the waiting hackney. “I do not want him to get away with either Isherwood’s murder or sabotaging a battle. If Armitage is caught doing his best to stab me to death, that will be a different thing.”
Brewster was not convinced. “Blokes like that don’t end up in the dock at the Old Bailey. He’ll say you provoked him, and he was defending hisself, like.”
“No, he’ll be tried in the House of Lords, which could ruin him even if it doesn’t hang him. Or perhaps he will try to poison me, as he did before.” I shrugged. “If none of this works, I’ll challenge him to a duel. Or perhaps Desjardins. The man cannot shoot straight.”
Brewster did not like my grim humor. “You’re daft if you think His Nibs will let you be bait in a trap for a murderer.”
“I am hoping His Nibs will help, and stand by to keep Armitage from killing me.”
Whatever Brewster would reply to this was cut off by Major Forbes, who stormed out of the gate and caught us at the hackney. The driver, who leaned against the wheel, having a nip out of a flask, looked on without expression.
“I will not stand by while you smear the reputation of a great man.” Forbes glared at me with the fury of a mastiff, ready to protect his master.
“If he truly gave those orders, he has already smeared it himself,” I said calmly.
Forbes blustered, but I saw in his eyes desperation of a man who wanted to believe in his hero. “Whatever you accuse the colonel of doing, he’d have had good reason. And what did it matter what happened once the battle was won? The slaughter might have been immeasurable if the retreat had been blocked.”
“Matter?” Brewster broke in with a laugh. He was never one to keep his opinions to himself. “That was treason, it was. Even I know that.”
“You are a ruffian and ignorant,” Forbes snarled at him. “How can you understand the motives of one a hundred times better than you? Hear me, Lacey—I’ll destroy you if you slander Hamilton Isherwood.”
“I’d think you’d want his murderer brought to justice,” I said. “If Armitage killed him, why would you stop me from proving it?”
I could see Forbes had no answer. He lunged at me instead, as though ready to strike, but Brewster stopped him with one hand around the lapel of his coat. Forbes tried to free himself, but Brewster held him fast.
“Let him go,” I ordered.
Brewster ignored me. “Mayhap you did it.” He gave Forbes a shake. “You were cozy with your colonel—maybe you worried he’d own up to treason and disgrace himself. Or maybe you found out about it and were in a rage at him for not being the great man you thought he was.”
Forbes struggled, his grief that Isherwood had betrayed him stark on his face. “You’re mad.”
“Let him go,” I repeated, my voice forceful. “I doubt Forbes killed him. He’d challenge Isherwood instead, let him defend his honor.”
Brewster gave Forbes another shake but at last released him. Forbes straightened his uniform coat.
“Of course I’d challenge him,” he said, as though angry I’d suggest anything different. He pointed at Brewster. “I’ll have you for striking a gentleman.”
Brewster had little fear of being arrested, as he had Denis’s protection. He stepped back, unworried.
“Mrs. Isherwood,” I said as Forbes regained his footing. “Would she have known of Isherwood’s orders to the troops guarding the retreat? Did she listen in on his conversations? Read his dispatches?”
“Good Lord, of course not.” Forbes blinked in surprise. “The woman was nowhere near when Isherwood had his meetings, and he kept his dispatches locked away and not in his own tent. She had no interest in military matters.”
“Then, in your opinion, she wasn’t a spy for Bonaparte?” I asked.
Forbes’s bewilderment increased. “Marguerite Isherwood? She was a hedonist. Loved to wear pretty dresses and dance with every gentleman in sight. The war was an opportunity for her to flirt with the officers, including Wellington himself. You know how he was with the ladies.”
Unfortunately, his description could be used to paint Marguerite as a spy, one who used her wiles to grow close to high-ranking officers. On the other hand, she could be just as Forbes depicted, a lady who only wished to enjoy herself. She’d made the best of army life and marriage to a hard-hearted man like Isherwood.
“Thank you,” I said. “Mrs. Gibbons will be entertained by your opinion of her.”
“It’s not opinion—it is the truth. I knew her better than anyone, including Isherwood himself.”
An interesting thing to state. I wonde
red if Forbes had carried a tendresse for Marguerite and she’d shunned him.
I had one final question. “Why did Isherwood return to the Pavilion after the supper? Or did he ever leave it? Had he planned to meet someone there?”
Forbes gave me a look of anguish, which he tried to hide with outrage. “How the devil should I know? I did not see him at all that night, nor was I invited to the Pavilion with him. I told you, if he’d billeted at the barracks instead of taking a house in town, none of this would have happened.”
He truly did not know. Forbes could have done nothing to prevent Isherwood’s death, and that knowledge was killing him.
I took pity on him, and left him alone.
“Where to now, guv?” Brewster asked as we boarded the hackney, the driver climbing leisurely to his box. “To see the Runner?”
“No,” I answered. “To Mr. Denis.”
Brewster was not pleased that I continued to impose myself on Denis, but if the man wanted this problem resolved, he would have to put up with me.
I could not simply bang my way into his house, of course. As when I visited him in Curzon Street, one of his ruffians took word upstairs, and I had to wait upon his pleasure.
Today, I was shown up almost at once. Denis rose when I entered his study, cool face concealing irritation.
I explained to him what Brandon had told me and my idea for finishing this.
“Risky.” Denis rested his hands on the desk. “How can you force words of confession from their lips?”
“I have a few ideas. Desjardins is a coward. I believe he will break. Armitage will need more care.”
I told him why I needed him—Denis specifically—and not only because of his trained fighting men. It was a favor, one he had no reason to grant me, and I knew I’d be yet further in his debt.
Death at Brighton Pavilion (Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries Book 14) Page 20
