“Do not thank me until I meet Emile,” I said sternly, then relented. “But thank you for not making me have to put up with Mr. Garfield’s attempt at wit over my supper table. I can be grateful for one thing today, at least.”
The servants peered fearfully at us when we emerged from the library, but when I embraced my daughter before she went upstairs to write to the major, they relaxed and went about their business. I had the feeling that if I’d raged at her, they’d have stormed up the stairs to cast me from the house. They adored Gabriella.
Donata had not returned by the time I took my evening meal. Barnstable confirmed that Brewster had indeed accompanied her out, and I knew he’d look after her, though I was not in the least content.
I tried to reason that Stanton was in Lincolnshire chasing my ghost, and Robert St. John was recovering from his accident with his brother, Winston hovering over him. According to Bartholomew’s spies among the servants, Donata’s cousin Edwin had returned to Oxfordshire. For the moment, we did not have to worry about Donata’s bloody cousins.
I ate a repast alone, as Gabriella did not wish to leave her chamber, and received a hand-delivered reply to my note to Mr. Molodzinski.
I was pleased to read your letter, Captain, he wrote, and know you remembered an old friend. I am surprised to hear you ask about Mr. Josiah Leeds, who is indeed a neighbor of mine, but I never speak to him, as he keeps very much to himself.
However, as you know, I always have my ear to the ground, and I have heard over the years a bit about Mr. Leeds. Not enough to condemn him, you understand, but rumors here and there.
My own clerk, who is a font of gossip, says that at one point, it was believed Mr. Leeds had embezzled a large quantity of money from the bank where he is employed.
Mr. Leeds protested his innocence, and even threatened to bring suit against the bank for slander. He readily let those investigating go through all his books and to his house to tear up the floorboards looking for the stolen money.
Nothing was ever proved, and his employers soothed his temper and kept him on. From what my clerk said, Mr. Leeds was an exemplary worker and his colleagues had been amazed at the accusation.
All the same, a large sum disappeared about six years ago and was never recovered. Not in gold, mind, which would have been a feat to carry out, but in banknotes.
But as no large piles of notes were found in Mr. Leeds’s rooms or anywhere near the places he frequented, and no discrepancies were found in his books, it was concluded he had nothing to do with it. The matter was put aside, and Mr. Leeds was never accused of such again.
You asked only for information, Captain, and not my opinion, but in my experience, there is a difference between an innocent man and a very careful one. And because the bank currently has a restriction on the payment of gold for banknotes, whenever that restriction is released, having a large pile of notes at one’s disposal will result in quite a payout. I envy the man who has such a resource.
I wish you good health, my friend, and the next time you are in Lombard Street, please look me up, no matter what time of day or night, and I will stand you a large glass of port.
Ever your servant,
Benjamin Molodzinski
By the time I had finished my meal—the letter almost, but not quite, intriguing me enough to erase my appetite—Donata returned.
I spied Brewster, whom I wished most expressly to speak to, sitting with the coachman as the landau moved toward the mews.
Donata divested herself of her hooded cloak in the central hall as footmen swarmed around her, then she walked straight up the stairs as I walked down them. We met on the landing.
“She told me,” I said in a low voice.
Donata held up her hand. “I do not wish to speak of it, Gabriel. Not now. Now I must ready myself for the engagements I have already accepted. I will put it about that Gabriella is ill, and I hope Mr. Garfield has the sense to keep his mouth shut.”
So saying, she continued upward, Jacinthe and another maid in attendance, and her chamber door slammed.
I watched the door a moment, fearing she’d storm out and confront Gabriella as soon as my back was turned, but the panel remained closed.
Donata was not a cruel woman, for all her tart speeches, and I trusted that she’d leave Gabriella be.
I went downstairs to be handed another missive by Barnstable—Sir Montague had also answered my letter. I broke the seal and quickly read through it. He confirmed that Mr. Leeds’s employers had once suspected him of embezzlement, but nothing had been proved.
Also, Sir Montague too had been interested in the house where Finch died, and the answer he gave me excited me. I folded the letter and tucked it into my pocket.
I hastened to the mews and cornered Brewster.
“I’ll be off home,” he said pointedly. “Me colleagues will take over protecting your lady wife when she goes out again. Unless you plan to race about town some more yourself tonight.”
“I will accompany you,” I said. “I have had some ideas.”
“Here we go,” Brewster muttered.
He said nothing more, only joined me in a hackney that took us to St. Giles. I told him about what Mr. Molodzinski and Sir Montague had revealed to me about Mr. Leeds as we went.
Because darkness was falling, the driver did not want to wait after he’d let us down at the church, and I told him to go on.
“Why did you drag Finch to that particular house?” I asked Brewster as we walked along, a lantern throwing spangles of candlelight across our path. “Where you left him while you went for the money to make him go away?”
Brewster looked blank and took a moment to think. “Were his idea,” he said. “I don’t mean he told me to carry him off there, but when he first turned up, raging at Em to hand him a hundred pounds, if you please, he wanted her to bring it to the house at the end of Priory Court. I knew the place—thought maybe he’d hired it to stash things in. He obviously weren’t living in it. So when I knocked him down, I decided, might as well take him there. That way I’d know where he’d be when I returned. I didn’t fancy leaving him in our flat, alone with Em.”
“Very wise,” I said. “You unlocked it with a key.”
“Stolen from his pocket. Didn’t want him going nowhere until I came back.”
“But someone killed him in the meantime. How did they get in?”
I saw Brewster’s glare, even in the dark. “How do ye think I’d know about that? Maybe Finch had another key. Maybe the killer had one. Maybe he picked the lock. Hobson admitted he did that.”
“And picked it closed again,” I went on. “Which must have taken some effort, but likely he didn’t want anyone finding the body before he could put some time and distance between himself and it. Did you know who owned the house?”
“Haven’t the faintest bloody idea. What other damn fool questions do ye want to ask me?”
“If you’d ever seen Mr. Leeds before today.”
Brewster looked puzzled. “Wheezing bloke from the Bank of England? No. I never go to no bank. I told you. What’s happened to make you this daft tonight?”
“Just thinking,” I assured him.
We walked for a time in silence, St. Giles coming alive around us, its inhabitants making ready to prey on the weak in the dark.
“By the bye,” I asked presently. “Where do you stash your pay?”
Brewster huffed a laugh. “Truly daft. Nowhere I’m going to tell you, guv. Especially not on the street.”
“That is my point,” I said. “You don’t keep it at your house, or in a bank, or with a man of business.”
“’Course not. I want to be able to lay hands on it when I like but keep all others away. Including you.”
I took no offense. “It occurred to me that a man who wishes to hide the fact that he has money would keep it far from where he lived. Somewhere unconnected with him.”
“Yes,” Brewster said cautiously.
“Like a house in St. Giles
everyone avoids.”
“Now you’ve lost me.”
“Let us walk there, shall we?”
Brewster gave one of his resigned sighs, but he led me down the lanes to Priory Court, where Finch had died. Neither of us had a key, as I’d given it to Quimby, but Brewster deftly picked the lock.
Finch’s body was long gone, but the smell of death lingered in the house. The front room was nothing but a large foyer without furniture. It had a door on the wall opposite the entrance, which led into a plain chamber that was likewise empty.
Brewster lit the lantern he’d left in the front room, and I lifted it and flashed it around. “How does one ascend to the rest of the house?”
There were no stairs here or outside, yet the house rose three stories, with windows all the way to the roof, like medieval gate towers I’d seen in walled towns in France and Spain.
Brewster, finally looking interested, took the lantern back from me. The paneled walls of the rear chamber had once been painted white, though the paint had long since blistered and cracked.
“Here,” Brewster said, pulling at one of the panels.
I helped him pry it loose and found it hid a door that, when opened, revealed a stair.
“Why close it off?” Brewster asked, staring upward in suspicion. “What does he have up there?”
“If I am correct, banknotes,” I said. “Shall we?”
Brewster sent me a warning look before he ascended ahead of me. I decided to hang back and let him scout—the stairs could be rotten and not take our combined weight.
“Come up,” Brewster grunted after a few minutes. “Seems solid enough.”
I climbed the stairs, finding them hard beneath my boots.
The house above the ground floor appeared to be in good repair. The single room the stair emerged into was also paneled, but in polished, unpainted wood, and the corners held only a light film of dust.
Another door, this one in plain sight, led to a second stair, which emerged into yet another single room that took up the entire floor. The ceiling was low, fitting under the eaves.
I had intended to examine this room quite closely—knocking on the ceiling, pulling at the panels, tapping my walking stick on every floorboard. But I saw it wouldn’t be necessary. In the corner where two walls and the ceiling came together, the plaster had been pulled away to reveal a small hole. Brewster and I used my walking stick and fists to widen the gap.
The hole led to a cavity, quite a large one, between the beams holding up the peaked roof and the joists of the ceiling.
Brewster boosted me, and I flashed the lantern inside.
Nothing was there. But I saw a depression on the joists that might have been made by a heavy box, one that had rubbed the beams of the roof a bit smooth where the lid would have touched it.
“Damnation,” I growled. “He’s moved it. Or Finch did.”
“You mean Mr. Leeds’s cache of what he stole from the bank.”
“Certainly.” I dropped to the floor from where Brewster had been holding me, catching myself on my stronger leg.
“This is what I think—Mr. Leeds is in a good position to embezzle from the bank, and Mr. Molodzinski is certain he did. Leeds’s own records might be pristine, but what is to stop him doctoring other records, moving a bit here and a bit there to another account, perhaps even inventing a person to own such an account? He could have ceased withdrawing notes by the time anyone at the bank caught on that the account was false—or perhaps he had several different accounts and closed each one after withdrawing only a little.
“By the time the bank finally suspected him of embezzlement, he’d already moved the notes to his hiding place, far from his rooms. Sir Montague confirmed that long ago, Mr. Leeds’s father owned this house, and Leeds inherited it on his death.”
“You’re painting him to be very clever,” Brewster said. “I thought Mr. Leeds were a bit thick, meself.”
“On stage, it takes an intelligent actor—or actress—to play the part of the imbecile,” I said. “So Miss Simmons tells me. I am speculating of course, but there was certainly a heavy box here.”
“Fair point,” Brewster said.
I gazed around the barren room as I continued. “Finch, who regularly visited his daughter nearby, and Blackmore, who was often with him, observe Leeds’s comings and goings, conclude the man can’t be up to anything good, find out about his embezzlement, and start to blackmail him. They could demand plenty of money to keep his secret. Even though Leeds had managed to get free of the accusations when he was suspected, a person marching in and vowing he had seen Leeds with all the money and that he knew exactly where the banknotes were is a different matter.”
“Who’d believe a villain like Finch?” Brewster asked.
“Finch could always coerce another to make the report for him. He had a hold over many people.”
“He did that,” Brewster said darkly. “But why not simply knock Leeds on the head and take the lot?”
“Finch was a blackmailer, a fraudster, and a bully, not a robber and murderer. While kill Leeds when he can be a continuous source of funds? And remember, the banknotes can’t be cashed at the moment for their value in gold, but the notes can be held until such time as they’re honored again. Might as well leave them stashed for now, and have Leeds pay him and Blackmore to keep silent.”
Brewster nodded. “I take your meaning.”
“When Finch was arrested, it wasn’t because he was robbing Leeds of tuppence and a handkerchief. I’d wager Finch and Blackmore were demanding more money from Leeds, using their fists as reinforcement. Leeds sees a patroller and cries out for him. His great fortune that, instead of turning tail and running, as one of the Watch might, the patroller was Timothy Spendlove, delighted he could finally arrest Finch for an obvious crime. Spendlove could only hold on to one of them—both Finch and Blackmore were big men and trained pugilists—so Blackmore got away.”
“Finch never gave him up.” Brewster sounded admiring. “Blackmore’s name was never mentioned at the trial.”
“Probably to Leeds’s relief. Blackmore might have revealed more in the dock than Leeds wished him to. I am guessing Finch kept silent, not only to protect his friend, but so that Blackmore would have the chance to later get more money out of Leeds. Finch might have been already planning his escape from Van Diemen’s Land, paying with the large amount of money Blackmore could have ready for him. The only flaw was that before Finch could reach home, Blackmore died.”
“Sounds reasonable, guv.” Brewster lifted the lantern. “But where’s the box of banknotes then? And the money Blackmore was saving up for Finch’s passage?”
“That I do not know. Likely when Finch died, Leeds moved the box. Blackmore’s money I’m certain is long gone, possibly another reason Charlotte told us Finch was so upset.”
“So all you can show Mr. Quimby or Mr. Pomeroy is this empty space.”
“Yes,” I said, deflating. “But I have another idea.”
Brewster groaned. “Leave it alone. Ye can’t prove a swindler’s a swindler. They cover their tracks too well.”
“I won’t leave it until you are completely cleared, Brewster.”
“Are ye sure I didn’t do it?”
Something in his voice made me stop. Brewster held the lantern high, and its starry light speckled his face. His countenance was still, as was his body.
“I am certain,” I said with conviction. “You’d have told me.”
“I don’t have the honor you do, Captain,” he said quietly.
We stood looking at each other for a long time. “Yes, you do,” I said, and went past him and down the stairs.
When I reached the ground floor, I walked outside into chill darkness, right into a fist that caught me on the side of the head and sent me reeling.
Chapter 28
I heard Brewster’s shout. My ears ringing, I ducked, narrowly missing another punch, and raised my arm and walking stick. But the next blow never fell.
Brewster was behind the culprit, arms locked around him in a wrestling hold, raising him high.
“Captain!” came a breathless voice.
I retrieved the lantern, which had landed squarely on its base when Brewster had dropped it, the candle still flickering inside. I raised it to reveal the young face of Mr. Oliver.
I exhaled. “You can let him go, Brewster.”
“Don’t think so, guv.”
Oliver had ceased struggling and looked small in Brewster’s grip. But I’d seen that Oliver had much strength, even if he didn’t have bulk.
“What are you doing here, Mr. Oliver?” I asked.
“Saw the light.” Oliver gestured with his chin to the window of the top story. “Up there. Bit odd, I thought. So I came to have a butcher’s.”
“Courageous of you,” I said. “We might have been villains of the first water.”
“That’s why I struck before waiting to find out.” Oliver grinned. “Fell you first was my plan. Only Mr. Brewster was too quick.”
I massaged my jaw. “An unfair hit, Mr. Oliver. But a good one.”
“Sorry, Captain.”
Brewster slowly and with some reluctance set Oliver on his feet. Oliver swayed but never lost his equilibrium. We stood in companionable silence in the deserted lane, and the tension eased.
“You come down here quite a bit,” I said as Oliver rubbed his arms against the cold. “You were here the other day, when I had Blackmore’s dog with me.”
“’Sright.” Oliver looked a bit puzzled. “I live nearby.”
“You’re not from here, though. I don’t know all the accents of London, but yours is not St. Giles.”
“South London,” Oliver said. “Bermondsey. I moved to these parts when I quit Mr. Shaddock. Cheaper, innit? Shaddock says he’ll take me back on,” he finished to Brewster.
“Ah,” I said. I glanced about. “It’s interesting. This lane goes nowhere. Except to a house with a box of banknotes stashed under its eaves.”
Oliver’s face went bright red.
Murder in St. Giles Page 24
