Knorr cleared his throat.
“And then he went under the boat, and hit his head,” Mawgan added.
“I thought that was you.” Percy looked closely at him.
“We both did,” Mawgan said. “I was trying to get him.”
“Who else was in the boat?” Percy asked him.
“My father, a few others,” Mawgan said vaguely. “I can’t remember.”
“I would have thought,” Percy said, “that every detail concerning that tragic incident would be seared upon your memory.”
“I hit my head,” Mawgan said.
“And while you were recovering,” Percy said, “Colin Bains volunteered to take the valet’s place and his father was first puffed up with pride at the prospect of having a son as batman to a viscount, heir to an earldom, and then suddenly, in a peculiar reversal of attitude, flatly refused to allow his son to go.”
“I don’t know nothing about that,” Mawgan said.
“Then Mr. Ratchett got you the job,” Percy said.
“He spoke for me,” Mawgan replied. “And Lord Barclay come to see me.”
“And when you returned from the Peninsula,” Percy said, “you were rewarded for your service with your present senior position on my outdoor staff.”
“It weren’t my fault, what happened to his lordship,” Mawgan said.
“Was it not?” Percy asked softly, and the man’s eyes met his for the first time. “Or were you sent to make sure that somehow, by fair means or foul, Viscount Barclay did not come home?”
And there went another gauntlet. There was really no going back now, was there?
They stared at each other. Percy expected incredulity, shock, outrage,somelook of strong denial. Instead he got only the squinted stare, which finally slid away from him, and then the oldest answer known to man.
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” he said. “My lord.”
“I am not at all surehowit was done,” Percy told him, “but Iamsure that itwasdone. You were given your orders and you followed them. Someone must have had a great deal of trust in you. It was an important mission, was it not, but not an impossibly difficult one—far away from home, a war that was killing thousands of both high and low degree, no wind of blame to blow upon this particular part of Cornwall. The odds were high that it would happen anyway without any intervention on your part. But youhadbeen there longer than a year, I understand. You must have been growing impatient and a bit anxious.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Mawgan said again. “If you think I killed him, then you had better ask your— You had better ask Lady Barclay. The French took him and killed him. She was there. She will tell you.”
Your—?Lover, perhaps? It was the closest he had come to a slip of the tongue.
“Your orders came, I suppose,” Percy said, “from your uncle. But tell me, Mawgan, was he acting merely as an agent for someone above him? The head man, maybe, the leader of the gang, the kingpin? Or was he acting forhimself?”
It seemed impossible, incredible, laughable—that dusty, shambling old man, surrounded by the estate books, forever writing in them in his meticulous, perfect handwriting, almost never leaving his study. But what other books and accounts did he work on in there? And he had not always been old, had he?
Paul Knorr had not moved since Percy came into the room. The clock on the mantelpiece, which Percy had not noticed until now, ticked loudly.
Was one allowed a third gauntlet? If so, he had flung that too.
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Mawgan said. “My lord.”
“In that case,” Percy said, “you had better return to your house. Mr. Knorr, will you ask Mimms, my personal groom, to accompany Mr. Mawgan, if you please, and remain with him? I have spoken to him—he will know what you are asking.”
When they were gone, Percy stared glumly into the unlit fire for a minute or so and then took himself off with firm step to the steward’s office. He probably should have summoned revenue officers, he thought. But how could one summon them for the mere whiff of an idea without even a shred of real evidence? He would be the laughingstock.
He supposed everyone concerned realized—or had been told—that if no one said any more thanI don’t know what you are talking aboutin answer to any question on the topic, they were all perfectly safe. There was no evidence against anyone.
The only real error made so far was that letter to Imogen. For someone who was obviously very intelligent, it had been a stupid mistake. But it was not evidence.
