“Why have you not returned it to the family?”
James stared at him for a long moment. “You know we have it, but not its contents,” he finally said.
“I did not stay to listen. I want to know what this is about. It appears people are gossiping about it and not thinking of Mr. Jones,” the earl complained.
“I assure you, they are doing both. I have heard them. Come. I will let you see for yourself.”
He led Mortlake to his modest library and shut the door behind them. Only a single lamp, turned low, sat in the room. James brought it forward and turned up its light. He then walked to his desk and unlocked a drawer to draw out the book. “Here,” he said. “I suggest you start on April 23rd. It shouldn’t take you long.”
Mortlake looked at him, frowning, but sat down in a wing chair by the fireplace. James walked to the beverage sideboard. “Brandy?” he asked.
Mortlake nodded.
James poured the brandy for each of them, then sat in the chair opposite Mortlake to enjoy his brandy and wait.
Fifteen minutes later, Mortlake looked up.
“Did you know,” James asked, “Mrs. Jones was not satisfied with the coroner’s verdict of iliac passion for Miss Inglewood’s cause of death?”
“Yes, she told me. I advised her to let it be. The poor girl was dead, and there was no sense in stirring things up now.”
“Mrs. Jones did not take your advice. She took on an investigator’s role and proceeded to question everyone and everything, as Cecilia and I have done. When she spoke to Mrs. Hester, she learned how Miss Inglewood actually died. She concluded that Inglewood was responsible. She confronted him.”
“What?” Mortlake said, sitting straighter.
James nodded. “That much Mrs. Hester does know, but not what went on between them; however, two days later, Mrs. Jones went over the cliff from Haughton Meadow.”
Horror dawned on Mortlake’s face. “You don’t think…”
“We do.” He spread his hands out in front of himself. “But we have no proof.”
“He’ll never be brought to justice,” Mortlake said.
“Why not?” James asked. He retrieved the brandy bottle from the sideboard and offered the earl another glass. Mortlake accepted.
“People are afraid of him. He has too much on them.”
“Like he has on you?” James asked calmly. He took a sip of brandy and then sat back down.
“What are you talking about?”
“You have been protecting him. You have turned your head away from his actions that hurt others, like claiming unpaid taxes and excess taxes due from the district. Those, by the way, are some truths that have come out since people took to talkingabout the diary. The only time you confronted Inglewood was when he arrested Vernon. That hit too close to you. How much did you pay Inglewood to make that false accusation go away?”
“Fifty pounds,” Mortlake admitted.
“I’d call that cheap. You knew, didn’t you, that he beat his daughter. Kendell told you. He’d seen the bruises.”
“Yes, but there was nothing I could do about that.”
James shook his head. “Nothing you chose to do about it. Because he knew something about you that you did not want revealed.”
Mortlake’s jaw clenched. “Yes, damn, you.”
“Something from your university days.”
“How did you know?”
James shrugged. “I don’t. I’m merely surmising based on what I know and have witnessed.”
