Luce rolled her eyes in a most unladylike way. “I am becoming concerned about her, Michael. I only brought her here as my companion to puff myself up for the earl and countess so they would treat us like guests, which worked gratifyingly well.I thought it would be a pleasant little holiday for her, and she would enjoy sitting about doing nothing, being waited on hand and foot. Instead, she has hurled herself into the enquiries with abandon. She is still in Pickering, and do not ask me what she is doing there, for I cannot tell you. She has found lodgings above a chandlery and frankly, she may stay there as long as she pleases. I am quite out of charity with her.”
“You just like having someone on hand to fetch and carry for you,” he said, smiling affectionately at her, pleased to see the scowl soften at once.
“Oh yes!Sucha convenience, and it was very pleasant always having someone to talk to me. Poor Peachy! But she is enjoying herself, and will have a stock of stories to astonish her Harrogate friends with when this business is over. A month or two more of this, and she will have tales enough to last her for the rest of her life. Will it ever be over, Michael? I thought we would be in and out in a week.”
“So did I,” he said regretfully. “I thought it would turn out to be a drunken valet or some such, and we should find his blood-stained nightshirt stuffed under his bed. But I must confess, it is far more interesting than that. Since the only bloodstained garment to be found belongs to the Lady Alice, and I cannot really see her carrying off such a crime, then it was a carefully planned affair. And how that was done, and more to the point,whyit was done, are fascinating questions.” He sighed. “Pettigrew, you are looking decidedly smug. Please tell me you have discovered some irregularities in Nicholson’s financial affairs.”
Pettigrew Willerton-Forbes beamed at him. “It is remarkable the effect that a letter of authority from an earl can achieve. I started in Helmsley and very quickly found an attorney with whom Nicholson had a financial arrangement. The attorney acts as a small local bank. Nicholson would deposit money with himand then withdraw small sums when he needed to settle bills. He always paid his bills on time, by the way. The tradesmen spoke well of him.”
“So no unpaid tailor seething with wrathful indignation?” Michael said.
“Sadly, no. He might quibble over an item here and there, but he always settled in full in the end. The attorney directed me to the bank in York where Mr Nicholson held an account. They also had charge of the amount of Lady Alice’s jointure, fifteen thousand pounds, the exact dowry that her father had bestowed on her when she married. Mr Nicholson never touched a penny of it, although naturally he took the interest. His own account contained a sum slightly above ten thousand pounds.”
“That is not very much,” James Neate said at once.
“It is a not insignificant sum,” Pettigrew said mildly.
“But consider, sir,” Neate said. “He has been chaplain here for thirty years, with no doubt a substantial stipend, as well as the interest from his wife’s money. He is known to be unusually lucky at the card table, too, so his income must be well over a thousand a year. Yet what are his outgoings? He is housed and fed, probably provided with horses, too, his only expenses his clothes and perhaps his own valet, and his wife’s pin money. No more than a few hundred a year. Yet he leaves only ten thousand?”
“And his will left hisfortuneto his daughter,” Michael said eagerly. “That word is highly significant. Ten thousand is a rather trifling amount to be described thus.”
“Not to a chaplain’s daughter,” Luce said. “It is a good dowry for a girl of modest rank and expectations, and she will no doubt inherit her mother’s fifteen thousand, in time.”
“But there is something you do not yet know,” Pettigrew said smugly. “There was a second account, for some kind of charitable institution which Nicholson set up about ten yearsago. Every quarter, sums of money were deposited into the account — anything from ten pounds up to thirty, from local worthies, amounting to more than a thousand a year, and Mr Nicholson withdrew the full amount each quarter.”
“That is a great deal of charity,” Luce said. “The house in Pickering could not cost anything like so much.”
“Then where did it go?” Neate said. “Did he spend the surplus? Or squirrel it away somewhere?”
There was a long silence as they all looked at each other.
“He must have been lining his own pockets,” Michael said slowly. “Mr Eustace suggested something of the sort — Nicholson was managing the late earl’s financial affairs, and there was not so much money as there should have been when he died. The late earl died ten years ago, and perhaps he has less opportunity with the present earl, so he accumulates money this way. But where does it go to?”
“Theremaybe other banks,” Pettigrew said. “I could not find any in York but in Scarborough, perhaps? Or further afield? I shall continue to investigate. There was no money found here, I take it?”
“No more than a thousand pounds in the safe,” Michael said. “Not these excessive amounts. But this is excellent work, Pettigrew. The sainted chaplain was as straightforward as a corkscrew, if you ask me, and this sounds exactly the sort of devious trick he would get up to.”
“Is it enough to get him killed?” Pettigrew said.
Michael chewed his lips thoughtfully. “Perhaps. At the very least, it gives us a thread to follow, and it may well account for this mythical fortune. If only we knew where it was tucked away.”
***
It was two days before Winnie realised. On the day after the dinner at Charles Street, she wrote her note of thanks to Mrs Lomax and went shopping with Aunt Sofia for some last minute items before their return to Yorkshire. She had wondered if she should stay at home in case Mr Lomax rushed round to propose, but Aunt Sofia insisted they go about their normal business.
“He will come whenever he comes,” she said. “We do not leave for two more days yet. Besides, he may not want to speak until he has seen your papa, which would be very correct of him.”
It was not until late in the afternoon that she realised he was not coming at all that day. When he did not come the next day either, nor send word, Winnie’s spirits sank alarmingly. Since the day they had met at the General Post Office, not a day had passed without a call or a drive or a dinner with Mr Lomax. Now, all of a sudden, he had abandoned her.
Edmund walked round to Charles Street to investigate, returning with the gloomiest news — the house was shuttered and closed up, the knocker off the door. The Lomaxes had gone.
Winnie was determined that she would not cry. She was no worse off, after all, and it was not as if her heart was broken. She had never been in love with Mr Lomax, and marrying him would have been a pragmatic matter — an eligible match, but not a romantic affair, not on her side. Yet she had thought that his affections, at least, were engaged. He had given every sign of being a man head over ears in love, and now he had gone away without a word.
“I expect he has gone to Yorkshire to talk to your papa,” Aunt Sofia said optimistically, but Winnie was too realistic to give the idea any credence.
As they packed and bade farewell to Aunt Sofia and Uncle Edmund, and began the long journey back to Yorkshire, Winnie’s mind spun with dark thoughts. What could she have done to drive Mr Lomax away? It must have been somethingvery dreadful to deter a man pursuing so determined a courtship. She went over and over every moment of their last few meetings, but could think of nothing. It nearly drove her insane.
As if in tune with her mood, the journey north was nothing like as smooth as their southbound travel. A horse went lame, the carriage windows stuck closed, so that they sweltered, they took a wrong turning, losing two hours, and at their final overnight stop, the inn had not received Uncle Alfred’s letter. Being almost filled by a large, rowdy party, there was a scramble to find enough rooms for them, and the only parlour free was a poky little place with a smoke-grimed ceiling and battered furniture. The innkeeper was profusely apologetic, for Uncle Alfred was a regular and much valued customer, but nothing could be done.
