“I am quite certain of it, Lord Farramont. About ten years ago, shortly after the death of the late earl, Mr Nicholson began two schemes on that basis. One was to make paste copies of his wife’s jewellery, and sell the jewels. The other was a charitable organisation to which many people contributed sums over the years. Perhaps that would include yourself, my lord?”
“Indeed. I gave him ten or twenty pounds whenever I was here, which was not often. One does not refuse a request from a clergyman to support a worthy cause. Was there in fact a worthy cause?”
“Not that we can discover, no. The house at Pickering is supposed to be a charitable case, the house let to a widow at a peppercorn rent, but according to the attorney, the rent was the usual one for a property of that size. Did Mr Nicholson give you any indication of the nature of the charity to which you contributed?”
“Fallen women, I believe it was.”
“Hmm. He told Mr Franklyn it was coal miners injured in the course of their work, and to Sir Hubert Strong, it was soldiers.”
“How he must have laughed at us all,” Ian said thoughtfully, “and all the time he was accumulating wealth for himself.”
“Indeed, and if ever we can find where he kept that wealth, we could begin to return some of it to those who unwittingly contributed to it.”
“Ah, is that the idea?”
“It is, and for the more recent transgressions, we can perhaps do something. For the jewels we know the precise amount that was raised, and that can go back to the Lady Alice. For thecharitable contributions, we can trace most of that. But to ensure justice is truly done, we should need to look back at the time of the late earl, and discover how much of the estate profits went into Nicholson’s pockets.”
“And give it back to Lord Rennington, you mean?”
“Precisely so. Then he could increase the dowry for Miss Olivia, as he wishes to do since she is now illegitimate and less eligible to a prospective suitor, and he could help Mr Kent to a career. But I do not see how it is to be done, for Nicholson had the management of the whole. If a tenant farmer owes twenty-five pounds in rent, and Nicholson records twenty and keeps five for himself, how can we ever trace that?”
Ian laughed. “That is the simplest thing in the world — ask the farmer. He will know how much he paid.”
“But to go back thirty years?”
“He will know to the penny how much his father paid for the same land, and his grandfather too, and can probably tell you to the nearest bushel how much grain that land produced over the last fifty years, at least. A tenant farmer may be illiterate, but he knows his land intimately. That is my experience, anyway. Ask the farmers, Mr Willerton-Forbes, compare their memories with the written records of the rent receipts, and you may recover a great deal of the earl’s money, although that would be a sad day for Miss Nicholson.”
“Indeed. If the fortune her father left her in his will turns out to be entirely stolen, there will be nothing left for her. But perhaps that is as it should be,” he added thoughtfully.
Ian looked at him enquiringly.
“I am thinking, Lord Farramont, of this confession by Tom Shapman. You are aware of the circumstances? That he wished to marry Miss Nicholson, but Mr Nicholson refused him. So he murdered Nicholson in revenge.”
“And thereby he will hang, instead of waiting a few months and marrying his sweetheart when she is of age?” Ian said.
“Precisely so! It is a ludicrous suggestion, but… we are obliged to accept it as it stands, because the alternative is worse.”
“Because…? Oh, because if Shapman didnotmurder Nicholson, then he must have confessed to protect the person who did—Miss Nicholson!You thinkshemurdered her father?”
“A man would surely only choose to hang for a crime he did not commit to protect someone he loves,” Willerton-Forbes said sombrely. “Miss Nicholson seems an unlikely murderer, I agree, but Tom Shapman is even more unlikely, and what other explanation could there be? His story is consistent with all the facts of the case, and he even accounted for the missing axe. Do you know about that? The murder weapon was part of a display on the stairs, put there by Mr Eustace Atherton, but no one could remember seeing the axe there, even the maid who dusted the display every day. Shapman said he had put it in one of the Chinese urns which stand to either side of the armoury display, ready to use. It is a detail that only the murderer could have known. So either Shapman himself is the murderer, or—”
“Or the real murderer told him of it.”
“Precisely. So you see why we have had to let this go. The earl has forbidden any further investigation into the murder. You may imagine how he feels to think that perhaps his own niece killed her father! It is appalling. So we do not mention the murder in his presence if we can avoid it, and if he remembers to talk to you about his financial affairs, I should be obliged to you if you will say nothing about Shapman or Miss Nicholson.”
“Of course,” Ian said.
“And will you help us to recover this missing money for the earl?”
“I will do what I can while I am here,” Ian said firmly, “but my wife’s wishes are my principal concern now, and I shouldlike to get her home as soon as I can. However, the earl is not incapable of riding about his own land and talking to his own tenant farmers, and he has three sons who are equally capable. The steward can furnish them with a list of all those who pay them rent. Perhaps it is time the earl took responsibility for his own land, as every landowner should do.”
24: Home
Izzy seemed inclined to stay at Corland for a few days, at least, so Ian settled down to help Mr Willerton-Forbes with his investigations into the earl’s finances. It was not a difficult task, and the two worked amicably together in the old schoolroom. In the attached tower room still stood the blackboard on which Captain Edgerton had listed his possible suspects, and occasionally Ian would find Mr Willerton-Forbes in silent contemplation before it.
“I am delighted to see that my name is crossed off,” Ian said, coming up behind the lawyer one morning. “Most reassuring.”
Mr Willerton-Forbes chuckled. “Captain Edgerton suspected everyone at first. There was some idea that you had stayed at the castle on the night of the murder, but once the captain was satisfied that you were not here… you were in Durham, I believe? So then your name was crossed off.”
