17: A Wedding
Captain Edgerton retreated to the old schoolroom with mixed feelings. Luce lifted the Madeira decanter, but Michael shook his head.
“Brandy, I think.”
Pettigrew chuckled. “So is she telling the truth?”
“About the axe in the urn? Possibly. The fact that she and Shapman chose different urns speaks to her honesty, for if they had arranged their story together, they would surely have named the same one. No, it is what she knows about her father that worries me.”
Pettigrew passed him a brandy, and settled down with his own glass. “You think she is aware of what he was involved with?”
“He was involved with a great deal, and none of it recorded officially, so I am not sure she could have known anything about it. Taking a share of the rentals, the paste jewellery, the brothel — none of that was written down. The chaplain had no drawer labelled‘My illegal activities’, sadly. The charitablecontributions were public knowledge, but no one knew that no such charities existed. She knew about the existence of the gold bars because she saw them in his safe, and she knew about his winnings at cards because there was no secret about that. The late earl no doubt grumbled about it.‘Another bad night at the card table. Nicholson took twenty pounds off me this time.’That sort of thing. And that is all legal, a debt of honour, paid without the least protest or hint of cheating. So it seems to me that she would naturally assume all that gold came from the card tables. But I wonder… she wanted that gold so badly that she went into the house as a maid, which cannot have been easy for her. And when that scheme failed, she recruited Lord Tarvin to break in. Why the urgency? If she knew that her father had been systematically stealing from the late earl, she might have wanted to get the gold safely spirited away before it was reclaimed by her uncle.”
Luce had picked up her needlework again, but now she laid it down. “It seems to me that Miss Nicholson’s desire for independence is sufficient to account for all she has done. Having control of her own money would give her the freedom to live as she pleases, without the need for a husband.”
“I agree,” Pettigrew said. “I also think Miss Nicholson’s money is a distraction from our principal objective.”
“But I have to decide what to do about it!” Michael said. “I could still give her the key and let her take what is hers.”
“It is not hers,” Pettigrew said quietly. “My investigations are not yet complete, but I have done enough to show that most, if not all, of that gold was stolen from the Earl of Rennington.”
Michael deflated at once. “You are correct, of course. Luce told me to do what is right, and so I must. The earl must be told of this.”
Pettigrew beamed. “That is more like yourself, Michael. You are too soft-hearted sometimes, especially when a pretty younglady is concerned. In another week or two, I shall have an accurate calculation of the amount stolen from the earl, and you will be able to send someone to the Pickering house to value the entire collection of gold bars. Then we shall know how large a fortune Miss Nicholson has inherited.”
“If any,” Michael said sadly.
“Yes, if any. But the earl will not necessarily decide to recover all that was taken from the estate. He might choose to leave some of it as a dowry for his niece.”
“So he might,” Michael said, brightening. “He is a generous man, after all, and fond of her, I am sure. As soon as I have accurate estimates of the amount stolen and the amount of gold, I shall see the earl and put that point to him.”
“And then we can all get back to looking for Mr Nicholson’s murderer.”
Michael sighed. “That man! He has caused us so much trouble. It is fortunate that he is already dead, or I should be tempted to murder him myself.”
***
Tess emerged from her talk to Captain Edgerton with a feeling that she had done her duty, and given him some useful information for his pursuit of the murderer, without revealing too much of her father’s thievery. Not that she knew precisely what he had been up to, but he had not amassed such a fortune by legitimate means. If she had only been able to rescue her gold bars before anyone knew about them! But that ship had now sailed, and her fortune was in Captain Edgerton’s hands.
Tom’s future, too, was in other hands now. Despite the poultry maid, Tess still loved him, but unless she had her fortune, he was beyond her reach. Still, there was one way she could help him, and that was by helping the captain to find thereal murderer. She had been too shocked at first to consider possible murderers, assuming like everyone else that a stranger must have broken in. Only later, when she remembered the axe in its hiding place, had she realised that the murder was planned.
And now that she had remembered the platform inside the urn, it was obvious that the murderer was someone who knew all about it. An empty urn of that size would not normally be a suitable place to hide a short weapon like an axe. A sword, perhaps, or a spear, but an axe would slide to the bottom and be out of reach without tipping the urn onto its side. But with the platform filling the full width of the urn, it rested with the handle conveniently just below the rim.
So the murderer must be someone who knew about the platform, and must be tall enough to reach inside to retrieve it. A man, most probably, or a very tall lady, and she could not think of any female who would be tall enough. But who knew about the platform?
Here she shivered, for surely only the family would remember a time when flowers were placed inside the urns? The footmen, possibly — they were always tall. Male servants of shorter stature were sent to be grooms or gardeners. Only the two butlers, she thought, Simpson and Wellum, had been at the castle long enough.
She retreated to her room and drew a sheet of paper towards her, and began a list of possibilities.
‘Uncle Charles…’
Immediately she stopped. Her uncle? The earl himself? But she must include all possibilities.
‘Uncle Charles,
Walter,
Eustace,
