“Of course you do. Sandy, stop laughing, will you? You all enjoy seeing me humiliated, I am sure. It must be very entertaining to listen to me build what seems like a very convincing case, only to have Pettigrew puncture it with a wave of his well-manicured hand. It is only an intellectual exercise to you, my friend, but to me — this ispersonal. I cannot rest until I have exposed this murderer once and for all.”
“I know that,” Pettigrew said, his face wiped of all amusement. “I know it very well, and we all feel the same. This heinous crime must be dealt with under the law, and the perpetrator brought to justice. But we have not yet got the complete picture. There is one fundamental piece missing.”
“Which is?”
“If Nicholson was not murdered because of blackmail, and I am tolerably certain that is the case, then why was he murdered? Until you can answer that question with absolute assurance, you will never solve the mystery, and all this theorising avails you nothing.”
Michael jumped up and paced across the room. “Very true, so we must leave no stone unturned. Every loose thread must be followed to wherever it leads. Pettigrew, I should like you to go to Northumberland to talk to Sir Reginald Wilkes at Warriston Hall. I am sure you can find a good excuse to approach a baronet.”
“What information do you want precisely?”
“Anything you can find out about Miss Rosamunde Wilkes. More specifically, what she looks like so that we might have some idea if Eustace’s lady really is Miss Wilkes. Sandy, I want you to go to Scarborough, with James as your valet. You are a wealthy merchant from Edinburgh, having recently concluded some business in Newcastle and now looking for a little entertainment of the female variety. I want you to investigate all the high-class brothels in the town.”
“Michael!” Luce said, scandalised, as Sandy laughed delightedly.
“He need not avail himself of their services,” Michael said hastily. “I merely want to locate Mrs Mayberry and her so-called nieces.”
“The light-skirts from Nicholson’s Pickering house?” Pettigrew said, leaning forward interestedly. “I thought we agreed that nothing was stolen when they left Pickering so abruptly, so we would not pursue them. I also thought we did not know where they had gone.”
“Yes, but it is astonishing how talkative ostlers and postilions can be when plied with beer,” Michael said with a smug grin. “The ladies went to Scarborough in two hired chaises and a luggage wagon, so I think it very likely they established themselves there. A resort by the sea, with visitors coming and going all year — what more likely setting for a discreet brothel? Luce, you look disapproving, but Sandy is a grown man. He can decide for himself how closely he wishes to keep to the path of virtue.”
“Oh, it is not that,” she said. “Sandy has been given strong principles by his kirk in Edinburgh, so I am not afraid of him straying. It is this pursuit of Miss Wilkes. Did you not say just a few minutes ago that you accepted Mr Eustace’s alibi? Yet now you seem to be suspicious of him again.”
“Until I can be sure of the murderer’s identity, I am suspicious of everyone,” Michael said quietly.
“But Mr Eustace has been so helpful to us!” she cried. “He looked everywhere for poor Peachy, even more thoroughly than we did, and he it was who found her sad remains and allowed us to bury her decently and grieve for her. I shall never forget what he did for her, never!”
“I do not forget it, either,” Michael said quietly. “But there is something else I cannot forget. In this whole investigation, ofall the people we have talked to, only three people are known to have lied to us. One was the foolish Tom Shapman and his false confession, and we have dealt with him. But there was also Mrs Mayberry, who told everyone that Nicholson never went to the house at Pickering, yet we found his office there, with records of his Pickering businesses and the safe with all those gold bars. And then there was Mr Eustace, who put forward Daisy Marler as his alibi, to try to keep us away from Miss Wilkes.”
“He had good, honourable reasons for that,” Luce said. “He was protecting a lady’s reputation.”
“True, but he stilllied.And therefore we must be absolutely sure that he is not lying to us about Miss Wilkes. That is what Pettigrew will determine, and Sandy and James will find out if there is anything untoward about Mrs Mayberry and her young ladies. And then, with luck, we can forget about them.”
Luce nodded, not entirely convinced, but unwilling to push the point.
“And what will you be doing, Michael?” James Neate said.
Michael grinned. “I shall be conducting a little experiment. I should like to know just how long it takes to run to the cheese store, fire a gun and then get back into the house again. And I should also like to know how well the gunshot could be heard from all these different rooms.”
“Everyone claims to have heard the shot,” Pettigrew said.
“So they say, my friend. So they say. But there is no substitute for trying it myself.”
12: Suitors And Brothers
Olivia found herself unusually ruffled by the thought that her father might be forming an attachment to Miss Bucknell. Now that Lady Esther had put the idea into her head, she watched the two closely and saw at once how comfortably they got along. She was only astonished that she had not seen it earlier.
Before dinner each evening, Miss Bucknell played her part as hostess, greeting guests and moving from one group to another, to help the conversation along. But she contrived to have the earl beside her for the meal, and he was the first of the gentlemen to return to the drawing room afterwards and he immediately sought her out. Then they would be together for the rest of the evening. If there was music, they listened to it side by side. If the card tables came out, they played as partners. And if there were no other entertainment on offer, they sat in quiet conversation.
One wet morning, finding him mooning about the library, Olivia ventured to say, “Is Miss Bucknell not with you today?”
His face broke into a smile — how much she had missed his smile! Poor Papa, he had had such a torrid time of it lately, far worse than the rest of the family.
“Charlie is busy below stairs just now. She has promised that we will have a game of backgammon later.”
Charlie? They were on such terms already, then?
“You like her, I think, Papa.”
