Hmm. Either Eden had improved at deception in the last hours, or my assessment was wrong.
“Come now,” I said. “There are none here but us, and what you tell me will go no further. You have mysterious errands that pull you from important situations, such as fetching your baggage held at the Custom House, or dare I say it, rescuing me. You cannot explain why you visited the hold of your ship many times though you had no cargo there. You quarreled with Warrilow about the horrors of slavery, came to blows with him defending a woman who spoke strongly against it. Perhaps Warrilow knew your secret, and you went to his rooms that night to make certain he told no one. My conclusion is that you fell in love with a lady, who perhaps was owned by a planter in Antigua, and you spirited her away across the ocean where she could live in freedom. I commend you for it, but others unfortunately, like Warrilow, would condemn you and try to send the lady back to her captivity.”
Eden sat in bewildered silence as I put forth my theory, which had made logical sense to me when I’d worked it out. Eden was a gallant gentleman, and it would be just like him to steal away a woman to bring her to the dubious paradise of England and set her free. It would also explain his stumble when Eden had claimed there had been seven passengers, and then spoken only of six.
Eden sipped his coffee with an air of relief. “I say, Lacey, you have a vast imagination.”
Damnation. He did have a secret, a reason he’d done all the things I’d outlined, and he was happy I hadn’t guessed correctly.
“I have told you, your magistrate, and many others, time and again, that I am a confirmed bachelor,” Eden said. “I do enjoy the fairer sex, as you know, and I have had my share of liaisons, but no I did not act the romantic swain you paint. I would help such a woman, of course, but I’d have simply purchased her freedom so she could travel with me openly, and I’d have already introduced you to her. What you have outlined is a superb story for the theatre or a sentimental novel.”
My face burned. I’d been sure I was right, and the man was hidingsomething, but I sat in embarrassment. I had grown too enamored of my own opinion, I supposed. “Forgive me. Perhaps my wife’s fondness for opera has confounded my thinking. You must admit that your behavior has been odd.”
Eden waved a hand in exasperation. “I am trying to settle myself in England once more, a country I have not spent much time in for many years. Like you, I followed the drum across the world, and then thought the Antilles would make my fortune. Now I need to put myself somewhere, doing something. There is not much for a former soldier who knows little about finance or farming, but when opportunities present themselves, I must pursue them.”
“I see.” I sipped coffee to hide my confusion. I’d been so certain. Eden was usually a straightforward person to the point of vexation, and his evasiveness troubled me.
But his explanation was logical. If he had wanted to rescue a lady, he would have done so in the most candid way possible, to make certain no harm came to her. Helping her run away and stowing her on the ship was romantic, and Eden, as I’d noted, was not. He did enjoy the company of women, but never grew starry-eyed about them.
“I do beg your pardon,” I said, my words stiff. “To avoid my flights of fancy, perhaps you ought to simply tell me what you’ve been doing.”
Now his flush returned. “I will. In time. You must trust me that nothing I have done has resulted in the death of Warrilow. I am as confounded about it as you are. Yes, I shouted at him—he was a pompous bully—and yes, I visited him to shout at him again, but as Mrs. Beadle told you, he was abed. I never saw him, never clouted him with a wash basin, did not kill him. I give you my word, as a gentleman and an officer of your regiment.”
“I believe you.” Eden was not a man who’d promise his word without all honesty behind it. “I will not mention it again.”
“I am grateful to hear it.” Eden slurped down more coffee. “Now, we should turn our attentions to whodidmurder Warrilow to, as I said, give Sergeant Pomeroy another man to chase.”
“Very well.” I moved aside the books on chess Barnstable had helped me find this afternoon and laid the notes I’d made on the problem in front of me. “When we searched Warrilow’s rooms, we found an army carbine. Did he have such a weapon with him on the ship? I imagine him as the sort who’d show it off at the supper table.”
“I agree he would be that sort, but he never did.” Eden set down his cup, calming. “I never saw a carbine in Warrilow’s possession. Perhaps he acquired it after he landed home to use for protection. The areas around the wharves can be dangerous.”
“Then why dismantle it and hide it beneath the floorboards?” I opened my hands. “When one confronts an intruder, you do not say,Excuse me a moment,extract a stripped weapon, put it together, load it, prime it, point it at the intruder, and finally announce you are ready to do battle.”
Eden chuckled. “I see what you mean.”
“Thompson carried the gun away with him, but he might let me have another look at it, as both of us know much about cavalry weapons. I wonder where Warrilow found it.”
“There is surplus lying about now that the Frenchies are behaving themselves and we gave up trying to subdue the Americans. He might have bought it secondhand somewhere.”
“It was a fairly new model, not leftover from Waterloo.” I mused and made a note. “Brewster discovered that the clerk, Laybourne, let rooms in a house very near Wellclose Square. What can you tell me about him?”
“Not much more than I have already. Laybourne kept to himself most of the time. He was a sickly chap—he had to leave the islands and their tropical diseases behind. He felt very sorry for himself and went on about his delicate health and his lack of fortune a fair bit.”
“Sounds an excellent traveling companion.”
“We were all ready to see the back of him. The missionaries assured Laybourne that all his suffering was the will of the Lord. They claimed the same for every cloud that floated by, every bird that rode our wake, every fish that leapt from the water. Each ofthoseincidents reminded them of an event in the Bible—we heard about Jonah and the whale until we wished one would rise and swallow our ship.”
I smiled in commiseration. “Remember young lieutenant Wheeldon?”
“Preaching Parson Wheeldon? Haven’t thought of him in donkey’s years. Very certain the word of God would shield him. And it did. Bullet hit him right in the Bible he carried in his coat pocket. He became insufferable after that.”
We shared a chortle. Wheeldon had left the army after Vitoria when his father had passed away in Bristol. I hadn’t heard of him since.
“What about Fitzgerald?” I asked. “The former Carlton House Set man?”
“Oh, he was quite congenial.” Eden leaned back in his chair, lacing his hands behind his head. “I might have found him so only in comparison with the others, but he was a tolerable companion. Come to think about it, he too liked to visit the cargo hold. Said he didn’t trust these sailors who barely made two coins not to rifle the baggage.”
An interesting fact. I wondered why Eden was only mentioning it now.
