Conant finished writing, laid his pen in its tray, and folded his hands on the desk.
“Major Eden, you have been arrested for a serious crime. Please tell me what happened two days before this, once you arrived in England on your ship.” He sent Eden a stare from eyes that had not lost their sharpness. “Everything, please.”
Eden’s pulse beat in his throat, and he strained to keep his voice steady. “Well, let me see. The ship was delayed at the end of our voyage. We had to wait a bit far up the Thames for a fog to clear, then up the river we came. Quite a lot of ships waited with us, all of us bottled up. We put in at the London Docks, which I thought astonishing. Huge place, all enclosed by warehouses, with ships jammed in, unloading all sorts. Our ship contained quite a lot of cocoa and rum, well-guarded, so I am surprised it was burgled. The customs and excise men were waiting for us, searching thoroughly. They seized my baggage, what there was of it, and took it away. I was fetching it today when Mr. Pomeroy, ah, intervened.”
Pomeroy chuckled.
“Why did they takeyourbags?” Conant asked.
“Oh … er, as I told Captain Lacey, the customs agents searched most of our belongings. I was traveling alone, not carrying much. Excise men are inclined to be suspicious.”
And he’d been visiting the hold often. Someone must have reported that.
“Where did you go once you disembarked?” Sir Nathaniel prompted.
“Hired a coach and toddled off to St. James’s to find a place to lie my head. I tried at my old club, Brooks’s. Hadn’t been there in, oh, fifteen years? Never went much during the war. They didn’t have any rooms available, but the doorman sent me to lodgings around the corner in St. James’s Place. I thought the house quite tolerable, and I moved in.”
“But you left these quite tolerable rooms and returned to Wapping, where Mr. Warrilow had found an abode. How did you know where he was?”
“Asked, didn’t I?” Eden’s flush returned. “Look here, I’ll confess. Not to his murder,” he added hastily. “Warrilow was a small planter in Antigua. He came to London for an errand he trusted no one else to do, so he said, but he did not tell me what errand. He grew sugar, so I imagine it had something to do with that trade. We did not see eye to eye on the business of plantations. He believed slavery was the most economically sound of practices, no matter how many reasoned counterpoints I gave him, and was quite boastful of how much work he ground out of the poor sods unlucky enough to belong to him. I went to see him because I’d lent him a book on the subject and I wanted it returned.”
Eden’s color was so deep I feared he’d drop of apoplexy. Conant studied him, while Eden squirmed. He’d just changed his story from saying he’d gone to talk to Warrilow about business in Antigua—this story was likely also a lie.
He didn’t lie about arguing with Warrilow on the ship or about his belongings being seized and released, I didn’t think, but about why he’d hunted up the man after the voyage. Eden must have known where to find Warrilow—the docklands was a warren of wharves, taverns, and lodging houses, difficult to navigate if you did not know them. Which meant they must have made arrangements beforehand to meet.
“I see. What time did you arrive at his rooms?”
“Nine-thirty in the evening. I heard the church clock strike the half hour as I arrived. I left not long later, as I said—the landlady told me he was already abed.”
“Did you ask her for the book? As it was yours, she might have fetched it for you.”
Eden rubbed his forehead. “Yes, yes, she did. And returned to tell me that Mr. Warrilow was fast asleep. He was alive then, and I never saw the man again.”
“Did you take the book?”
“Pardon? Oh, yes, of course.”
Conant moved a paper, the sound a whisper. “Which is in your new lodgings, presumably.”
“Yes.” Eden’s hands tightened into fists on his lap.
“Very well, then. The coroner’s assistant who examined the body has estimated the time of death to be about eleven that night and probably not later than five in the morning.”
“That absolves me, then.” Eden looked a little more cheerful. “I was well away from Warrilow’s lodgings by eleven and I certainly did not go back later.”
“Where did you go?” Conant lifted his pen and dipped it into ink.
“To my rooms, of course.” In spite of Eden’s confident tone, his fists tightened again.
“Witnesses?” When Eden didn’t answer, Conant looked up. “Your landlord? A fellow lodger? Anyone who saw you on the street? Did you stop by your club to greet anyone?”
Conant was trying to help him, I saw. He must doubt that Eden killed Mr. Warrilow, but if Eden continued to fidget and blush, he might as well put a noose around his own neck. Juries tended to believe that anyone who acted guilty truly was. What other reason would a man have to be nervous?
“No, no,” Eden said breathily. “Saw no one, unfortunately. Slept like a babe. Spent yesterday looking up old friends, seeing to my tailor—will need heavier clothing for this climate. Got word from the Custom House I was welcome to retrieve my baggage, which is where I went this morning.”
The room grew silent, save for the scratch of Conant’s pen on the paper and Pomeroy snorting through a stuffy nose. Eden’s hands loosened, and he returned to drumming them. His gaze fixed on Conant’s quill, which moved evenly over the page.
Finally, Conant set the pen down again. When he lifted his head, he looked at me, not Eden.
