“He omitted that detail,” I said. “I’d have walked away from him if he hadn’t.”
“Likely he knew that,” Grenville said, his expression as grim as mine.
“How do we prove Broadhurst’s guilt?” I asked Cockburn. “The killing happened in London, and your brother is buried there as Norris Broadhurst.”
“Catch him,” Cockburn said readily. “Pummel him until he confesses and give him to a magistrate. He’ll never break free from a prison here.”
“Or, the papal authorities will simply ship him back to England,” Grenville said. “Where of course he will be investigated, and at least punished for disfiguring your brother, stealing his identity, and fleeing the country.”
“For murder,” Cockburn insisted. “He should pay.”
“What is your plan?” I asked him abruptly. “To kill him yourself? Thenyouwill hang. Is that what your brother would want?”
Cockburn stared at me, lips parted, then to my distress, the man began to weep. He buried his face in his hands, wet noises coming from his mouth, shoulders heaving.
“Steady,” Grenville said. He rose and moved to a table that held a decanter. Matthias at that moment swept in with a tray of coffee and cups, which he deposited next to the brandy. Grenville bypassed the coffee and brought a glass of brandy to Cockburn, shoving it under the man’s nose. “Drink that.”
Donata had moved to the edge of her seat, pity in her eyes. “He and his brother must have been very close.”
Cockburn raised his head, grasped the goblet, and poured the brandy into his mouth. He swallowed, coughing, then dug a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his eyes and face.
“Forgive me,” he said.
Grenville settled in once more, and Matthias handed cups of coffee all around. “Not at all, my dear chap,” Grenville said in sympathy. “Tell us about your brother.”
“He looked after me when we were lads.” Cockburn drew a ragged breath and composed himself before he continued. “I was born deaf. No one understood what was wrong with me—Leonard was the first to conclude I could not hear. He taught me to speak and to read lips. He taught me to fight, to keep the other lads off me.”
“He certainly didthatvery well,” Grenville said feelingly. Brewster, at the doorway, grunted assent.
“I always had to defend myself,” Cockburn went on. “Leonard became a clerk at a stockbroker’s and he gave me a job, assisting him. I’m good with anything written down.”
His story continued. He worked with his brother until his brother joined forces with Mr. Broadhurst about five years ago. Our Mr. Cockburn had not liked Broadhurst, who was jovial but sly-eyed at the same time, so he’d left to work for another stockbroker. He’d tried to warn his brother, but Leonard Cockburn, too trusting, had taken no heed.
Broadhurst finally lured Leonard into a scheme to make millions. Broadhurst had assured him that everyone would make money.
But then it began to go wrong. People demanded their money returned, and Broadhurst couldn’t do it. He’d dragged Leonard Cockburn down with him, and they were on the verge of debtors’ prison, or worse. In any case, they were both ruined.
Leonard had walked home from the office on the evening of his death. He’d been preparing to meet with finance men from the government the next morning to sort out the mess and find the money to repay their investors. Our Mr. Cockburn had wanted to join him but had been waylaid with last minute paperwork at his stockbroking job. Our Mr. Cockburn had hurried through the darkness to the lodgings he’d shared with his brother, and found Leonard on their doorstep, dead, his face caved in.
When the City watchmen came, they’d examined the coat and belongings on Leonard’s body and declared the dead man was Broadhurst.
“I tried to tell them, no, he was my brother, but they couldn’t understand me,” Cockburn went on. “They took me for a madman. First, they believedI’dkilled him and then decided I was imbecilic. The magistrates concluded my brother had murdered Broadhurst and escaped, but I knew the truth. But no one wouldlisten.”
A person had to attend carefully to Cockburn to understand him, and I imagined the harried watch and magistrate had brushed him aside, thinking him incapable of coherent speech. It must have been dreadful for him, seeing his brother labeled a criminal and buried under another man’s name.
“I even wrote to the magistrate,” Cockburn continued. “But he said I needed more evidence to prove his identity. Everything pointed to the man being Broadhurst, in the magistrate’s eyes.”
I wondered which magistrate—my friend Sir Montague Harris would have been more careful. But Lombard Street was in the City, which was a separate jurisdiction.
“No wonder you were maddened,” I said to Cockburn. “I cannot blame you for wanting to find Broadhurst and make him pay. But I understand the magistrate’s caution—it would be helpful if we had proof that Broadhurst committed this crime.”
Cockburn shook his head. “I have tried to discover any, but I have been unable to. But I know he did it,” he finished resolutely.
I believed him. If Broadhurst had indeed smashed Leonard Cockburn’s face to confuse identification, it was not difficult to assume he’d done the initial murder himself. Or, if he had not actually wielded the knife, hired someone to commit it for him.
I agreed with Cockburn that the best way to find the truth was to locate Broadhurst and wring his tale from him. But if I sent Broadhurst back to England, I would need some evidence of his misdeeds. Sir Montague Harris, to whom I would write of this, could arrest him, but no judge and jury would convict him on my word alone.
An independent witness would be best—if I interrogated Broadhurst, he might say anything to make me call off Brewster, and we’d not discover the truth in this manner.
