“Open the door,” Brewster growled. “The captain is to be given run of the place.”
I hadn’t heard this from anyone, but I did not argue.
Stout continued to study us with belligerence but finally moved aside to admit us. He slammed the door as soon as we were inside and shot the bolt.
“Mr. Denis told me to clear out the ’ouse,” Stout said.
“’E did, did ’e?” Brewster asked. “Ye visited him in the nick, did ye?”
“He sent a message,” Stout said sourly. “I’m to shut up the ’ouse, let none in, and take ’is effects ’ome.”
“Mr. Stout.” I stood in front of him and addressed him as politely as I could. “What exactly happened this morning? I don’t believe for a moment that Denis killed that man, but I need corroboration.”
Stout peered at me suspiciously. “Gibbons said you might turn up. Told me to talk to ye.” His tone suggested that he’d never have spoken to me if he hadn’t been commanded to.
“Did you see Mr. Pickett arrive?” I knew better than to ask Stout directly what he had been up to at the time of the murder. He’d be evasive, and I’d save much time having him tell me about the movements of others.
Stout rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. “Nobody about, were there? Not in the rain in the dark of morning.”
“Why did Denis leave the house?” I asked doggedly. “Do you think he was going out to meet Mr. Pickett?”
Stout shrugged. “Dunno, do I? I got on with my business and didn’t have time to stand and look out of the winders. Nuffink to me what a bloke does outside his own house.”
Brewster’s patience ran out. “You must’ve seen something. Heard something. Else, why’d ye leg it?”
“’Eard the door open and close. Might have been Mr. Denis walking out. Then lots of shouting and feet pounding. I look out th’ winder again, and there’s a Robin Redbreast and ’is ’enchmen surrounding Mr. Denis and tellin’ ’im ’e’s nicked. The Pickett bloke is a’lying on the cobbles, dead as a stone. Didn’t wait around for them to storm the ’ouse and nick me too, did I?”
“Likely wise of you to run,” I said soothingly. Spendlove would have scooped up Stout as well, hoping to threaten Stout into saying he’d witnessed the crime. “Though I’m sorry you weren’t looking out the window at the crucial moment.”
“None of my business, were it? Never saw the cove before in me life.”
I wondered very much whether Stout had turned away and seen nothing or if he was exercising the caution all Denis’s men had about dealing with magistrates. If Stout admitted to being in the house, he might be forced to stand in the witness box, where a Crown prosecutor would make mincemeat of him.
But if he had seen someone else murder Pickett, why would he not admit this to save Denis’s life?
“Why were you in Rome?” I asked abruptly.
Stout jumped. “Eh?” His truculence returned. “Whatcha want to know that for?”
“Answer the question,” Brewster rumbled threateningly. He was much larger than Stout, though I had the feeling Stout could hold his own.
“Ain’t much work in London, is there?” Stout answered. “Not after Waterloo, when all the soldiers poured back into England, me being one of them. Nothing to eat either. No wonder them in Manchester banded together, not that it did them any good. Sending cavalry to break ’em up and trample women and little kiddies.” Stout looked me up and down. “You’re cavalry, says Gibbons.”
“It has been a long time since I drew my saber and charged at anything,” I said. “And I certainly wouldn’t have at St. Peter’s Field if I’d been in the regiment ordered to storm the crowd. I agree, it was an outrage.”
“Aye, well.” Stout scowled, not appeased. “Gathering in a field to listen to a well-fed cove bleat about our troubles ain’t what I call useful, anyway. I’d been on the Italian Peninsula in a break from fighting Boney the Bastard, and thought I’d go back there, try my luck. Did all right, but then I wanted ’ome. Mr. Denis offered me a way, so I took it.”
I knew much had been left out of the narrative, but I did not pursue it. “What regiment?” I asked instead. “Infantry?”
“I weren’t no officer like yourself. Barely became a corporal, didn’t I? And only because too many of ’em got popped full of bullets. Sergeants didn’t like me none.”
I understood why a platoon sergeant would become impatient with someone like Stout, who likely obeyed an order only when he felt it expedient. Also, I wondered what he’d been doing on the Italian Peninsula, when Austria had led most of the battles against Bonaparte there. I also noted he didn’t name his regiment.
He might have deserted, though Stout didn’t have the shamed, defiant countenance of deserters I’d encountered. I concluded he truly had traveled to Italy, likely during the Peace of Amiens, either to see the world or to take advantage of the confusion of stolen goods that had gone up and down that area. But if he’d stepped onto battlefields against Bonaparte’s determined troops, which at times had been hell on earth, I could respect him for that.
“Sergeants can be strong-willed,” I said, thinking of Pomeroy. He’d never shied from telling me when he thought my orders were wrong-headed.
“Huh.” Stout unbent enough to snort a laugh. “Ain’t it the truf.”
