“Good heavens,” was all Donata could say when I finished. “You are convinced Mr. Denis did not kill this man?”
“He would never do anything so clumsy, nor would he let himself be caught.” Which again brought up the question, why had he? “There is more to this than meets the eye.”
“That is obvious.” Donata had regained her equanimity and spoke briskly. “If he objects to you discovering the truth, perhaps this incident is part of a larger scheme.”
“One he fears I will blunder into?”
“Mr. Denis is a strategist,” Donata said. “He has proved that many times in the past, and he lets very few into his plans. As you say, he would never do anything so clumsy, so there must be a purpose in his actions.”
“He meant himself to be found?” I asked, liking that I could put these questions to Donata’s sharp mind. “A dangerous thing to do, considering Spendlove’s obsession with landing Denis in the dock.”
Donata turned her pen thoughtfully in her fingers. “Unless there is someone Mr. Denis wants to see in the dock even less.”
“He is protecting the true killer, you mean?” My brows went up. “The murderer would have to be a very special person indeed, for him to do that.”
“You said Mr. Denis is confident he will walk away from this charge. So, if he is arrested, all will be well. He’ll call in favors and go home. But perhaps this other person—one of those who works for him?—wouldn’t be so lucky.”
“In other words, he faces trial because he knows someone like Mr. Gibbons—I am only speculating it was Gibbons—would never survive it. Is Denis that self-sacrificing for the men he employs?”
“We do not know, do we?” Donata gestured with her pen, and a tiny drop of ink fell from its tip to the paper before her. “What about this Mr. Stout, whom Brewster is surprised has been employed. Perhaps he is more than a lackey impulsively hired? Denis had other people working for him in Rome but brought none of them home.”
I recalled the large, hard-bitten man called Luigi, who’d terrified callers at Denis’s leased house near the Palazzo Borghese. Luigi had been a Roman through and through and likely would not be happy in chilly London.
However, if Denis had thought any of his lackeys from the Papal States would be useful to him, he’d have ferried them back with him. He must have some compelling use for Stout to have paid his fare to England and trusted him in the Seven Dials house with only himself and Gibbons.
“Might be worth speaking to Stout again,” I said slowly. “Not that he was pleased to talk to me the first time. Denis was in that house last night for a reason, and I wager Stout knows why, as much as he protests that he kept himself to himself.”
Donata gazed at the painting above her desk, a misty country scene rendered by Mr. Constable. “What does Mr. Stout look like? How old is he, would you say?”
I described him, while Donata listened thoughtfully.
“Are you thinking he is related to Denis somehow?” I asked. “There is no resemblance that I could see.”
Donata sent me a wry smile. “I admit, I fancied he might be Denis’s long-lost son, or some such. But if Mr. Stout is the age you say, then no.”
I could not stop my laughter. “A long-lost son? Denis isn’t old enough to have a grown son, is he?”
“Mr. Denis is thirty-four.” How Donata knew that precisely, I could not guess. “In my experience, gentlemen begin siring children at a young age. He could have a son or daughter of twenty if he was enjoying ladies when he was, say, fourteen or fifteen.” She wrinkled her forehead in worry. “I do hope Peter proves to have more sense than that.”
“Peter is eight years old,” I scoffed. “He hardly notices young women at all, beyond familial affection for his sisters. I doubt that will change soon, especially after he is shut up in Harrow with beady-eyed tutors.”
Donata fixed me with a steely gaze. “I imagine that at fifteen, there was hardly a barmaid in any village who didn’t scheme for a night with you.”
I flushed, because it was true I had been a lusty youth, though I was not quite so promiscuous as she was imagining. I had been more romantic, I liked to think, and less in thrall to a runaway appetite.
“I hope I conducted myself with some measure of honor,” I said stiffly. “Even at that age.”
“I am certain you did.” Donata’s answer was sincere. “Even so, my point is clear. Young men are not censured for their passions unless it carries their family into great scandal. But my speculation is for naught—Denis might have left by-blows in his life, but middle-aged Mr. Stout clearly isn’t one of them. However, he might be an uncle, a cousin, an older brother …”
“I don’t believe he is any relation at all,” I said, happy to change the direction of the conversation. “That is not to say he isn’t important to Denis in some way. Familial ties for Denis are less that of blood and more of loyalty to his fellows.”
Denis, as a child, had learned quickly who to trust and who to remove himself from. He’d been a clever lad, from what I gathered, earning the reputation as a good leader, but there was a reason he kept his emotions under such strict control.
“Certainly, speak to Mr. Stout again,” Donata encouraged me. “You are good at ferreting out secrets before people mean to tell them. Mr. Gibbons as well—Denis has a longer history with him, presumably.”
“Ferreting?” I attempted a frown. “Is that a reference to my long nose?” I tapped the appendage, hoping to make her smile.
Donata only rolled her eyes but leaned from her chair and kissed the tip of the nose in question. “You know full well when I am teasing you. Now, be off. I have a mountain of letters to write and cannot when you distract me with intriguing problems.”
