Grenville looked thoughtful. “I say, Lacey, surely we’ve solved it. Pickett at some time joined a political society that shared his views, whatever they were. Unbeknownst to him, he hobnobs with fellows from the Spencean Philanthropists. He purchases a cache of guns from Cudgeon and gives one as a gift to a member of the Spenceans—or perhaps a few of them commissioned Pickett to buy them, as Cudgeon is particular to who he sells to. Pickett believes they’ll use them for hunting, and thinks no more of it. When the Cato Street men are arrested, Pickett sees the name of his chap on the list of those jailed. He’s all in a lather, which is when he burst out with that information to Langley and me.”
“It is plausible, I suppose,” I said when he paused for my reaction.
“Pickett, in a panic, contacts Denis to spirit him out of the kingdom,” Grenville continued. “Maybe there are more conspirators who did not get caught in the Runners’ nets, and they worry about Pickett telling all in his fear. They begin to follow him, watch who he speaks to. Pickett misses his meeting with Denis in Curzon Street—for reasons unknown—but manages to procure Denis’s address in Seven Dials. The followers corner Pickett moments before he reaches Denis’s door, kill him, and flee. Denis walking outside and finding the body was simply his ill luck.”
I nodded slowly. “I’d agree with you, except for one thing. How was Pickett killed with Denis’s paperknife?”
“Ah.” Grenville deflated. “I’d forgotten that point. Well, perhaps my theory is all a wash, and Denis murdered him after all.”
I gathered my thoughts. “I don’t believe so. When I visited Denis in Newgate, he seemed amazed at the turn of events—amazed for Denis, that is. He’d never met Pickett, had no idea what Pickett meant to ask from him, and had no concern when the man didn’t arrive at his appointed time. Also, I cannot envision Denis assisting the Cato Street conspirators, in case you form the notion they’d hired him to kill Pickett. I doubt Denis would benefit by overturning the government or even be interested in doing such a thing.”
“Mm.” Grenville’s enthusiasm dimmed. “Then, we must return to who could have entered Denis’s house and stolen his knife. Or—here’s a thought. The theft of the knife and the murder have nothing to do with each other. One of Denis’s lackeys takes the knife, which he believes Denis will never miss, but drops it in the street when he leaves the house. When Pickett is cornered, one of the murderers spies it, scoops it up, and uses it to do the deed. The weapon will never be traced back to them.”
“A rather unlikely coincidence,” I said. “Though it would be a convenient solution.”
“I am grasping at straws, I know. But it must be one or the other, Lacey. Either conspirators killed Pickett to keep him from giving the magistrates further information, or Denis did it for reasons of his own.”
“Or Gibbons or Stout, who were both in the house at the time, committed the deed,” I said. “Whether they meant to land Denis in it or not, I can’t say.”
I returned to the four letters I’d found with the diary. All were notices from merchants asking for payment. One, a furniture maker, had dunned him twice. Aristocrats and high-placed gentlemen like Grenville didn’t receive requests to pay their accounts, but those in Pickett’s rank did.
I tucked the letters inside the diary and slid everything into my pocket. “We can speculate all we like, but we need evidence if I am to clear Denis of this charge. Spendlove will be collecting proof like mad. He wants this conviction—it will be the pinnacle of his career.”
“Mr. Spendlove is rather like a dog after a bone,” Grenville agreed. “Let us hie to the Fox Run at eight and lie in wait for Mr. Cudgeon. He will recognize me, but I will act amazed at the chance meeting. I shall engage him in conversation about shooters and try to bring things around to Pickett.”
“If he even turns up,” I said. “He must have read of Pickett’s death by now. You saw it in a broadsheet only hours after the occurrence.” I imagined journalists had been quite excited by both a gruesome murder and the name of James Denis connected to it.
“A chance we must take,” Grenville said.
There was nothing more to find in Mr. Pickett’s lodgings. His clothes, as Grenville indicated, were those expected from a man with modest means and not extravagant ones. I found no evidence of whatever good fortune Pickett had mentioned in his letter to Denis, the house in Bedfordshire notwithstanding. Apart from the dunning notices and the journal in the bedside table, there were no more personal papers.
We made certain we’d left the chambers neat, went back downstairs to the club to thank Mr. Hawes, who again gave all his attention to Grenville, and departed.
I directed the hackney to South Audley Street, where I’d descend before Grenville continued home. We agreed to meet at half past seven at the Fox Run tavern and wait for Cudgeon to show himself at eight.
Grenville also promised he’d arrange for me to speak to the Honorable Mr. Haywood, Denis’s guest in Seven Dials last night, as well as to Langley, his friend who’d brought Pickett to Tattersalls.
As the hackney rattled away toward Grosvenor Square, Brewster descended the outside stairs to the kitchen, and I entered the house that was now my home. It was past five in the afternoon, and I wanted to see my family for some of the day at least.
Therefore, I was very pleased to see Gabriella gliding down the stairs to me as I divested myself of hat and coat. I nearly smothered her in an embrace when she came off the stairs, and she laughed.
“Are you all right, Father?” she asked. “Bartholomew said you hied off somewhere with Mr. Grenville.”
“Bartholomew was correct.” I drew Gabriella to sit with me on a padded bench in the lower hall. Above us hung a painting of a clear carafe of water and a plate of lemons so bright I could taste them. “I will be off again with Grenville in a few hours. But I will happily escort you later this evening to … wherever we are going.”
Gabriella, the child whose absence had left a hole in my life for many years, laughed again, warming me through. I hadn’t quite forgiven her mother yet for taking her away from me.
“The opera first, then a ball at the assembly rooms in Duke Street,” Gabriella told me. “Lady Aline says those rooms are much more entertaining than Almack’s, with far better libations.”
I smiled, hearing Lady Aline’s voicing this opinion in her decided tones. “Then we will enjoy the rooms in Duke Street, where you will no doubt dance. But only with young gentlemen who are respectful to you,” I finished with fatherly severity.
“I will not dance at all, not without Emile here.” Gabriella’s confidence of Emile’s commitment to her sent a small ache through my heart.
There was nothing actually wrong with Emile Devere, Gabriella’s intended, I repeatedly told myself. He’d been uncomfortable speaking to me alone when he’d visited us in Grenville’s villa outside Rome, but I granted this was mostly because he was not very fluent in English. I spoke passable French, though I was unfamiliar with his dialect. Gabriella sometimes had to translate between us, which meant I could not ask Emile pointed questions I did not want Gabriella to hear.
Young Emile currently worked for his father in the family’s metal works in Lyon, which he would eventually inherit. The factory was small and turned out such things as a village blacksmith might—nails, horseshoes, carriage and wagon parts—though on a larger scale.
It sounded interesting to me, truth to tell, and I hoped to see the ironworks when I found myself in Lyon.
