“Some magazine sent him.” Leaning against the doorjamb, Fletch kept one eye on the prisoners, the other on the proceedings. “I hear things at the gallery. He’s supposed to be writing an article on Arnaud’s art.”
Grey snorted but did not comment.
The captain impatiently tapped his boot with his cane. “Rafe, bring me witness statements from your guards in the morning. Now, will someone explain what possible motive a hack journalist has to kill a baron? He’s not related to you in any way, is he Greybourne?”
No, that was Stewart, Rafe thought, following the captain’s thoughts. The plot thickened.
Grey gestured at a stack of periodicals on the floor, where bookshelves ought to be. “I have written articles exposing Percival’s various treacheries. He’s accused me of depriving him of income with lies. In my younger days, I may have humiliated him a time or two in front of his fellows by planting a facer and drawing claret. If he had been a true gentleman, he’d have accepted my challenge, and I’d have shot the mongrel just to rid the world of a nuisance. These days, I prefer peace, and keep to myself. But I have no clear idea why he keeps it up.”
Rafe kept a straight face but the plot thickened more. Greybourne had not always been the polite scholar. He’d simply learned to control his youthful fury and power, probably in a boxing salon, if what he’d seen was any example.
Hunt gestured at the prisoner. “Anything you wish to say for yourself?”
“You’ll use anything I say against me, so I’ll save it for a real courtroom and not this provincial excuse for one.” The scoundrel leaned against the wall, apparently tired of fighting—or recognizing the odds stacked against him.
“The magistrate sent my dad to the penal colonies just for defending himself.” Blackie Bradford finally condescended to intrude. “You attacked an aristocrat. You’ll hang,” he finished with a certain amount of satisfaction.
Percival’s bravado faded, and he didn’t reply.
“Mr. Bradford, you say besides Percival and Comfrey, Mort and Tiny are also your cousins?” Rafe inquired.
“Second cousins, so they say,” Blackie Bradford acknowledged. “Their dad was my dad’s cousin or some such.”
“Let’s find out why they were here tonight, when everyone knew Greybourne and his household would be gone,” Rafe suggested. He didn’t know what to expect of the artists, but the Bradford family seemed peculiarly prone to criminal activity.
“If it will get this over faster. . .” The captain gestured to no one in particular.
Fletch was first to respond. He vanished from the doorway and returned shortly with the burly artist who resembled the bearded Blackie.
Rafe took over the questioning. “Your name?”
Mort shook his shaggy head and burped, “Morton Blackford.”
Making certain the lady was still taking notes, Rafe continued, “We had men stationed in back here saw you and another come through the alley into Bradford House’s yard while the inhabitants were away. Why were you here?”
Mort looked to Percival, and finding no help there, shrugged. “Percy said he’d get me good reviews in a London periodical. He could make my fortune. I thought mayhap he had some way of persuading Lord Greybourne to say good things about me. It’s the rich what spread the word.”
“Your work is good, Mr. Bradford, I’d fully intended to have it noticed.” Looking even more tired than the captain, Greybourne leaned back against the sagging sofa, then sat up again to stare at the leather sofa back. “Someone upended this piece. I doubt your brother or Percy have the strength.”
Through his muddled drunkenness, Mort had the sense to look uneasy. “Percy said his uncle hid coins in there, but there weren’t nothing but that rusty old hook shoved up under it. It’s there on the hearth. I’m no thief.”
Rafe took a lantern to the cold hearth, where a rusted grappling hook lay among the ashes. Examining it a little closer, he asked cautiously, “Since Mr. Percival was at the river, did he say he’d be back to collect his coins after you found them?”
“He owed me. I was supposed to wait before I turned it over, but he was taking too long, and I figured he’d done a runner. We flipped it over but like I said, there warn’t nothing there, even after we tore into it. Me and Tiny got out when we heard the lady screaming.”
“Evidence, Mr. Russell?” the captain asked coldly, evidently impatient with testimony.
Rafe picked up the iron piece and carried it over to Hunt, laying it on the makeshift table and holding the lantern up to illuminate it.
“That’s blood, not rust,” both the captain and Greybourne said at once.
Exactly what Rafe had concluded.
Percy attempted to run. Fletch tripped him with his big boot and sent the journalist sprawling.
Thirty-eight
Grey
