Having learned from Eleanor’s amazing performance, Grey did his best to look attentive instead of murderous. “The one where you called me a fraud and a curmudgeon and a curse to all aspiring artists everywhere?”
Percy didn’t deign to answer.
Well, perhaps that had sounded more murderous than polite. Hard to sound courteous when one wanted to punch the scoundrel through his nose and out the back of his empty head.
Grey caught Walker’s eye. “If you will note for your records, the mentioned article came out approximately five years ago. A few months later, I was nearly maimed by a runaway hackney. The driver leapt from his seat and fled. He was never caught.”
“Did other articles follow?” Hunt asked with a degree of interest.
Grey struggled to muffle the rage building at the realization that all his lost years of loneliness had been caused by this degenerate and his heir, the heir to which he’d given everything. Stew’s betrayal. . . He’d rationalize later. Right now, with this evil incarnate sitting next to him, it took all his practiced detachment not to throttle Percival. When he considered the harm he could have caused. . .
He wouldn’t allow the cad to see he cared. He gestured with indifference. “At that time, I was living in town, visiting galleries, writing scholarly letters on matters like the recent use of more vivid color among English portrait artists. I may have been impolite in my mention of Archibald Jones, a new artist who portrayed his subjects in a vastly unrealistic manner that imitated previous generations.”
“It’s what his subjects wanted,” Percy said truculently.
Grey shrugged. “We are each entitled to our opinion. After the publication of my article, the flat I leased caught on fire. My interests had traveled elsewhere by then, so I merely moved on to my next subject. The pattern followed, whether I was in Manchester or Bath or lastly, Edinburgh. Who did you pay to rifle my assistant’s desk in Harrowby, by the way?”
“I did not pay anyone,” Percy grumbled.
“Of course you didn’t, because you have no money of your own. That’s where Stew comes in, isn’t it?” Grey leaned back in his chair and crossed his boots, contemplating his roll as if it were a masterpiece, using it as a focus to tamp down the fury rolling off him in waves. “But you are the one more acquainted with the young artists in my classes. So perhaps what I should have asked was what did Stew pay you for, that you then used to bribe one of my students to find out what I was working on?”
Percy didn’t answer.
Hunt rapped his walking stick on his desk with finality. “Fine. We’ll let Percival take the blame for the incidents the baron reports. Arresting gentry never turns out well anyway.”
“I didn’t do anything!” Percy shouted again. “Yes, Stewart asked me to find people to do his bidding, but I didn’t do anything. He’s the one sporting blunt, not me.”
Hunt looked a little more interested. “Explain, please.”
That flustered the prisoner. “That’s all there is to it. He paid me to find people who might. . .”
“Put me in the river, so to speak?” Grey suggested casually. “But you are more interested in my book than Stupid Stew. Books are not quite his style.”
Percy glared. “You want to ruin me and my friends! You sit on your high throne, wielding judgment like a king, while we struggle to put food in our mouths. So, yes, I asked one of your students to watch for an opportunity to steal your notes. So, sue me.”
Because he couldn’t punch the lout who had ruined his life, Grey childishly flung a pickled onion at him. Percy grimaced. That actually helped ease Grey’s pent-up rage, so he threw another, enjoying the smear of vinegar down the cad’s unshaven jaw. “You and Stew both had education, were rewarded with good positions, and chose fast money instead of hard work. You lose. By the way, who paid for the bear trap?”
Hands tied behind his back, Percy couldn’t wipe the onion off his cheek. He tried to swipe it on his shoulder. “Tiny found that. We don’t have bears. It’s for deer. He thought it was funny.”
Of course, he did. The Bradfords had known that monstrous snare was there. Tiny had probably cleaned off the rust.
“So, let us be clear here,” Hunt suggested, his smirk at the onion waning with the deer trap revelation. “Stewart Greybourne paid you to hire criminals to cause grave harm to his benefactor. When they failed, you decided to steal the baron’s work and push him into the river yourself?”
“Stewart is an inept bird-wit who ran out of funds to pay me!” Percy shouted furiously. “I told him Greybourne would be here, asked him what he wished done, and he showed up, expecting me to do the work and be paid later! That book could ruin me. I needed blunt to leave the country.”
“And then you heard gossip about the riches supposedly still hidden in Bradford House and thought your mother might have left a bit to tide you over?” Grey asked in interest.
“Comfrey said my mother stole it years ago, but she’s dead, and he was always a liar and cheat.”
Ah, so Comfrey hadn’t been searching, just Percival, whose mother died before admitting that she stole the family’s savings. Sniveling idiots weren’t worth murdering. Grey lost interest in the proceedings. He wanted to see what Ellie was doing. It would certainly be more interesting than Percy’s excuses.
Hunt nodded agreement at the cheating remark. “The bank verified Comfrey was keeping double books. Dishonesty apparently runs in the family. So you didn’t believe him?”
“I needed the blunt and saw no reason not to look for myself. Comfrey objected, which proved it had to be there.” Percival was nearly whining now.
“So, the two of you argued, he pushed you, you punched him, and that took care of that.” Hunt signaled Walker to note that down and waited for confirmation.
“If his mighty lordship hadn’t arrived, we could have got him to a doctor! She’s just around the corner. But I didn’t have time or means to haul the big lout, so that lackwit dumped him in a well, and there wasn’t anything I could do.” Percy gave up removing the onion juice and scowled.
