“These men came to me. Strangers. They knew about that house. They said either I stored that trunk for them, or they would let the world know. I’d be branded a whoremonger. All who knew me would know of it.” He looked away. “My daughter would know. This was a year ago, maybe fifteen months now. Had to do it, didn’t I?”
“No, you did not have to do it. Your interest in mathematics has led you to forget your readings in moral philosophy. Do not expect me to approve the bargain you made.”
Belvoir’s head went down again.
“Did you open that trunk? Did you know what was in it?”
“After they took the first one away and brought the second, I opened it. I had never seen so much money in my life. I knew then I was deep into something that was probably illegal. I figured the money was no good. It smelled when it first came. Like the ink on it still had an odor. It was all fresh, crisp. Either they were robbing the Bank of England, or they were printing that up themselves.”
Belvoir was a smart man. Too bad. If he could claim ignorance, if a jury would believe he might be too dimwitted to understand what he had in that trunk—
“I chewed it over a lot after that,” Belvoir said. “They knew about that house. No one else did. Even the deed uses my whole Christian name. No one has called me John in thirty years. So I wondered if the counterfeiting was not tied to that house too. How else did they find me?”
“Do you think Mrs. Lavender is a counterfeiter?”
He shook his head. “I’d be surprised. She is old-fashioned, and honest in her way. I assume she cheats me on the accounts, but not too much. That is the sort she is. Even her trade there. It is so proper a brothel it is a wonder she gets any business. It is wrong, but not too wrong.”
Ives bit back a smile. For a man in perpetual distraction, Belvoir could show remarkable insight when he paid attention to something or someone.
“There are the servants, though. Hector and the groom and a couple of others. I wondered if one of them might be up to no good, and pulled me into the web.”
“You said they came to you. Who were they? Describe them.”
“Two men. One tall, one short. There was nothing special about them. I’d never seen them before, nor later. Even when one trunk left and another arrived, they did not carry them. Regular transport movers did that work, and I don’t think they even knew what they carried.”
“Do you remember the name of the transport company?”
He closed his eyes, then shook his head. “Brown wagon it was. Painted. I don’t recall a name on it.”
“Do you have anything else to add? Anything at all, that might shed more light on this?”
Belvoir shook his head.
“Then I have a few other questions for you. Answer honestly. If you do not, no one can help you. Do you have any associations with radicals or revolutionaries? Even old friendships that might be misunderstood?”
“I have no interest in politics. Never have. I also have no old friends. I’m not a man who needs them much. I like being alone.” He paused, then added, “I have books, of course. Pamphlets and such. I read many things. Reading isn’t the same as doing, or even agreeing. Everyone knows that.”
Not everyone. Ives pictured the prosecutor reading from one of the more lurid revolutionary tracts, waving it around, describing it being found by the accused’s bedside.
“One more question. You are not a man muchengaged with the world. You say you have no old friends, and you have no living that would be threatened by scandal. Why, then, have you refused to speak until now? Why agree to the blackmail you describe? It is hard to believe you cared if the whole world knew.”
“It wasn’t the whole world I cared about. Just one small part of it. My daughter. I did not want to taint her with the story, and I never wanted her to know.” He covered his eyes with his hand. “But she does now. She must despise me.”
“She is surprised, and disappointed, but she does not despise you. She is glad, I think, to learn there was a reason you refused her help.” He gave the man his handkerchief. “Regarding your daughter, I have a few more questions now, if you will indulge me.”
***
Padua listened to Ives’s description of the meeting with her father. He had asked to meet in Hyde Park, and they strolled along the Serpentine while he reported her father’s explanation.
“I guessed as much,” she said. “As soon as I realized what went on in that house, I knew that was why he would not speak. Eventually it would come out, to my humiliation.”
“It is not the thinking of a man who is indifferent to you,” Ives said.
“Perhaps not.” She was not sure what to think of Papa now. Her old image had been destroyed, and a new one had not yet formed.
“This is England. I cannot believe owning some radical tracts can be used to prove sedition,” she said.
“It is all in how it is presented at the trial.”
