“How does your mother do?” Willis shook his head. “Poor lady. I imagine her grief must be extreme.”
“Yes, I’mafraid it is.”
When Tristan didn’t elaborate, Willis cleared his throat again. “Well, then. What brings youto Bow Street?”
“I regret having to bring ill tidings, Willis, but there’s trouble over at the Clifford School.” Tristan saw no reason to mince words. “One of Lady Clifford’s students was up to some mischief last night.”
Willis had returned to his tea, but he set the cup aside again. “Oh? How did youdiscover this?”
“Quite by accident. I happened to catch the young woman in question prowling about in the dark afterPeter Sharpe.”
Willis frowned. “What, you mean Everly’s man? Are you certain she was following him? Perhaps their being in the same place was merelya coincidence.”
“A rather startling coincidence, wouldn’t you say, for one of Lady Clifford’s girls to be creeping through the streets of London in the same vicinity as the only witness to a murder her ladyship’s servant is accusedof committing?”
Willis blinked. “Well, when you putit like that—”
“It was no coincidence, Willis. The girl was waiting for Sharpe on the roof of Lord Everly’s pediment. My library looks out onto the front of Everly’s townhouse, so I got a good, long look at her. As soon as Sharpe came out, she was over the side of the pediment and down one of the columns as quickly as any cat.”
Willis’s eyebrows shot up. “Thedevil you say!”
“I saw her myself. It was rather impressive, really.”
Willis leaned back in his chair, considering this. “No doubt it was. If it was anyone but Lady Clifford, I wouldn’t trouble myself much about it, but her ladyship knows what she’s about, and she’s trained those girls to be as clever as she is.”
“Clever under the best of circumstances. Ruthless, even dangerous, in the worst of them, especially when you throw Daniel Brixtoninto the mix.”
“What, was Brixton onthe roof, too?”
“No. He wasn’t at Everly’s or St. Clement Dane’s, but he did makean appearance.”
“Yes, he generally does whenever the Clifford School is involved.”
“I can’t imagine Lady Clifford was pleased when Jeremy Ives was taken up for Henry’s…for murder. I heard Ives has been with her since he was a lad, and is one ofher favorites.”
“No, I don’t believe shewaspleased,” Willis muttered, fiddling with a quill on his desk.
“No, and likely not reconciled to his arrest, either. There’s every reason to suspect she’s up to something, and with Kit Benjamin’s assistance, she’s a formidable enemy.”
Willis’s gaze shifted from the quill to Tristan’s face. “You believe the rumors about Lady Clifford and Benjamin, then?”
“It’s difficult to say, but if they’re not lovers, they’re certainly friends. There’s no other explanation for Lady Clifford’s amazingly…shall we say, comprehensive knowledge of London’s nefarious element. If the good alderman isn’t providing her with information, who is?”
Kit Benjamin was well-respected in legal circles and purportedly an honest, upright gentleman, but he was also clever and ambitious. If there was a man in London who had his fingers into every secret, dirty corner of the city’s inner workings, it was Benjamin. Such a man as that could prove invaluable to a woman like Lady Clifford, who knew how to use whatever information she had to great advantage.
“There isn’t any doubt whatsoever Ives is guilty. I saw him myself, Gray, sprawled next to the body, fairly dripping in Gerrard’s blood. Lady Clifford isn’t one to trifle with, but I don’t see how even she can do anything tohelp Ives now.”
Tristan didn’t appreciate Willis’s unnecessarily lurid description of Henry’s murder scene, but he swallowed his ire. “Perhaps not, but that won’t stop her from trying. Why else would she send one of her girlsafter Sharpe?”
“Hmmm.” Willis sat quietly for some moments with his hands folded over his belly, frowning. “Where did Sharpelead the girl?”
“St. ClementDane’s Church.”
Up until this point Willis had taken Tristan’s news in a surprisingly desultory fashion, but at the mention of St. Clement Dane’s he straightened in his chair. “Ah, now that is interesting. Do you have any idea what Sharpe was doing there?”
“None at all, only that he didn’t appear to be doing anything illegal.”
“Hmmm.Was he alone?”
