Page 35 of A Murder in Bloomsbury

The clerk weighed me, weighed his own employer, and took the matter upstairs. He was back within minutes and led me to the first-floor landing without speaking. My threat had achieved the effect I intended.

Mainwaring’s chambers occupied the front of the house. He was standing behind his desk when I entered, wearing the look of a man who hoped he would never have to pay a certain debt. His bad luck the debt had just walked in through his door.

He inclined his head and said, with creditable evenness, “Lord Everthorne. This is a surprise.” He’d kept his composure. I had to give him that.

“Is it?”

“You should have sent word.”

“That is precisely why I did not.”

He gestured to the chair across the desk as he took his own seat. I declined it. The chair was lower than his own—a small architectural courtesy of the profession. Instead, I crossed to the window and stood with my back to it, which placed him in the light and required him to look up at me.

“My lord, I cannot conceive what business —”

“Can you not?”

His mouth tightened.

“Twelve years ago, you attended a house party at Everthorne Manor that ended in a young woman’s ruin.”

He passed a hand across his face.

“You were invited because you were William’s friend at Oxford. You were either present in the conservatory when Emily Driscoll was violated or came upon the scene shortly after. You did not name the man responsible then or since. I propose that you supply it now.”

“I cannot tell you what I do not remember,” he said, in a different voice altogether—thinner, drier, the voice of a man who had retreated to a safe position.

“Somehow I find that difficult to fathom.”

Mainwaring pulled at his collar. “I have made a life in the years since that night, my lord. I have a wife. I have two children. I have clients who would be ill served by my disinterring matters that do not concern them.”

“Lydia Gray made a life in that same period of time. She was fifty-two years old when a carriage ran her down on Gower Street. What transpired at that house party is directly related to her death. I should be obliged if you would make some attempt to remember.”

Perspiration shone on his brow. “I cannot speak ill of the dead.”

“If you’re referring to my brother, he’s past offense.”

A long silence. He looked at his hands, at the inkwell, at the window past my shoulder.

“What is it you imagine I know?” he said at last.

“I do not imagine.”

He went grey beneath the careful coloring of his face and closed his eyes. When he opened them, something in him had given.

“You cannot use any of this,” he said. “You understand that. There is no court that will hear it. Your brother is gone. Your father is gone. Whatever I tell you will be of no value in any forum that signifies.”

“That is my concern. Not yours.”

He nodded slowly. He drew breath. And then he came to his feet and started to pace behind his desk.

“After dinner,” he said, “we went to the billiards room. William, myself, Croome, and Brookes. Croome died of fever in India in fifty-one. Brookes lives in Edinburgh and has not been seen south of the border in seven years. Your brother liked our company because we did not contradict him. I shall not pretend otherwise. We were three sycophants and an heir who were drunk before ten.”

“Go on.”

“It was William who proposed it. I want you to be clear about that. He said —” Mainwaring’s voice caught. “He said there were housemaids at Everthorne Manor who would be grateful for our attention. He said it would be a kindness to them. I remember Croome laughing, Brookes laughing, and, God help me, I remember laughing as well.”

“Continue.”