Page 51 of Corpse in the Canal

“Did Percy apologize?” he repeated. “Lord, no. I never expected him to. I doubt he even remembered the incident next day.”

“So what did you do when he accused you?” Grey asked.

“I left.”

“You weren’t worried anyone would believe Percy?”

Felix smiled. “No.”

Grey released his gaze and Felix almost sagged with relief.

“Your company owns the Everett-Channing Canal Loop, does it not?” Mrs. Grey said, causing Felix to blink in surprise at the sudden change of subject.

“It does,” he replied.

“Then you employ the lockkeeper, George West?”

“The company does, yes.”

“Is he a good and reliable employee?”

“Yes, for the most part. He can be a little rough and ready, but he sees to the lock and repairs diligently enough.”

“Are you aware of his wife’s affair with Percy?”

Felix blushed, embarrassed to be asked such a thing by a lady. But he wondered why he didn’t feel more outraged.

“I heard something, but I pay no attention to gossip and rumor.”

“Quite right,” Mrs. Grey said. “We understand that when West discovered the affair, he beat his wife. Do you think him capable of shooting Percy?”

Felix glanced quickly from her to her husband, weighing his choices. Truth won.

“On the day he beat his wife, yes. Months later, I should be very surprised.”

“Even if something else occurred to provoke him against Percy?”

Felix spread his hands. “How can I possibly tell?”

“You can’t, of course,” Mrs. Grey said, and he wondered if that had been another test.

If so, they really did suspect him.

“To your knowledge,” Grey asked, “is there anyone else in the neighborhood who might have borne a grudge against Percy?”

Felix drew in his breath. “Look, that’s why I asked you to call on me this morning, when what I say cannot upset poor Harvey further. The truth is, Percy upset just about everyone, whether it was with drunken insults, making free with other men’s wives, or debts that were never paid unless his father got wind of them. Frankly, he was an ill-conditioned puppy. There may have been no real malice in him—I don’t believe there was, in fact—but he was utterly self-absorbed and seemed to consider nothing but his own pleasure of the moment. There is no point in blaming the doting parents who spoiled him. He was of an age to have worked out for himself what was right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable behavior.”

He saw from Grey’s face that little of this was news to him. Mrs. Grey did not look surprised either, let alone offended. How could Grey involve his wife in such sordid business? Well, that wasn’t Felix’s concern.

“Mr. and Mrs. Harvey have lost a beloved son,” he continued earnestly. “It will help no one, and serve no justice, to reveal everything you discover to Harvey. He doesn’t need to know what sort of a cad his son was. I ask your discretion, as one gentleman to another.”

Rather to his surprise, Grey’s lips curved into a slight smile. “I appreciate your request. Especially when you are not perfectly sure that I am one. We will pass on to Mr. Harvey only what is necessary to explain the killing…should we discover it. At the moment, there seems to be only one indiscretion that interests them—Percy’s obsession with Mrs. Jenkins.”

Felix jerked up his hand to dismiss that out of hand. “That is all in their minds. I’m sure Percy noticed Mrs. Jenkins, as he noticed every female, but she is no Circe embroiling him in her wiles. On the contrary, she is a virtuous widow bringing up her son on his ancestral land.”

He had deliberately kept his voice calm and dispassionate, but even so, he worried that he had said too much, for he felt Mrs. Grey’s eyes boring into his face. He began to realize they made a formidable team, and to understand the faith Harvey seemed to have bestowed upon them so instinctively and so suddenly. Little would escape them, which was alarming in many ways.

“What is it that turned Mr. and Mrs. Harvey against Mrs. Jenkins?” Grey asked.