Chapter Fourteen
AT FLORA’S SUGGESTION, James did not return to The King’s Head after taking tea at Mrs Bridges’ cottage, but instead made for Sir Ambrose’s.
“Mrs Fitzhenry sees everything that goes on,” Flora had said. “She’ll be able to tell you at once if Mr Henderson had visited.”
“If she says she saw nothing, then ask her how that’s possible when she’s so beady-eyed,” Mrs Bridges had added unhelpfully. James had decided this advice was best disregarded.
His journey to Sir Ambrose’s cottage took longer than expected, for he was waylaid by several villagers bemoaning the aftermath of the storm.
Both the London Road and Bath Road were impassable, according to Mr McDowell the grocer.
And Mrs Canards had stopped him to relay the same, adding with relish that Mrs Walton’s drawers had blown off the washing line and were now lodged atop the church steeple.
“Poor dear,” she had said unconvincingly, before scurrying off to spread the news to the next passer-by.
Shaking his head in wonder at the woman’s ability to turn calamity into gossip, James pressed on. Passing through the gate of Sir Ambrose’s cottage, he caught a glimpse of a face withdrawing hastily from one of the windows. His arrival had been noted.
“Captain Thorne, what a surprise.”
James had only lifted his hand to knock when the door was thrown open by a scowling Mrs Fitzhenry.
“I hope I’m not interrupting?” James answered her greeting politely, though he had already removed his hat and was making to step inside.
“Heavens, what notions you men take. I’m a busy woman with a house to clean—of course you’re interrupting. Best come in and make it quick.”
It was not the warmest of welcomes James had ever received, but he did not let it deter him. Following Mrs Fitzhenry into the parlour, he caught a faint tang of brandy lingering in the air. She gestured him curtly toward a chair but remained standing, arms folded, her expression flinty.
James recognised hostility when he saw it; he’d have a devil of a time getting anything from the woman. And he wanted not only to question Mrs Fitzhenry about Henderson but a few other matters too—like his suspicion that Sir Ambrose had been stealing from Flora’s fortune.
Sometimes the truth was best won by a broadside rather than a polite request, he realised, and decided to go on the attack.
“Lord Crabb requested that I go through Sir Ambrose’s ledgers, Mrs Fitzhenry.
I’m afraid I’ve discovered your little scheme,” he began, referencing the small anomalies he had noted in the household budgets whilst looking for bigger crimes.
He’d seen pursers aboard ship squirrel away biscuit-money the same way.
“I don’t know what you mean, Captain,” Mrs Fitzhenry replied, drawing her shawl tighter, full of righteous indignation.
“What I mean is that I know the butcher’s bill was rounded up more often than down. The grocer’s, too,” James said evenly. “A steady leak in the barrel—half a dozen shillings here, a pound or two there. Enough to line a careful woman’s purse over many years.”
“If you’ve come to accuse me, I’ll not deny it!
” Mrs Fitzhenry snapped, sinking into the chair opposite him.
“I might have feathered my nest a little. What else was I to do? I gave this house the best years of my life, and did he ever set aside a pension for me? No. A woman has to think of her old age.”
James rather thought she had been considering her next bottle of brandy more than her pension, though he kept this to himself.
“I see.” He kept his voice level. “And did Sir Ambrose know of your…retirement plan?”
“Pah!” She gave a scornful sniff. “If he did, he said nothing. He knew better. For he knew that I knew about all his thieving.”
James stilled. At last, here it was—the confirmation he had been hoping for, offered without his even asking.
She leaned forward, her voice sharp with long-harboured resentment. “Always involved in this scheme or that, he was—forever chasing some promised fortune. But stealing from the children of his own friends? That was low, even for him.”
James stilled, a cold knot tightening in his stomach. Children? Flora he knew of, but Mrs Fitzhenry’s words suggested there had been another. He kept his features schooled, unwilling to press too directly for fear she’d snap the shutters down again.
“You mean Miss Bridges?” James asked carefully.
“Her, aye,” she confirmed with a jerk of her chin. “And the other one”
“Another?” James kept his voice neutral, though his mind leapt at once to the nameless sums he had seen crossing the ledgers some years earlier.
“I never met her, never knew her name,” she shrugged. “Only that he convinced one of his old friends to make him guardian, then when he held the purse strings he squandered everything. Poor girl had to go into service after, from what I heard.”
There was not much sympathy in Mrs Fitzhenry’s tone for another being forced to work like she.
“Was Sir Ambrose involved in some sort of scheme with Mr Henderson? The butcher’s lad?” he ventured, worried that if the conversation halted she might clam up like a shell.
His question won a snort.
“The only thing that boy’s interested in is his own reflection,” she chortled.
“But had he visited lately?” James pressed.
“Aye. Called once to deliver the bill himself, a few weeks past. I remember it, for it was my task to settle the household accounts,” she said with bitterness James attributed to a lost opportunity to pinch a penny.
“Sir Ambrose took it from him directly, and was in fouler humour than usual after. Which is saying something.”
“Did he call again?” James asked, to which Mrs Fitzhenry shrugged.
“The day of the murder, I think, to drop off some offal.”
It wasn’t much, James thought grimly, but it was something. A thread linking Henderson to Sir Ambrose, just when the butcher’s boy had begun to swagger about in new clothes.
“You’ve been a great help, Mrs Fitzhenry,” he said, rising to his feet.
She jumped from her seat along with him, her bravado now vanished.
“You’ll not be reporting me to Mr Marrowbone, then?” she asked, with a tremor in her voice.
“I won’t,” James said, shaking his head. “I’ve no time for thieves, but I’ve even less for employers who fail to pay their staff. Good day, Mrs Fitzhenry, and my thanks for your hospitality.”
He offered her a bow, then showed himself out. Triumph buoyed his step, though he tried to calm it. He would not make the same mistake he had with Mr Goodwin—assume the case solved, and dive into daydreams of being Miss Bridges’ hero.
No, he would act calmly, fetch Lord Crabb to interview young Henderson, and only when he confessed would James allow himself to bask in the thought of Miss Bridges’ good opinion.
“Ahoy, Captain!” Mr Marrowbone shouted from across the road as James passed. “Someone looks happy. Did you take a walk down to see Mrs Walton’s drawers?”
James frowned; his face, it seemed, had not yet caught up with his wish to display composure.
He did not deign to offer Mr Marrowbone a response, instead he hurried to The King’s Head where he intended to fetch his riding jacket. In the entrance hall, Mrs Pinnock and Miss Vale stood before Edward, engaged in a heated conversation.
“I’m afraid I just don’t know when the roads will be passable,” James overheard the footman say. “We’ll get news soon enough of when the stagecoach is next due.”
“Mrs Pinnock has a long-standing appointment with Lady Wetherby in Bath. You can’t expect a baroness to be made to wait upon the whims of the weather!” Miss Vale grumbled.
“The Churn has burst its banks a few miles up,” Edward replied evenly. “So unless you and Mrs Pinnock fancy a swim, I’m afraid waiting on the weather’s whims is the only option available.”
Mrs Pinnock looked most affronted at this pronouncement and drew breath for a scathing reply—at which point James took the opportunity to slip quietly up the stairs to his room.
He snatched up his riding coat and made straight for the stables, where he saddled his mare with quick efficiency.
The rumours had not exaggerated: the roads were in a sorry state, churned to mud and treacherous with standing water.
More than once he feared his horse might lose a shoe in the sucking mire, but he pressed on at a careful pace until the gates of Crabb Hall came into sight.
At the front door, a horrified Mr Allen took one look at James’s boots and declared he would fetch the viscount.
“Just wait there, Captain,” he called over his shoulder as he scurried along the sparkling tiles.
Lord Crabb appeared a few minutes later, already beginning an apology, then caught sight of James’s mud-spattered boots. His expression suggested he thought the butler’s horror not entirely misplaced.
“What brings you out in this weather?” Crabb asked curiously.
“I believe we may have found our murderer,” James answered grimly, and went on to explain: the wolfsbane discovered in Mrs Bridges’ cupboard; the maid’s claim that Henderson had been acting suspiciously of late; the quarrel Flora had overheard between Sir Ambrose and an unknown man; and finally, Mrs Fitzhenry’s account that the butcher’s lad had indeed called on Ambrose shortly before his death.
“It all points in one direction,” James finished. “I would like you to accompany me to interview Henderson.”
Lord Crabb’s gaze dropped once more to James’s mud-spattered boots, his expression one of thorough amusement.
“Very well,” Crabb gave a sigh. “I know that when a man is in love he thinks of nothing else—not even his Hobby boots.”
With that he called for the footman to have his horse saddled, and a few minutes later they were riding off through the mud to the village.
The air in the butcher’s shop smelled of sawdust and blood, a combination which made James’ nose twitch. Behind the counter, the proprietor, Mr Hamley, blinked in surprise as the magistrate and James entered together.