Chapter Eleven #2
Men in street clothes came up the area steps and stopped beside the constable. Jacintha imagined they were the same policemen who had first called on her, but she couldn’t tell at this distance. It didn’t really matter. If they were focusing on that house, they weren’t focusing on hers.
The carriage bumped into motion again and whisked them onward to Veronique’s.
*
The wheelbarrow that had presumably brought the body to the establishment’s back door had clearly come through the back gate from the mews.
However, the trail vanished there under the passage of hooves, other wheels, and other feet.
It was impossible to even tell which direction the barrow had come from.
Constance and Solomon, having agreed with Inspector Harris’s assessment, told him about the manure and the notice on the gate the day before, and pointed him toward Mrs. Willow and her sister as a possibility.
“He doesn’t look pleased,” Constance said as they left the house and strolled up toward the square where they were to meet Cordell.
As they walked, she drew the veil of her hat down over her face.
Since she was wearing black, it was a reasonable disguise against recognition going into the St. Johns’ house.
“I’m not pleased either,” Solomon said. “If that poor man was stolen from a paupers’ grave, as Harris seemed to think, then that is a considerable amount of malice. Especially if they were responsible for bringing the other bodies.”
Constance stared at him. “How many people can there be in such a small area, able and willing to lug dead bodies around and pose them at houses of ill repute?”
“This poor devil wasn’t posed,” Solomon pointed out. “He was tipped, and in something of a hurry too. No care was taken to erase footprints or barrow marks. And unlike the first bodies, there can be no doubt that this fellow did not die on our doorstep. It wasn’t necessarily the same person.”
Constance frowned. “But someone is making it commonplace to discover bodies on our doorstep. A distraction from the previous murders? Or a simple attempt to drive us out? Perhaps it was all intended to drive us out.”
“Murder seems a step too far for such a campaign,” Solomon protested, opening the gate to the garden in the center of the square.
There, an elderly gentleman dozed in the morning sunshine. A maid walked a panting pug who sniffed at every plant. Constance and Solomon gazed about them, searching for two elderly ladies without success.
Cordell rose from a bench near the middle of the square and walked toward them. “I was about to give up on you,” he murmured as he doffed his hat to Constance.
“Excuse us,” Solomon said, and told him about the latest development.
To Constance, Cordell’s shock was genuine. “That’s outrageous! Not to say dangerous—who knows what the man died of? There must be something more to this. I cannot imagine two old ladies going so far in their moral quests. It puts them quite in the wrong.”
“Many people believe the ends justify the means. In all matters. I presume you have the key?”
Cordell grimaced. “I do. But I don’t think she has forgiven me. It is you she trusts, not me.”
“She is shocked and grieving,” Constance said. “Give her time to adjust her view of the world.”
Cordell glanced around, as though to be sure he would not be overheard even by a stranger. “What if we do find out something reprehensible about her father? That is hardly going to improve her trust in men in general, or me in particular.”
“You said you wanted to know,” Solomon reminded him. “And that she needs to know.”
Cordell nodded, though he still looked unhappy as they left the gardens and crossed to the St. Johns’ gracious house.
The bell was answered swiftly by a butler, who looked vaguely surprised, though he opened the door wider to admit them. “Mr. Cordell.”
“Good morning again, Hutton. Is Miss Bella returned yet?”
“Oh no, sir. We don’t expect them for another hour at least.”
“That long, eh? I was sure they would be back… Mr. and Mrs. Grey here wished to pay their respects to the family.”
“That is most kind.”
“I’m sure you’re wrong about a whole hour, Hutton. Perhaps we could just wait in the drawing room, and you can inform Mrs. St. John as soon as she returns?”
“Very good, sir,” Hutton said, with such a sympathetic glance at Cordell that Constance suspected the servants all knew the young couple had quarreled.
Which was good. They would assume Constance and Solomon were his excuse to call again and make amends.
“Mr. Anthony is not up yet, but perhaps he won’t be long either. ”
Hutton took Solomon’s hat, inclining his head with recognition, and left Cordell to lead them up to the drawing room.
“No need for tea yet, Hutton,” Cordell called over the banister. “We’ll wait for Mrs. St. John.”
“Very good, sir.”
Constance walked past Cordell into the drawing room, which was a little more cluttered than she would have liked, but both tasteful and expensive, with its too-long velvet curtains, bright carpets, and the most elegant of modern furnishings.
Cordell left the door open and walked toward him. “That is the study door, directly opposite us.” He took a key from his pocket and passed it to Solomon.
“What of Anthony?” Constance asked.
“He never appears before midday.”
Although Cordell had passed the key to Solomon—perhaps to shrug off the guilt of prying—he accompanied them across the passage and into the study. There were no servants nearby.
“Leave the door open a crack,” Solomon advised in a low voice, “and listen. If anyone approaches, go out and close the door, and be seen in the drawing room by whoever passes. Pretend to be talking to us if you can.”
The study was lined with books and contained a comfortable sofa and a table with fine glass decanters. But its main focus was the large mahogany desk, well polished and clear of any documents or correspondence.
Solomon went to one of the matching cabinets that flanked it against the wall, and Constance opened the first drawer in the desk.
It contained only a box of good-quality notepaper, headed by this address and that of a country house in Berkshire, three spare bottles of ink, a selection of pens, a penknife, and a book full of addresses.
Constance spared the time to flick through the address book.
She looked under W for Willow, and also under M for the unmarried sister.
On impulse she also checked the N names, but was hardly surprised when neither Neville nor Nevvy appeared.
Even if they were unlikely acquaintances, there was no point in recording No fixed abode.
She placed it back in the drawer and closed it. The middle drawer was locked. Excited, because this had to be the treasure trove, Constance extracted two hairpins and set to work. She could feel Cordell’s shocked eyes boring into the side of her face, but he did not try to stop her.
The locked clicked easily and she slid it open. On one side of the drawer was a collection of tradesmen’s accounts, all marked as paid. On the other, tied with narrow black ribbon, was personal correspondence St. John had chosen to keep.
“Sol,” she said, knowing this was what they had come for.
Solomon joined her, and they went systematically through the correspondence, allowing themselves only quick glances.
To be fair, none of them were worth much more.
There were no love letters from his wife, nor from anyone else.
There were childish letters from his son Anthony, written from school, and a couple from Bella, written from her sickbed in the country to her father in town.
They all seemed affectionate and comfortable.
There didn’t seem to be any from friends, unless Solomon had all of those.
Keeping his children’s letters betrayed a sentimentality that made this odder. Surely such a man would have kept letters from Zenobia, particularly from the travels he had helped to finance.
Setting her pile of letters down, Constance examined the ribbon.
She could see easily where it had just been folded to wrap around the letters.
But when she looked more closely, fainter creasers, and the position of previous knots, showed that the ribbon had once confined something all of an inch larger.
“Someone got here first,” she said in frustration. “The letters have been purged.”
Solomon glanced at the ribbon and set down his own letters. “So Mrs. St. John has been busy. Why? Let’s have a look at the accounts.”
Abandoning the letters, she took out the pile of paid accounts and passed half to Solomon.
She flicked through them quickly, finding only what one might expect of a wealthy man with two households and a daughter about to be married.
Madame Veronique was horrendously expensive, as were the wine merchants and caterers to whom he had paid a deposit.
All most disappointing. “What is in the cabinets?” she asked Solomon without much hope.
“Past years’ household accounts and copies of estate books. Records of investments, that kind of thing. Nothing untoward, at a glance, but then, if there were, the bank would have noticed, and Harris has been there.”
She gathered the accounts back together, with Veronique’s latest at the top, as she had found them.
Again, the eye-watering amounts caught her attention.
One hideously expensive evening gown in blue watered silk cost twice what Constance had paid for her most expensive garment ever, and sundries—presumably matching gloves and reticules—cost almost the same amount again.
Startled, she flicked to the next Veronique account and the next. On each, after the main garments purchased, sundries were listed for equally high amounts. On impulse, Constance extracted two of Veronique’s bills from lower down and put them in her own reticule.
Solomon watched her, his eyebrows arched, while he reached for the third and final drawer. Which was unlocked and contained only an engagement diary.
While Solomon examined that, Constance re-bundled the letters.
As she picked up Solomon’s pile, which had been beneath her own, she saw that here, at last, were a few from friends.
One fell from the middle of the pile and landed on the desk.
Hastily, Constance retrieved it and was about to shove it back into the midst of the others when one word out of the scrawl leaped out at her.
Neville.
“Someone’s coming downstairs,” Cordell hissed. “I think it’s Anthony.”
There was no time to place the letters in the ribbon according to the previous creases.
Having swiped the Neville letter into her reticule with Veronique’s accounts, she tied the quickest of bows, then shut the drawer.
There was no time to manipulate the lock again before she darted out of the room, Solomon at her heels.
They only just made it back to the drawing room. Constance only hoped Cordell had had time to lock the study door before a young male voice hailed him.
“Good morning, Han. You’re too early, you know. Bella won’t be back until luncheon.”
Solomon touched Constance’s hair. “Pins,” he breathed, and she passed them over without a word.
In the passage, Cordell was saying smoothly, “So Hutton informed me. I was silly enough to disbelieve him—and to bring in visitors to wait. You remember Mr. Grey, who called before?”
He wandered into the room just as Solomon, having re-pinned Constance’s loose hair, dropped his hands to his sides.
“Of course.” A young man around the same age as Bella wandered into the room. He looked a little weary, as though he had had his fill of condolence visitors and was already at the end of his tether.
Constance couldn’t help smiling sympathetically at him.
He looked slightly taken aback but quickly shook hands with Solomon. “How do you do, sir? How kind of you to call again.”
“I would not have so intruded, except that my wife wished to pay her respects to your mother. She too is involved with some of the same charities as your father.”
The boy bowed, flushing slightly as though caught out in rudeness. He seemed exhausted by grief. “How do you do, Mrs. Grey? We are most grateful for your condolences.”
“One feels obliged to keep traditions,” Constance said, “and some people find it a comfort. For myself, I feel it an imposition and somewhat insolent that strangers purport to understand one’s own immeasurable grief.
Be assured we are thinking of you, though.
I believe we should impose no longer, Solomon.
But we shall attend the memorial service, of course. ”
“It’s tomorrow afternoon,” Anthony said, “in Hanover Square.”
“Please pass our sincere sympathies to your mother and sister too,” Constance said, pulling on her gloves. She had never intended to inflict her presence on the St. John ladies, though she could not help a powerful curiosity about the lady of the house. “Goodbye, Mr. St. John.”
Cordell escorted them to the door, without disturbing the servants, and returned Solomon’s hat. “Well done,” he breathed.