Chapter Twenty-four
“I DON’T THINK this has anything to do with anything,” said Jane.
“No?” said Byron. “Because I had a thought about the ladder, you see? I thought that if that ladder was there, it was an easy way in or out to get up to put laudanum in that drinking glass.”
“I had the exact same thought,” said Jane. “So, yes, I think we need to know why it is that man, the one who took that letter, had the ladder put there.”
“For the window?”
“Well, who ordered him to do that? Who does he work for? Does he work for Mr. Eves?”
“Right,” said Byron.
“After you followed him to Mr. Eves, did you wait around to see where he went next?”
“No,” said Byron.
“All right,” said Jane. “So, do we need to know why he put the ladder there?”
“Well, if we go and find him and question him, he’ll say it was because of the window,” said Byron.
“Likely,” said Jane.
“Even if he’s lying,” said Byron.
“True,” said Jane.
“But it is all very curious. If he works for Mr. Eves, why is he using Mr. Welling’s ladder to repair Miss Seward’s window?”
“That’s quite curious,” said Jane.
“As for Mrs. Beaumont and Mr. Eves, I don’t suppose I blame her. When we were boys, he was quite one for going on about how he didn’t like women’s bodies at all. Claimed they were too squishy, too fleshy, too round.”
Jane made a face at him.
“Too much?” he said.
“Far too much,” she said.
“Apologies.”
It was quiet.
“Maybe Beaumont knows,” said Byron, shrugging.
“He couldn’t!” Jane was horrified.
“I don’t know. I think men do. I think the husbands of most of my mistresses are aware, at least on some level.”
“Oh, truly? Please don’t.”
“Apologies,” he said again.
She drew herself up. “Let’s go and speak to Mr. Seward.”
“Mr. Seward? Why?”
“To ask if he wanted to do away with Mr. Hardy, of course.”
“Oh, yes, he’ll just admit that,” muttered Byron.
“It’s something to do,” she said. “I’d say that we ought to go and talk to the friend-of-the-gardener, but we do not know his name and we do not know where he works and we do not know where he lives, so I do not see how are going to do that.”
“Yes, good point,” said Byron.
“WAIT, YOU MEAN that the intended target of the murder was not Anne at all!” Mr. Seward was in the lobby of the inn, all his luggage packed.
He was on his way out of town, having negotiated some kind of way forward with Mr. Hardy.
Mr. Seward would own the tavern, and Mr. Hardy would run it.
He said there was no reason for him to stay any more.
“We do,” said Byron. “And I have to ask, you did not bear Mr. Hardy any love, I don’t suppose. He had blackmailed you. He had threatened you—”
“Not so loud with that,” said Mr. Seward.
“Yes,” said Byron. “Very sorry about that.”
“You’re accusing me of this murder again!” Mr. Seward glared at them both. “I was not here. I was at home. And this sleeping draught of Mr. Hardy’s, I wouldn’t have known a thing about it.”
“Well, this is what we assumed you would say,” said Byron. “But can you think of anyone who may have wanted Mr. Hardy dead?”
Mr. Seward lifted his chin. “Well, you can’t think I’m the only person he’s ever blackmailed, can you?”
“I don’t know,” said Byron. “I haven’t thought of that at all. Who else did he blackmail?”
“Why don’t you ask your friend Mr. Beaumont about that?” Mr. Seward’s eyes flashed.
“SO,” SAID BYRON, urging Jane out the front door of the Beaumont house, “it wasn’t so much blackmail, not exactly, but rather in the same family as blackmail, I should think.”
“What does that mean?” said Jane.
After the discussion with Mr. Seward, they’d come all the way back to the Beaumont house, where Byron had gone to seek Mr. Beaumont, and Jane had dallied downstairs in one of the sitting rooms, all alone, looking at the art on the walls.
She’d seen no one, and she found she shamefully wanted another look at Mrs. Beaumont’s new tiny babe, to see if he looked like Mr. Eves.
Babes often favored their fathers rather strongly.
But she hadn’t seen anyone at all, and the babe was off with the nurse, of course, and Jane scolded herself for being drawn to any such course of action.
“It seems that when there was need of some expensive repairs to the tavern’s roof, Mr. Hardy went directly to Mr. Beaumont and demanded that he contribute financially, or else he would expose him for his predilection for men.”
“Ah,” said Jane. “That sounds like blackmail to me.”
“Yes, I suppose, but it was a one-time transaction that has not been renewed, at least that’s what Beaumont says. By the by, never indicate to him that I’ve told you any of this. He thinks I am keeping all of that to myself, and if he were to find out—”
“I would never!” cried Jane.
“Good,” said Byron.
“Of course,” she said.
“All right,” he said. “So, anyway, there was only one other thing he did say to me, which was that he knew that there was at least one other fellow that he, that is Beaumont, had been associated with, and that he, that is Mr. Hardy, knew about it.”
Jane furrowed her brow, unsure if she’d followed that. “You’re saying there’s another man who is one of Mr. Beaumont’s lovers, who Mr. Hardy also knows about.”
“Yes,” said Byron. “And that Mr. Hardy has likely blackmailed him.”
“Oh,” said Jane. “Who is it?”
“A man named Mr. Crampton. Alexander Crampton. I know him, and he has a country house—”
“I know him, too,” interrupted Jane. “He threw a ball at his house last fall that I attended. But he wouldn’t even be in the country right now. He’d be in London.”
“Well, yes, one would think,” said Byron. “But I think we should ride out there and check, because this man might have had reason to kill Mr. Hardy.”
“Mr. Crampton, the murderer!” cried Jane. And Mr. Crampton also liked men in that way? How many men out there were attracted to each other?
“I can see it, actually,” said Byron, looking off into the distance. “He was always the sort of man to hold grudges.”
Jane put her hands on her hips. “You’re going to tell me he doesn’t like you.”
“Oh, nonsense,” said Byron, giving her a very cheery smile. “Everyone likes me.”