Chapter Sixteen
Felix shook his head as he assisted Caroline into the carriage. When his driver asked for a direction, he told him he didn’t know. “Perhaps you can drive around Mayfair until I decide.” Then he entered the carriage, and once Daniel put up the steps and closed the door, a heavy sigh escaped him.
“I honestly don’t know where to turn.” The case remained a rather large mystery.
“It’s annoying, isn’t it, with an answer just flittering about the periphery of one’s brain but never coalescing?” She wound the strings of her reticule about her gloved fingers. “There are a few things that have been troubling me, though.”
“I am having the same problem.”
Caroline nodded. “Perhaps if we discuss them out loud, we can work through them more quickly and thus eliminate suspects.” After rooting through her reticule, she produced the notebook. “Firstly, we know that whoever stabbed Lord Withington did so through several layers of fabric.”
“Which indicates the need for strength,” Felix said with a nod. “And from the way he was stabbed, it suggests that someone with medical training had made certain the blade hit vital points to ensure a swift death.”
“Or the killer wished for it to appear that way,” she added in a soft voice. “So would the women that we interviewed have the strength to stab a man—who probably would have fought back—through clothing hard enough to jostle his internal organs about?”
The way she phrased things made him want to grin, but now was not the time for humor. “That largely depends on the woman’s mental state. Grief and rage can give anyone strength they wouldn’t usually have.”
“Unless the woman had an accomplice.” One of Caroline’s black eyebrows rose in question.
“Everyone we’ve interviewed had reason to see Withington dead.
They all had much to lose as well. Any of them could have coerced a man to help them—relative, servant, lover—or the man did so willingly for his own interests. ”
“True, and we know two men who have come the crab with us in the past couple of days.”
She gasped. “You mean Andrew?” When he nodded, her jaw hung slightly open. “Do you think my brother killed Lord Withington because of the gambling debt?”
“He had the motive and the opportunity.”
“How did he get your knife?”
Felix shrugged. “Perhaps Withington had it on his person. I wouldn’t have put it past him to keep my knife for himself; he was petty like that. No doubt he carried it every day since I turned it into him the day I quit Bow Street.” He blew out a breath. “It was a damn fine blade.”
She nodded as she flipped back through the pages of her notebook. “Or there is someone else. Mr. Brown the groom.”
“Yes, he was quite cagey when we spoke to him, and he seemed afraid of his wife. Yet for all intents and purposes, he has rudimentary medical knowledge, at least of animals.”
“Or then there is Lady Withington herself. Love is a powerful motive.”
He snorted. “Except, she despised her husband.”
“No, I mean if she loved someone else.” Caroline dropped her voice, even though they were alone.
“What if her very close friend, Withington’s mistress, is more than just a friend?
” She looked at him with an expectant expression.
“What if they are more to each other? What if they wish to be lovers? Miss Rodgers is moving in with Lady Withington to help raise the babe…”
“Interesting theory. This whole case is a bedeviling conundrum.” Yet if the two women had worked together, inspired and motivated by passion, it was a compelling scenario.
“Clearly Lady Withington couldn’t do the deed due to her pregnancy, but Miss Rodgers could have, and she could have come by the knife through Lydia after rooting through her husband’s things. ”
“Though it’s a bit romantic to think that the two women wished to be together so badly that they would plot to remove the man they both couldn’t stand, murder is wrong, and if they did it, they should be caught.
” Then she frowned. “Yet what would become of the babe? Chances are it would go to an orphanage, and such a thing would upset three lives.”
“Don’t try to guilt me into making a decision that will go against my ethics and code of honor.
” God, what a coil. “A crime is a crime, no matter how much better a life will be with said victim removed.” He rubbed a gloved hand along the side of his face.
“Why do I feel that this case doesn’t revolve around Withington but instead around the problem of a baby? ”
“I get that sense as well.” Silence reigned between them for a while before she spoke again. “According to the groom, his pregnant wife had gone a bit mad in the last months…” Another gasp escaped Caroline’s throat. “I’m convinced, thought, there is something off with the maid.”
“I think so too. Regardless of what circle of society she lived in or what her income level is, if she were as far advanced into a pregnancy as she claims, she wouldn’t be going up and down stairs without a concern like we witnessed, nor would she have been readily employed in a new household in her condition.
” He frowned as he leaned forward and rested his forearms on his knees as he looked at her. “Something about how she moved, yeah?”
“Yes!” With some enthusiasm, she nodded. “When she dropped the feather duster and then she picked it up, she didn’t do it with care like Lydia had the other day.”
“What do you mean?”
Caroline shrugged. “Betsy Brown didn’t support her belly when she retrieved that feather duster. She merely bent at the waist frontward, as if…”
“…there wasn’t truly a swollen belly there,” he finished for her as he met her gaze.
“Yes.” She nodded and her eyes widened. “I don’t believe she is pregnant at all. In fact, I’ll go as far as to say that her swollen belly is a pillow or a wad of sheets, and she forgot in that instant when she retrieved the duster.”
“Well, shit.”
“And if Betsy Brown is desperate for a child, she might do anything to acquire one. Even making her husband kill a man who never wanted his own babe.”
“Or threatening a woman who was on the investigation team in the hopes of frightening us away from the real issue. Or shooting a warning ball through my carriage window.” It was worse than he’d thought.
“This was never about Lord Withington and his horrible personality or all the terrible things he’s done to people around London and in his life.
He was only a mild inconvenience in the greater scheme. ”
“No, it hasn’t been about him.” Her eyes were large as she clutched at his hand across the aisle.
“It’s been about a baby all along. And what’s more, I think the maid wanted that child ever since Lydia announced the pregnancy.
Especially if she’s had difficulties in that regard.
Her sanity probably broke, for in her world, it wasn’t fair that Lydia would fall pregnant by a disreputable husband where she had struggled with her decent one.
Of course we won’t know for certain until we talk again with the maid. ”
Another reason he adored having Caroline with him on cases was that she brought a whole different perspective to things that he wouldn’t have thought about.
“Would a woman truly invent her own pregnancy in order to… what?” Then the horrid, insidious truth made itself known.
Sour bile rose in the back of Felix’s throat.
“Fuck me. Surely that maid won’t try to steal the babe from Lady Withington after it’s born and then pass it off as her own.
Someone would be missing a child, dead or otherwise. ”
“Oh, I’m certain she’d have a plan for that. Or she and her husband would just spirit the infant away in the dead of night. They could move somewhere in the country and start life anew. No one would know, and no one would ever find them.”
“Unless her mind has already fractured too far. What if she thinks that since Lady Withington is suffering early labor pains that’s it’s time for the babe to come anyhow, and she does something drastic?”
Caroline frowned. “Drastic how?”
“I’m afraid the maid and her husband might either kill Lydia or cut the baby from her belly and then leave the mother dying on the floor.
” Either scenario left his chest tight and his gut full of knots.
“Not being able to conceive might affect a woman’s mind to the detriment of logical thinking, even if her husband has tried to caution her back to reality. ”
“Dear God.” She squeezed his hand. “If that is true, Lady Withington is in grave danger. Because if the groom has already killed Lord Withington, what is one more murder?”
“And he will feel more confident this time around.” Urgency slammed through Felix’s veins. He rapped on the roof of the carriage. “St. James square posthaste, Daniel! We need to arrive at the Withington house immediately.”
“I’ll do my best, Major!”
“Damn, I wish I had my pistol with me,” Felix said while Caroline put her notebook back into her reticule.
“Before you ask, no, I don’t have the smaller one in my false leg tonight.
I didn’t think I would have need of it on this case, or at least not yet.
” He’d showed her his prosthetic last May during a low point in that murder investigation, and she’d not even batted an eyelash at his infirmary.
Perhaps he’d loved her for far longer than he’d assumed.
She frowned. “You don’t even have a knife stored in the leg?”
“I haven’t. Arming myself wasn’t uppermost in my mind this week.” And damn it all, he only had his everyday cane with him, not the one that had a hidden steel blade in the bottom half. “I suppose this serves as a warning for me not to assume the most benign of cases can’t be the most dangerous.”
After she tossed her reticule to the bench beside her, Caroline found his gaze in the darkness and held it with hers. “Do you think you and I will be able to overcome the maid and her husband in time?”