Chapter 13
Mr. Mathers glanced from me to Harry to the closed bedchamber door behind us. “Am I to believe that you two were…?”
“Yes,” I said. “You were right earlier. Harry and I are in love, and we just wanted a few moments alone away from the prying eyes of my cousin.”
“I’m not sure which is more unbelievable—you just happened to choose my bedchamber out of all the rooms in this house, or Harry took advantage of a young lady from a good family.”
“He isn’t taking advantage of me. It was my choice to come here.”
Harry rested a hand on my shoulder. “There’s no point denying our purpose here, Cleo. Especially when a pair of Oxfords I found in his room not only matched the size of the imprint in the pot soil, but the tread also matched the pattern.”
“What are you talking about?” Mr. Mathers snapped. “What imprint?”
Harry removed a photograph and dressmaker’s measuring tape from his inside jacket pocket.
“I took this photograph on the balcony outside the room where Bradbury was murdered. The measuring tape in the photo indicates the shoe length and the pattern in the soil is clear. These ridges across the toe area are particularly distinctive. I’ve just found the same pattern on a pair of your shoes that are the same length as this one.
” He flapped the photograph in front of Mr. Mathers’s face.
“You left that print in the potted plant when you entered Bradbury’s study via the balcony. ”
“It wasn’t me!”
“You then murdered Bradbury—”
“No! You have it all wrong.”
“Don’t, Archie,” Harry growled. “I’m not going to believe whatever thin excuse you come up with, so don’t insult me with one. Just tell us the truth. If you didn’t kill Bradbury, you have nothing to hide.”
Mr. Mathers closed his eyes and pressed his fingers into his eyelids.
“All right. I admit that I got into the room via the balcony. It was the evening before the murder, however, on Monday. After failing to see Chester on Sunday when I called there, I decided to return. I’d been thinking about the conversation I’d overheard between the landlady and the other lodger when I left on Sunday and began to wonder whether he was right, and the treasure simply didn’t exist. I went back on Monday night to speak to Chester and was considering what to say when I saw the three of them leave the house.
Not together. At separate times, with Chester being the last. I’d already spotted the balcony while I was standing outside and decided that instead of waiting to talk to him, I’d look through his things.
I wanted the truth, you see, and no longer trusted what he’d say.
It was dark, and it was relatively easy to climb up to the balcony.
The door leading off it into the study was unlocked.
I entered, had a look for a treasure map or some other clues to the whereabouts of the treasure, or lack of one, and left. ”
“Did you take anything?” Harry asked.
“No.”
“Did you read his notebook?”
“It wasn’t there. I didn’t see anything relevant, Harry. I still don’t know if the treasure is real or not. It was a wasted effort,” he added with a mutter.
Harry returned the tape measure and photograph to his pocket. “Thank you.” He sounded stiff, formal, and I realized he was still angry with Mr. Mathers for lying to him.
I suppose I would be, too, but I felt a little sorry for Mr. Mathers. He’d been struggling all year with the weight of expectation his family put on him. “Thank you,” I said. “Just one more thing. We have reason to believe that Mr. Bradbury asked you to find employment here for a man he knew.”
Mr. Mathers’s brow scored with deep frown lines. “That’s right. A friend of a friend of his, apparently. But Chester died before he could tell me more. I don’t know the fellow’s name, where to contact him, nothing. How is that relevant to the murder?”
“We believe the man had been instructed to steal once he was here.”
Mr. Mathers gasped. “Good lord. Chester instructed him to steal? Why?” He groaned, then answered his own question. “Probably because the treasure didn’t exist, but since he claimed it did, someone wanted him to prove it. He needed to find some money and quickly, so he was going to rob my family.”
“He realized he couldn’t borrow from you,” Harry pointed out.
Mr. Mathers nodded slowly, his gaze distant.
He seemed numb. “He planned to initially, didn’t he?
That’s why he wrote to me, telling me about the treasure.
He thought I was rich. He was going to ask me for a loan, pretending it would tide him over until he could liquidate the assets in the treasure, except I told him I was poor before he got the chance.
It forced him to change his plan.” He lifted his gaze to Harry’s.
“There is nothing to liquidate, is there?” Even now, after all his skepticism, his eyes glinted with hope. He wanted the treasure to be real.
“If there is, Bradbury didn’t possess it or know where to find it,” Harry said. “I’m quite sure of that. Cleo, we should get back.”
“What are you going to do about the information I just gave you?” Mr. Mathers asked. “And about my shoe print?”
“We’ll give it to the police—”
“The police!” Mr. Mathers grasped Harry’s elbow. “No, please, don’t do that. It’ll get back to my family somehow, or the press will find out.”
“I’ll ask the detective in charge to respect your privacy.”
Mr. Mathers shook Harry’s arm. “You can’t ask the police not to leak information! It will get out. The press will circle like vultures waiting to pick at my carcass.”
“Steady on, Archie, it won’t be that bad unless you committed the murder.”
“I didn’t! I swear to you I’m innocent. But the press will still hound me and I can’t afford the attention at the moment. It’s a very delicate time.”
“Why?”
“It’s best if you don’t know.”
“Perhaps I can help. Are you in trouble?”
Mr. Mathers released Harry and pressed his fingers to his forehead.
“It’s nothing illegal, just politically sensitive.
” He lowered his voice and glanced back along the corridor to ensure we were alone.
“I’m involved in a scheme that will hopefully see a change in the opposition party’s leadership. Now do you see my problem?”
“No wonder you don’t want your family to know,” Harry said.
“Not just my family. If the current opposition leader gets wind of this attempt to oust him, it’ll be over before it even got a chance and he’ll shunt anyone who was involved in the plot to the sidelines.
My role is more behind the scenes, out of necessity, but the others are very high up in the party. ”
Harry continued to nod, requiring no further explanation.
It was time to admit my ignorance when it came to politics. “Does this have something to do with the last election?”
“It has everything to do with it,” Mr. Mathers said.
“The Conservative party won decisively. My family are heavily involved with the Conservatives and always have been, but I support the Liberal party. My father has known my views for a long time, which is why he cut me off, but he isn’t aware of how active I am within the Liberals.
If he found out, he wouldn’t want me under the same roof as him, or of any of my relatives.
If the press came sniffing around me, they might uncover more than just my political leanings.
Being aligned with a faction within the Liberals that wants to replace the current party leader puts me in a precarious position.
There’s quite a bit of friction within the party and some of us believe a new leader is what we need after such a disastrous election result.
It’s a highly sensitive operation that must remain a secret.
That’s why I don’t want to attract the attention of the police.
If the police consider me a suspect, then the press will be bound to find out sooner or later.
They’ll be sharpening their pencils when they learn the son of a viscount is a suspect in a murder, and that could expose my political activities.
I’m not worried about proving my innocence because I am innocent.
I’m worried about the frenzy of attention I’ll attract. ”
I could see his dilemma, and I sympathized, but we couldn’t withhold evidence.
For one thing, he could be lying. We’d believed good actors before, and I wouldn’t do it again.
Not even for someone who’d been a friend of Harry’s.
If handing over information about the shoe print to the police helped Goliath, I would do it.
Harry had a different perspective. “We won’t tell them until we think it’s necessary. But you need to do something for us.”
Harry was blackmailing him! I tried to keep my features schooled, but my wide-eyed stare probably gave me away. Fortunately, Mr. Mathers was focused on Harry and not me.
“Of course. Do you want me to put in a good word for you with the Bainbridges?”
“Nothing so direct. Just distract Floyd so I can dance with Cleo without feeling his glare in my back.”
That’s the favor Harry wanted in exchange for our silence?
Mr. Mathers clasped Harry’s shoulder. “Leave it with me. I know where the earl keeps his best cognac.”
We returned to the dance floor where the ensemble played the first bars of a slow waltz. Harry led me onto the dance floor while Mr. Mathers intercepted Floyd. After exchanging a few words, Floyd glanced toward us, then disappeared with Mr. Mathers into an adjoining room.
I placed my hand over Harry’s at my waist before settling it on his shoulder. He smiled down at me as we moved in time to the music. My mind was still on the conversation with Mr. Mathers, however. “Was that wise to promise him we wouldn’t inform the police?”
He flashed a grin. “It gained us a modicum of privacy, so yes, I think it was.”
“Be serious, Harry. What if he’s lying to us?”