Twenty-eight
Fort
The baroness thought he was a suitable match for her granddaughter?
Fort could barely concentrate on the questions he meant to ask Perser. Why would anyone believe a scholarly tutor with limited income was marriage material for a talented beauty who might have her choice of nobles?
Yes, he’d love to court Lavender. His father would disown him, but he cared little about that. He’d never be rich, but Fort knew how to earn his own way until the duke’s rage settled, as it usually did. No one could dislike Lavender once they met her.
Had Lavender said something to her grandmother?
That was the question circling his addled wits after Rafe led the slouching, bespectacled accountant into the nearly barren room.
Fort didn’t bother getting up to greet him.
He’d seen his father intimidate wrong-doers. One did not treat them with respect.
He had no proof that Perser was a criminal, but the man associated with villains and was thus tarred by the same brush. Besides, the pinch-penny’s shabby attire was offensive given that even Henri’s shop could provide better garments and Lavender could improve their fit for mere pence.
“What’s this all about then?” The coin counter reluctantly removed his woolen cap, revealing brown hair cropped close. “And who be you?”
“I’m the magistrate’s deputy in his absence.
” Fort knew how to lie. As the youngest and smallest of six brothers, he’d done it all his life just for survival.
“There is some question about the source of the counterfeit guineas passing through the village. Have a seat. I thought a man who knew coins might help us to understand.”
Perser sat reluctantly, took off his spectacles to polish them, and squinted at Fort. “I didn’t know they was fake. I don’t generally count coins. I keep books.”
“Ah, good to know.” Fort used the rickety table to jot in his notebook. “So, who gave you the coin you had last night?”
“How’m I supposed to know? I carry them about to use when needed. Coulda been from anyone.” Not a large man, he hunched his shoulders to make himself even less of a target. His coat practically hung off him, burying his hands in his sleeves.
Why on earth had the fashionable mushrooms employed this creature?
“Well, yes, I suppose if you’re accustomed to being paid in coins worth a working man’s wages for a year, they might have been from anyone.
Only, guineas haven’t been produced in years.
These looked newly minted. I’d think a money man like yourself would question that.
” Fort sat back and tapped the table with his pencil.
That tactic used to drive his brothers to distraction.
Perser sent the pencil a hostile glare and shrugged. “As I said, I don’t normally handle coin. When I was given a purse to pay folk, I didn’t question what’s in it.”
Fort hid his smile. “Good to know. Who gave you the purse?”
Perser saw his error but trapped by his own words, he stuttered, “M-Mr. Gladstone is the company’s financial officer. He’s a wealthy gent. Don’t imagine he handles coins much either. Gents have banknotes.”
Gladstone employed the knife-wielding Darley.
Interesting. Fort didn’t try to work out the motivation yet.
“Nonetheless, working folk are unlikely to even recognize a guinea, much less have purses full of gold. Money men ought to be more aware. Introducing counterfeit to supposedly ignorant servants like the valets was deliberate. Was that why Darley pulled a knife last night? Did he learn he’d been paid in fakes? ”
Perser shrugged. “That what this is about? They was all itchy about the coins, oncet they learnt of them. But Golden Boy was losing at cards and got contentious. He claimed Tatum was cheating and Jones was a’helping him.
Insults commenced. I’d’ve left, but he had the knife out fast like. I just got out of the way.”
“Was Tatum cheating? He works for Featherstone, does he not?” Fort jotted unnecessary notes. He was learning little new.
“Yes, they’s all a lot of cheats far’s I can see. Don’t know why Mr. Humphries keeps them about. Reckon as an American and all, he ain’t up to all the rigs yet. When I warned him about the counterfeit, he thought the coins had come from the bank.”
Not precisely what Fort wanted to hear. “Humphries is the one who pays you?”
“Don’t no one person pays me. It’s a company, see? They buy old places and fix ’em up and sell for profit. They’s got bank accounts and stock and all that’s proper. Darley and all them work for the company and the company pays us.”
The company paid for personal valets? Or bodyguards? Fort returned to tapping his pencil. “So Gladstone and Humphries own this company and provide you with a purse to pay expenses?”
Perser set his thin lips mulishly. “What’s this got to do with anything? I told you Mr. Gladstone gave me a purse. I recorded the sum in my books and paid the staff. I can’t say more than that.”
Fort applied his fiercest glare. “Two of that staff have been murdered. Do you not worry you will be next? After all, you literally hold the purse strings.”
Perser finally looked a trifle nervous. Fort couldn’t see his hands below the table, but he gathered from the motion that the suspect was wringing them.
“They’s all more than well paid. No one liked that Hindu. Don’t know why Mr. Humphries kept him on. He weren’t robbed. He got free meals and a good roof over his head and he wasn’t never satisfied. One of them got tired of his griping, I reckon.”
Fort read between the lines well enough and hid a grimace. Bigotry prevailed on every level. “So Chandar was only paid in room and board, while the other staff was paid in coin?”
Perser shrugged. “One don’t pay slaves or indentured servants, Mr. Humphries said.”
Fort thought his head might explode, but he recalled Americans were still primitives who didn’t abide by British law. “Did no one explain to Mr. Humphries that slavery and indentures are illegal here?”
Perser presented blank indifference. “Warn’t my place.”
Fort closed his eyes to fight wrath. He would love to lock up Humphries on principle alone, but arguing was pointless, and he needed to redirect this discussion.
If Arnaud was listening, he might come through the door, fists raised, otherwise.
Fort didn’t fool himself into believing the French artist was an even-tempered gentleman.
“So Mr. Chandar objected to not being paid the same as the other staff. Which one, do you reckon, was strong enough to silence him?”
Perser fidgeted his watch out of its pocket and glanced at it. “Can’t rightly say. I’m the company treasurer, not a servant.”
A company treasurer who was paid so poorly he dressed like a bumkin? Or was he just a miserly sort? “So you didn’t notice who followed Chandar to the attic? What were you doing then?”
The treasurer returned his watch to his pocket and shook his head. “Don’t remember. The inn don’t have no one to help with luggage and it was all noise and confusion. I just took my satchel and key and found my room on my own.”
Ever the meek accountant, of course. Fort feared he was lousy at this. “Were you paid in counterfeit as well?”
Perser slid his hand under his coat, and Fort worried he carried a weapon. The overlarge coat could easily conceal one. He lowered his hand to his pistol, but Perser merely fidgeted in his seat some more.
“Company officers are paid in bank notes. My expenses are paid, so I will deposit the notes once we return to town.”
This was going nowhere. “If expenses are being paid in counterfeit, the company will owe the innkeeper a fortune. Rafe won’t accept fakes. He’ll have you all behind bars until he’s paid. What does Mr. Gladstone intend to do about the guineas?”
Hiding behind the thick glass of his spectacles, Perser didn’t meet his eyes but nervously pulled at his ragged sleeves. “Don’t rightly know. Mr. Humphries says as we’ll be moving into the castle now that the quarantine’s lifted.”
“Over the dead bodies of every occupant. The Priory does not belong to Humphries, will never belong to Humphries, and unless he intends to bring in an army and a trebuchet, he will never set foot inside anything more than one of their prison cells.” Fort stood, weary of this mouse and his obliviousness.
Perser hastily scrambled to his feet, his face lined with alarm. “I been payin’ the innkeeper outta my own pocket. I didn’t bring coin enough for us all to stay at an inn. Mr. Humphries says as we’ve been invited to the castle while negotiations are completed. The deal is off? No one told me that.”
“Mr. Humphries is a liar. The Priory is not and never will be for sale. If I were you, Mr. Perser, I’d be looking to find a way home, or at least, more legitimate employment that doesn’t involve counterfeiting killers.”
Perser slithered out looking decidedly more terrified than when he’d entered. If the goal was to drive them out of town, Fort may have scored a point or two.
Waiting outside the door, Arnaud bowed to the bookkeeper as he departed, frightening the mouse further.
For a newly betrothed man, the artist was decidedly grim-faced.
“Good start. Rafe says Gladstone declines to be interviewed. What are the chances I can beat off his armed staff if I collar him and haul him away?”
Fort offered a faint smile. “Much as I enjoy the notion of beating them all over the head with big sticks, we probably should not return to the ladies in bandages. They tend to wail and scold and would promptly march to the inn bearing broomsticks.”
Arnaud emitted a guttural sound that might almost be a chuckle. “Let us save them the effort, then. If you will discreetly whisper to Money Bags that the prisoner has confessed to being ordered to kill Calendar. . .”
Hot-headed Darley was completely convincing as a knife-wielding killer in Gladstone’s employ. Gladstone would capitulate just to shout a lot and set the record straight. Fort grinned. “You have experience at interrogation, I see.”
Arnaud nodded wearily. “Unfortunately, not all interrogators are honest or polite. Gladstone strikes me as a wealthy mushroom who believes he is invincible. It is time he learned that he is as vulnerable as his servants. Send him back, let me threaten the scoundrel.”
“They should have brought a barrister with them instead of a solicitor.” Fort strode out, practicing the language he needed to panic a wealthy man.
What he’d really like to do, if he couldn’t find the killer, was pin one of these bounders to Weston’s assassination attempt. He didn’t even know where to begin.