Chapter 6 #4
The manager’s eyes widened, but he nodded to the clerk, who went to the door and admitted Stokes, Adair, and Penelope.
The manager and Montague stood. Montague performed the introductions, then, when chairs had been found and all but the clerk were seated, Stokes informed the manager, “I regret to inform you that Lady Halstead was murdered, sometime during the night two nights ago.” He shifted his gaze to the clerk.
“We believe that the money in her ladyship’s account with this bank is a large part of the reason she was killed.
I must therefore ask who withdrew the money, and what form of authority they presented to you to be able to do so. ”
At a curt nod from the manager, the clerk cleared his throat. “The money was withdrawn by a lady—because of the amount, I was summoned and attended to her myself.”
“Please describe her,” Stokes said.
The clerk hesitated, then said, “She was of average height, neither fat nor thin, but as to her face, she was wearing a hat with a fine veil. I could see her face, but not clearly.”
“What color was her hair?” Penelope asked.
“Brown—not dark.” The clerk’s gaze had risen to Penelope’s lustrous locks. “More a mid-brown. Ordinary brown.”
“And,” Penelope continued, “how old would you say this lady was?”
The clerk clearly thought back, then wiggled his head. “Not old—not middle-aged. But she wasn’t a young lady, either.”
“Lady.” Penelope arched a brow. “Why did you think she was a lady?”
“Well, she was well dressed and well spoken, ma’am. Easy to deal with and . . . well, confident, if you know what I mean.”
Penelope nodded. “Thank you.” She sat back.
“Do you have the withdrawal authority?” Montague asked. “I would like to examine it.”
The clerk exchanged a look with the manager, then, receiving another terse nod, reached for the ledger still lying open before Montague and turned the page, revealing a handwritten letter. “This only happened an hour or so ago, so I haven’t had a chance to put it in the file.”
Montague nodded as he picked up the letter. He read it, then handed it to Stokes, seated beside him. “It’s supposedly from Lady Halstead, authorizing the withdrawal, the bearer of the letter to be given the full sum of the monies in the account.”
While Stokes scanned the letter, Montague again took out the letter of authority Lady Halstead had written for him. When Stokes reached the end of the withdrawal authority, Montague held out his letter. Stokes took it and held the two side by side.
Montague leaned closer; Penelope, on Stokes’s other side, did the same. All three of them looked from one letter to the other, comparing.
Eventually, Stokes sighed. Handing Montague back his letter, Stokes lowered the withdrawal authority and, across the bank manager’s desk, met the man’s eyes. “I’ll be keeping this, and I’ll also have to take the ledger. Both are now evidence of a crime.”
The manager looked a trifle ill. “The letter?”
“Is a forgery,” Penelope said. “But a very, very good one. Without having, as we have, a letter known to have been written by Lady Halstead to compare, I seriously doubt anyone could have spotted it.”
“I don’t believe there will be any repercussions with respect to the bank or its employees,” Montague said. He glanced at Stokes.
Stokes nodded. He slipped the withdrawal authority back into the ledger, then closed the book, picked it up, and rose. “Thank you for your cooperation. We’ll see ourselves out.”
They halted on the pavement outside the bank and looked at each other.
“What now?” Montague asked.
“Now . . .” Stokes glanced at Adair, then Penelope, then looked back at Montague. “If you all have the time, I believe we should take an hour or so to revisit everything we’ve seen, heard, and learned this morning.”
Penelope nodded decisively. “If we don’t, something vital might slip past us.
” She looked at Stokes. “Speaking of which, might I suggest that we adjourn to Greenbury Street?” She glanced at Montague.
“Stokes’s house. Griselda will be there, and as she’s the only one of us who hasn’t been through all the events of the morning, she’s the only one of us who is likely to have a truly detached view.
” Penelope looked at all three men’s faces.
“I vote we go to Greenbury Street and tell Griselda all.”
Stokes met Adair’s eyes, then sighed and nodded. “Very well. Greenbury Street it is.”
They took two hackneys and arrived in Greenbury Street as Griselda was pushing Megan’s perambulator up the front path, having just returned from taking her daughter for an airing in the nearby park.
Griselda was delighted to see them. Grinning, Penelope touched cheeks, then bent to coo at Megan, who waved her chubby fists and chortled in reply. Barnaby greeted Griselda, then joined Penelope in admiring Megan.
Stokes kissed his wife’s cheek, then considered the sight of his friends paying their dues to his daughter with a proud, paternal air.
Montague hung back, watching the interaction between the two couples, noting the warmth and the strong friendship so openly on display.
Then Stokes turned to him and drew him forward, introducing him to Mrs. Stokes—Griselda, as she, like Penelope, insisted he call her—and then to the small girl-child, who looked up at him with wide, curious eyes.
“Careful,” Stokes murmured. “They wind you about their tiny fingers with looks like that.”
Montague realized he was grinning in the same faintly besotted way Stokes was.
Somewhat to his surprise, Montague found himself swept up in the camaraderie, in the wave of relaxed enthusiasm that carried them all inside to settle in a neat sitting room. They sank onto chairs and the sofa. After handing little Megan into her nurse’s care, Griselda joined them.
Settling on the sofa alongside Penelope, Griselda commanded, “So! Tell me all.”
They proceeded to do so, and in the telling consolidated and refined their collective understanding.
By unvoiced agreement, they held to the facts as they knew them until they’d told the story to the end, to the moment when they’d left the bank, the forged letter of withdrawal in Stokes’s keeping.
Only then did they turn their minds to the questions those facts raised, to speculation, to the possibilities.
“The woman who presented the letter of withdrawal,” Stokes murmured. “Where did she get it? And what does that tell us about who she is?”
Penelope straightened; as if taking up the challenge, she replied, “The letter is such a good forgery that it could only have been created by someone familiar with Lady Halstead’s hand.”
“Or someone with access to letters her ladyship wrote,” Adair put in.
Penelope inclined her head. “True. Which puts the companion, Miss Matcham, at the top of the list of possible suspects.” She held up her hand. “However, I have severe doubts that it was in fact her.”
“Why?” Stokes asked, before Montague could.
“Well, I haven’t yet met Miss Matcham, so I can only go by what you’ve said of her, but it strikes me that, if she was behind the withdrawal of the money, she’s intelligent enough to ensure no one would associate the withdrawal with her.
The letter gave the money to ‘The Bearer,’ not to any named individual, so she could have dressed however she wished.
She could have enlisted male assistance.
Or—and this is what I would have done—she could have pretended to be male.
It’s not that hard, especially for only a short time, with only a bank clerk to fool.
” Penelope frowned. “Regardless, I have a strong suspicion that we’re intended to think it is Miss Matcham, to leap to that as the obvious conclusion—which, of course, means it’s untrue. ”
“There’s also the fact,” Montague said, “that Miss Matcham was, and still is, sincerely devoted to Lady Halstead. I really cannot see her condoning, much less doing, something that is, in effect, stealing from her late employer.”
“And,” Stokes said, “the same can be said of the maid, Tilly Westcott. At a pinch, she could have been the woman who presented the letter at the bank, but she, too, is devoted to her ladyship.” He looked at Montague.
“I take it there’s no suggestion that Lady Halstead was in arrears with their wages? ”
Montague took a second to bring the appropriate payments to mind, then shook his head. “No. We’re in the middle of a quarter, and all the staff were paid as expected to this point.”
“Right, then.” Stokes stretched out his legs and crossed his ankles. “I believe we can discount the notion that either Miss Matcham or Miss Westcott was the woman behind the veil—”
“But we should perhaps accept that someone intended us to suspect them.” Adair glanced about the company. “Because whoever wrote the forged letter was almost certainly a family member.”
“Indeed.” Stokes nodded. “And what’s more, I’ll lay odds the family will want to use the vague but suggestive description of the mystery woman to point the finger at Miss Matcham, or if not her, the maid.”
“They’ve already tried that once,” Montague reminded the gathering.
“And I’m quite sure they’ll do it again,” Penelope said, “if only because it’s easier than accepting the alternative—that the murderer is one of them.”
“Which,” Stokes said, “brings us neatly back to the murderer, the gentleman seen by several people entering and later leaving Runcorn’s office. The description would fit, and certainly suggests one of the Halstead men, but which one?”
Stokes, Adair, and Montague exchanged glances.
Viewing their uncertainty, Penelope helpfully recited the description, concluding, “Neither Griselda nor I have seen the Halstead gentlemen, but surely those side-whiskers give you some clue.”