Chapter 14 #3
Cynthia nodded. “Very well.” Opening the door, she set it swinging wide. “Search as you will, gentlemen.” She glanced once around the room. “Please remove anything you wish to preserve. After you’ve finished, we’ll be burning everything.”
Barnaby and Stokes stood back to let Cynthia leave; they watched as, walking swiftly, she returned to the stairs, then disappeared down them.
Stokes glanced at Barnaby. “I’ve never seen anyone disowned so quickly—or so ruthlessly. I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but I actually feel almost sorry for Walter.”
Barnaby nodded. “Indeed.” He met Stokes’s eyes. “Lovely family.”
Montague joined the group of five he now regarded as his colleagues-in-investigation at the Adairs’ house for dinner that evening.
Penelope had intended the dinner to be a celebration of their success, but, instead, they were all in a most peculiar mood—elated on the one hand, and disgruntled and deflated on the other.
“Walter is not the murderer.” Stokes sank into an armchair in the drawing room, a glass of Barnaby’s brandy in one hand.
After their initial exchange of disappointing information when they’d first gathered in the drawing room, they’d decided to postpone further discussion of the murders until after they’d eaten and their minds had had time to digest what they’d learned.
Stokes swirled the amber liquid in his glass.
“We found the money—all of it—exactly where Walter said it would be, and although we searched every nook and cranny in that room, we didn’t find any key to Lady Halstead’s house.
” He sipped, then went on, “And while I haven’t yet checked the alibis he’s now given us, those new alibis are detailed and, more, perfectly fit his story.
Everything he’s told us hangs together as one cohesive whole—and that whole does not include the murders. ”
Barnaby nodded. “I agree. And as Walter himself pointed out, he had no reason to murder Lady Halstead, and every reason not to. Her dying only further inconvenienced him by forcing him to stop using The Laurels.”
Violet sighed. “So Walter as the murderer makes no sense.”
Penelope pulled a horrendous face. After a moment, she said, “I hate to point this out, but we haven’t simply eliminated Walter as the murderer—we’ve also lost our motive.
Walter and his doings have accounted for everything except the murders.
Everything about the odd deposits into Lady Halstead’s accounts is now fully explained, as is the withdrawal of the money from that account.
So the murders were never to do with that money.
” She looked around the circle of faces—at Barnaby, Stokes, Griselda, Violet, and Montague.
“So what was the motive for the murders?”
Stokes glanced at Montague. “Any hints yet?”
“Yes and no.” When Penelope, Griselda, and Violet all turned questioning faces his way, Montague explained, “If we go back and eliminate the odd payments from our deliberations, then regardless, we had assumed that Lady Halstead was murdered because someone in her family did not want her looking too closely into her financial affairs. That deduction still stands, and the motive behind the murderer’s actions has been to compromise any detailed financial review by killing Lady Halstead, and then Runcorn, the two people most familiar with the estate—and we have reason to believe that Runcorn’s murderer was one of the Halstead men. ”
“We now know,” Barnaby said, “that it wasn’t Walter.”
Stokes nodded. “If we eliminate him, pending his alibis proving true, then that leaves Mortimer, Maurice, William, and Hayden. My men are still checking their alibis, none of which have proved straightforward bar William’s, and even his are questionable, not good enough to eliminate him.”
“Are you saying”—Violet looked at Montague—“that there’s something else, some evidence of some financial crime, buried in her ladyship’s or the estate’s accounts? Something Mortimer, Maurice, William, or Hayden might have killed to conceal?”
Montague nodded. “Most likely it’s something to do with the estate.
Lady Halstead, and even Tilly, might have been murdered for other reasons, but there’s simply no reason to kill a man-of-business, especially not one as relatively unacquainted with his client as young Runcorn was, unless there is, indeed, something hidden in the accounts.
Something that would have been uncovered during an extensive review—possibly something Lady Halstead would have known to question.
And no”—Montague glanced at Penelope—“as yet I have no idea what that something might be.”
Penelope sighed heavily.
Griselda eyed her friend, then glanced at the others. “The girls we rescued last night have all settled in with Mrs. Quiverstone and her people at the Athena Agency. Mrs. Quiverstone is sure they’ll be able to find suitable and safe employment for all the girls.”
“I had no idea such places existed,” Violet said.
“Oh, the Athena Agency has been in business for . . . well, it must be nearly two decades now.” Montague glanced at Violet and smiled.
“I recall being consulted over it by Deverell before he married his wife—Miss Phoebe Malleson, as she then was. It was she and her aunt who founded the agency, and it’s now supported by quite a large network of fashionable households. ”
Reaching out, Stokes linked the fingers of one hand with Griselda’s.
“Despite not having yet caught our murderer, we shouldn’t lose sight of what would otherwise rank as a signal success.
” His gaze traveling the group, touching on each face, he raised his glass.
“To us, to the girls we’ve rescued, to the good we’ve done, to the villains we have succeeded in putting behind bars. ”
“Hear, hear,” Barnaby said, raising his glass in response.
The others drank, then all lowered their glasses.
A short silence followed, then Penelope said, “All right. Now let’s find the murderer.”