Chapter Fifteen
Solomon, having given up the search for Darrow’s music school, changed tack and decided to visit instead his own valued associate, Thomas Halliwell, who had been out of town when he had last looked for him.
The two men had done lucrative business together in the past, and Halliwell, like Montague, had considerable interests in tea.
“Grey, my dear fellow, an unexpected pleasure!” Halliwell greeted him, coming out of his impressive office to shake hands. “Come in, tell me what I can do for you. My man told me you called on Friday when I was away.”
“I did.”
“A brandy to celebrate?” Halliwell asked, walking to the cut-glass decanter on the mahogany cabinet.
“What are we celebrating?”
“Whatever you like,” Halliwell said, chuckling as he poured.
They took their brandies to the comfortable chairs by the fireplace, and Solomon said, “I’m interested in a tea merchant called Digby Montague of Montague and Son.”
“Old and respected firm,” Halliwell said.
“Do you do business with them?”
“Don’t need to, so I never have.”
“Do you hear credible rumors about his solvency?”
“For years, now, but he always bounces back. Sails a little close to the wind with selling his cargo and paying his creditors. Pity, because they have a couple of highly lucrative plantations in India.”
“You spent some time in India, didn’t you?” Solomon said casually.
“I did. Still do, from time to time.”
“Did you ever encounter Montague there?”
“No…” Halliwell hesitated, then added, “The first time I went was with my father about fifteen years ago, and I believe we just missed Montague. Though it’s a huge country, a continent really, there’s a network of British residents who make London gossips look like amateurs.
I have no evidence that Montague ever did anything wrong, but he certainly earned their anger and contempt with some sort of scandal. ”
“How?” Solomon asked. “I don’t suppose it involved a young lady who died suddenly?”
Halliwell raised his eyebrows. “Oh, no, she wasn’t dead from what I heard.
Just a lot poorer. She was a young widow, I believe.
Some kind of swindle that involved her paying for tea Montague had already sold elsewhere.
By the time the fraud was discovered, he had already sailed.
I don’t know the details, or even if these unsavory rumors are true, but I do know Montague had difficulty shipping his tea after that.
As if the ship owners had turned against him.
When they do ship it, they probably overcharge. ”
“Which would explain why his profits keep going down,” Solomon said thoughtfully. “And why he can’t weather the loss of a single cargo.”
“It might,” Halliwell said cautiously. “But it would be unkind to spread rumors I certainly can’t substantiate. I never heard anything against the man since then.”
“No, neither has anyone else.” And yet… “Do you have a name for this widow?” Solomon asked.
*
Inspector Harris of Scotland Yard was not best pleased to receive the summons of his superior.
In his view, Superintendent Galsworth existed only to get in the way of police work.
Therefore he only grunted in response and dismissed the messenger without lifting his eyes from the report he was writing about a particularly nasty murder in Whitechapel.
“Shouldn’t you go now, sir?” said Sergeant Flynn, who was working at the other desk.
Harris spared him a glare.
“Get it over with,” Flynn explained. “Then you’d have the rest of the afternoon for real work.”
Harris threw down his pen—fortunately nowhere near his report, since the ink spattered for several inches across his desk. “Damn it, do you always have to be right?”
“He might have a more interesting case for us,” Flynn pointed out.
Harris made a derisive noise, but all the same, he stood up. “You’re right. Get it over with.”
Accordingly, he marched out through the main office and on to the rarified corridor where Galsworth had his office.
“Ah, Harris,” said Galsworth, looking up from whatever he was reading.
It might have been a report, although Harris’s theory was that no real work ever passed the superintendent’s desk.
Only that could explain its tidiness. “Got a bit of a knotty problem for you. What do you know about a firm called Silver and Grey?”
“They undertake private inquiries, sir,” Harris said warily, for though he disapproved of the firm’s existence on principle, he actually quite liked them in person.
And they had been useful in the past. Sort of.
“Honestly? Who the devil are they?”
“I have found them to be honest,” Harris said carefully. “It’s something of a side interest for Grey, who’s quite a magnate of the shipping world, amongst other things.”
“And the woman?”
“What about her, sir?” If Galsworth didn’t already know, Harris was not about to tell him that Constance Silver was a high-class madam.
“What’s her background?” Galsworth demanded. “How does she come to be married to a fellow like Grey?”
“She is very beautiful, sir,” Harris said uncomfortably.
Galsworth scowled. “Is she, by God? I have reason to doubt her honesty.”
Harris could not imagine them ever meeting. “You do, sir? In what way?”
“She’s harassing a friend of mine—poor fellow’s only just buried his wife and came home to find this Grey woman kneeling in front of his desk, actually breaking into a drawer with a lockpick! Outrageous, Harris!”
“Indeed it is, sir,” said Harris, just as if he hadn’t done similar things himself. The trouble with Galsworth was that he was too far removed from the investigation of criminals.
“I want you to go and have a word with her,” Galsworth. “Frighten her off. Threaten her with arrest and prosecution. Can’t have her harassing decent gentlemen in mourning, can we?”
Certainly not when they’re friends of yours, Harris thought cynically. Aloud he said, “Very well, sir.”
“Might warn the husband what she’s up to, too. Daresay he wouldn’t stand for it.”
Harris, who had a sudden urge to laugh, coughed to cover the fact. “I daresay he wouldn’t, sir.”
“Well, off you go, then. Make it your priority, Harris. Do it now.”
It was already five o’clock and it was his eldest’s birthday.
“Go yourself, mind,” Galsworth warned. “I want her to know the full force of the law is watching her. She’s not to go near Digby Montague or his house, ever again. Understood?”
“Perfectly, sir,” Harris said calmly, and walked smartly out of the office. He’d do it too, but not at the expense of his son’s birthday tea. He was going home. Tomorrow morning, he might let Silver and Grey laugh at him.
Returning to his office, he found Flynn still there.
“What do you know about a fellow called Digby Montague?”
Flynn thought, tapping a pencil against his cheek. “Married to the Italian opera singer, Caterina di Ripoli. Or he was. She died last week.”
“Foul play?” Harris asked.
“No, weak heart, apparently.”
“Then what the devil are Silver and Grey doing poking around the widower’s house?”
Flynn’s eyebrows flew up. “You think there’s more to her death, then?”
“Silver and Grey would appear to think so. Or someone’s paid them to entertain the idea. And someone else, presumably the husband, has pulled the ‘old boys’ strings to have them seen off.”
“So, are you to see them off? Or investigate the case?” Flynn asked.
“I’m too busy to bother with either,” Harris growled. “And so are you. Where’s my hat?”
“Going to Silver and Grey’s?”
“No, I’m going home. It’s Will’s birthday.”
*
Constance was already back in her office, writing what she had learned into her notes and into the schedule of Caterina’s doings in the nine days before her death, when Solomon returned.
“What did you learn?” she asked as soon as he entered.
“That Darrow never attended the academy. I trailed around several lesser schools and teachers, only one of which had dealt with him for a matter of six private lessons. No one I spoke to had even heard of him until eighteen months ago.”
Constance replaced her pen in its stand. “Really? Then his rise to this level of prominence is quite…unusual. What does it mean, I wonder?”
“His talent is undeniable.” Solomon threw himself onto the chair opposite her. “His origins, however, are obscure. Does that matter? I don’t know. But why tell people you attended the academy when you didn’t?”
“To hide where you really were?” She shrugged impatiently. “Or to hide the fact that he is largely self-taught. There is professional prestige in a good school.”
“It still makes him a liar,” Solomon pointed out, watching his wife rifle through her notes and add the lie to her notes on Darrow.
“I also spoke to Thomas Halliwell, who has interests in India and tea, and he recalls rumors that Montague swindled a young widow out there. Whatever happened, and whether or not it was true, it turned the British in India against him. It probably affects his profits, even if it’s lies. ”
“And if it is true,” Constance said, “it certainly doesn’t sit well with the honorable man everyone believes him to be. Could Caterina have found out about that?”
“Possibly. He couldn’t afford his business to be attacked from this side too.”
“Hmm… I don’t suppose we can contact this widow?”
“She’s still in India, so only by letter.”
Constance sighed. “How inconsiderate of her. That will take weeks.”
“What about you?” Solomon asked. “Did you find Sophie Worthington’s family?”
“I found her widowed mother. And he could have killed Sophie in almost exactly the same way—using a cushion instead of a pillow. There was no reason for her death, no known health conditions that might have explained it. There was a postmortem that found nothing unusual. But there was no police investigation, no whisper of foul play. Mrs. Worthington will believe no ill of Montague. But he could have done it…”