Chapter 14 #2
“There will be no next time, Robbi.” Caillen warned. “So, you delivered the letter. How is it you came to know ‘his tell’ when he is lying?”
“After reading Simon’s letter, I knew if Simon did die, Mr. Williamson wasn’t going to pass on anything to us, and we had a right to know what Lord Pembrock knows about papa’s death.”
“You don’t know he wouldn’t pass the information on to us,” Caillen argued. “I would have gone to him.”
“Robbi’s conclusion is correct,” Simon confirmed.
Robbi’s expression turned smug and she continued. “I began following him, but I had never been able to determine the locations of his lodging.”
“Oh, Robbi, please don’t tell me you found it and you went through his rubbish,” Caillen said with a groan.
“His lodging contained absolutely nothing of value.”
Caillen’s head snapped up. “You went inside?”
“Of course I went inside. How else would I see what he discarded?”
Simon stayed Caillen’s next action with a hand to her thigh. “Continue, Robbi.”
“Today, I sent him a message from the Prime Minister and told him he was needed at once.”
He squeezed Caillen’s thigh even tighter, not only to keep her quiet, but to calm himself before he responded. “Robbi, that is treasonous. How did you obtain the PM’s seal?”
She winced. “You don’t want to know.”
If Ross didn’t lock her up and throw away the key, he would.
“That’s not the important part anyway.”
“I’m not certain I will survive long enough to make it to the important part.” Caillen threw back her brandy like a seasoned rogue.
“Continue,” he encouraged.
“I sneaked into his office.”
He closed his eyes, counting up her crimes.
“And I found the name of the man who murdered papa.” Her voice held the deep-seated emotion of a child denied her parents.
“What do you mean you found the name?”
“Sir Williamson had a file with Lord Pembrock’s name on it. Inside there was a list of names, mostly Scottish, and next to them were dates. I didn’t understand it thoroughly until I found papa’s name with the date he died, next to it.”
Caillen grabbed his glass and took a healthy gulp before handing it back to him.
“In the file, there was a report that didn’t have an agent’s name on it.
I’m not sure who wrote it, but it said a man was seen at the local pub called Glenfriars in Inverness with blood on his shirt.
This agent happened to be there that night, and didn’t like the man’s manner.
He bought him a pint or two or three. The bugger told him the blood was from his dog that he had to shoot when it went mad while on the road to Inverness. He said he buried it outside of town.”
Caillen’s expression softened. “Robbi, papa wasn’t shot. He drowned. Sir Williamson confirmed it.”
“No, he didn’t. I don’t know why the surgeon said he drowned but he didn’t. Papa was shot.”
“How do you know that?” Caillen asked.
“Sir Williamson already exhumed the grave. He has been lying to you.” She pulled a crumpled piece of paper from her pocket and handed it to them. “I apologize for the state it’s in. I had to leave in a hurry.”
“You stole the report from Sir Williamson’s office?”
Robbi pointed at the paper, her anger palpable. “That report belongs to us, Caillen. He had no authority to deny us the truth of our father’s death. He’s been holding onto this for over a decade.” She bit her lip, her eyes moist, and her emotions threatening to boil over.
Simon silently sighed as he straightened the official looking report and held it out for Caillen to view it as well. Their eyes met before they looked down at the paper and read the report.
The body of a male buried under the headstone of Mister Duncan Dorian Blair II was exhumed on the evening of the twenty-fourth day of January 1803, eight days after his reported death by drowning on the sixteenth of January 1803.
Several landowners along the route of the future Caledonian Canal have met with unexplained deaths in recent months. Mr. Blair is another such landowner.
Upon exhumation of the body, it was apparent the deceased had not died an accidental death by falling into the river while in an inebriated state, but rather the victim died of two gunshot wounds to the chest. It was further confirmed, by the miniature obtained by this agent of Mister Duncan Dorian Blair II from his home at Urquhart Castle, the victim was indeed he.
The local surgeon on the case, Mr. Gregor Cryan, listed the cause of death in the local church registry as drowning, signed and dated it along with the vicar on eighteen of January 1803.
The body of Mister Blair was re-interred without the presence of a vicar on the twenty-fifth day of January 1803 before sunrise.
The only witnesses to the exhumation were the reporting agent and a local tradesman who has been crucial to the investigation. Further reports will follow.
“Papa was murdered. Sir Williamson has been lying.” Caillen’s voice was soft and lost, and for a moment, he was afraid he’d lost her once more to the lies and deception committed by another man.
“I will demand his immediate resignation. With Ross’s support, we can make it happen and we can get to the bottom of who killed your father.” He promised.
“I told you I already know his name from the report in his file,” Robbi insisted.
Simon held out his hand for her to hand over the report.
“I don’t have it. I couldn’t take two reports, since taking one was already questionable. If I took two, he’d know they were gone. Plus, he would know where to look.”
Suspicion built in his gut. “How would he know where to look?”
Robbi winced and admitted, “I may have hit one of his people over the head with a full bottle of whisky.”
Caillen held her head in her hand. “He’s going to take her and throw away the key.”
“I can escape the tower.”
“No one escapes the tower, Robbi. It’s the Tower of London for a reason,” Caillen said. “We need Ross. He can help.”
Simon frowned. “I’m beginning to think you believe I can’t help.”
“He’s a duke,” Caillen qualified. “Darling, even an earl like yourself can’t outdo a duke.”
He sniffed, still uncertain if he should be insulted or not. “Tell us what the report says before Williamson whisks you away, never to be heard of again.”
“I’m fairly certain Ross would have been a bit more eloquent in his delivery than that,” Caillen added dryly.
“Ross is a bloody duke, remember?” He was beginning to feel more than a bit surly.
“‘What a thrice double ass…’” Caillen retorted with a fitting quote from The Tempest. “Continue, Robbi.”
“The same agent wrote a third report stating he had witnessed the man from Glenfriars, who’d claimed he shot his dog, talking to Viscount Pembrock. The two appeared to be in a heated exchange until Pembrock just stopped, and I quote, ‘turned as white as the snow driven mountains.’”
“Did the agent talk to Pembrock?”
“No, but when the two men were having their discussion, Pembroke called the other man, Crookes. The agent somehow determined his full name was James Crookes from the East End. He had a sketch of the man in his file that was on the level of Máira’s attempts to paint The Falls of Clyde.
Máira’s art at the age of eight, however, was better.
This could have been a sketch of a pig. It was that horrendous. ”
A knock at the door silenced their conversation as Charlie brought in the poached eggs Simon had ordered.
Caillen closed her eyes momentarily and then nodded in Charlie’s direction as he set the plate of poached eggs, toast, and kippers on the table.
Robbi jumped from her chair and grabbed the plate before the footman closed the door.
“Thank you, I am famished. I haven’t eaten since early this morning.”
Simon looked at the clock. It was quarter past nine, well past his own dinner hour. He looked toward Caillen with a silent question.
“I told Cook we would take a meal in your rooms later.”
Another knock on his door and his butler entered. “There is a Mr. Jonathan Payne to see you, my lord. He says Sir Williamson sent him post haste.”
“Send him in, Mandal.”
“Of course, my lord.”
Moments later, a man in his late thirties, Simon immediately recognized, entered the room and sketched a bow toward Caillen and himself, and then looked twice at Robbi eating the plate full of eggs.
Simon greeted him and decided full disclosure could wait—for Robbi’s safety. “Mr. Payne, I appreciate you coming on such short notice.”
“Of course, my lord.”
He introduced Caillen but skipped over his introduction to Robbi until she was in a better position to greet the man.
Butter and jam decorated her face as if she were a half-starved street urchin.
“I have to say, Payne, I don’t think I would have recognized you if I’d seen you on the street, but in my drawing room, your face immediately came to mind from the care and consideration you showed my broken bones while carrying me aboard ship. Thank you for that. I am in your debt.”
“Just doing my job, my lord,” Payne said with a stiff smile of acknowledgement.
“You assisted in Astley’s rescue?” Caillen asked.
“No, I was tracking your sister Máira for the Duke. I was at the docks when they arrived with the earl to smuggle him out of France. I helped carry him aboard ship. It was either that or tear the rogue who kidnapped your sister limb from limb.”
“That rogue happens to be her husband,” Robbi interjected with a mouthful of toast.
Payne eyed Robbi with uncertainty. She was dressed more like a stable boy than a member of the family, but her dark hair was beginning to fall from beneath her cap, giving away her gender.
Simon cleared his throat and Robbi looked up as if caught unawares. She swallowed her food with an audible gulp, wiped her mouth on her sleeve, stood up and held her hand out as if she meant to shake Payne’s.
“Mr. Payne this is Miss Robina Blair, Lady Bredlebane’s youngest sister.”
Payne changed tact rather smoothly and bowed politely. “Miss Blair.”
Robbi rolled her eyes and picked up her plate to resume her less than tactful eating.
“Robbi, where are your manners?”