Chapter Thirty-Two
Lady Mary
“It is a sad commentary that we are always able to find ourselves alone in this room.” I took my usual seat by the fire and examined the rows of books in the library.
How many had Perrin read? How many had his wife?
The books had a lonely feel to them now, as though they were abandoned, never to be opened again.
“Dinner will be served soon.” Katherine tugged at the edge of her fichu. “I should go clean up beforehand.”
“Yes, Lady Mary,” Henry said. He rocked up onto his toes. “Pouncing on us right as we came through the door is hardly the thing.”
“It was hardly pouncing.” I narrowed my eyes. “And how much cleaning up do you need to do? It isn’t as though you were rolling around in the dirt.”
Katherine burst out in a fit of coughing. “Excuse me.” She cleared her throat. “Yes, you are right. Now what did you want to speak to us about?”
“The new tariffs being imposed on goods from the East Indies.” I jabbed my finger at the chair across from me. “Sit. Please.”
Katherine sat.
Henry leaned against the mantel. “Have you learned something new about the murders?”
“I spoke with Betram.” I stabbed at a blue swirl on the cream rug with the tip of my walking stick. “He says he was practicing his skill at billiards when Taylor was killed. Alone. I asked around. No one saw him, although the butler did hear billiards balls clacking at some point before lunch.”
“So not much of an alibi,” Henry said.
“Not much of a motive, either.” I pressed my lips together. If not liking someone was grounds for murder, there would be a trail of bodies in my wake.
“At least my father is no longer a suspect.” Katherine patted her hair. A small, wrinkled brown leaf fell out and drifted to the floor.
Henry hesitated. “Why do you say that?”
Katherine frowned. “Because he didn’t lose money when Perrin changed the terms of the contract. He already had a buyer waiting. He might have been angry at Perrin’s deceit, but he had no real motive.”
“Anger has been a sufficient motive for many a murder,” he said carefully.
I tapped my thumb on the armrest. “I agree with Katherine. Her father is a man of business. He must have had many deals fall through, and I doubt he went about killing everyone who crossed him. No, I think Mr. Smith is no longer on the suspect list.”
Henry inclined his head. “That is a relief.”
“Miss Walker had motive, and she knows her plants.” Katherine scooted forward in her seat. “She could well know what to use to poison a man. And, with the element of surprise, I believe she’d have the strength to stab someone, too.” She sent a look toward Henry, eyebrow raised.
“There were no bruises on Taylor. No signs of any struggle.” I tilted my head. “He must have been surprised by his killer, which takes strength out of the equation. A woman could have done it.”
“She did refuse to tell us where she was when Taylor was killed,” Henry conceded. “But I still wonder, why Taylor? What’s the connection between him and Perrin?”
“He must have known something.” Southey trotted into the room and made straight for me. I sighed, resigned. “All those hints about him coming into money, that he’d be able to support Katherine. I’d guess that he knew who the killer was and attempted to extort money from him.”
Katherine loosed a low whistle. “I don’t want to think so badly of the man, but it makes sense.”
“I have no problem thinking badly of him.” Henry grimaced. “I must say I find it irritating that Taylor discovered the killer’s identity while our efforts have been fruitless.”
I agreed. I didn’t like to contemplate that the sniveling secretary might have been smarter than me.
“I’m sure he must have witnessed something,” Katherine said soothingly. “He didn’t deduce the knowledge, only observed it.”
That appeased me somewhat, and from the look Henry sent in Katherine’s direction, he felt the same. “And that leaves Lord Havenstone,” I said. “What have we learned about him?”
“We all heard the argument between Katherine’s father and Havenstone.” Henry ran his hand up the back of his head. “A sleeping wife doesn’t make a sound alibi for the time of Mr. Taylor’s murder.”
“And he has been sneaking about,” Katherine added. “Why?”
None of us had an answer to that. I scratched Southey behind the ear before standing. “Let’s ask him.”
Katherine and Henry gave each other arch looks but followed after me obediently enough. We found him in the front sitting room, puffing on a cigar, yesterday’s paper on his lap.
“Good afternoon, Lord Havenstone,” I said briskly. “I hope we aren’t interrupting.”
He laid the paper aside. “The sunlight is fading and I am too lazy to light a lamp. Conversation is welcome.”
“Good.” I settled myself on the settee across from him. Katherine sat at my side and Henry took another armchair.
I inhaled the sweet scent of the smoke. “One of Perrin’s cigars?”
“There were a few things he had good taste in.” Havenstone’s lips quirked. “That includes you, my dear.” He inclined his head to Katherine.
Henry sat up straight, one vertebrae at a time.
Not wanting to be put off topic, I leaned forward and tugged my skirts from Southey’s mouth. “As you know, someone here killed Perrin and Taylor.”
“I am aware,” Havenstone said dryly.
“Then I won’t waste time.” I folded my hands over the top of my walking stick. “We are trying to ascertain everyone’s whereabouts from when we returned from the shooting field until lunch on Friday.”
A muscle ticced in his jaw. “My wife already told you.”
“No, she told us where she was and where she assumed you were.” I arched an eyebrow. “Where do you say you were?”
He crushed his cigar onto the side table. “I was with my wife in our room.”
“And you wouldn’t want to contradict your wife.” Henry tapped his fingers on his knee.
“What does that mean?” Havenstone asked, voice sharp.
“You lost a great deal of money when Perrin’s investment went sour a couple years ago.” Henry pinned him with a look. “I had heard that you almost lost your home because of it. It was only through your wife’s intervention that you were saved.”
I controlled my expression, trying not to show my surprise. Henry had left out a few details he’d learned during our discussions.
Havenstone’s face mottled. “You heard wrong.”
“That’s possible,” I agreed. “I’d heard that you went to Mr. Edric Cooke, first hoping to win a large sum in his hells, and next for a loan. A loan that you paid off in a short amount of time. Are you denying you acquired the funds to repay the loan from your wife’s father?”
Havenstone jerked his head back. “How did you…?”
“I have my sources,” I said and left it at that. I didn’t want Mr. Cooke to gain a reputation for being indiscreet, especially as that might limit the information he could provide to me in the future.
He slumped back in his chair. “All right. Yes. You’re right. Do you know how humiliating it is to beg your father-in-law in order to save your ancestral home?”
I did not, but I could imagine. “And this last time you needed funds? This second loan you’ve taken from Mr. Cooke. Was that also the fault of Perrin?”
His face paled. “How do you know this?”
I sniffed. “That is neither here nor there. Please answer the question.”
Havenstone gave a harsh chuckle. “Indirectly. Can you believe he asked me to invest with him again? That he had the gall to think I’d give him more money?”
Katherine leaned forward. “But if you didn’t give him money, why did you need funds?”
The baron scratched at an invisible mark on his trousers and mumbled.
I put my hand to my ear. “What was that?”
He sighed, all the air seeming to leave his body. “I thought to give Perrin a taste of his own medicine. There was a competing venture which I funded, hoping….”
“That Perrin’s investment would fail.” Henry frowned. “I take it that didn’t happen.”
“No.” Whatever was on Havenstone’s trousers had fully captured his attention. “Perrin’s venture bankrupted mine. Had I invested with him this time, I would have made back my previous loss in full.”
It was all very Shakespearean. The quest for vengeance doubling back and trapping Havenstone instead. Perrin finally having a successful investment but dying before he could enjoy the fruits.
I didn’t admit this to many, but I didn’t enjoy the works of our national pride as much as many.
The melodrama and histrionics. The overwrought plots.
There were moments of inspiration, an understanding of important truths in Shakespeare’s plays, but all too often it felt as though I was watching or reading overly emotional children behaving badly, and that never held my interest.
But perhaps we were destined to always remain emotional children and behave badly. Perhaps Shakespeare had understood human nature on a deeper level than me.
“And the letter you received a few nights past?” I asked. “The one that had you marching out of the sitting room in anger?”
He slouched deeper into his chair, seeming almost to become one with it. “That was from my wife’s father. He has refused to repay my loan at this time.”
“I see.” I stared at him over the top of my walking stick.
“Why did you accept Perrin’s invitation to this party?
You’d lost money because of him a second time.
Being in his presence couldn’t have been a pleasure.
” Unless he’d come for a purpose. His plans for financial revenge having failed, had Havenstone decided to enact the ultimate vengeance?
“My wife saw the invitation,” he said. “She wanted to come.”
And with his wife’s father controlling the purse strings, Havenstone was hardly in a position to refuse.
Still, it showed a lack of awareness on his wife’s part, inflicting Perrin on her husband.
Or a lack of compassion. Or maybe this was her idea of revenge, forcing her fiscally irresponsible husband to face the instrument of his folly.
“Where were you when Mr. Taylor was killed?” I asked.
“With Lady Havenstone.” His jaw set. His stare hardened. I knew I wouldn’t get a different answer, no matter how much I pressed.
My problem was I couldn’t determine if it was the honest answer or not.