Chapter 13
T he following morning, as early as possible—that being the relatively early-by-ton-standards hour of ten o’clock—Barnaby, Penelope, and Stokes were admitted to the Fitzhugh residence in Hertford Street by the kindly but faintly disapproving butler.
He showed them into the drawing room. “If you will wait here, sirs, ma’am, I will ascertain if the mistress is available.” His tone suggested he was making no promises.
They sat and waited.
As the minutes ticked by, Stokes stirred, then grumbled, “The Commissioner was almost pleading this morning for me to make an arrest for the murder. Apparently, the arrest of the poisoners—sensational as those were—has only whetted the rabble’s appetite for learning who killed the earl.”
Barnaby humphed, and Penelope looked toward the closed drawing room door.
A minute later, they heard footsteps crossing the hall tiles, and Imogen came in.
They rose to greet her.
“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting—a minor kitchen crisis, I’m afraid.
” Her gaze searched their faces; she was plainly surprised to see them.
She waved them back to their seats and moved to claim the armchair facing the sofa on which Barnaby and Penelope sat.
Tentatively, Imogen said, “I must admit I feel a trifle stunned. We’ve only just heard—over breakfast—that Victoria and Christopher have been arrested for attempting to poison Gordon. Is that correct?”
Barnaby inclined his head. “It is. They confessed, Christopher to placing strychnine in the earl’s whiskey decanter and Victoria to lacing his cigars with the same poison.”
Looking pained, Imogen shook her head. “What is the world coming to?” After a second of pondering that, she refocused on Barnaby and Penelope. “But that’s not why you’re here.” She folded her hands in her lap and asked, “How can I help you?”
Barnaby and Stokes had agreed that, in this interview, Penelope should take the lead.
She began, “With the poisoners identified, our attention now is concentrated on identifying who actually killed the earl.”
Imogen nodded. “Of course.”
Clearly choosing her words, Penelope went on, “Christopher and Victoria cited the earl’s peculiar insistence on household frugality and his severe limiting of their personal allowances as their primary motive for wanting to do away with him.
” When Imogen merely nodded again—transparently unsurprised by that revelation—Penelope continued, “Given the timing of the murder, we realized that we have not yet learned what the purpose of the dinner that immediately preceded the murder was. We understand that it wasn’t one of the family’s regularly scheduled gatherings. ”
Imogen waggled her head from side to side. “Well, it wasn’t one of the regularly scheduled events, that’s true. Although the dowager does organize occasional family dinners, this wasn’t one of those.”
“What was the dowager’s purpose in calling you all together?” Penelope asked.
Imogen hesitated. Her expression stated she knew the answer but was unsure if she should share what she knew.
After a second of silence, Penelope gently said, “We could, of course, ask the dowager herself, but within mere days, she’s lost one son to murder, another to his own ill-advised actions, and lost a daughter-in-law, as well.
If you would share what you know, we might avoid intruding on her at this fraught time. ”
Imogen’s eyes narrowed fractionally, and her lips thinned, but then she sighed and surrendered. “Yes, of course. Poor Imelda. I can’t imagine how she must be feeling. I was planning on going to see her later today. I’ll take the girls—they always cheer her up.”
Penelope nodded encouragingly, then prompted, “The dinner?”
Imogen thought, then stated, “I don’t think any of us realized what she had in mind, but once we were all seated about the table and the main course had been served, she sent the staff from the room.”
Penelope’s brows rose. “The dowager did?”
“That might seem odd,” Imogen allowed, “seeing Victoria was there, after all, but in all the ways that matter, Imelda still rules that house. She was the dominant mistress, and it was she who sat at the foot of the table, opposite Gordon at the head. Victoria sat beside Gordon at that end.”
Penelope’s brows remained high. “I see. That must have added to Victoria’s frustration.”
“Very likely.” Imogen sighed and shook her head.
“I still can’t believe she thought to poison Gordon.
” After a moment, she continued, “Anyway, what happened next, about the dining table, was thoroughly unsettling.” She paused, and it was plain that what she was about to reveal wasn’t by choice.
“Imelda invited each of the men around the table to describe to the group what their current financial situation was. Only Vincent and Theodore were exempt.” Imogen drew in a tight breath, and her hands, clasped in her lap, tightened.
“It was…hideously awkward. Christopher was seated on Imelda’s right and was the first she commanded to share that information.
Of course, he tried to avoid doing so—any man would—but Imelda was relentless.
I’ve never seen her so… ruthless in imposing her will.
When Christopher balked and demurred, she started giving the answer she’d asked him to provide. ”
Imogen drew another, deeper breath, then let it out with “I don’t know how she managed it, but she knew everything about all of us.
How she gathered the information, I can’t even begin to imagine, but she had it all, chapter and verse.
We all learned how much Christopher owed his creditors, and that he was behind in paying his clubs’ dues, and that he’d recently approached a moneylender and taken out a sizeable loan.
“Christopher was horrified, but while he was, on the one hand, sunk in embarrassment and mortification, he also seemed somehow defiant over it. But Imelda refused to countenance any hint of challenge. She looked straight down the table at Gordon and said, ‘This is what comes of your neglect.’”
“His neglect?” Penelope asked.
Imogen nodded. “That’s what she said—what she accused Gordon of.
And of course, many would say she was correct.
Gordon was deliberately ignoring any familial claims on his purse.
He’s been doing that since he succeeded to the title.
” Imogen paused, then focused on Penelope. “Do you need to hear the rest of it?”
Penelope glanced at Stokes, who silently nodded.
Looking back at Imogen, Penelope said, “Please. If we’re to identify the murderer and dispel all suspicion from other family members, we do need to know.”
Imogen grimaced, then nodded and went on, “After Christopher, Imelda moved around the table to Byron, then George. I was shocked to learn that both were sinking into debt, and I rather thought Damien—Mitchelmore—was taken aback as well. I know Cleome was shocked. After that, Imelda excused Southerly—she stated she knew he wasn’t in any debt—and passed over Gordon and Victoria and moved on to William, then Hugh, and then Damien.
I knew about William’s and Hugh’s debts, of course, but I was surprised to hear that even Damien was in need of money.
I hadn’t imagined that was likely, but the amount was such that, as we all knew, Gordon could have easily loaned him the funds. ”
Imogen swallowed and shook her head. “It was becoming quite excruciating for, of course, every man tried to hide or play down his situation, but Imelda dragged their dirty linen into the open for all the rest of the family to see.”
Penelope tilted her head. “And then she got to Frederick?”
Imogen nodded. She grew paler, then she closed her eyes, drew in a breath, opened her eyes, and with her gaze fixed over Penelope’s head, stated, “We are in dire straits. We’re only just managing day to day.
” She waved one hand in a helpless gesture.
“Again, Imelda knew it all. She had every last detail, and I know for a fact that Frederick hadn’t told her anything at all. ”
Imogen paused, then said, “I suspect she got some of the information from the children. They all love her, and whenever they go to Moran House, they always go and natter to her. She must have kept close track of all they let fall, and while I daresay the younger ones and the girls wouldn’t have understood the implications of what they shared with her, Imelda certainly did.
She’s lived a long time in the ton and knows how to draw sound conclusions from observations of all those little things one rarely thinks to hide, at least not from one’s children. ”
Imogen fell silent, then she glanced at Penelope.
“You asked for the dowager’s purpose in arranging the dinner.
Imelda’s purpose in subjecting the entire family to that ordeal was to bring home to Gordon the damage he was doing to the family as a whole with his…
as you put it, frugality. Imelda had another term for it: his miserliness.
“She blamed him for each of our woes, specifically and explicitly, and truth to tell, in doing so, she wasn’t wrong.
Anyone can get a bit hard-pressed at any point in life, and according to generally held precepts of how an earldom is managed, Gordon should have stepped in to lighten the burden until whoever had faltered could find their feet again.
That’s all it would have taken. He could easily have helped everyone out.
Yet he refused to. Always, he refused, even to just advance a small amount on an allowance.
And the allowances he paid to the family members—to Frederick, Christopher, Victoria, and the dowager, and the smaller annuities to Cleome and Constance—have not been increased since his father set them, and that was years before the old earl died, which was nearly twenty years ago! ”
Barnaby asked, “So Gordon forced his family to live on straitened means and kept all the earldom’s income for himself?”