Chapter 18
Chapter
Eighteen
A Reasonable Conclusion
Finch's feet went down the stairs, Milford said something in the hall, and the front door shut.
And then there was nobody left in my study but the two of us.
She’d come to her feet and clutched the back of her chair.
"He won't have Benson tonight," I said.
"I know."
"He'll have him by the end of the week, though. Finch doesn't miss."
"That doesn't help." She let go of the chair. "I gave away the one thing Claire asked me to keep."
"You gave it to Finch. He’ll keep your confidence." When she said nothing, I said, “It moves us further along, Rosalynd.”
When she remained silent, I set my thumb against the crease between her brows and held it there until it went. “Shall I send for coffee?”
“Yes, please.” She moved to a settee near a table where the coffee service would be served.
While we waited, I arranged what would come next. Because she was going to say Harcourt, and I was going to have to take him away from her.
"Sir Reginald Harcourt is the masked man."
"Tell me why."
"Benson went into his house. Crane attached himself to him.
Sir Reginald had a coughing fit when I asked a lady what she meant by Crane knowing somebody who knew everybody.
And the room forgot the question." Her hands folded themselves in her lap, which with Rosalynd was not composure but its opposite.
"Three things, Steele. All pointing at one armchair. "
"How many people were in that room?"
"Sixty. Perhaps more."
"And how many of them coughed at some point in the evening?"
"That is not fair."
"It isn't meant to be fair. It’s meant to be logical.” I let that breathe for a moment. “I’m going to take your case apart. Not to be right. If I'm wrong, we lose two days. If you're wrong and we act on it, we tell a man who has spent two years arranging not to be seen exactly how much we can see."
Milford arrived with the coffee service, placed it on the small table in front of Rosalynd, and swiftly departed. She poured cups for both of us.
"Go on."
"The man at the Floralia caught your wrist and turned it until you cried out." I kept my voice level, which took some doing. "Months later he crossed a ballroom in your own house and danced a waltz with you."
She sipped her coffee and said nothing.
"Harcourt can't cross a drawing room without a stick, and he has a chest that stops him three times in a sentence." I leaned forward. "Was that the man who held your wrist?"
The silence went on long enough that I wished I had put it some other way.
"No," she said.
"Then you have a house. Not a man." I placed the London map in front of her. "Mallow. Bedford Row. Marsh. The Hammersmith ground. All of it money, and Harcourt's name is on none of it. What you have is a route that information traveled. They aren't the same enquiry until something joins them."
"The Argosy joins them."
"Marsh is a member. Crane was a member. We don't know that Harcourt is." I said. "Until we know, that club is a coincidence with two ends."
"And the rest?" Her voice had flattened.
"The rest doesn’t make Sir Reginald your man.
" I sat back. “You were handed a valet, a house, and a name, that’s all. Drawing rooms noticed Crane’s attachment to Harcourt.
He coughed at a most inconvenient moment, which led you to form a theory.
But you have no evidence that Harcourt placed Benson, employed Crane, or even knew the two were connected. ”
"You think I’m wrong."
I shook my head. "Your reasoning isn't poor. You’re simply making leaps without supporting evidence.”
She was quiet a moment. "That's a good argument. I dislike it enormously."
"So do I."
"Then what do we have?"
I counted it off. "Crane drew a wage for two years.
That's not a blackmailer, that's an employee, which means an employer. Marsh went up at the Argosy the same season. That’s where they met.
" I set down the second finger. "And there's Benson, who interests me a great deal—though not for your reason. "
"Say it."
"Claire said he entered service again almost at once. Think what that takes. A valet whose master died in his care, with no character but the one his widow was kind enough to write him, walks into a new place inside a fortnight." I let it sit. "Somebody put him in Harcourt’s house. That’s the person we seek.”
She got there faster than I had. “He was placed before Crane blackmailed Claire.”
"Which means you've begun your chain too late. You've been reading Benson to Harcourt to Crane. Start before Benson. Somebody put a valet in that household two years ago and waited to see what he'd be worth."
"That's worse."
"Considerably. It's also findable. Men aren't placed by magic.
Somebody places them, and somebody keeps a record.
" I finished the coffee, which had not improved.
"Finch will investigate the Harcourt house in general and Benson in particular.” I took a breath.
“You promised me sensible. That means you will do nothing.”
"I said I would try."
“Yes, you did." Try and do were ships that passed in the night in Rosalynd’s way of thinking. They had nothing to do with one another, as I had discovered too many times.
"There's one thing I haven’t told you.”
“Then tell me now.”
"That room felt wrong." She said it without any of the confidence she had brought to the rest. "I've been in that drawing room half a dozen times.
I know what it feels like. But yesterday I couldn't settle.
I put it down to Crane being dead and everyone enjoying it too much.
" She looked at her hands. "I wanted to leave, but I didn’t know why.
" She gazed up at me. “And then Harcourt coughed.
Afterward I told myself that was what had unsettled me. But I don't think it was.”
I took her hands, drew her out of the settee, and put my arms around her. She came without argument.
“Nights without proper sleep,” I said into her hair. "A room full of people picking over a corpse. I’d be more surprised if none of it had got under your skin."
"I daresay,” she murmured into my shoulder.
"You're building a case against a man out of his weak chest."
"I know how it sounds." She stayed where she was a moment longer. Then she lifted her head. "I'll be sensible. But I'm not going to stop thinking it.”
"Noted." I held my hand to her cheek. "And filed."
She caught it before it left her face and held it there. Then she stretched up and kissed me, unhurried, with none of the desperation of the library about it, and I let a good deal of the day go while she did.
“You need to go home,” I said when I finally lifted my mouth from hers. "Your brother has been sitting with an unread book for hours, and you’ll need to bathe and change for supper.” I brushed a thumb across her mouth. “Shall I escort you home?”
She laughed. “Oh, that’s all the square would need.” She gazed toward the window where the late afternoon light could be seen. “It’s still light out. I’ll manage on my own.”
I saw her down to the door and stood on the step while she crossed the square. Rosehaven House lit at three windows, and Cosmos waiting in one of them for news she had already decided how much of to give him.
She turned at her own door and lifted a hand. I raised mine in return.
Then I went back up to the study and stood over the maps a while. I went over the argument again, the way a man runs his thumb along a joint to be sure of it.
A man who could scarcely cross a room without a stick did not twist her wrist. A man who could not finish three sentences without stopping for breath did not dance a waltz.
It held.