Chapter Eleven
Sir Felix Everett scowled down at the ledgers in front of him.
The canal company was just about breaking even—again—but it was hardly building the fortune his grandfather and father had hoped.
And now, inevitably, would come the competition of the railways—which, so far, Everett had managed to stave off.
But there was no disguising the fact that the Everett-Channing loop off the Grand Union Canal was not well used.
It was becoming a curiosity, a relic of an earlier era.
Like me.
He threw himself backward in his chair, hard enough to produce an audible creak.
He rose, unable to contain the restlessness that had plagued him for months now.
He had been a widower for fifteen years.
Which was ample time to get used to the idea, to get over his sorrow and his regrets as to his childless state.
He had even reached a sort of staid contentment in his routines and relationships with his neighbors and friends.
He tended his estate, maintained his canal, was kind to his tenants and laborers, gave to the poor, and went to church on Sundays.
And then she had come. And he had begun to notice the imperfections of his neighbors. Especially Percy Harvey. Even dead, the little jackanapes wouldn’t lie down. Causing trouble for—
The front doorbell sounded loud and clear through the closed door of his study.
Grey.
Felix’s hackles rose with sheer distaste—not so much for the man, who seemed perfectly pleasant and well mannered—but for his trade.
What the devil was an investigator except one who pried and spied and expected to be paid for it?
Felix was not altogether in favor of the new police forces that had sprung into being all over the country, certainly not where gentlemen and other decent people were concerned, but at least policemen knew their place in the world, like Constable Wills.
This Grey was no doubt charging poor Harvey a fortune while living in his house and poking into young Percy’s less-than-admirable life.
While Percy was alive, Felix would have been more than happy to knock him down, physically and metaphorically. Now that he was dead, it was incumbent upon Felix and the Harveys’ other friends to keep the truth to themselves.
Manson, his ancient butler, pushed open the door and tottered a couple of steps inside. “Mr. and Mrs. Grey, sir.”
Dear God, the wretched fellow had brought his wife!
Not that the lady was not perfectly charming—and extremely pleasant to look at, too—but how was he supposed to explain about everything while she listened in?
How could be as blunt and firm with the fellow as he needed to be in front of his wife? Drat the pair of them.
They were an astonishingly elegant couple, which he had not really taken in previously. For some reason, this made Felix feel at a further disadvantage, like some bluff, unsophisticated old duffer of a previous generation.
Flustered, he crossed the room to shake hands and offer refreshment, which they both declined. Felix dismissed Manson and invited his guests to sit on the sofa by the fire, while he sat on the armchair opposite.
While Felix struggled for a way to begin, Grey spoke. “I wonder if we might ask you first about a particular situation. In the Duke’s Arms last Saturday, the day before Percy left for London, I believe you played cards with him and George West.”
“What of it?” Felix asked, thrown all over again.
“You won some money from Percy?”
“We were playing for halfpennies,” Felix said wryly. “I won about a shilling from the pair of them. Again, what of it?”
“Did Percy pay up?”
“Not at the time,” Felix said uncomfortably. “He was…distracted.”
“By accusing you of cheating?”
So Grey had found out about that too. He had very dark-brown eyes, of the kind that should be velvet soft and melting.
Yet there was nothing yielding about that hard, steady gaze, which seemed suddenly like twin spears into Felix’s brain and heart.
There was no point in trying to hide his anger with Percy that night, or even his sudden shame at obfuscating. It was foolish and pointless.
Felix scowled, which somehow made it easier to withstand that all-seeing, unblinking gaze. “Percy was drunk. No one took him seriously.”
“And yet,” Mrs. Grey said unexpectedly, “gentlemen do not call each other cheats. Not so long ago, you would have called him out and fought a duel over it unless he apologized. Did he?”
Suddenly, Felix saw the real danger here. Not that poor Harvey would discover the kind of unpleasant wastrel his son had been, but that this beautiful couple suspected him of fighting a duel with Percy.
With blinding clarity he saw again his own memories and understood their thought processes.
Felix was an old-fashioned gentleman, insulted by an unruly puppy who needed schooling.
A challenge, an appointment that had brought Percy back to Channing to face him, a duel by the canal near Larchford itself, a shot that propelled Percy straight into the water.
Duels were no longer overlooked by the law. Murder was murder.
Felix could almost see the same scenario unfolding in Grey’s fathomless eyes. In panic, he could no longer recall which story was truth.
Fortunately, the long line of his ancestors seemed to arrive in support, reminding him of his dignity.
“Did Percy apologize?” he repeated. “Lord, no. I never expected him to. I doubt he even remembered the incident next day.”
“So what did you do when he accused you?” Grey asked.
“I left.”
“You weren’t worried anyone would believe Percy?”
Felix smiled. “No.”
Grey released his gaze and Felix almost sagged with relief.
“Your company owns the Everett-Channing Canal Loop, does it not?” Mrs. Grey said, causing Felix to blink in surprise at the sudden change of subject.
“It does,” he replied.
“Then you employ the lockkeeper, George West?”
“The company does, yes.”
“Is he a good and reliable employee?”
“Yes, for the most part. He can be a little rough and ready, but he sees to the lock and repairs diligently enough.”
“Are you aware of his wife’s affair with Percy?”
Felix blushed, embarrassed to be asked such a thing by a lady. But he wondered why he didn’t feel more outraged.
“I heard something, but I pay no attention to gossip and rumor.”
“Quite right,” Mrs. Grey said. “We understand that when West discovered the affair, he beat his wife. Do you think him capable of shooting Percy?”
Felix glanced quickly from her to her husband, weighing his choices. Truth won.
“On the day he beat his wife, yes. Months later, I should be very surprised.”
“Even if something else occurred to provoke him against Percy?”
Felix spread his hands. “How can I possibly tell?”
“You can’t, of course,” Mrs. Grey said, and he wondered if that had been another test.
If so, they really did suspect him.
“To your knowledge,” Grey asked, “is there anyone else in the neighborhood who might have borne a grudge against Percy?”
Felix drew in his breath. “Look, that’s why I asked you to call on me this morning, when what I say cannot upset poor Harvey further.
The truth is, Percy upset just about everyone, whether it was with drunken insults, making free with other men’s wives, or debts that were never paid unless his father got wind of them.
Frankly, he was an ill-conditioned puppy.
There may have been no real malice in him—I don’t believe there was, in fact—but he was utterly self-absorbed and seemed to consider nothing but his own pleasure of the moment.
There is no point in blaming the doting parents who spoiled him.
He was of an age to have worked out for himself what was right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable behavior. ”
He saw from Grey’s face that little of this was news to him. Mrs. Grey did not look surprised either, let alone offended. How could Grey involve his wife in such sordid business? Well, that wasn’t Felix’s concern.
“Mr. and Mrs. Harvey have lost a beloved son,” he continued earnestly. “It will help no one, and serve no justice, to reveal everything you discover to Harvey. He doesn’t need to know what sort of a cad his son was. I ask your discretion, as one gentleman to another.”
Rather to his surprise, Grey’s lips curved into a slight smile.
“I appreciate your request. Especially when you are not perfectly sure that I am one. We will pass on to Mr. Harvey only what is necessary to explain the killing…should we discover it. At the moment, there seems to be only one indiscretion that interests them—Percy’s obsession with Mrs. Jenkins. ”
Felix jerked up his hand to dismiss that out of hand. “That is all in their minds. I’m sure Percy noticed Mrs. Jenkins, as he noticed every female, but she is no Circe embroiling him in her wiles. On the contrary, she is a virtuous widow bringing up her son on his ancestral land.”
He had deliberately kept his voice calm and dispassionate, but even so, he worried that he had said too much, for he felt Mrs. Grey’s eyes boring into his face.
He began to realize they made a formidable team, and to understand the faith Harvey seemed to have bestowed upon them so instinctively and so suddenly.
Little would escape them, which was alarming in many ways.
“What is it that turned Mr. and Mrs. Harvey against Mrs. Jenkins?” Grey asked.
Felix sighed. “Some rumor—spread, I think, by a disgruntled Jenkins cousin who would have inherited Dare Hall had little Clarence not been born. That Luke Jenkins had been inveigled into marrying a slave on his plantation, or that the marriage was not valid for one reason or another. Everyone was therefore curious to meet her. They left cards at Dare Hall, and Mrs. Jenkins duly invited the local gentry to tea. Unfortunately, it was while Percy was home, and his parents witnessed what was, in fact, his usual behavior around young and pretty women.”