Chapter Twenty
They found Everett walking across his front terrace with another man who might have been a steward of some kind. At any rate, as soon as he saw them, Everett changed course to stride toward them while his companion vanished around the side of the house.
“Grey, how are you?” Everett demanded, offering his hand as though delighted to see him. “What a terrible thing to have happened.”
“It could have been worse,” Constance pointed out, all her attention focused on him. His shock and concern appeared to be genuine, but she had been fooled before by natural actors. “Might we have a word?”
“Of course, come in and take some refreshment.”
They opted for tea, which was served in a comfortable parlor rather than in Everett’s office.
Constance wondered if this was a social promotion for them, or if their host was motivated by guilt.
That sense of urgency was upon her again, and she felt there was no longer time to be tactful, to beat about the bush.
“First,” she said as soon as the tea was served, “Mr. Harvey took your advice and two detectives from the Metropolitan Police are here. Discretion about matters that turn out not to be related to crimes is now out of our hands, so forgive us our blunt questions. Where were you yesterday morning between ten and eleven o’clock? ”
Everett blinked. “I took the boat up the canal to visit a friend.”
“In Channing?”
“No, in the opposite direction. John Standish has the property to the northwest of here, just a few miles up the canal.”
“And he will vouch for your being there?” Solomon asked.
“Of course.”
“May I ask how long you were there?”
“A few hours. We had luncheon. I was home by teatime. Why do you ask? Do you seriously suspect me of shooting you?”
“The truth is, we don’t know,” Solomon said steadily. “You lied to us before.”
Everett stiffened, nostrils flaring in offense.
“Don’t,” Solomon said. “We know you were near Dare Hall the afternoon Percy was shot and shoved into the canal.”
“Dear God, not by me!”
“Then why lie?” Constance asked.
A dark flush stained his face. He put down his cup and saucer and rubbed at his forehead as though digging for advice. At last he said shortly, “I did not wish to involve Mrs. Jenkins.”
“Why not? Did you think she was guilty of killing Percy?”
“No!”
Was Everett’s outrage overdone?
“No,” he repeated, more moderately. “But it crossed my mind that you—or, worse, Harvey—might think so. It also crossed my mind that the last thing the poor woman needs is rumors of men skulking around her property.”
“Is that what you were doing?” Solomon asked. “Skulking?”
Everett’s fading flush darkened again. “No. I was making sure no one else skulked.”
“You mean Percy,” Constance said.
Everett drew in his breath. “I knew he pestered her. I knew he’d gone to London because she did. And I knew she was home. I was just making sure she was safe. I didn’t go near her.”
“But did you go near Percy?” Constance asked. “Did you see him that afternoon?”
Everett shook his head. “No, I didn’t. I had matters to attend to on my own land, so I went back there once I saw all was quiet at Dare Hall.”
“Would it surprise you to know that Percy was very probably in Larchford Wood?” Solomon asked. “Cutting up to the path at the top of the hill that leads to Dare Hall?”
“Dear God,” Everett whispered, clutching his hair.
It looked like concern for Adelaide, and a surge of anger for Percy. But it also looked to Constance like shock. As if he really hadn’t known.
His gaze lifted abruptly to Solomon’s. “I wasn’t in the woods that day.”
“Did you have your pistol with you?” Constance asked.
His eyes widened. “No, I did not! Look, I didn’t see him, let alone shoot him.”
“Tell us about Penelope Owens,” Solomon said.
“What?” Everett’s jaw slackened with confusion, as though he were unbalanced by the sudden change of subject. He was meant to be. “She is the doctor’s daughter, of course. What is it you want to know?”
“You are a widower,” Solomon reminded him. “Have you never thought of marrying again?”
“No!” Everett exclaimed. “What business is it of yours?”
“None, of course, under normal circumstances—which these are not. To be vulgar, Sir Felix, you are the local catch, the biggest landowner in the neighborhood, of old and respected family, still in your prime—”
“Yes, and I still have my own teeth!” Everett interrupted. “What exactly are you implying?”
“That you might want to marry Mrs. Jenkins,” Constance said.
Everett jerked to his feet and swung away from them, his shoulders rigid. But she didn’t need to see his face to sense the struggle waging within him. He was a proud and private man and their probing was intolerable.
There was silence, save for a buzzing fly somewhere in the room. No one looked for it.
“I might,” Everett ground out at last, “if she ever showed me the remotest encouragement.”
“Penelope does,” Constance said.
“What?” Everett forgot to protect his expression, turning back to them with a frown of incomprehension.
“Penelope,” Constance repeated. “She does show you encouragement.”
“Don’t be foolish. She’s Owens’s daughter!”
“She is only a few years younger than Mrs. Jenkins.”
Everett looked genuinely baffled.
“Perhaps she is beneath the squire,” Constance mused.
“There is no need to be offensive,” Everett snapped, “about either of us. Penelope is a young lady and my friend’s daughter.”
“Then you were never aware of her interest in you?” Solomon asked.
Everett opened his mouth, then closed it again, perhaps remembering past interactions. “I never thought of her in such a way,” he said at last. “And I fail to see that it’s relevant.”
“Someone shot me,” Solomon said mildly, “and tried to implicate Mrs. Jenkins. This may well be the same person who murdered Percy, or it may be a foolish effort to divert our suspicion from you. At Mrs. Jenkins’s expense.”
“Oh, no. I cannot believe such a thing of Penelope—”
“Which thing?” Constance interposed. “Protecting you? Or murdering Percy?”
“Both! All of it. It must be nonsense.”
“Then there was never any kind of understanding between you and Penelope?” Solomon asked.
“None. To be honest, I never even thought of marrying again until I met Mrs. Jenkins.”
“But she isn’t suitable to be Lady Everett, is she?” Solomon asked. “No one in England knows her family, and the Harveys at least suspect her of descent from slaves.”
“Like you?” Everett lashed out.
“Yes. Like me,” Solomon said mildly.
Everett looked faintly ashamed. “Such things matter nothing to me. They wouldn’t matter to the Harveys either if Percy hadn’t pursued Adelaide so blatantly.”
“Did you ever try to speak to Percy about that?” Constance asked.
“I told him off several times. He laughed at me. He laughed at the vicar when he tried. I don’t believe he ever intended anything honorable by her. That was why I tried to keep an eye on Dare Hall.”
“Did anyone else?” Solomon asked. “Was anyone else trying to protect her?”
A frown tugged at Everett’s brow. “Such as who?”
Solomon shrugged. “I don’t know. Dr. Owens, perhaps? He too is a widower, and when his daughter marries he will be in need of someone to do all the things for him that she currently does. And Mrs. Jenkins is a very attractive woman.”
Everett stared at him. “Even if she isn’t out of the top drawer?” he said in blatant mockery.
“Would Owens care any more than you do? Does he have patients among the poor in Channing?”
“Yes, I think so.” Everett dragged one hand through his hair and sat down again, reaching for his tea. “Why do you ask?”
“He claims that’s where he was when Percy was killed. But he didn’t know that the vicar was in the same few streets at the same time, although he later pretended otherwise. We couldn’t find anyone who’d seen him that day. Did you?”
“No. No, I didn’t. Look, Owens would not lie. He has no reason to!”
“Then he never confided in you any concern for his daughter being around Percy?” Constance asked.
“Percy and… No.”
“Did Percy pursue Penelope?”
“Good God,” Everett said. “I suppose he might have. Percy flirted with all women, to put it no worse.”
“How did Penelope respond to him?”
The telltale flush began to mount to Everett’s cheeks again. “She didn’t, of course.”
Constance didn’t believe that. He was remembering something.
“How would Dr. Owens have responded?” Solomon asked.
“How do you think?” Everett demanded. “He knew what Percy was and that he would certainly never have married the daughter of a country doctor. He was supposed to be engaged to an earl’s daughter.
” He groaned. “Look, don’t go reading violence into my words!
No one I know could have murdered Percy, however out of control he was.
We knew him as a child. Owens could no more kill him that I could. ”
Constance decided they had shaken all the truths from him that they could for the moment. She set her cup and saucer on the table. “Thank you for your help, Sir Felix. I believe I must take my husband home to rest.”
*
Constance intended to observe Solomon during another rest at Channing House and perhaps catch up with Inspector Harris’s investigations before deciding whether or not to go alone in search of Penelope.
In the end, she didn’t need to make that decision, let alone fight with Solomon over it. Miss Owens was shown into Mrs. Harvey’s drawing room bearing a tonic for Mrs. Harvey and another for Solomon.
“My father has been thinking about you both but is called to a difficult lying-in in the town,” she said brightly.
“So he bade me bring this to you, and inquire after your health, Mr. Grey.” Penelope barely looked at Solomon as she spoke.
And even though she had been outside in quite a blustery wind, her cheeks were pale.
“I did not expect to see you up and about,” she added, sitting.
“I don’t suppose you did,” Constance said pleasantly, attracting a quick, alarmed glance from Penelope. “An inch to the right and he would never have got up.”
Penelope shuddered, as though she couldn’t help it.