Chapter 37 #2
“Well,” Mr. Tauton went on. “The pair of gents in the Venetian was telling the landlord that they were partners with this Wallace. They said he hadn’t been able to hand over what they were owed direct after business was concluded, as was their custom.
Instead, he’d left it in his room and all they wanted was leave to go in and get it, and then they’d gladly settle his bill.
“This all sounds very interesting to me, so I step up and beg their pardon for the interruption and ask the gents if they happened to be at the Kinsdales’ last night.
“Now, I expected they might turn a bit missish—begging your pardon, Miss Thorne—at this, but didn’t expect they’d look scared to death. I thought they might both take to their heels then and there. So, I quick tells them it’s Wallace I’m looking for, and that I owed him money.
“And just like that, I’m a very popular fellow.” Mr. Tauton puffed out his chest. “And the pair, whose names, by the by, were given as Crocker and Vest, a thing you may not be surprised to learn,” he added to Adam.
“That’s the pair from the Kinsdales’ card party,” he confirmed.
“Messrs. Crocker and Vest, as well as Mine Host, are all most anxious to explain once again how Wallace has up and vanished without paying them, so any money I meant to give him should rightly go to them. The landlord is insistent, in fact, that he has the greater claim because Mr. Wallace owes him a good two months’ worth of room and board.
“Now, I agree with them that this Wallace is a wrong ’un.
Clearly, I say, he’s been holding out on all concerned.
But I represent to them that a better understanding of just what’s happened is needed.
So, I stand everyone to drinks and I get Messrs.
Crocker and Vest to tell me all about their business dealings with Mr. Wallace. ”
“We know that Crocker and Vest have been lending money in Bath for several years,” said Adam.
“That’s right.” Mr. Tauton nodded. “And they’d done business with this Wallace before.
But some months ago he comes to them with a new proposition.
Said that a lady and gent were going to be giving a series of faro parties and they could have exclusive right to make out loans to the punters that showed up and wanted to play deep.
The price of admission would be a cut of the profits, and intelligence. ”
“Intelligence?” echoed Rosalind.
Mr. Tauton nodded again. “Crocker and Vest were to pass on their professional assessments of the punters. Wallace wanted to know which gents, and ladies (as there were some of those), might be ripe for hearing about additional … investments.”
Adam opened his mouth, but Tauton held up his hand. “Before you ask, I did inquire as to the nature of these investments, but they said they’d never been told, and they hadn’t asked, not after the first night, when they realized they were onto a very good thing indeed.”
“But now we know,” said Mr. Goutier. “It was the lookalike scheme.”
“So it would seem,” said Mr. Tauton. “I expect that once Crocker and Vest had identified the likeliest pigeons, either Wallace or Mrs. Lynn paid a call on them, and sold them on some aspect or the other of the scheme you describe.”
“And all this time, Miss Smith is doing the same in London,” murmured Rosalind. “Good Lord.”
“My thought exactly, miss,” said Mr. Tauton. Rosalind suspected his actual thoughts were not ones that could be repeated in polite company.
“Well, I expressed admiration to the gents for this neat arrangement with Mr. Wallace and asked what had gone wrong,” Mr. Tauton went on.
“Vest, he tells me that they’d arrived in the wee hours of the morning to turn over their takings and make their report, all as usual.
Mr. Wallace invites them into his rooms, and they share a friendly drink before sitting down to business. There’s no sign that anything is wrong.
“But just as they’re getting ready to open the cash boxes—as Vest described it—this wild-eyed madman runs into the room, screaming about how they’re all scoundrels and he’ll cut every man Jack of ’em to ribbons. And, said Mr. Vest, he had a sword to do it with.”
“A sword?” cried Rosalind.
“That’s what Vest said,” Mr. Tauton told them.
“And Crocker agreed. What it may really have been, I’ve no notion, but it frightened all of them, and while Wallace was attempting to tell the invader that whatever had happened it had nothing to do with them, and the man they wanted was Sir Anthony Kinsdale.
Crocker and Vest in the meantime were doing their best to get themselves out the window.
Which they did eventually succeed in doing.
” Mr. Tauton chuckled again, clearly imagining what a sight that must have been.
“I don’t know what to think,” breathed Rosalind. “Is it possible Sir Anthony’s death was caused by one of the card players after all?”
“Did your Messrs. Crocker and Vest know Sir Anthony was dead?” Adam asked Mr. Tauton.
“I’d say not, or I’d never have got so much out of them. Neither of them acted like men who understood every word they spoke was building a case to arrest them on suspicion of at least one murder.”
At this, Mr. Goutier just shook his head.
“What are you thinking, Goutier?” asked Adam.
“’S truth, Harkness, I’m thinking that some one of these people has been profoundly unlucky.”