Chapter Four
EARLY NEXT MORNING, with dawn still spattering the horizon in hesitant streaks of gold, Tommy’s sturdy pair of bays trotted in the direction of Ashington’s town house.
As the orange glow of the gas lamps stuttered and the town awakened, Tommy was in a rare fine mood.
Seated next to him and only half-awake, Mickey still wasn’t entirely sure of the purpose of the visit, given that the duke was tucked up fast asleep in a bedchamber two storeys above Squire’s, safely separated from the club by a private staircase and several locked doors.
“Fucked rigid to kingdom come,” Tommy reported happily. “Cheered him up, at any rate.”
“I didn’t ask.”
Mickey smiled to himself. Neither of them had much in the way of secrets from each other; Tommy knew Mickey wouldn’t tell a living soul. His Grace worked hard to maintain his upstanding reputation and that of his lineage. Discretion at all costs was the price he paid.
“I’ve been looking for an excuse to take Benedict’s butler, Hawkins, down a peg or two,” Tommy declared as they trotted through the damp, half-empty streets. “This parure debacle has presented me with one.”
On a trip to bloody that snotty fella’s nose? Mickey was all for it.
“You heard Benedict,” Tommy continued. The way he used His Grace’s first name so freely had taken Mickey a long time to get used to.
Even Rossingley usually deferred to the duke as Ashington.
“Hawkins was serving at that damned shooting party as fifth footman twice removed or whatever. He may have been young and insignificant at the time, but servants see and hear everything. And they talk.”
“To each other, yes,” agreed Mickey. “But Hawkins is as loyal to Ashington as the day’s long. Why would he spill the family secrets to you? All due respect, Tommy, but I don’t think he likes you very much.”
“No.” Tommy sounded amused. “And he’ll regret how clearly he’s made that opinion known. Watch and learn, Mickey, my boy. Watch and learn.”
Hawkins received both gentlemen at the front door, his face a mask of unflappability. Mickey expected nothing less from the head butler of one of the most distinguished households in England.
“His Grace is not home to visitors at this hour. If you care to leave your card, Mr Squire, I’ll see that he receives it.”
More likely throw it out with the privy slops, thought Mickey. Tommy visited this house thrice weekly, and the bugger still acted as though he was nothing but a merchant caller chancing his luck.
“Splendid,” answered Tommy with the confident good cheer of a man who had His Grace asleep in his bed and traces of his seed still up his arse.
“Because it isn’t His Grace I’m here to see.
” He took a step forward, using the toe of his boot to ensure the door stayed propped open.
“If you could spare us a minute of your time.” When Hawkins didn’t budge, he added, “Unless you want this household’s dirty laundry aired on the front doorstep? ”
No one ever came calling at sunrise unless they had reason, and the reason, more often than not, was unwelcome. Evidently having reached this conclusion, Hawkins allowed them entry as far as the cavernous hallway. With a curt nod, he dismissed a hovering footman.
“Say your piece, Mr Squire, and be on your way.”
Tommy’s cool blue gaze raked over the ageing butler. “Seven years and three months ago, Hawkins, you took a period of leave from your duties due to poor health. A troublesome kidney stone was diagnosed. Is my information correct?”
Hawkins stiffened. “Grubbing around in other people’s business, Mr Squire, is an unusual way of passing the time.”
“Fruitful though.” Tommy’s smile didn’t extend to his eyes. “I understand the current duke’s father generously covered the cost of your physician’s bills, seeing as your family had been in his employ for half a century or more.”
“His Grace, rest his soul, rewarded faithfulness in much the manner of the present duke. What of it?”
Tommy brushed a mote of dust from his black kidskin gloves. “Except, Hawkins, you didn’t have kidney stones, did you? You took the duke’s money and used it to pay your feckless son’s debts, didn’t you? Of which both the previous duke and the current one remain blissfully unaware.”
Tommy paused, letting his revelations settle between them. Hawkins’s small, faded eyes flicked instinctively towards the door, towards the exit, towards escape.
“I doubt His Grace would dismiss you,” Tommy continued—soft, calm, but razor-sharp, “should this tawdry little story reach his ears. He’s far too generous for his own good, and you have served his family long and devotedly.
But…” Again, he lingered. “His Grace’s good regard is so very, very important to you, is it not, Mr Hawkins?
I can only imagine how one would hate to…
to have that tainted, at the end of such an illustrious half century of service. ”
“How do you know this?” Hawkins hissed, eyes darting to the servants’ staircase. Tommy laughed as if the answer was obvious, and Mickey almost felt sorry for the miserable old bugger. All this on his well-polished doorstep and most likely before he’d even had chance of a spot of breakfast.
“It’s my duty to know,” Tommy explained, which wasn’t an answer at all.
No surprise to Mickey; rule number one for hoarders of secrets: never reveal your sources.
Mickey had learned that in his first week at Squire’s.
“Suffice to say that I, too, live purely to serve the duke. One could go as far as to say you and I are on the same side, Mr Hawkins. I take special interest in anything pertaining to him and shall oblige that man’s desire for privacy and propriety in all matters until I draw my last breath.
” Like a snake lazily unwinding, he took a casual step closer to Hawkins. “I trust we understand each other?”
“I understand I want you and your no-good friend out of this house,” Hawkins hissed.
“And we’ll leave when you’ve given us what we came for.” Tommy turned to Mickey. “Shouldn’t take long, not now we understand each other. Fire away, Mr Maurice.”
*
CRAVEN SELF-REGARD generally won over loyalty, Mickey decided, as they tripped down the grand steps and headed back to Squire’s.
The truth of that fateful shooting party had slipped from Hawkins’s wrinkly lips faster than butter sliding from a hot skillet.
Talybridge had, indeed, been present that weekend, as had his father.
As to whether the marquess was with the indomitable duchess, making the beast with two backs, Hawkins wouldn’t commit.
It could have been the marquess’s father, Mickey supposed, but either way, the parure popping up around the pretty neck of Talybridge’s betrothed was far too much of a coincidence to ignore.
“Do you truly think he might have killed her too?” Mickey asked Tommy.
Tommy shrugged. “Possibly. If one is capable of stealing a priceless parure, then one is also capable of murder. Perhaps the murder came first and, to cover their tracks, he or his father hoped it would look like a robbery gone wrong. After all, the Talybridge’s have never been short on blunt.
None of them have ever needed to steal anything. ”
“Murder committed by the servant who Hawkins said found her dead?” Mickey didn’t care for that version of events.
Grandmama’s lifeless body, according to Hawkins, had been discovered by a young footman—a chap called Roberts—who mysteriously vanished soon after.
“Convenient for the Talybridges, wouldn’t you say? ”
“Very.” Tommy nodded. “And it doesn’t explain how Talybridge has ended up with the parure.
According to Hawkins, young Roberts wouldn’t have said boo to a goose, let alone kill his employer’s wife and run off with her jewellery.
More likely, he scarpered because he’d been petrified that the true killer thought he’d seen too much and that he’d be next. ”
“Maybe Roberts did see too much,” Mickey suggested, staring out of the smeary carriage window. “Maybe he was also killed and his body hidden somewhere that wasn’t the lake.”
They trotted along quietly for a while. It was all speculation, but Mickey thoroughly enjoyed himself anyhow.
“If this Roberts saw too much and escaped alive,” Tommy said at last, “then he’s fortunate the duke wanted the whole thing kept hush-hush.
There would have been a manhunt for him, and he’d have swung from the gibbet whether he committed the crime or not—what with being a lowly servant.
His humble word against a highfalutin marquess, and all that. ”
Mickey pondered for a second. “Unless the old duke didn’t initiate a manhunt because he knew his servant, Roberts, wasn’t the killer.”
“That’s a possibility too,” said Tommy as they stalled on Piccadilly.
“If Grandpapa was anything like the current duke, then that’s exactly how he’d have behaved.
My Ashington would never allow a servant to take the blame for a crime he hadn’t committed, even if the true culprit could never be proven.
Yes.” Tommy nodded again. “More likely, this footman, Roberts, had nothing to do with it. Simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. And I think that’s what Hawkins was hinting at, don’t you? ”
“Yes, though he didn’t come out and say it directly.
So, a lover’s tiff? Talybridge or his father shot Grandmama in the heat of the moment?
” Mickey played it through in his mind. “What if, earlier in the day, Ashington’s grandfather discovered them in flagrante and called for a duel, then purposely missed?
Even though he escaped with his life, it would have still humiliated Talybridge—father or son—and the shooting of Grandmama could have been an act of revenge.
Why not add in the theft of the parure too? ”
So busy speculating, they had already reached the stable block to the rear of Squire’s, hardly noticing the journey had ended.
“I doubt we’ll ever know for sure,” mused Tommy.
“No.” Mickey brought the phaeton to a halt. “Except that now the parure has appeared around Miss Amelia Chesterton’s swanlike neck and in her shell-like ears, a disappearing servant thieving it can definitely be ruled out. Which puts the Talybridge’s squarely in the frame.”
“And, on that note, I must break the news to Benedict and Fitzsimmons. Wish me luck.”