A Measure of Menace (Kat Holloway Mysteries #7.5)

Chapter 10

“ J acoby, a murderer?” Mr. Thanos exclaimed when we sat down together in the housekeeper’s parlor later that evening. He’d left off his spectacles, which made him peer at me. “My, my.”

“Alleged murderer,” Cynthia corrected him. “The police let him go, Mrs. Holloway said.”

Daniel, who’d been perusing the bookshelf’s sparse collection, which included a dictionary, a few of Dickens’s stories, a tome on ancient Rome, and my cookbooks, turned to us. “But it’s interesting that he’s connected to another death, isn’t it?”

A second reason I’d wanted to meet in the housekeeper’s parlor was that I could send for Daniel to join us. Mr. Davis would hardly allow him into the upper floors again without Lord Clifford’s invitation.

Lord Clifford remained in his rooms, refusing to leave them until he knew he was safe from arrest, or so Cynthia told me when she arrived downstairs. Her expression indicated that while she’d long since lost patience with her father, his low spirits made her heart ache.

“Very interesting,” Mr. Thanos agreed with Daniel. “As was what my friends from Lord Clifford’s club told me. Though nothing to do with the murder,” he added quickly to Cynthia.

Cynthia plopped herself on the parlor chair, and I took the hard chair from the writing table so Mr. Thanos and Cynthia could be comfortable. I wished for tea to wet my throat, but I did not want to take the time to run off and brew it.

I left another soft chair for Daniel, but he seemed more fascinated by the reading material.

“Who is having a go at Gibbon?” he asked, studying a fat book’s spine.

“Mr. Davis,” I answered. “He likes the grisly tales of the more lurid Roman emperors.” He’d once regaled me with gruesome details about Caligula until I’d begged him to cease.

“Reading about ancient decadence can make one feel virtuous and sensible,” Daniel said. “I beg your pardon, Thanos. Please, go on with your report.”

Mr. Thanos had taken the chair closest to Cynthia and regarded her unhappily. “I mean no disrespect to your father, Cyn.”

“My dear Elgin, my pa lost his claim to respectability long ago,” Cynthia assured him. “It is his own fault, not yours.”

I liked that the pair addressed each other as Cyn and my dear Elgin . I was so pleased by this that I almost missed Mr. Thanos’s next speech.

“My friends confirm that Lord Clifford departed and returned to the club at the exact times he states,” Mr. Thanos said. “On Saturday evening, at about half past eight, coming in again just after midnight. On Sunday afternoon, at around half past three, again returning after midnight. They also confirm that he was quite inebriated both times he came home.”

“That is my father, yes,” Cynthia said wearily, as I scribbled this information into my notebook. “I doubt he feigned it.”

“But only drunk,” Mr. Thanos continued. “Not frightened or guilty or splashed with blood or anything. One of my friends greeted him as he stumbled in on Sunday night, then fetched one of the footmen to help him upstairs to bed. He saw nothing odd in Lord Clifford’s behavior. He’d observed such many times before.” Mr. Thanos flushed.

“As have I,” Cynthia assured him. “I wish he could remember exactly where he wandered about. That would help his case enormously.”

“My friends also observed a visit from Mr. Dougherty,” Mr. Thanos resumed. “The exchange became heated, they said. My friends are not talkative gentlemen, and any animated conversation alarms them. They worried they’d have to summon the doorman to have them turned out.”

Lord Clifford hadn’t mentioned this. I turned back a few pages in my notebook and consulted my jottings of Lord Clifford’s story.

“He told us he met Mr. Jacoby and Mr. Dougherty at a restaurant,” I said. “On Saturday evening. I assume that is where they paid Mr. Dougherty the money they told him was a return on his investment. I thought Mr. Dougherty was so pleased by the funds he decided he’d bank them and cease with the speculation.”

Mr. Thanos nodded. “This was on Sunday afternoon. About two, my chums think. Just after luncheon, anyway. Mr. Dougherty paid a visit on his own.”

“Did he, indeed?” Lord Clifford had not mentioned this either.

“Yes. I beg your pardon if I was unclear.”

It was not Mr. Thanos I was annoyed with. “What were they arguing about? And why didn’t Lord Clifford tell us about this?”

“Presumably because he did not Constable Wallace to know,” Cynthia said in exasperation. “But why didn’t he tell us ?”

Exactly my question.

“My friends could not say what they quarreled over,” Mr. Thanos continued apologetically. “They didn’t hear specific words, only raised voices and Lord Clifford cursing roundly.”

“Then it was about money,” Cynthia said. “Mark my words. I will wager that dear Papa summoned Mr. Dougherty to the club on his own to beg him to continue investing, so Papa could recoup his losses. Mr. Dougherty must not have been the soft mark Papa thought he was, and so Papa lost his temper. This is not a mad guess on my part—it has happened before. Papa has never learned how to gracefully bow out if a mark won’t take the bait.” She peered at me in sudden consternation. “Mrs. H.? Are you well?”

I had frozen, my pencil stiff in my fingers. Realizations washed over me, both enlightening me and making me feel a complete fool.

“We’ve been looking at this the wrong way around,” I said, my voice cracking. “Cynthia, do you think I could speak to your father? Immediately, I mean?”

Cynthia’s brows climbed, though whether from my request or because I’d called her by her given name without any honorific in front of it, I could not say. When I was agitated, I sometimes forgot social rules.

“I believe he’d talk to you,” Cynthia said. “Why? What are you pondering?”

“I want to ask him before I tell you my speculations. I might be completely wrong.” I jumped to my feet, thrusting my notebook and pencil into my apron pocket.

I rushed to the door, which was opened by Daniel, who’d come to my side as soon as I’d stood.

He and Mr. Thanos did not try to follow as Cynthia and I swept out of the parlor and made for the stairs. They tacitly understood that Lord Clifford might grow alarmed if we all descended up on him, and I was grateful for that understanding.

Cynthia and I went up into a quiet house, no one in sight. The staff must all be in the servants’ hall, or some already retired for the night. I hadn’t seen either Mrs. Redfern or Mr. Davis as we’d hastened to the backstairs, but the two of them sometimes holed up in Mr. Davis’s butler’s pantry when the family was away. They’d sample the wines, to make certain they were good enough to serve at table, of course.

Cynthia had no qualms about marching to her father’s bedchamber on the second floor and hammering on the door.

“Papa? Make sure you are covered. I am coming in, and I have Mrs. Holloway with me.”

I heard Lord Clifford squeak something, and then Cynthia pushed her way inside. Lord Clifford had not locked his door, but I had the feeling a flimsy lock would not keep out Cynthia when she was this angry.

Fortunately, Lord Clifford was not abed or even undressed. He sat at a writing desk, pen in hand. He shoved whatever he’d been working on under another piece of paper and scrambled to his feet as his daughter stormed inside. I followed more quietly.

“What is it?” Lord Clifford’s exhausted and sad tones stirred my sympathy. “I wish to be left alone.”

“Why did Mr. Dougherty visit you at your club on Sunday?” Cynthia demanded. “Were you touching him for money?”

Lord Clifford flushed, but he lifted his chin. “Of course, I was. Jacoby let him go too easily. I thought I could convince Dougherty to put in another investment, but he proved uncommonly stubborn. Some wealthy blokes are. Dougherty is so tight-fisted his fingers must cramp. He wouldn’t budge, damn the man. I thought I’d try again that night, but as I say, his man turned me from his door.”

“Your lordship,” I said before Cynthia could continue any remonstrations. “What does Mr. Dougherty look like?”

“Eh?” Lord Clifford blinked at me, as though just becoming aware of my presence, then he shrugged. “Ordinary. Pretentious man of the City, who’s made so much money—or his father did and left the business to him—that he forgets about those in straightened circumstances. Doesn’t care, really. He made his twenty thousand pounds and left me in the hole.”

“Can you describe him exactly, please?” I slid out my notebook, hoping my pragmatic gesture would cut through his dramatics.

“Ah. Yes, well. Tall, I suppose. A bit taller than I am. Tidy. Everything combed and groomed. Dark hair going to gray. Full beard kept overly tamed?—”

“Bushy eyebrows?” I broke in. “Stare like polished steel? Rather rude manner to anyone he feels is beneath him?”

“Yes.” Lord Clifford regarded me in bewilderment. “That’s the chap exactly. How do you know?”

I snapped the notebook shut—I hadn’t been writing in it anyway. “Because Mr. McAdam and I saw him today. He was coming out of Mr. Jacoby’s establishment.”

I’d seen writing on the piece of paper he’d dropped that Grace had handed back to him, but at the time, I’d been too concerned for Grace to realize what I’d noticed. It had been a receipt with some number on it, and I’d also made out a few words that looked like Shires, Ea ? —.

Reginald Shires, Earl of Clifford.

Why should Mr. Dougherty have a receipt or whatever it was, with Lord Clifford’s name on it? I had no idea what the paper was about, but it plus the fact that he’d emerged from Mr. Jacoby’s place of business formed a stronger a connection between the two men.

“That is why I said we were looking at things the wrong way around,” I went on. “You and Jacoby weren’t swindling Mr. Dougherty, your lordship. I believe both Jacoby and Dougherty were swindling you . They must have been in league with each other. It was one of them who suggested you consult Mr. Mobley for your share of the funds, wasn’t it?”