“There is much in what you say,” Willerton-Forbes said, watching him steadily. “Mr Ellsworthy has exercised our minds for some time, for he is one of only three survivors of the foundering of the Brig Minerva, and therefore he is a person of some importance to us, concerned as we are with all those who boarded the ship that day in Dublin. He is a man of obvious respectability, with some education. A clerk, he said, who was bound for Southampton to obtain work with one of the ship owners there. He was on deck when the Minerva sank, and was washed ashore, half-dead, to be aided by a local family. And there he has stayed, becoming secretary to a local gentleman. His details, such as were known, were reported to the inquiry into the sinking, although Mr Ellsworthy himself was not called upon to speak, having no memory of the event.”
“He was grievously injured, too,” Captain Edgerton said.
“So he was, so he was,” Willerton-Forbes said. “A badly broken leg, as I recall. Lucky to be alive, no doubt, and confined to his bed for some considerable time. It was three months before we ourselves were able to speak to him. But still, as we pursued our enquiries regarding the Minerva, Mr Ellsworthy was… an irritant, shall we say. A loose thread that could not be reconciled. Your brother regarded him as a friend, seemingly, and he stayed at the home of the Earl of Kilrannan in Dublin, just as His Grace did. And when the Minerva sailed, they were both aboard. Yet before those few days in Dublin, we could find no trace of Jonathan Ellsworthy, not in Ireland, nor in the New World, nor in Carlisle, where he claimed to have been raised. Mr Ellsworthy appeared, fully formed, in Dublin at the same time as your brother.”
“I cannot see why it matters,” Ran said restlessly. “A man may call himself whatever he wishes, if he has no foul purpose in mind.”
“Precisely so,” Willerton-Forbes said. “The possibility of a foul purpose is what bothered us, especially so when combined with the unexpected sinking of the ship and the presence on board of a duke. One begins to wonder…”
“You think the ship was sunk deliberately?” Ran said sharply. “Surely not!”
“It is a possibility that cannot be discounted,” Willerton-Forbes said. “However, although many people benefited unexpectedly from the deaths aboard the Minerva, it is hard to see how it might have been accomplished, and the principal beneficiary of the late duke’s death — yourself, Your Grace — has been so demonstrably reluctant to assume his mantle that the idea could not be sustained. Even so, Mr Ellsworthy was, as I mentioned, an irritant. I dislike mysteries, Your Grace, and Captain Edgerton is indefatigable in pursuing them. With the aid of Mr Neate, whose unassuming demeanour permits him access to a great deal of information of an unofficial nature, he pursued his enquiries in Carlisle, in Ireland and even in America. But we had a piece of good fortune. The generosity of the Benefactor had the not unexpected result of a great many letters written to us. Most, of course, claimed to have a relative aboard the Minerva, hoping for a share of the bounty being handed out, and most were obviously fraudulent. Because of that, we were, I fear, rather lax about investigating them. But when our attention was drawn to them, there was one of particular interest. A lady wrote to us from Carlisle — a place which immediately drew our notice, as you may suppose — of her brother, one Nigel Pike. He had grown up in an orphanage in Carlisle, from which place, after some pecuniary difficulties, he departed for America where he found employment as an actor with a travelling troop of players. This Mr Pike had written to his sister from Dublin to say that he would be aboard the Minerva. We could find no trace of Mr Pike in Ireland, or on the crossing from America, but our enquiries in America elicited the information that he had vanished from view some two… no, three years ago, now. And so it was that we found ourselves with a man, Nigel Pike, who grew up in Carlisle, went to America and then vanished, and another man, Jonathan Ellsworthy, who appeared from nowhere in Ireland. Do you see how satisfactory this is?”
Ran, who had long since lost interest in Pike and Ellsworthy and Willerton-Forbes’ mysteries, made some non-committal noises.
“And so you will readily understand, Your Grace,” Willerton-Forbes continued imperturbably, “why we are so curious about your little mystery.”
“My mystery? There is nothing mysterious about me, or my circumstances.”
Willerton-Forbes leaned back in his chair with a smug smile, steepling his fingers. “Permit me to disagree, Your Grace. It seems to me, as an outsider, that you took a great deal of time to come to terms with your brother’s death and accept the dukedom that is now yours. Now, there may be nothing but caution in that, but one does wonder a little if there might have been something more to it.”
“There was indeed caution, but necessarily so,” Ran said. “My brother was in America for three years, and there was always the possibility that he married during that time and fathered a child. I had to be sure that was not so before claiming the title.”
“Very true, very true. Even so, there might perhaps be some other concern in your mind? After all, with a sudden and unexpected death, a hasty identification under distressing circumstances… it might very well cross your mind that, despite everything, a mistake may have been made and—?”
“There was no mistake,” Ran said hotly. “Mr Willerton-Forbes, I would give everything I have, even my very life, if there were the least chance that my brother were still alive. But there is none. I saw his body, remember, and I could not be mistaken in what I saw.”
Willerton-Forbes coughed gently. “There was some… disfigurement, I understand? As a result of the way the ship was dragged into shallow water so that recovery might be made.”
“Yes, his face was… was battered, it is true, but everything else was as it should be… his slight frame, the colour of his hair… and he wore my brother’s linen embroidered with his crest, and carried his watch and seal. There was one other identifying feature, too, about which I could not be mistaken. Ger bore a small birthmark on the back of his neck, just above the hair line. It was quite distinctive. I looked for that and found it, exactly where it should be.”
“Ah,” Willerton-Forbes said. “Then there is no possibility of doubt. I am glad of it.”
“No, there is no doubt.”
Ran got up and walked restlessly to the window. This room looked down into the courtyard between the two main wings of the building. The fountain was not playing today, for the river was low, and the flowerbeds were still a wintry brown, but in the summer these gardens were filled with colour, a mass of birds and butterflies and humming bees flitting about. It had been his mother’s favourite place, and the only part of the gardens allowed to be full to bursting with flowers. Everywhere else was neat green hedges and topiary and carefully contrived regularity, but this spot was a joyous riot of colour.
He sighed, for his mother had been dead for many years now, and it was not like him to be maudlin. Still, there was a part of the past that must be told before it could be laid to rest.
“When we were boys,” he said slowly, turning to face his visitors, “the future dukedom weighed heavily on my brother. He felt himself unsuited to the rôle and wished with all his heart that it should not be his. It is a strange thing to be a twin. Twenty minutes separated our births, such a trivial amount of time… that was the difference between us. He, the elder, was destined to inherit a great title and unimaginable wealth. I, the younger, had a noble lineage and a courtesy title but nothing else. Not a penny piece was mine, unless my father or my brother willed it. He would live his whole life in luxury while I would have to earn my bread, or live on charity. And all because of that twenty minutes. Ger wished that it could be otherwise, that I could be the duke while he lived in relative obscurity, for I never feared it as he did. He thought I was better suited to high rank than he was, and although I disagreed with him, the notion never left him. If the law had permitted him to surrender all claim to the title, he would have done it without a second thought. ‘The King may abdicate, if he will, so why should not I?’ he used to say. B
ut since all legal avenues were closed to him, he considered all manner of other ways to achieve his aim. He would find a way to pretend to die, he said, so that I should inherit. His schemes were increasingly ingenious, for he realised that in order for a duke to be declared dead, there would have to be a body. A Mr Smith of Nowhere could vanish and be declared dead, in time, but the heir to a dukedom could not. There had to be a body, and the body would have to be identified as his. How was that to be done? And in time he came to see that it was impossible, for how else was he to find a body except to murder someone? And then I would have to identify that stranger’s body as Ger. And so the idea was dropped.”
“But when you heard that the Minerva was lost, you must have wondered?” Captain Edgerton said.
“I wondered, yes. Perhaps, somehow, Ger had succeeded in his crazy scheme. Perhaps, in some unfathomable way, he had contrived a body who was thought to be him. All I had to do was to identify the body as Ger, and he would be free! He could live his life as he wished, without the terrible weight of his inheritance dragging him down. So even as I travelled to Cornwall and waited there for the local fishermen to recover the bodies from the Minerva, some little gleam of hope at the back of my mind would not be repressed. I so badly wanted Ger to be free… to be happy.”
He paused, and there was silence in the room, apart from a slight shifting of the coals in the fireplace.
“But it was not so, gentlemen. I examined that body very carefully, and looked for the birthmark as the final proof. And there it was. No other could have had such a mark in such a place, and, together with the clothing and other articles, there can be no doubt. No doubt at all. None whatsoever.”
Now the silence was even more profound.
It was Mr Neate who spoke, the first words he had uttered after entering the room. “And yet you do doubt. Don’t you?”
Ran gave him a wintry smile. “What makes you think so, sir, when I have explained so very clearly why I do not?”
Neate looked him in the eye, unafraid. “I am not clever, like Mr Willerton-Forbes, or brave, like Captain Edgerton. But I am observant. My job is to sit in tap rooms and chop houses and listen. I talk to ostlers and valets and chambermaids, and try to work out who’s telling the truth and who’s telling part of the truth, and who’s outright lying. So I’m very good at noticing faces and voices and the little habits people have that show when they’re not telling the whole truth. Like rubbing the nose, as you’ve done several times now. And you’ve explained at great length why your brother must be dead — far greater length than we needed to hear. Almost as if you’re trying to convince yourself, sir. Your Grace.”
Ran studied him, trying to decide whether dislike or admiration was uppermost in his mind. Admiration, he decided. It was subtle, very subtle. He laughed, and went to a drawer in the desk. Opening it, he pulled out a ring.
“This was Ger’s signet ring, the heir’s ring. It has the word ‘Beckhampton’ engraved on it, for that was Ger’s courtesy title — the Marquess of Beckhampton. It was worn by all the heirs in adulthood, so it is a standard size. Most of them wore it on the little finger, as I wear my less exalted ring. But Ger had delicate hands with very slender fingers. He always wore this ring on the middle finger. When Ger’s body was dragged from beneath the waves, he wore this ring — but not on the middle finger, where it ought to be. It was on the little finger. Such a tiny detail, yet it niggles at me. Why? Had his fingers swollen so much? Or is there the remotest possibility those were not Ger’s fingers at all?”
“A tiny detail, indeed,” Willerton-Forbes said in satisfaction. “So let us see if we can set your mind at rest. Amongst all our talks with survivors and relations of those who died aboard the Minerva, there were many references to the Duke of Falconbury on that last, fateful journey. Let us go back to London and gather all our notes for you, and we will see if we can find some other tiny details to set beside this one.”
“Tiny details are the very best kind,” Captain Edgerton said with satisfaction.
“And yet to imagine some meaning to this is nonsensical, Ran!” Max cried. “A drowned man’s fingers swell, do they not?”
“I was assured that nothing at all had been touched, that Ger’s body was just as it was found,” Ran said. “Therefore that ring was on the wrong finger before he drowned.”
“Then perhaps his fingers had grown swollen for some reason during his sojourn in America,” Max said. “The different food, different habits… you refine upon nothing!”
“Perhaps nothing, or perhaps something,” Captain Edgerton said, eyes gleaming. “It is intriguing, though, is it not?”
“No, it is not!” Max said with force. “Let the dead lie, Ran. It does no good to dig around in these stupid trivialities. Ger is gone, swollen fingers or not.”
“I know,” Ran said. “Truly, my friend, I know he is dead, for have I not seen his body? Have I not with my own eyes seen the proof of it, in that birthmark? I know that he lies in the Litherholm mausoleum, that he will never play the pianoforte again, will never race me across the Stony Field on that brute of a stallion of his, will never cuff me on the shoulder the way he used to. I know that. But the ring… however trivial it may be, it bothers me, and if Mr Willerton-Forbes and Captain Edgerton and Mr Neate can find an answer to that puzzle, I shall indeed be grateful to them.”
5: A Betrothal
Ran took the smallest of the travelling carriages to Mallowfleet. It was only in Berkshire, the next county, a distance of under fifty miles on good roads, and he saw no need to take anyone but the coachman and groom, and his valet, Giggs. A single box contained adequate changes of clothing for the five days he was expected to stay. He had been instructed, in the politest possible terms, to present himself two days before the Grand Ball, and obediently he did so.
He beguiled the journey by considering how soon he would be able to make his offer to Ruth. Tomorrow, perhaps. Yes, that would be best. He might even have an opportunity to speak privately to the duke that evening, and could then request an interview with Ruth tomorrow. The offer itself had not much occupied his thoughts, for there was little enough to be said. No need to enumerate the advantages of the match, not to Ruth. But what should he say of his own feelings? That was more problematical. He could say, perhaps, that he held her in the highest esteem… no, that was too cold. The highest regard, perhaps. Then he would express his hope that he would be able to make her happy, as she deserved. Yes, as she deserved. He could never be the husband she had wanted and waited for, but he could be the second best. What did the marriage service say? Wilt thou comfort her? He hoped he could do that.
He arrived to find a much larger entourage already drawn up outside the mellow red brick façade of the manor house. Four carriages of various sizes were in the process of disgorging their occupants as outriders dismounted, grooms ran here and there, and a positive army of footmen unloaded boxes, bags and packages. Recognising the insignia of the Duke of Camberley ahead of him, and there being a steady drizzle falling, he settled down to wait his turn to drive under the porte-cochère.
The butler must have been on the watch for him, however, for he rushed out with an umbrella.
“Your Grace! Your Grace! Do enter at once, for His Grace is awaiting you in the library. Pray permit me to offer you my arm, Your Grace.”
Ran refused the arm but was glad of the umbrella, reaching the porte-cochère almost completely dry. Stepping around the mountains of baggage deposited there, he allowed the butler to usher him into the house. Ahead of him, the great hall was filled with female chatter, and the swirl of fashionable coats.
“Do come this way, Your Grace,” murmured the butler, lifting a velvet curtain to reveal a hidden door. “Let me take you at once to His Grace.”
The door opened onto narrow stairs, not service stairs, for they were carpeted, with pictures hung at intervals. A private way to the family chambers, he guessed. On the first floor, a footman waited, who relieved Ran of his greatcoat,
hat and gloves. He was to be taken at once to the Duke of Orrisdale, then. He was too polite to object to such an arrangement, but he felt that it was a little abrupt. But perhaps the duke had some of his brothers with him, and merely wished to introduce Ran. It could not be a private interview, could it? Not so soon, when he had only just set foot in the house.
Ran was led along a dark passageway, past many doors. Mallowfleet was a venerable building, but the old-fashioned wood panels gave it a gloomy air. Throwing open a door identical to every other, the butler intoned portentously, “His Grace the Duke of Falconbury, Your Grace.”
The duke was alone. “Ah, Falconbury, there you are! Been expecting you this last hour or more. What kept you?”
“I came by easy stages to save the horses,” Ran said, bowing punctiliously.
“No need for that, you know. Could have sent teams ahead. Not short of the readies, are you?”
Ran laughed. “Not at all, but I have never been one for show, sir.”
“True enough, true enough.” The duke ran his eye over Ran’s coat, which was fashionable without being ostentatious. “Different now, of course, given your rank, and once you are married… Not had second thoughts about that, then?”
That was very much to the point. Ran was not at all happy with such plain speaking, but he said only, “Not in the least, sir.”
“Good, good. Well, no point waiting, is there? Shall we have Ruthie in and get the business over with?”
So that was how it was to be. Ran raised an eyebrow, but felt unable to cavil at it. This, after all, was what he was here for. “By all means.”
The duke called for the butler, who had obviously been waiting outside the door, for he appeared instantly.
The Duke (Silver Linings Mysteries Book 6) Page 5