A Sinister Establishment

by Lynn Messina

  “Actually, I imagine he picks up a good deal of business by advancing gamblers the blunt to settle their debts,” Kesgrave said.

  “Well, then, that is a dead end, is it not.”

  Bea continued to look through the book but found nothing else of interest.

  “I have the account ledger,” he announced, “with the running balances of all the depositors. It appears to be in order. I recognize a few names, which seems like an unacceptable breach in courtesy.”

  She put the book of expenses back into the cabinet and, turning her attention to the bottom shelf, withdrew a folder. It contained loan applications that had been approved. “How much time is left?”

  “Four minutes, three to be safe,” he said.

  “If he returns sooner, you can stare down your nose at him and announce that you will take your fifty thousand pounds to a bank that allows you to peruse its private documents,” she said.

  “I suspect even Mayhew’s sycophancy has its limits,” Kesgrave said, laughing. “I have one more book here and another stack of documents.”

  “Very good,” she said and instantly reconsidered when she realized they had few chances left to find something genuinely incriminating. Other than overcharging his own clerks for sugar, Mr. Mayhew seemed to run a circumspect business. She opened the last ledger and noted it was a record of his employees. Reading through the first column on the opening page, she immediately noticed something amiss.

  “Mr. Réjane is here,” she said softly.

  Not comprehending, Kesgrave darted a confused glance up.

  “His salary,” she explained, “is included in the employee ledger. I think Mr. Mayhew paid him with the bank’s money. It is irregular, is it not?”

  Again, the duke could not agree. He owned it was not ideal, but as with the membership to the gentlemen’s clubs, it could reasonably be described as a business expense. “He uses exquisite dinners to draw in new clients.”

  Bea thought that if she were one of Mr. Mayhew’s brothers, she would object to his drawing from the bank’s account to bear the expense of his servants, but it was not the sort of revelation one slew another man to conceal.

  Disappointed, Bea turned the page, quickly skimming the names. There was Herbert, who had brought the tea, and Squires, the clerk who had greeted them as soon they had entered.

  Now this is interesting, she thought, encountering Parsons’s name. She allowed that Mr. Réjane could be categorized as a business expense in a roundabout way, but making the same argument for the butler would require far too many contortions. And he was compensated at a markedly smaller rate than the grand chef. Was the butler aware of the pay disparity? If he was, he must have found it so insufferably intolerable that this man who had endangered his own livelihood drew such a comfortable living he did not have to worry about insecurity himself.

  Insufferable enough for murder?

  She flipped the page.

  “We must put everything back,” Kesgrave said. “Ten minutes have passed and I am sure he will return presently.”

  Bea agreed, for it felt to her as if she had been rummaging through the cabinet for considerably longer than a mere ten minutes, but she nevertheless lingered over the employer ledger. It was the most promising document she had examined all afternoon.

  Kesgrave closed the cabinet door and began fiddling with the latch to lock it again. “Bea!” he said somewhat more forcefully.

  “Yes, yes,” she said, her eyes racing down the page as she read name after name. It was surprising to her how many men it took to run a banking concern. And so many clerks: George Anson, William Hawes, Michael Parnell, Alan Bayne, Charles Watson.

  Hold on a moment: Alan Bayne?

  “Bea!” Kesgrave breathed urgently.

  With no time left, she tore the page out of the book, folded it haphazardly and, having no other recourse, thrust it into her bodice. Then she shoved the ledger back into the cabinet and tossed the pile of documents, now chaotically disordered, on top. She slammed the cabinet door shut and with Kesgrave nipping at her heels, dashed back to her chair.

  They had barely regained their seats when the door opened and Mr. Mayhew entered followed by Herbert with a silver tray bearing the requested items. Carefully, he settled the salver on the table, lifted the plate piled with macarons and held it out for Bea’s selection. Although she’d asked for the pastry only out of expedience, she found herself genuinely hungry after the harried search and chose the top two. Next Herbert handed a glass filled with a rich, burnished copper liquid to Kesgrave, bowed slightly and left the room.

  Mr. Mayhew, having satisfied his clients’ demands, grinned broadly and announced the preliminary papers arranging for the deposit were in order as well and the duke may begin filling out the documents.

  “I have changed my mind,” Kesgrave said as he stood up.

  At this communication, the banker’s smile dimmed and he regarded the duke with apprehension. “You would like something else to drink? A glass of madeira, perhaps? I find arrack is a trifle strong when not made into a punch. Herbert could fetch brandy. Or maybe an ale?”

  “I have no inclination to linger further,” Kesgrave explained, “so you may send the documents to my steward for perusal. Mr. Stephens is knowledgeable and efficient and will handle the matter. Thank you for your time.”

  “Oh, but you can’t…” Mr. Mayhew began but trailed off as he realized it was not in his best interest to tell the Duke of Kesgrave what he could or could not do. He bowed his head deferentially and conceded it was the far more practical plan. “I should have proposed it myself, your grace.”

  In point of fact, he had, and it was, Bea thought, a rather damning indictment of the nobility that he knew neither guest would correct him. Every peer no doubt believed that all the best ideas where his.

  As the duke walked to the door, Bea scooped up the remaining macarons—there were four left—and cradled them delicately in her gloved hands. “Yes, Mayhew, thank you for your time, and I do hope you accept my apology for causing you so much inconvenience.”

  “It is my pleasure to be inconvenienced by you, your grace,” he said smoothly before urging her to do so at any time.

  Bea smiled blandly.

  Inevitably, he insisted on escorting them to their carriage and highlighting the building’s important architectural features, such as the James Payne rotunda, which could not be built today, for its construction was far too complicated and expensive. “It required several hundred men,” he explained.

  Although Bea knew the claim immediately to be false, for she had read several books on architecture, including Colin Campbell’s Vitruvius Britannicus, or The British Architect: Containing the Plan, Elevations, and Section of the Regular Buildings, Both Publick and Private, in Great Britain, with Variety of New Design, she expressed amazement at the towering achievement.

  Mr. Mayhew simpered in delight.

  Delivered to their carriage, they were received by Jenkins, who had accompanied Miss Hyde-Clare on enough outings to know they were rarely innocuous errands.

  “’Tis good to see you unharmed, your grace,” the coachman said cheerfully.

  All it had taken to establish herself with Kesgrave’s groom was getting ruthlessly pummeled in the middle of the Strand, a process she (unfortunately!) could not repeat with the rest of the staff.

  Climbing into the conveyance, she assured him it was good to be unharmed. Then she settled herself comfortably on the cushion and turned her attention to the macarons. When Kesgrave sat on the bench beside her, she held out her hand to offer him one, but he boldly plunged his hand down the front of her dress.

  “In broad daylight, your grace…” she murmured chidingly.

  Undaunted, he smoothly extracted the torn ledger sheet and examined it to see what she’d found so interesting. While she waited for him to spot the anomaly, she nibbled on the pastry.

  It did not take long.

  “He lied about Mr. Bayne,” he said, looking
up from the page.

  Bea nodded. “He lied about Mr. Bayne, who is in fact employed by Mayhew & Co., so he also lied about lying, which, while somewhat confusing, is also extremely suspicious and indicates that there is a terrible, dark secret here after all. Our next step is obvious: We must locate and interview Mr. Bayne to discover why Mr. Mayhew is determined to hide him. If he won’t tell us the truth, then we will coerce it from Mr. Bayne’s associates. Naturally, we will have to return to the bank to conduct the inquiry. As the Duke and Duchess of Kesgrave were quite blatant in their identities, they can neither return so quickly nor show inexplicable interest in a lowly clerk. Mr. and Mrs. Erskine, however, may do so without raising an eyebrow. Do let me hear your Scottish brogue so that I may make suggestions for how to improve it.”

  But he was still examining the sheet and paid her no heed. “Bayne is drawing a very comfortable salary,” he observed. “At two hundred and forty pounds per annum, he can well afford to pay Mayhew’s sugar supplement.”

  Bea nodded because the statement was accurate. Compared with the amount of money some of the other clerks at the bank made, it was an exceedingly generous income and Bayne could easily manage small luxuries like sweetener. But because she had a knack for remembering everything she read, she called up the ledger detailing the bank’s various expenditures and realized Mr. Bayne had not been included among the list of employees who paid the surcharge.

  That list had contained only ten names.

  Possibly, that was because the fourteen out of the twenty-four clerks employed by Mr. Mayhew refused on principle to pay for sugar at their place of work or preferred their tea plain or forewent the pleasure of tea or coffee entirely. It was certainly not unheard of for a man to have ale with breakfast.

  But it was strange, Bea thought, that none of the generously compensated clerks like Bayne stood the lavish expense of the supplement. It was only the ones with parsimonious salaries who contributed: Herbert, for example, who earned just sixty pounds per year. Surely, if anyone was going to forego an indulgence it would be he?

  Considering the great disparity in pay, she leaned over so that she could examine the page her husband held. It was so very curious that only the clerks with the smallest salaries were standing the expense of sugar.

  Too curious.

  “Kesgrave,” she said thoughtfully, “what is the likelihood that not a single one of the fourteen employees who could easily afford the sugar supplement enjoys sugar in his tea?”

  He glanced at her inquisitively, then back down at the sheet of paper as if looking for something in particular. “Highly improbable.”

  “I agree, and yet that it precisely what has happened here,” she said, explaining the discrepancy she had observed. “I cannot believe the figures are legitimate. Something is being misrepresented here.”

  Kesgrave agreed. “Mr. Bayne is in fact fictional.”

  “As are Mr. Keel, Mr. Dore, Mr. Munyard, Mr. Tablin, and the rest of their so-called colleagues,” she said, reading from the list of names. “Mr. Mayhew has invented an entire staff of well-paid clerks and is defrauding the bank for three thousand three hundred and sixty pounds per annum. There it is, your grace, the perfectly reasonable motive we have been looking for. Mr. Réjane’s murder was not any of the things we thought: petty, irrational, spontaneous, revengeful. It was an act carefully planned by a man who knew his livelihood was at stake. If his angry chef managed to send a letter of complaint off to his brothers about a fictional clerk, they would have investigated and almost certainly discovered Bayne in the ledger. His scheme would unravel almost at once. We found it after a haphazard ten-minute search.”

  Although her voice lilted in disgust, she was actually relieved to have discovered a motive that was commensurate with the profound loss of the gifted chef’s talents. At least he had been slain to preserve an avaricious man’s wealth and status, not just his vanity.

  But it had all been for naught, for his brothers would learn the truth anyway.

  “We must go back,” Bea said insistently. “We must confront him with his perfidy at once. There is no time to waste.”

  But Kesgrave disagreed. “At the risk of earning your further contempt for my lack of urgency, I think we should devise a more nuanced plan than barging into his office and hurling accusations at him.”

  As much as she wanted to give a full-throttle defense of her own proposal, she realized the response lacked refinement and decided to hear him out. “Continue.”

  “Knowing why he did it does not prove the case,” he said reasonably. “Cause does not equal guilt, and even if it did, it doesn’t prove it. Mayhew seeks my favor, but he won’t confess to murder to earn it.”

  Having witnessed the banker’s recent obsequious display, Bea was tempted to disagree with that assessment. If some beneficial bargain could be arranged to ensure deposits and status from a cell in Newgate….

  But obviously, no.

  Always delighted to entertain a scheme, she asked him what he had in mind. “Given your recent descent into gothic-style thinking, I have great hopes for something at once byzantine and lurid.”

  He laughed and assured her he was about to disappoint her, then.

  “Not possible!” she said with sincerity—which turned out to be true, for his proposal entailed using the information about Mr. Bayne to trick Mr. Mayhew into confessing. “If hiring an actor to play the clerk did not remind me of Tavistock, I would insist we drive to the Particular at once and enlist Mr. Steagle.”

  “Fortunately, I do not think we will have to go to such lengths,” Kesgrave said. “The specter of him should be sufficient. As loath as you are to bestow your attention on Mayhew, I trust you will make an exception, as I think we will have a greater success if we confront him in his own home.”

  “A drawing room vignette!” she said with deep appreciation for his sense of drama.

  “Precisely.”

  “Very well,” she said, giving her approval of the plan, “but if we are to put on a show, we must invite Marlow, for all of this was done for his benefit.”

  His grace refused to discuss it.

  Chapter Nineteen

  As much as Beatrice wanted to ask the Mayhews to dinner and coerce the banker into revealing his guilt over syllabub, she decided such a course was a little too vindictive. Receiving an invitation to dine at Kesgrave House was among the mushroomy couple’s most ardent desires, and allowing them to believe they had reached the summit of their social ambition mere seconds before pushing them off the peak had an unwanted air of poignancy.

  She could not bring herself to condone the arrangement even though it would have provided Marlow with an opportunity to observe her investigative acumen firsthand.

  Her original plan of bringing the butler with them to number forty-four had also not prospered. Its failure wasn’t due to Kesgrave’s insistence that taking one’s butler on social calls was entirely beyond the pale, even for her. She had heard the argument frequently enough from Aunt Vera—decorum, decorum, decorum—to ignore it easily now. The fact that decapitation was somehow not further beyond the pale denoted the limitations of propriety itself.

  No, what had caused her to change her mind was the realization of how the invitation to the neighbors’ house would appear to Marlow.

  What she had told Kesgrave the day before was true: Her intention in identifying Mr. Réjane’s murderer was to establish herself with the staff. Marlow, casually dismissing her success and skills, had left her no option other than to prove herself.

  He could not know that, of course, and Bea wanted to keep it that way. Insisting he accompany her and the duke to the Mayhews would reveal how much she desired his good opinion.

  Surely, there was no faster way to lose a butler’s esteem than making an effort to acquire it.

  Hours later, while listening to her hostess discuss her and her husband’s imminent plan to visit Paris, Bea thought again of Marlow and smiled as she imagined him trying to maintain th
at calculatingly bland expression in the face of such tedium.

  “It is de rigueur to proclaim oneself averse to foreign travel, for it involves foreigners, whom are so easy to deplore, but I am more enlightened than most. I love seeing new places and acquainting myself with new types of people,” she said, having exhausted the topic of the duchess’s visit to her husband’s banking establishment. Astonishingly, it had taken a full fifteen minutes for her to ascertain her guest’s full opinion of the experience, desiring to hear every thought Bea had ever had about the majestic rotunda, regal statues, noble pediments, stately kiosk, gracious desks.

  And the chair!

  Why, yes, it had been modeled after the throne at Westminster—the very one the king used for his coronation. (“We had tried several other chairs, but with Mr. Mayhew’s regal bearing, nothing else would do. It is, I will admit, a little mortifying to have a husband who is so monarchical.”)

  ’Twas not a direct replica, of course, for that would be sacrilege, but rather a facsimile in the general style.

  “And France is such an interesting country, do you not think?” Mrs. Mayhew asked before eagerly providing the correct answer. “But of course you do, for you are well educated, your grace. Other women might censure your bluestocking behavior, but I think it is wonderful to know things like the height of Canterbury Cathedral and the year the Parthenon was built. Ah, you are wondering if I am interested in classical architecture, and the answer is yes, I will visit Les Invalides and the Hôtel de Sully. But you must not fret that I will be distracted from our purpose, which is to hire a new chef. We will never find anyone as talented as Monsieur Alphonse, but that does not excuse us from making an effort.”