He grinned as he shoved a piece of toast into his mouth. “Something like that.”
CHAPTER 8
The ride to the George Inn was a tense and silent one, Miss Oswald being occupied with fidgeting anxiously in her seat and glancing out the window, and Captain Hartley being occupied with scowling at Miss Oswald, whom he obviously still regarded with suspicion. Lily was grateful, because the silence meant that neither of her companions asked how she meant to gain access to poor Mr. Finch’s room.
It seemed safe to assume that the proprietor would not simply allow strangers into a guest’s rooms, no matter that the guest in question had not been seen for nearly two full days. She hoped she would come up with some idea once they got there—preferably more than one, in case the first did not work—but so far nothing had occurred to her.
She needn’t have worried. As soon as they arrived, Jack directed their driver to pull the carriage around the back of the building and to wait with the two women while he went inside. “And you might want to pull your veils down, both of you,” he added as he hopped out. “No sense letting everyone in here see your faces.” He gave Lily a sideways look as he did so, still disapproving of the scheme. But he did not argue or try to talk her out of it, for which she was grateful.
“Are we going to do something illegal?” Miss Oswald asked, watching Jack disappear through the tradesman’s door.
“Is it legal to enter a man’s lodgings and search his things?” Lily asked, drawing the veil of her hat down as Jack had suggested.
“I very much doubt it.”
“Then yes, we are.”
“Oh.” Miss Oswald looked uncertain, then shrugged. “Well, I suppose we haven’t any other option.” She pulled her own veil down as well.
In spite of her anxiety, Lily smiled. She was liking the girl more by the minute.
It didn’t take long for Jack to return, the collar of his driving coat turned up as high as it would go and his hat shadowing his face. He spoke to the driver briefly, then opened the carriage door. “Inside, quickly.”
Much as Lily disliked not knowing what was going on, there was a time to insist on information and a time to do what she was told. She motioned Miss Oswald to go ahead before following herself. Jack herded them into the back entrance of the hotel.
The hallway was not empty, which made Lily uneasy. But the servants went about their business, though a couple cast smirking glances in their direction. Behind her veil, Lily frowned, wondering what those looks meant, but she didn’t have a chance to ask. Jack closed the door behind them, then jerked his head toward the stairs.
“Second floor,” he ordered. Miss Oswald obeyed immediately, and Lily, after a moment’s hesitation, did the same. Jack brought up the rear.
There was a nervous-looking maid waiting at the top of the stairs, and she cast an accusing look at Jack as he came up. “I dunno as I should,” she whispered. “If these two are going wiv you—”
“As I said, we simply wish to wait for my friend.” Jack smiled. “I assure you, the gentleman would not object, were he here to ask.”
The maid still looked nervous, but a coin made its way from Jack’s hand to hers, and in the end she shrugged and led the way down the corridor.
Her reaction cast a new light on the smirking looks they had received downstairs. Lily grabbed Jack’s arm. “What did you tell her?” she demanded. “Do you realize she thinks … the people downstairs think I am … and Miss Oswald is …” She couldn’t bring herself to say it.
Jack’s quiet chuckle did nothing to improve her irritation. “There is a reason I told you to put your veils down,” he said, his voice maddeningly calm. “Try not to let it bother you, Mrs. Adler. If they think you are light-skirts, no one will wonder why a gentleman and two unknown women might want visit to another fellow’s rooms.”
He was right, of course, but Lily could not bring herself to say so. She was saved having to come up with a reply when the maid stopped in front of one of the doors. “This is it,” she whispered, fishing through several keys before finding the correct one. She hesitated a moment, and Lily’s stomach lurched with nerves. But Jack leaned in and whispered something that made the maid laugh and shove his shoulder. “Away wiv ye, flatterer,” she said, shaking her head as she handed over the key. Jack winked at her, and there was enough light in the dim hall for Lily to see the shine of money changing hands once again before the girl scurried off down the hall.
Lily resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Is there anyone that you can’t manage to get your way with?” she demanded.
“My mother,” Jack said wryly. “And my older sister. And you, apparently, since here we are.” He unlocked the door and gestured for the two women to go ahead. “I hope it was not presumptuous of me to interfere with your plan to gain access to the room, Mrs. Adler.” His tone was utterly sincere, but there was laughter lurking in the corners of his mouth.
“You know perfectly well I hadn’t one,” Lily said tartly as Jack locked the door behind them to keep anyone from intruding on their search. “You’ll find I am a practical woman, Captain; I am perfectly capable of stepping back and letting others exercise their talents when those talents get me what I want.” Ignoring Jack’s amused snort, she surveyed the room.
It was comfortably, if cheaply, furnished, with a bed, writing desk, tallboy, and dressing table. There were a few possessions scattered across the table—brushes and shaving tackle, an extra cravat—and washing water in a pitcher next to an empty bowl. Clearly a servant had brought it that morning, not knowing that the room’s occupant would not be returning.
“He did not bring much with him,” Lily observed, opening the tallboy. A small part of her was horrified at the cavalier way she was rifling through a dead man’s—a stranger’s!—things, but she ignored such delicate concerns. There was no other way to learn what she needed to know. “A few clothes, a driving coat, an extra pair of boots.” She glanced at Miss Oswald. “He wouldn’t have had a servant with him?”
“No.” The girl shook her head. She still stood by the door, hesitating, nervously fiddling with the buttons on her pelisse. “He never kept one.”
“He did bring a number of books,” Jack said from his corner of the room. “Or bought them once he was here.” He looked up. “It seems your Mr. Finch was a fan of the inestimable Mrs. Radcliffe.”
Miss Oswald smiled sadly and went to join him. “Augustus had a taste for novels. When we were younger he would loan them to me.” Miss Oswald lifted several of the books, murmuring, “I should send them back to his mother.”
Jack let out a low whistle. “He brought something else with him.” He held out a slim object that glinted in the dim light. “Quite a pretty little pistol. Shame he didn’t have it with him when he went to meet the object of his blackmail.”
“He might have.” Miss Oswald took the pistol from a startled Jack, looking it over in a calm, professional manner. “I learned to shoot with this pistol, or one like it.”
“You shoot?” Jack’s eyes narrowed.
“My father taught me,” Miss Oswald murmured, still examining the pistol. “This was part of a set; my father gave them to Augustus for his twentieth birthday. If he brought one, he certainly brought both.” She looked around. “Is there another?”
“Not that I found,” Jack said. “Though there was space for another in the case.”
“One of the gentlemen I overheard had a gun,” Lily said, abandoning the uninteresting contents of the tallboy. “But if it was Mr. Finch’s, how did it happen that he was the one shot?”
“They might have scuffled,” Jack said thoughtfully. “If the other man got control of the weapon and was a competent marksman …”
His gaze lingered on Miss Oswald as he spoke. Lily was about to change the subject, but the girl spoke up first. “Why do you keep staring at me in such a manner, Captain?” she demanded, dropping the pistol down on the bedside table with a clatter. “I realize these are awkward circumstances
under which to meet, but surely you can move past that if Mrs. Adler and I have.”
Lily sighed. “He is not awkward, he is suspicious, I am afraid. He thinks it possible that you shot Mr. Finch.”
Miss Oswald stepped back abruptly. “You cannot be serious.”
“I know Mrs. Adler saw you arguing not long before he was shot.” Jack crossed his arms and scowled at both women. “And you don’t seem particularly distraught at your friend’s death.”
“Of course I am distraught! Why on earth do you think I’m here, trying to find out who killed him?”
“Calmly going through his things, traipsing about in Southwark?” Jack scoffed. “I would guess you even have plans for this evening. Not quite my idea of grief, I must say.”
“What right have you—?” Miss Oswald’s jaw and fists both clenched. “What makes you think you know anything about what I am feeling? Perhaps Augustus and I weren’t close, perhaps I even disliked him this past year when he wouldn’t leave off pursuing me, guilty though that makes me feel now. But that doesn’t mean I killed him.” Her voice rose sharply at the end; she took a deep breath, then said more quietly, “I did not kill him.”
“We’ve discussed this already, and if we need to discuss it again, we shall,” Lily broke in briskly. “But for now, lingering here to argue does not seem like a particularly good idea. Is there anything else noteworthy among his books?”
For a moment Miss Oswald and Jack left off glaring at each other to glare at her. Lily raised her brows and gave a pointed nod toward the door. Miss Oswald gave her eyes an angry swipe and stalked over to the desk, while Jack, with a sigh, bent to the books once more.
“A copy of Brooke’s Guide to the Peerage,” he said, hefting that heavy tome. “A London business directory, a map of the city …”
“All things he might have needed to pursue a course of blackmail against someone here,” Lily said.
“Or to learn his way around,” Jack pointed out. “It’s not conclusive.”
“Nothing helpful here either.” Miss Oswald was sifting through the drawers of the desk.
To Lily’s surprise, Jack grinned. “If you would step aside, ma’am, I might be able to find out what sort of letters your Mr. Finch was writing.”
“There are no letters,” Miss Oswald said, a note of irritation in her voice, though she did what he asked. “Just like Augustus not to leave anything helpful behind!”
“No letters,” Jack murmured, not really listening as he bent to stare at the blotter at eye level. Squinting, he moved his head back and forth.
Lily, as soon as she understood what he was doing, could not help letting out a pleased laugh. “Is there anything there?” she asked, beginning to fish around in the drawers.
“There is.” Jack still squinted sideways at the blotter. “But it is very faint.”
“Then these should help,” she said, handing him the sheet of writing paper and stump of pencil she had found.
Jack grinned as he took them. “You are a treasure, Mrs. Adler.”
“What are you doing?” Miss Oswald demanded, peering around Lily’s shoulder.
“A rubbing,” Lily said as Jack placed the sheet of paper over the blotter and set to with the pencil. “It should—ah, there!” Lily smiled as the faint remains of handwriting, imprinted on the blotter, began to come clear under the sweep of pencil lead. “We should be able to see at least some of whatever he wrote last.”
“As long as the fellow did not write too many letters,” Jack muttered.
“That’s very clever,” Miss Oswald admitted grudgingly, giving Jack a sideways glance. “I should never have thought of such a trick.”
“Freddy taught it to me,” Lily said. “He used it to spy on his elder brother.”
“And I,” Jack said, finishing the rubbing with a flourish of the now-useless pencil, “taught it to him. Excellent way to discover what my sister was writing to her beaux.”
“How beastly of you,” Lily murmured, but she was no longer quite paying attention. Without waiting for permission, she plucked the paper from Jack’s hands and examined it closely, ignoring the captain’s sigh of resignation at having his carefully constructed clue taken from him. “Well, we may conclude from this that he was not a great writer, for there are the traces of only one letter here. And he did not have a heavy hand, because it’s very faint.” Frowning, she added, “That is, assuming that Mr. Finch was indeed the writer of the letter, and not the room’s previous tenant.”
“Let me see it,” Miss Oswald said, holding out her hand. She stared at the paper, then thrust it abruptly back toward Lily with a gasp that sounded like a swallowed sob. “Yes, it is his writing. The stupid boy!” Taking a deep breath, she added, “There’s not much to read, but lay it on the blotter, and we can look it over together. Perhaps one of you will be able to make it out.”
Lily laid a gentle hand on the younger woman’s arm. “Do you need one of us to take you home?”
“No,” Miss Oswald said, her voice firm despite her trembling. “You may yet need me. How else would you have known it was Augustus’s handwriting on the letter? And I’ll not have him”—she jerked her chin toward Jack—“say I am running away. No, I don’t wish to leave. Lay out the letter, and let us take a look.”
This sort of rubbing, Lily knew, depended on how firm a hand the writer used. Unfortunately, Mr. Finch was not a firm writer at all, for in places there was nothing to see. And his hand was such a scrawl that at first she could not make anything out at all. After a moment of frowning at it, though, she caught the trick of his writing and began to read.
Dear Sir,
Though I am cur … tly unkn … n to you, I hope … ence of writing … I am sure th … when … learnt what I know, you will be most grtfl that I have approached … my information to more official channels.
… which I … will be of grt int … est & mutual benefit … certain facts concer … the wa … ffort … activities on the Continent … favor of a meet … so that I may present my offer to you in person—As a sample of my knowledge … firm of Lac … est, & a certain clever method of communication involving …
Pls be ass … provisions for … own well-being … not the only person in possession of these facts … deal directly … the manner I have suggested, rather than attempt … to complic … issue … greater trouble.
I re … in,
Yours &c …
Lily sighed and straightened. “Well, that makes no sense. At least, not yet.”
“Do you think—” Miss Oswald began, then broke off as a noise arose in the corridor and died down just as quickly.
“I think we oughtn’t linger here,” Jack said, rolling the paper up quickly and sticking it in his jacket pocket. “Mrs. Adler?”
“I agree,” Lily said. Twitching her veil down, she added, “I should like to mull things over. Miss Oswald, did you want to return any of your friend’s possessions to his family?”
The young heiress was already gathering up an armful of books and one or two handkerchiefs. “Do you think I could persuade the innkeeper to release the rest of his things to me?” she asked forlornly.
“We can send a servant to inquire in a day or two,” Lily suggested gently. “Once it has become clear that their owner is not returning.”
Miss Oswald nodded, her eyes red but her manner composed. “Then let us leave.”
Jack cracked open the door and, after making certain there was no one there, ushered the girl into the hallway. Lily took a final glance around the room, frowning to herself. Something about the room had struck her as odd—something that was, perhaps, missing or out of place. But she did not have time to think it over; Jack was motioning her to follow, and Miss Oswald had already slipped down the stairs. Lily, shaking her head, put the thought from her mind and hurried to follow.
It was not until much later that she realized what she had noticed: Mr. Finch’s pistol was no longer on the table.
* * *
It t
ook Jack the better part of five minutes, and an additional sixpence, to sneak the two ladies out of the inn without anyone seeing them. But eventually they were ensconced once more in the carriage that had, fortunately, waited for them.
“Shall I tell him to take us to Half Moon Street?” Jack asked.
“No.” Lily laid off her veil and settled back against the seat. “Bond Street, if you please. Or wherever you should like to be dropped off first, Captain.”
“What?” The astonished word burst out of Miss Oswald.
Jack was no less surprised, though he controlled it better. “You intend a shopping trip, Mrs. Adler?”
“Of course.” She frowned at them. “I told Miss Oswald’s aunt that I was taking her shopping. Shopping we clearly must go, and I don’t imagine you will wish to accompany us.”
“The devil I will not,” Jack said. “I’ll not leave you to gallivant unaccompanied around London.” His eyes flickered to Miss Oswald as he spoke. His suspicions, it seemed, had not been set aside.
Lily adjusted a button on one glove to hide her vexation. There was no point in arguing with him; it would only upset Miss Oswald further. Lily did not entirely blame him; she was sure Miss Oswald was still keeping secrets. But Jack was not helping the situation. “Very well, you may accompany us to buy new gloves.”
Sticking his head out, Jack gave instructions to the driver, then settled back, arms crossed and a satisfied expression on his face.
“But this is absurd!” Miss Oswald said, voice raised before she remembered the driver and lowered it. “You said you wanted to mull things over.”
“And I shall,” Lily said firmly. “But however negligent a chaperone your aunt may be, she would hardly believe we spent an entire afternoon shopping and did not return with a single thing. Thus, gloves.”
“Captain, surely you cannot agree!”
“I have recently made it my policy never to argue with Mrs. Adler,” he said with an ironic smile. Lily resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She knew very well that not arguing did not mean agreeing. “It seems she is nearly always right, so argument will only make me look the fool.” He cast his eyes at Lily and added, “Again.”
The Body in the Garden Page 8