by Michelle Cox
Clive held his gaze. “You don’t think it vaguely suspicious that the very night you ask to borrow money, a man turns up dead and robbed of a large amount of cash?”
“This really is the limit, Howard! Don’t play chief inspector with me! All your bloody work with the American police must have addled your brains.”
Foley tried to stare him down, but Clive did not flinch.
“Look, if you must know,” Foley relinquished with an exasperated sigh, “I felt damned ashamed of having to ask you for the money. I took a walk down by the fountain to cool myself down, as it were. Tried to regain some dignity; I do have a shred of pride left, you know,” he said with a grimace. “I couldn’t have been gone more than fifteen minutes! I came back in, then, and joined the card game … in this very room, if you must know!” he said with an air of indignation, though Clive thought he caught a trace of anxiety. “Ask Lord Fairfax!”
“As a matter of fact, I have,” Clive said evenly, watching Foley’s face pale a bit. “Something about your story didn’t ring true. I didn’t recall you being a gambling man, and unless it’s a habit you’ve picked up since the war, which seemed unlikely, I deduced that you must be lying to me. I would have wagered a large amount of money on it,” Clive said wryly. “As it turns out, you haven’t played a game all weekend. Merely watched. So now I’d like to know why you need a thousand pounds from me. I don’t like being lied to.”
Captain Foley let out a deep breath and rubbed his forehead with his hand. Balancing the cue stick in the crook of his arm, he pulled out his silver cigarette case from his front jacket pocket and extracted a cigarette. He lit it and inhaled deeply, blowing smoke out of his nostrils as he gazed remorsefully at Clive.
“Sorry, old boy. You’re right. It’s a not a gambling debt, though I never specifically came right out and said that, merely implied it. Still,” he said, taking another deep drag, “I should have been more forthcoming, though the wretched situation I currently find myself in was a bit of a gamble on my part, you could say. Just turned out wrong.”
“Blackmail?” Clive guessed.
The captain oddly laughed. “In a way, I suppose.”
“Let’s have it, then. The truth this time.”
The captain walked to the rack hanging along the wall and carefully placed his cue stick in the empty spot, taking his time.
“It’s a bit tricky, old man,” he said, looking at the wall.
“Try me.”
Captain Foley turned around slowly and gave a small shrug. “I did gamble. With our upstairs maid, as it is, and now she’s pregnant. Just one of those things, you know. Damned pretty, but, well … It was amusing while it lasted, but then she went and got herself up the duff.”
“And she wants a thousand pounds?” Clive asked incredulously. “To get rid of it?”
“No,” he said regretfully. “If only it were that easy. She’s a damned Catholic. Insists on having it,” he said, rubbing his brow again.
“And she wants you to buy her silence?”
“Not in so many words. I can’t have the upstairs maid walking around pregnant, though. Mother would guess it immediately. I’ve done this sort of thing before, you see, if you must know,” he said and had the grace to actually look ashamed. “Father took care of it, but with the understanding that if I did it again, I’d be cut off and have to take the chips that fell.” He took another drag of his cigarette and walked to the fireplace to knock his ash. “So I’m setting her up. A cottage near her village somewhere in Ireland. A thousand pounds should do it. I agreed to educate the brat when the time comes. Problem is, I don’t have any ready cash at the moment, and now is not the time to ask Father or let it be known about that I need cash, not with my upcoming nuptials to the very refined Rosalyn Edwards.”
“Jesus, Foley! You’ve done it this time,” Clive said, leaning on the billiards table with his arms crossed.
“Quite.”
“Did you not think to marry this girl?” Clive asked.
“Thoroughly unsuitable, old man,” Foley almost laughed. “You should know that!” he said, peering at him through his exhaled smoke.
“Do I?” Clive asked reproachfully.
Foley seemed to recognize his faux pas, then, and fumbled to correct himself. “No offense given, I hope, Howard. Surely.”
His response, however, told Clive all he needed to know. Clearly, it was common knowledge that Henrietta was not originally of the gilded set.
“It’s 1935, Foley,” he said, piqued. “It’s not unheard of.”
“Look, old boy, it’s different in America,” Foley almost whined. “An entirely different thing altogether. And anyway, you’re well set. You can marry whom you wish. Beggars can’t be choosers,” he said bitterly. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. I’m engaged to marry Rosalyn, and I have to go through with it. Even if I weren’t, I wouldn’t marry Ada. We’re not suited. You’re lucky, Howard. Some of us aren’t.”
“I’m not so sure it has anything to do with luck, Foley. Maybe you should stop sleeping with the servants. Seems it’s proving an expensive hobby. Like gambling.”
“I say, Howard, that’s a bit …”
They were interrupted, then, by a faint knock at the door, and Henrietta poked her head in.
“There you are! I’ve been looking everywhere for you!” she said, stepping into the room now. “Oh, Captain Foley, forgive me. But I …”
“Henrietta! This really isn’t a good time,” Clive said, surprised and somewhat irritated, though the sight of her made him catch his breath. Briefly, he realized that he had missed her. He suppressed these feelings, however, as his current conversation with Foley obviously took precedence at the moment, though he could see, by the way she stood her ground in the doorway, that she did not recognize that, or, worse, if she did, she didn’t care. He would have forgiven the interruption if it were an emergency, but judging by her unruffled manner it clearly was not. To his further surprise she did not withdraw immediately, but instead stood looking at him impatiently.
“As I was about to say,” she had the audacity to say, “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I really have some urgent news.” She flashed an expectant look at the captain, then, obviously waiting for him to excuse himself. Clive was stunned.
“But of course, Mrs. Howard,” Captain Foley said, crushing the butt of his cigarette against the bricks of the fireplace. “Forgive me. I was just on my way out,” he smiled cordially and arched his eyebrow at Clive.
“This isn’t over, Bertram,” Clive said to him as he walked toward the door.
“No, I expect it isn’t,” Foley said before giving a brief smile. “Mrs. Howard,” he said, inclining his head to her, and he disappeared.
“Henrietta!” Clive said, turning to her as soon as Foley was out of the room. “That was important!” he said, chastising her. She looked at him intently, her blue eyes blinking. He could tell that she was angry, but so was he. How dare she interrupt his interrogation! His mother, he couldn’t help noting, would never have interrupted his father closeted in his study with a business associate.
“So is what I have to say,” she said, clearly peeved. “Unless you don’t want to hear it!”
“Unless you are hurt,” he said sternly, “which you obviously aren’t, or someone has died, which they obviously haven’t, I don’t know what would warrant this. What is so damned important?”
—
Henrietta stared at him, trying to control her anger. She had been so excited all the way home, barely listening to the idle chatter between Mr. Fielding and the ladies as they jostled in the back of Captain Russell’s motor, to inform Clive of Wallace’s probable whereabouts, and this was her reception? How dare he take the high hand yet again! Why was he acting so strangely, so aloof? Everything had been so perfect between them until that inspector had turned up asking about the murder. She could see that it had propelled Clive back into his previous role, and she wasn’t sure she liked it. It was showing her a side of hi
m that she didn’t particularly appreciate. It was definitely a position that did not include her, and she wondered what would have happened if they had chosen that life in Chicago instead of the life at Highbury. She searched his hazel eyes, normally so warm and soft, but they were at the moment very cold.
“Don’t you dare swear at me!” she said angrily, her voice wavering a bit, despite her attempt to control it.
Clive closed his eyes and looked away. “Forgive me,” he said, his voice softer now, though he was clearly still upset. He looked back at her, concern now in his eyes. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.” He reached for her hand, but she moved it away.
“I only wanted to tell you that I think I may know where Wallace is,” she said stiffly. She watched his face for his reaction, but instead of the delight she had expected to see, his brows furrowed.
“Wallace?” he asked abruptly. “Where is he?”
“There’s a very good chance he’s at a pub called the Merry Bells in Matlock.”
“Matlock?”
“Apparently it’s a working man’s place. He drinks there quite frequently, it seems, trying to stir up trouble among the local workers.”
“How do you know this?” Clive asked, his eyes narrowed. There was still no sign of the pleased, grateful husband.
“I heard it in Cromford. We ran into Captain Russell and his cousin, Maxwell Fielding. We had tea with them, and of course the conversation turned to the murder, and Mr. Fielding said that Wallace is a friend of his brother, a mill worker at the Masson Mill, I think he said, and that he—his brother, that is—can be found most days at the Merry Bells,” she said in a rush. “He said he believes Wallace goes there quite frequently as well.”
“So that’s where he goes,” Clive muttered as he leaned back against the billiard table, his arms crossed, deep in thought. He abruptly took out his pocket watch to check the time and then snapped it shut. “I must go,” he said, his eyes meeting hers now.
“Is that all?” she finally asked, incredulous.
He looked at her quizzically. “What do you mean, ‘is that all’?”
“I thought I might get at least a thank-you.”
“Oh, yes, of course. Thank you, darling,” he said, as if nothing had happened between them! “Well done.” He gave her a quick smile. “You’d better tell Lady Linley that I won’t be at dinner tonight. I’ll be back later, hopefully with Wallace, if I have any luck.”
“What do you mean?” she blustered. “I had thought we might go together.” She stared at him, and the realization slowly hit her that he had no intention, again, of including her. Why had she expected anything different? she thought as she bit her lip.
“That isn’t going to happen, though, is it?” she asked stiffly.
Clive did not respond, but the look he gave her, however, suggested anything but.
“I should have known,” she said bitterly and walked slowly out of the room.
Chapter 18
By the time Clive reached the Merry Bells in Matlock, having had to ask Bradwell, the chauffer, for a car and directions, it was growing dark. Bradwell had been reluctant to advise him, wanting to drive him himself, but Clive was adamant that he go alone—the days of having to be driven around by a chauffeur hopefully well into the distant future, if he or fate or God had anything to do with it.
The pub, when he finally found it, was a very old one; by Clive’s guess it must have been at least five hundred years old, and it reminded him of a place his father and Uncle Montague had sometimes taken him and Linley and Wallace to at least once each summer. Clive wished he could remember the name of the pub they had frequented; he hadn’t thought of it in years. It had had a cemetery next to it, and the three boys had often played hide-and-seek there while their fathers drank beneficently with the locals.
Clive made his way now through the smoky haze to the dark wooden slab of a bar and ordered a whiskey. When he asked for Wallace Howard, setting a five-pound note on the bar, the innkeeper’s eye lazily surveyed him and then gave a slight nod toward the back. Clive responded with an accompanying nod of thanks as he picked up his whiskey and made his way through to one of the dingy little back rooms. Clive had half expected to find Wallace surrounded by a group of disgruntled workers as they debated their situations, but instead he found him strangely alone, sitting with his head in his hands at a little back table in the corner, a whiskey and a pint in front of him. Several other groups of people were peppered throughout the room, smoking and talking mildly, and nearby three men played darts so that a periodic thud could be heard every so often through the haze of smoke. It struck Clive as peculiar that Wallace was alone, as if he didn’t fit in in either world.
Clive set his whiskey on the table and pulled out a battered stool. “Mind if I sit here?” he asked.
Without looking up, Wallace said, “So you’ve found me.” He glanced up at Clive, then, with one eye squinted shut, though it was by no means bright in the pub. “See? I always knew you were a better detective than you let on.”
Clive sat down.
“Let me guess—you’ve been sent to fetch me. I’m always being fetched,” he said, slightly slurring his words.
“Something like that,” Clive said, taking a sip of his whiskey and eyeing Wallace carefully. He hadn’t shaved, and he looked haggard. “Been here all day?”
“Long enough,” he said with a wry smile. “What do you want?”
“The police have been round to the house,” Clive said carefully, and he thought he detected a slight wave of concern pass across Wallace’s face, though it disappeared just as quickly.
“Some excitement for you, then. Just like home! Something to break up what I’m sure you’ve discovered is a terribly dull existence. What was it? Father finally broke? Did the bailiffs come to repossess the house?” He broke into a deep laugh.
“It was regarding the murder,” Clive said, taking another sip of his whiskey.
“Oh, that. Shame. Poor sod,” Wallace said, sobering a little and looking at the two drinks in front of him as if trying to decide which one to partake of. Finally he chose the whiskey and threw it back in one go.
“You were seen leaving that same pub just after the dead man did,” Clive said evenly.
Wallace’s brow furrowed. “So? I remember him. Chatty little fellow. Up from London, I think.”
“The police would like to talk to you.”
Wallace took a drink of his pint now. “Regarding?” Wallace asked, his eyes locking on Clive’s, making Clive wonder if he was really as inebriated as he was acting.
“Damn it, man! This is serious. It doesn’t look good. You leave the pub, then this chap goes out and ends up dead, and you don’t return to the house for going on over twenty-four hours. Instead you’re found hiding out in a pub in Matlock, drinking. What conclusion would you draw?”
“Not that one, old boy,” he said with a flicker of anger in his eyes now.
“Well, I wouldn’t put it past this chief inspector to find it suspicious. He wants you at the station to give a statement.”
“Or to arrest me?”
“Don’t be absurd. Just go in and tell them anything you know about the man. If you spoke to him at all, any clues you can give, if you saw anyone. Say you were distraught once you heard he’d been murdered and stayed away. He already knows that you disappear from time to time. So play on that.”
“Disappear?”
“He questioned your man and some of the other servants, too. They told him you frequently disappear off the estate and stay out until the wee hours.”
Wallace looked away, clearly disturbed. “Did Father hear them say that?”
Clive was taken off guard by the question. He tried to remember. “He may have. Why?”
Wallace didn’t answer, and Clive sat in the silence, watching him. Finally, he spoke. “Where do you go, anyway?”
“Mind your own business,” Wallace said angrily.
Clive calmly took a sip of his
whiskey and leaned back. “I found your trails through the woods. Easy enough to figure out where they go.”
“Sod off!”
Clive waited a few moments before continuing. “Look, if it’s any consolation, I don’t think you murdered this bloke. But you must see it doesn’t look good. I’d like to help you, but it would be a hell of a lot easier to do if you leveled with me. God knows I don’t want anything to happen to you. Then I’d be left with Linley, and I’ve quite enough to handle just at the moment.”
Wallace unexpectedly let out a laugh.
“Come on, drink up,” Clive urged, taking advantage of the break in tension, and stood up. “Let’s get over to the station and get this over with so that we can go home.”
Wallace obediently drained his glass and wobbly stood up. He looked around for his walking stick. “Bloody stick. Always losing it.”
Clive waited for him to make his way out from behind the table without it, leaning heavily on its deeply scarred surface instead. “Be honest, Wallace,” Clive asked, watching him. “Where do you disappear to?”
“Leave it, Clive,” Wallace said steadily, despite what Clive was sure now was his genuine drunkenness. “It doesn’t have anything to do with this business.”
When they finally reached the station back in Cromford, Detective Chief Inspector Hartle was just coming down the front steps, presumably to go home. Clive parked in front and got out, walking up a few steps to meet him and leaning forward to quietly relate what had happened.
Wallace, who had fallen asleep on the drive over, slowly climbed out of the car. Hartle signaled to one of the constables standing by the front door, and he hurried down to help the crippled man. Wallace’s brief nap did not seem to have helped his mood any, as he immediately lashed out to Inspector Hartle.
“What’s this all about, anyway?” he said loudly. “I had nothing to do with this bloody murder! You’re wasting your time, as usual,” he said indignantly, pushing the constable aside and gripping the iron railing himself instead.