The Sudbury School Murders (Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries #4)

by Ashley Gardner

  "Leaving us with a large number of suspects," I mused. I shifted my gaze to Rutledge, and he glared back at me.

  Grenville let the spill fall to the floor, and we went out again.

  As we clattered down the stairs, I reflected that a boy could easily rush from this place without detection. He could run out into the quad, as I suggested, or he could stay beneath the portico and hurry past a windowless wall to the gate, or he could duck inside the east wing of the Head Master's house without anyone being the wiser. He did not necessarily have to "discover" the fire; he could have bolted back to his own room and innocently run down when the shouting began.

  Outside, the rain had begun to stream down. Fletcher wandered back to his ruined books and stared at them morosely. Most of the boys had dispersed, hounded by the tutors to lessons. Sutcliff hurried off, too, his robe flapping.

  "I believe you offered me a brandy, Lacey." Grenville gave me a pointed look. "You needn't worry, Rutledge, about putting me up here. I'll take rooms in Sudbury."

  Rutledge grunted. "You're welcome to stay here. Food isn't much, though. Not what you're used to."

  I imagined Rutledge was thinking that having someone like Lucius Grenville as a visitor to the school could not hurt its reputation. Grenville might be a fashionable dandy, but he was also quite wealthy and made plenty of investments. The men of the City of London approved of him.

  Grenville laughed lightly. "I am not likely to find the best in cuisine at the public house in Sudbury. I will take up your offer, Rutledge. It will take me back to our carefree days at Eton."

  Rutledge looked as though his carefree days were the last things he wanted to remember. He nodded once. "I'll have my daughter set up a room for you. Fletcher," he called. "Cease your weeping. You have lectures this morning. Get to it, man."

  He walked away, leaving Grenville and me alone in the rain.

  *** *** ***

  Once upstairs in my cramped quarters, Grenville let his mask drop. He exhaled sharply as he leaned back in the wing chair and gratefully accepted the brandy I handed him. "The road from London has more twists and turns than I remember. Thank God I wasn't going all the way to Bath."

  "Next time, try a canal boat," I suggested. "They seem to move slowly and smoothly."

  Grenville grimaced, took a long draught of brandy. "A strange sight I would look, perched atop a pile of cargo. But I suppose no less strange than lying in my coach, gasping and praying that the journey will end soon."

  "I would think you would be used to traveling by now." I sat facing him with a glass of brandy, perfectly happy to take time from my duties. "Have you not stood outside the emperor's city in China, bought sandalwood from the natives of the Cook islands?"

  "It was pure misery. But worth the trouble, I assure you." He made a face. "Although I do not recommend weevil-ridden biscuit for a daily diet."

  I smiled because he expected me to. "I wrote you yesterday afternoon of the inquest. Did you receive the letter, or shall I explain it all again?"

  "I did not receive your letter. I left late last night to arrive this morning. I imagine the letter is waiting for me on my bedside table to peruse when I return. Please." He took a sip of brandy. Color slowly returned to his face. "Regale me with the details."

  I went back over all that had happened during the inquest and since, including my interview with Didius Ramsay and my finding of the knife and the place Middleton had died, omitting, of course, that Marianne had been with me. He listened attentively and asked pointed questions, as though he were a scholar taking notes.

  "This prank is a little different from the others," he mused. "It was malicious, but not dangerous, after all. It hurt only your poor tutor in his pocket, though it did disrupt things."

  "Yes, poor Fletcher," I agreed. "He has no money besides the income he gets from the school. In the brief time I've known him, he's lamented it."

  "Well, I might be persuaded to purchase him a few new tomes. I always hated my Latin tutors. I wanted to revel in the lurid adventures of Jason; they wanted declensions."

  "Perhaps they found excitement in grammar," I suggested. My mood became reflective. "Being here does odd things to my memories. I left Cambridge to join the army. Harrow seems another life. I had forgotten much about it and the lads I counted as friends, until I arrived here and began to remember. An odd feeling."

  Grenville gave a half-laugh. "In my case, somebody reminds me every day at White's of some damn fool thing I did while at Eton. My cronies have long memories. The boy I fagged for now has gray hair and side whiskers, and he still reminds me I was not very good at blacking boots."

  I raised my brows. "Somehow I cannot picture you slaving. I thought you'd have had the entire school dancing to your tune."

  He shook his head. "Not a bit of it. When I arrived, I was small and dark and ugly. The perfect quarry for every bully. And then, one day, I grew tired of it. I had discovered that sarcasm and wit could be far more effective than fists. The duller-brained the boy, the more others laughed at my bons mots. And so I became a nasty bit of goods in my own way, fighting with words where I could not fight with fists." He smiled ruefully. "Not that I did not receive my share of black eyes."

  "Whereas I never learned the art of words." I studied my large hands. "I relied only on my fists. In the world today, I believe you are the stronger."

  "You flatter me." He finished his brandy, set aside his glass. "Tell me, Lacey, why do you believe that Sebastian is not the murderer?"

  "I like him," I said at once. "Then again, perhaps I simply feel sorry for him, a downtrodden soul. He is a warmhearted, if somewhat foolish, young man. I can imagine him arguing with Middleton, perhaps even knocking him down, but luring him to the canal and slicing his throat? I am not so certain."

  "But you can imagine James Denis hiring someone to do such a thing."

  I rubbed my chin. "Yes, indeed. Or, perhaps someone hired by Denis' rival."

  "You refer to Lady Jane?"

  I nodded. When Grenville and I had investigated the affair of the Glass House, we came across an individual called Lady Jane. She was a ruthless businesswoman, and James Denis considered her a rival. Why she would bother to have killed a man who had not worked for Denis for six months, I did not know, but I could not rule out the possibility.

  "An odd business, this," Grenville mused. "When I suggested Rutledge employ you, I never dreamed things would progress to brutal murder. I assumed the pranks to be the work of a lad with a strange sense of humor. I thought you would quickly sort it out."

  "It's more of a mare's nest than that. If you reasoned it would be simple, why send me? Why not offer to hire a Bow Street Runner to poke about here and find out the truth?"

  Grenville twined his fingers together. "Because London was doing nothing for you. I thought I would do you a favor, send you to the peace of the countryside and a problem that would intrigue you. I suppose I thought that here in the country, you would find something missing in your life."

  I gave him a faint smile. "I have. Knee-deep mud. A foul murder. A man who is a boor running a school for appallingly rich bankers' sons."

  Grenville snorted. "Yes, Rutledge can be an ass. You would not think he comes from one of the finest families in England. Why he decided to take up a post as headmaster I never understood. But he seems to enjoy it."

  Grenville crossed his ankles on the ottoman, giving me a view of his extraordinarily clean boots. Rumor had it that he had his right boots and left boots made by two different boot makers so that they'd fit his feet perfectly. I doubted that--Grenville was not frivolous--but the leather did conform to the shape of each foot and was shined with care. Even after a journey of sixty miles, the boots were nearly free of mud.

  "Are you certain you want to lodge here?" I began. "While the accommodations in Sudbury are not elegant, they are at least quiet."

  "Ah, but here, I am in the thick of things."

  I wondered whether Marianne knew he'd arrived. Had she se
en his coach as she'd hurried across the fields toward Hungerford?

  As though reading my thoughts, Grenville glanced at me, slightly defiant, and said, "I hired the Runner."

  We regarded each other in silence. We were so different, the pair of us, he a smallish man with clean dark hair brushed in the latest style, his dark eyes quick and lively. I, on the other hand, was a tall man, muscular from my days in the army, brown from the same, although my tan had somewhat faded. My hair was only a shade lighter than his, but wiry and thick and never stayed down, no matter how much I might slick it with water. My eyes, too, were a shade lighter brown than his, too light, I thought for that lively look he had.

  I did not think either of us had a face to attract a lady's attention, but Grenville had a constant string of admirers. His status as the most eligible bachelor in England caused every mother in the haut ton to eagerly plot. Grenville neatly avoided their snares by rarely appearing at Almack's, the rooms in King Street where each Season's crop of debutantes were paraded. Admission to this bastion was more difficult to obtain than presentation at court. The hostesses expected applicants to conform to a strange and stringent code of behavior and ancestry that few could meet.

  Needless to say, I had not been granted a voucher to purchase a ticket to Almack's. I refused Grenville's offers to intercede for me. I was too old to care for attending, and in any case, I did not have the clothes for it. Ironically, my lack of interest in Almack's had made me a focus of social curiosity. As a consequence, I had more invitations to events in the ton than did other hopeful nobodies.

  Grenville was everything to the polite world. And yet, he faced me now, caring that he had my disapproval.

  "I am concerned for her well-being, Lacey," he began.

  "She is a resourceful woman and survived long before you knew she existed," I said.

  His eyes darkened. "If you can call it survival."

  Marianne and I had lived in identical rooms in Covent Garden, hers above mine. "I do," I said stiffly.

  "Damnation, Lacey. If I defend myself, I insult you. You are making this bloody difficult."

  "If you had read my letter, you'd know I advised you to let her go."

  "I did read it," he growled.

  We regarded one another again.

  After a time, I said, "I should not interfere in your business."

  "You are making it your business," he snapped. "The devil if I know why."

  "Perhaps because you like to stride over people, and I understand how that feels. Your intentions are always benevolent, of course."

  "Of course? What would you have me do, Lacey, cease bestowing money on the London poor? Because they might take offense? Or fear that I am interfering in their business?"

  I shook my head. "The situation is not the same. When you give money to the poor, you hand it to the parishes to use as they see fit. You do not enter into each person's life and tell him or her how to live it."

  "And you claim I am doing so with Marianne?"

  I tried another tack. "Marianne has survived on her own for a long time. She has had other protectors, some of whom did not treat her well. You cannot blame her if she has learned to distrust."

  Grenville thumped the arms of his chair. "The pair of you will drive me mad. I am not an evil villain of the stage. I have given her a house to live in and clothes to wear and money to spend. A woman with those amenities should be content to stay at home."

  I smiled dryly. "It is apparent that you have never been married."

  "I have kept mistresses in the past, Lacey. Even the most greedy and extravagant of them lived quietly in my houses."

  "Because those ladies stood in awe of you. Marianne never will. She's been knocked about most of her life, many times by wealthy gentlemen. Why should she trust you?"

  He looked offended. "I have shown her nothing but kindness."

  "Perhaps, but also great irritation when she does not do exactly as you like."

  He threw up his hands. "I have never attempted as benevolent an act that tried me as much as this one. So you would like me to cease looking for her? Cease wondering whether she is with a brute who is even now beating her because she will not give him the money that I handed her? Cease wondering whether in her haste to run away she did not fall among thieves who abandoned her somewhere along the Great North Road?"

  I felt suddenly cruel. I knew good and well that Marianne was safe. But I could not tell him this; I had given her my word.

  I wished she had told me her secret so that I might know whether holding my tongue helped or hurt. I wished still more that she'd simply confide in Grenville herself. I would be saved much trouble, and so would they.

  "If you will trust me," I said, "I will make certain she is restored to you."

  He stared. "How?"

  "You must dismiss the Runner," I answered, "or you will make a muck of things."

  "But how can you-- " He broke off, and his eyes went black with anger. "You know where she is."

  I said nothing. I turned my brandy glass in my hands, not looking at him. I sensed his rage grow.

  "Damn you, Lacey."

  "I will see that she returns home," I interrupted. "You must not ask me to choose which view I will take in the matter. I choose no views. Trust me to restore her to the Clarges Street house, and then the two of you may come to your own arrangement."

  I had rarely seen Grenville angry, and never this angry. He remained still, his fingers white upon the arms of the chair. His dark eyes were sharp, tense, regarding me with fury.

  The mantel clock chimed nine, notes of small sweetness. In the silence that followed, I grew to respect Lucius Grenville. At that moment, he might have chosen to quit me, to leave behind our friendship forever. By speaking a few words at White's, he could ruin my character. He could make certain I was received nowhere, simply with the lift of an eyebrow, the shrug of a shoulder.

  He also could have shouted at me, accused me of all kinds of things, just as Colonel Brandon did whenever I angered him, which was often.

  Grenville did neither. What he did instead was sit still and let his anger course through him. Then, quietly and slowly, he mastered his emotions. I watched his gaze cool as he drew upon his sangfroid and good breeding, becoming more and more remote as his grip on the arms of the chair relaxed.

  "I will send word to Bow Street," he said quietly, "and tell them I no longer need the services of a Runner."

  I gave him a quiet nod. "I will make certain she returns home. Although I cannot guarantee the state of her temper."

  He rose from his seat and casually poured out another glass of brandy. I admired him greatly at that moment.

  "I am certain she will be quite annoyed," Grenville said, returning to his chair. "But let us speak no more of it." He gave me a wry smile. "Let us return to the somewhat safer topic of murder."

  In some relief, we immersed ourselves again in the problem at hand. We talked over everything I knew and the steps I had begun to take. We did not mention Marianne again.

  Later, a servant came to tell Grenville that rooms had been made ready for him. Grenville left with the servant to seek rest, and I made my way to Rutledge's study and the day's correspondence.

  Rutledge was disinclined to talk of the morning's events. Instead he growled as he read his morning's post and dictated responses in a rush. He was already receiving letters from worried families about the murder. He told me to answer all with a statement that a Romany had been arrested and all was well. He eyed me balefully and read over each letter I wrote for him, as though fearing I'd put forth my idea that Sebastian did not commit the crime. The wealthy men whose sons attended this school would not care who did the murder, Rutledge implied, as long as somebody had been arrested.

  Rutledge had made arrangements for Grenville to take luncheon with him in his private rooms. He grudgingly invited me along, but I declined, knowing he did not truly want me. I made my way instead to the common dining hall, where I seated myself next t
o a morose Fletcher.

  "I suppose it does not matter," Fletcher sighed as he scraped the last of his stew from his bowl. "I should never have become a tutor, but I much needed the post. I was a translator, you know, in London. I translated books from fine Latin and Greek into raw English so that the great unwashed could understand them. Sacrilege, but one must eat."

  He ate the remainder of his soup now, hungrily.

  "Do you lock your rooms?" I asked him.

  "No, why should I? Servants have to tidy and lay the fire, do they not? Anyone is free to enter, including those bent on destroying perfectly innocent books." His mouth quivered. "A good book is like a good friend, do you know, Lacey? One you can turn to when the night is cold and you are lonely. And there is old Herodotus, standing ready to regale me with tales of his travels."

  "Yes," I said sympathetically. "Grenville has offered to help you replace some of the books."

  He brightened. "Good heavens, has he? How noble of him. Well, I shall toast Mr. Grenville." He lifted his port glass.

  I drank with him to Grenville. "Why should anyone burn your books?" I asked presently. "I mean your books in particular, rather than, say, Tunbridge's math texts?"

  Fletcher shrugged. "Science and mathematics are all the rage, you know. But who has time for good old Horace? I managed to save one." He patted his robe. "In my pocket at the time. One, when I had so many."

  "I am sorry," I told him. "It was a rotten thing to do."

  He heaved a long sigh. "Ah, well, Captain, God sends us trials, does he not? But one day, one day, I shall buy an entire library of everything I want. And then I shall sit back in a room filled with so many, many texts, and read to my heart's content." He smiled a little, enjoying his dream.

  I noted Sutcliff watching us from his place at the head of his table. When he caught my eye, he nodded, lifting his glass. Then he turned away to snarl at a younger boy down the table, who had not finished his stew. A Rutledge in the making, I reflected.

  When the meal finished and we all left the hall, I caught up to Sutcliff and touched his shoulder. "Mr. Sutcliff," I said. "Could you spare some time to speak to me and Mr. Grenville?"