Death by Silver (16 page)

Albert had the grace to blush. “More or less.”

“I see.”

“We get ten guineas apiece for them,” Albert said.

That was enough money to matter, and Julian nodded. “And you want me to find out who has the plans?”

“That’s right,” Albert said. “I can give you some names – I made a list of our competitors, though I don’t think they’d risk it, not an open theft, and then some of the workshops that supply the trade. That’s who I think would do it, but – you’d know better than I would about that.”

“It’s a good place to start,” Julian said. “That’s very helpful.” He paused, running through the possibilities. He would definitely visit the workshops, but he could also contact the young man who had modeled for the Ganymede. That might save him some work, if Elisha could give a name to the shops that were likely to try a bit of extortion. And it would also give him a chance to arrange a meeting with Bolster, to see what the man knew about Ellis. “How long are you in town, Wynchcombe?”

“Through Monday night,” Albert answered. “Violet and I took a room at the Savoy – she wanted to do some shopping, she hasn’t been in town in months. And I thought we might take in a show.”

Julian smiled. Albert had married beneath himself, by most reckoning, the daughter of a Welsh inventor who’d managed to parlay a clever self-turning toasting fork into a manufacturing concern easily worth ten thousand a year. But anyone who’d seen them together had known they were ideally matched, and Julian had danced at their wedding. “A bit of a holiday, then?”

“A bit. I have to steal them when I can, the Old Man keeps me busy.” There was pride rather than complaint in Albert’s voice.

“Let me make some inquiries,” Julian said. “There are some people I can ask. The workshops will be closed tomorrow, but that shouldn’t matter. I’ll send a note or come round as soon as I have something, or I’ll be in touch on Monday.”

“I can stay longer if I must,” Albert said.

“Let me see what I can find,” Julian said.

A good breakfast and a Saturday morning spent idling over the weekly papers made Ned feel considerably more human, and restored his determination to get to the bottom of the Nevett problem. There was no point in meeting with Julian to hash over the same facts they’d already talked to death, he told himself, and never mind whether he knew what to say to Julian at all; what they needed were new facts.

The most pressing question that seemed to need answering was what the actual cause of Reggie’s quarrel with his father had been. Ned found it hard to believe they had been reduced to shouting and storming out of the house because Reggie had chosen to work for a bank his father didn’t favor. Or, if so, it suggested a state of domestic warfare so intense that murder might well have begun to seem attractive.

He set his
Sporting Times
down with a frown. That was part of what troubled him about the whole business; he didn’t particularly want to prove that Reggie was a murderer. They hadn’t been particular friends, but they’d been in school together, and that had to count for something.

But he couldn’t very well let a murderer go free, either. The longer this business went on, the more difficult it would be for everyone else in the family to bear up under a cloud of suspicion. It would fall most heavily on the servants, who everyone already seemed eager to blame. And if there were another domestic quarrel, and the murderer resorted to proven methods to solve it –

No, it wouldn’t do. And at best, he might be able to induce Reggie to confide in him if there were some embarrassing but unimportant explanation for the quarrel. It couldn’t be pleasant for a man his age to admit to being browbeaten by his father, but it would be better to know that they’d quarreled over Reggie’s tailor bills than perforce imagine some worse cause.

There was nothing to do but find out. He’d have to get Reggie out of the house for that, and into some more congenial setting where it was possible to talk without assorted other Nevetts blundering through. He folded the papers and retrieved pencil and paper from his writing desk, writing out a quick telegram:

Imperative we talk. Meet me at Mercury Club 2:00? Mathey.

He expected it was more likely that Reggie would propose his own club instead, preferring to be on his own ground, but instead Mrs Clewett brought up a return telegram agreeing tersely to the meeting.

“It’s a shame you have business on such a fine day,” Mrs Clewett said. “You ought to be at the seaside with a young lady on your arm.”

“So I ought, but this won’t wait,” Ned said. “I’m afraid the depths of the sea will have to remain unplumbed, at least by me.”

The Mercury was comfortable rather than fashionable, both in its membership and its furnishings. It was relentlessly apolitical, with any heated debate over matters other than sport likely to be met with urging to have another drink and find more congenial company. It boasted an excellent billiards table, organized excursions to cricket matches and horse races, and a library with a very few leather-bound editions of improving literature and a great many dog-eared novels and penny magazines.

It was quieter than usual when Ned arrived, probably a result of the weather; the membership tended to spend fine days outdoors. Ayers and Parker were lingering over the remains of lunch in the dining room, debating the odds for races they didn’t appear to have any intention of attending, as they should have left by now if they did.

“Hullo, Mathey,” Ayers said. “I’d have thought you’d be up at Lord’s today.”

“Would that I were,” Ned said ruefully. “I’m meeting a client.”

“Not much fun,” Parker said. “I’m supposed to take Miss Wetherill and her mother around the zoo. I’m hoping we can lose Mama somewhere.”

“Perhaps she’ll be eaten by a lion,” Ned said. “There’s always hope.”

“Come have a drink with us, there’s a bit of cheese left,” Ayers said, giving the board a shove in his direction. “Tell young Parker it won’t be Intrepid in the fourth, not unless the rest of the field lies down and dies.”

“Duty calls, I’m afraid,” Ned said. “But I’d lay better odds on Sibley’s Folly.”

He left the two of them debating it and passed through the smoking-room, its deep leather chairs battered into softness by long use, and up the stairs in the hall. The smaller upstairs parlors were often used for business, especially by members who were infrequently in London, and he found his choice of them free.

“Whiskey and soda for two, if you please,” he said when young Dan appeared at the door, his hair slicked back very heavily with pomade and a nervous dignity in his bearing that suggested that he’d been appointed under-butler for the day. It wasn’t Boardman’s usual day off, but the man was fond of horse-racing himself, and had probably contrived to spend the day in the stands rather than presiding over a nearly empty club. “And show Mr Nevett up when he arrives.”

“Of course,” Dan said, and disappeared off toward the kitchen. The drinks tray arrived before Reggie, and Ned had already poured himself a drink and had reached the point of looking at his watch by the time Reggie finally came in.

Ned poured him a drink, and Reggie settled in the opposite chair, accepting the glass with a frown. “What’s all this about, Mathey?”

“Just trying to get a few things straight in my mind,” Ned said. “Before dinner, your father called you into his study, is that right?”

“He did,” Reggie said. “I don’t remember if the candlestick was there or not. You know how it is, Mathey, you see a thing every day…”

“That’s all right,” Ned said easily. “I was actually wondering what it was you and he had words about.”

“I told you that,” Reggie said, playing with his glass. Ned hoped he wasn’t in the habit of trying to bluff at cards. “He thought I should have tried to get a situation at Hoare’s.”

“But you didn’t care to?”

“There wasn’t a position available at once, and…well, truth to tell, I didn’t care to go on tagging along after Victor,” Reggie said. “Or to have him always ahead of me in line for every possible promotion.”

“And your father thought differently.”

“He had his views. He never hesitated to make them clear, let me tell you.”

Ned tried a sympathetic smile. “A bit of a dragon, was he?”

“He could be. But I told you, there wasn’t a quarrel.”

“I’m afraid there was,” Ned said, as gently as he could. “No one could help overhearing at least that much. And then the both of you left the house with dinner guests already on their way.”

“It was just temper,” Reggie said, setting down his glass abruptly. “I tell you, it wasn’t serious.”

“I wondered if there might not be some other cause. Some little disagreement over your bills, or that kind of thing? It’s harmless enough if so.”

“There wasn’t anything like that. He didn’t pay my bills, not since I was at Oxford. All I have is my salary. It’s not much, I can tell you, but I manage.”

Ned put his own glass down. “Look here, you must see the position I’m in. I’m trying to find out who could have done this, and you’re the one heard having a violent quarrel with your father the night he died.”

Reggie stood abruptly. “I didn’t come here to be insulted.”

“I don’t mean to insult you, old man,” Ned said, rising as well and moving to cut off any easy escape through the parlor door. “But you’ve got to give me something to work from. What did you and your father really quarrel about?”

“That’ll be enough, Mathey,” Reggie said, in a less effective imitation of Victor’s most intimidating tones. “No one asked you to come sniffing around –”

“Your brother did.”

“He had no right. I just want this over with.”

“Then tell me what you really quarreled over. It won’t go any farther unless I think there’s cause for it to.” A possible reasonably innocent cause of Reggie’s stubbornness occurred to him. “If there’s some girl – or is it a young lady he doesn’t approve of?”

“There’s nothing of the sort,” Reggie said defiantly, his face flushed. “Get out of my way, I want to go home. I don’t have to stand for that kind of cheek from you.” He really was a terrible card-player, Ned thought, sure that he was striking a nerve.

Frankness seemed to be his best resort. “See here, old man, if it’s only that you’ve been spending your money on whores –”

Reggie made a choked noise and swung for him, unexpectedly and wildly. It was startling but not a particularly effective effort, and Ned managed to step aside neatly enough that Reggie’s fist merely grazed his jaw. He was still left momentarily at a loss for words.

“Go to the devil, you interfering…” Reggie sputtered, clearly out of words himself, and shouldered his way past Ned, stomping out through the smoking-room.

After a minute, Ayers looked in from the hall. “I think you may have lost a client,” he said mildly.

“Unfortunately not,” Ned said, rubbing the tender place on his cheek. “But I think I’ll come and have that drink, if you’re still free.”

He wasn’t even sure he’d gotten to the bottom of the matter. If it had been his mother Reggie had quarreled with, Ned would have put his money at this point on fallen women being the cause. That sort of vice was common enough for unattached young men, to his own occasional shame. Not that women had been his temptation, but he could understand being desperate for some measure of satisfaction and seeing no other practical way to get it.

And he didn’t think Mrs Nevett would be at all likely to shrug and say that boys would be boys, if confronted with the evidence that her son were out engaging in vice with the very girls whose moral degradation her pet cause was intended to prevent. On the other hand, Edgar Nevett hadn’t struck him as the pious sort. Ned wouldn’t have thought he’d have cared much what Reggie did on his nights out, as long as he wasn’t parading painted tarts through the parlor.

So much for frankness, Ned thought, and with an unwilling flicker of amusement supposed that Julian might currently be telling himself the same thing.

After Albert had left, Julian dispatched a note to Peter Lennox, asking for a meeting later that afternoon, then changed into one of his oldest suits and caught an omnibus to Commercial Road. It was a neighborhood he’d come to know in his dealings with Bolster, but it wasn’t entirely safe, and he walked warily, keeping an eye on the people around him. He was marked, of course, an obvious stranger of better class, but he was neither threatening nor threatened, and everyone but the occasional homing beggar left him strictly alone.