The Masterful Mr. Montague (10 page)

Sharing again the ecstasy and the bliss, and, at the last, settling, sated and content, to sleep in each other’s arms.

Stokes listened to Griselda’s breathing slow.

Uncertainty hovered, of a sort he’d never encountered before. He felt as if he was embarking on a new and potentially dangerous personal journey, one heading into regions unknown. The implications of what he’d agreed to slid through his mind, flitting like dark shadows. Fears, silly and unfounded, but real nonetheless, that in agreeing to her involvement—not just in this case but in others to follow—he might have opened the door to some fundamental upheaval that would, somehow, threaten this—this splendor, this comfort, this signal joy.

This closeness.

Something he valued more than his life.

Yet he would give her the world were he able, and if she wanted, needed, this . . . then he would stand by her side and they would find a new framework, one that would incorporate all they both required, one built on the foundation they’d already laid.

He would try, as would she, and together they would make it work. Commitment wasn’t something they lacked.

Somewhat reassured, he let sleep have at him.

As he started to sink, the sight of Griselda’s face smiling her madonna-smile filled his mind. That smile carried such a wealth, such a depth, of love, one no other relationship could evoke. No wonder the link between mother and child was held sacred.

So what had happened with the Halsteads?

The thought brought him awake, awake enough to clearly see that in that family’s case, in at least one instance, possibly more, the mother-child link had been broken.

He—they—were investigating a matricide.

So how, or why, had the link broken?

Or had it never been strong in the first place?

He toyed with the questions, accepted that they hinted at avenues he should explore.

Closing his eyes again, he let his lips quirk. Griselda had been more help than she knew.

As sleep finally claimed him, his last conscious thought was a prayer that nothing ever damaged that precious link between Griselda and their children.

Y
our father described Wallace Camberly as a
careful
politician.” Clad in shimmering blue silk, Penelope led the way into the master bedroom of the Albemarle Street house. Jewels winked about her throat and dangled from her ears as she swept across the room to set her silver evening reticule on her dressing table.

Barnaby followed her into the room. They’d just returned from a formal dinner at his parents’ London house. After crossing the threshold and being greeted by Mostyn, their first stop had been the nursery, but Oliver was sleeping peacefully and they’d left him to his dreams. “What did the pater mean by ‘careful’—did he say?”

“I asked.” Penelope set to work easing the earrings from her lobes. “He—your father—said that Camberly holds his seat by a good margin and is careful to do nothing to risk that safety. Contrarily, your father also said Camberly was ruthlessly ambitious, but that said ambition was tempered by the aforementioned caution.”

Shrugging off his evening coat, Barnaby grinned. “You’re starting to sound like a politician yourself.”

“Indeed—I blame it on the company.” Setting down her earrings, she glanced at him. “Did you learn anything more about Camberly?”

“Only that he’s expected to advance through the ranks, but not in spectacular fashion.” Barnaby started unwinding his cravat. “I got the impression he and his wife are being watched and assessed with a view to future advancement, possibly into the Ministry.” Glancing across the room, he saw Penelope lay aside her necklace, then reach up to start unpinning her hair. “I didn’t encounter anyone with links to the Home Office. Did you?”

“No, so in the end I fell back on your father again. It took him some time to place Mortimer Halstead. It seems Mortimer holds his position more by seniority than talent. Your father’s term was a plodder, one not expected to rise beyond his present position of assistant to some undersecretary.” Her hair loose, Penelope crossed to stand before Barnaby, presenting him with her back. “If you please . . . ?”

Setting the long ribbon of his cravat on the top of the tallboy, Barnaby grinned and obligingly set his fingers to the row of tiny blue bead buttons marching down the back of her evening gown. One of the duties of a husband he rather enjoyed; given the nature of Penelope’s gowns, it often felt like unwrapping a present.

But as he worked down the long line, his smile faded.

After a moment, he glanced at the section of her profile he could see. “You enjoyed it, didn’t you? Ferreting out what you could about our suspects.”

She nodded. “Yes, I did. It made an evening embarked on out of duty—out of helping your mother with her numbers—into something much more engaging. Into an evening with purpose.”

Reaching the end of the line of buttons, he set his hands to her sides, slid his palms over and around, easing her back against him.

Obligingly, she sank back, her shoulders across his chest, her head coming to rest in the hollow below his shoulder, her curvaceous derriere against his thighs.

For a moment, he simply held her, savoring the sense of how well she fitted, how well they suited.

Then he found the words and the courage to say, “I’m not all that sure how I feel about this. About you involving yourself in investigations again.”

He’d hoped that Oliver’s birth would put an end to her engaging in potentially dangerous endeavors, yet even as he’d hoped, some part of him had known it was unlikely, had known that her questing mind would need the stimulation he himself found in solving crimes. It was what had brought them together, and their natures hadn’t changed with their baby’s birth.

She didn’t immediately respond, but neither did she stiffen in his arms. After a moment, she raised one hand and drew her gold-rimmed spectacles from her face. Then she tipped her head back and to the side so she could look into his face; at such close quarters she didn’t need her glasses to study his features, to read his eyes. Several heartbeats passed while she did, then she said, “I wasn’t sure about it, either.”

Not knowing how to interpret that, he waited, and after a second’s pause, she went on, “When Oliver was born, I wondered if he would fill my life to the exclusion of all else, certainly of things like investigating. But now . . . I think that that isn’t how it goes. How life evolves.”

She held his gaze. “I feel as if my life has expanded—as if there’s more space to be filled, as if Oliver being born to us created a new field in our lives. I’ve realized that, at least for me, and I hope for you, too, life isn’t fixed, static, of finite girth. But while over the months since his birth I’ve been absorbed with acclimating myself to the new arena that Oliver inhabits, I’ve neglected the other areas of my life. But they’re still there, and I still need them to be. They’re still a part of me, of who I am—a part of what makes me me, and they’re aspects, facets, I still need in order to be me.” She looked questioningly at him. “If that makes sense?”

He looked into her dark eyes. “I’ve followed so far—it’s an interesting hypothesis.”

“Yes, well.” She waved her glasses. “Clearly, having Oliver has changed things for me, and for you, too, although to different degrees and possibly in different ways, and those changes flow through to how we manage in all other areas of our lives.” She paused, then faced forward and settled against him once more. “I feel as if, overall, my life is a trifle out of balance, especially in the area of my other interests, which includes investigating. I need to find a new balance, so to speak, but exactly what that will be . . .” She glanced up and met his eyes again. “I think it’s one of those things one can only determine by trial and error.”

He held her gaze, then murmured, “So we try with this latest case?”

She turned within his hold, raising her arms and draping them about his shoulders, her small hands drifting to his nape. “We try. And if at first we don’t exactly succeed perfectly, we adjust.” Her eyes on his, she tilted her head. “Will you work with me to find our new balance?”

Looking into her face, he realized that, since embarking on this case, she’d been more engaged, somehow more alive in a way he hadn’t known he’d missed until it had returned. His impulse, as always, was to give her anything, agree to anything that contributed to her happiness, her well-being, a compulsion tempered only by his protective instincts.

His protective instincts didn’t like her being anywhere near anything dangerous—like investigations.

Balance
.

She had it right.

He nodded. “So . . . trial, possible error, and subsequent adjustment.”

She smiled, a brilliant smile shaded with understanding. “Thank you.”

Stretching up, one hand gripping his nape, the other framing his face, she pressed her lips to his. Any doubt he possessed that she didn’t understand, that she hadn’t understood exactly what thoughts, what considerations and reservations had passed through his mind, was eradicated by that kiss.

That they were together in this, that they would face the challenge side by side, hand in hand, was underscored by all that followed.

Later, much later, when she snuggled deeper into his arms and they settled to sleep, he lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm. “Together, we’ll find our way.”

W
ell! That was much easier than I’d imagined.” He felt slightly giddy—with relief, with satisfaction, with the fading remnants of the illicit thrill of the act; his hand shook as he lit the wick of the lamp in his dressing room.

Once the flame had steadied, he replaced the glass, then looked down at his clothes, examining them carefully in the golden light. It was after midnight; all about him was silent and still. Only he stirred in this time between one day and the next.

Satisfied there were no telltale signs, he set about shedding his clothes.

Along with his conscience.

“There was no help for it, really, not once the old girl had started the ball rolling. I could hardly let it go on. If she’d just let things be, but no—she had to do the right thing and get her affairs in order . . .
bah
!”

Donning his nightshirt, he checked his face in his shaving mirror, as he did every night.

And as often happened when he did, doubts rose like phantoms in his mind. His eyes locked with those in his reflection, then he murmured, “If she’d spoken to her agent . . . she would have discussed doing so, wouldn’t she?”

After a moment, his features contorted and he straightened. “Damn! I’m not safe yet.”

Chapter 6

T
here it is.” Montague nodded across Winchester Street at the office of Runcorn and Son.

Beside him, Mrs. Adair—Penelope, as she’d insisted he call her—held up a gloved hand to screen her eyes. “Ah, yes. It looks decently prosperous.” Lowering her hand, she scanned the street. “I haven’t been in this area before. I’m always amazed by how immense London is.”

Striding along on her other side, Adair grinned but said nothing. He, too, was surveying the street, taking note of the area and the office.

The pair had arrived at Montague’s office for the meeting arranged the day before, bringing with them the news that Stokes had been summoned to a meeting on another case but hoped to join them within a few hours.

Adair had briefly explained his wife’s interest in the case, and that Stokes was aware of her involvement. Having been exposed to ladies of Penelope Adair’s ilk through his association with various noble families, Montague took her presence—and her interest—in his stride. He wasn’t foolish enough to underestimate her abilities, and he could easily imagine several ways in which her insights might prove valuable. Consequently, he’d felt no reservations over sharing everything he’d thus far learned about Lady Halstead’s accounts, investments, and estate with Penelope as well as Adair.

Although he’d spent hours combing through the copies of Lady Halstead’s financial records, he had yet to find any hint of a legitimate source for the odd payments. However, as he’d told the others, Sir Hugo Halstead had had his finger in a great many pies, and tracking, accounting for, and excluding every last possible avenue that might explain the odd payments was going to take considerable time.

The payments didn’t follow any recognizable pattern, but that didn’t mean some peculiar investment hadn’t been structured to pay out in such a fashion. Until they excluded such a source—and that could only be done by exhaustive searching and analysis—that the payments were legitimate had to remain a possibility.

Against that, as Penelope had noted, stood the fact that her ladyship had been murdered all but coincident with her announcement that she was looking into her financial affairs.

Or rather, having them looked into.

They’d concluded that consulting with Runcorn as to whether he had a complete listing of the Halsteads’ investments, past as well as present, would be a helpful next step. Adair and Penelope had also been keen to meet the young man-of-business, in their eyes another player in the drama.

Crossing Winchester Street, they reached the door of Runcorn and Son. Opening the door, Montague stood back while Penelope and Adair entered, then Montague followed.

Only to walk into consternation.

An ashen-looking Pringle came hurrying up, waving his hands. “No, no—I’m sorry, ma’am, but the office is closed.”

Penelope blinked, then looked past the slight man at the two constables hovering about an inner door. “Why?”

Her question threw Pringle into an even greater fluster. “Ah . . .” Wringing his hands, he looked past Penelope to Adair, then further . . . and recognized Montague. “Oh, sir! Such a thing! It’s Mr. Runcorn, sir—he’s dead.”

“Dead?” All three of them echoed the word.

Adair threw Montague a glance.

“How?” Montague asked, moving forward to face Pringle.

“I’m . . . not sure.” Pringle looked unsteady on his feet. “If I had to guess, I’d say he was knocked on the head and strangled. Oh, my!”

“Here.” Penelope took Pringle’s arm and gently steered him to a chair—the one behind his raised desk, as it happened. “Sit and compose yourself.” She glanced around the small office. “Is there somewhere I could make you some tea?”

Pringle babbled his gratitude and pointed out the small door that led to a cramped service area. Penelope patted his arm and headed that way.

Montague studied Pringle’s face; if anything, the man had paled even more. He gentled his voice. “When did it happen, do you know?”

Pringle gulped. “I left him here as I usually do, about seven o’clock last night. He was still searching through Lady Halstead’s file—he had all the documents spread out on his desk.” Pringle looked toward the inner office. “They’re still there. I saw them when I went in this morning . . . and found him.” His voice broke. “Lying on the floor behind his desk . . . dead.” Pringle looked at Montague. “I knew he was dead right away.”

“Why did you go into the office?” Barnaby quietly asked. “Did something alert you?”

“No, no.” Pringle shook his head. “I went in to return the originals of the documents I’d copied for Mr. Montague. I finished the copies late yesterday afternoon and hadn’t yet returned the originals to the Halstead box. Mr. Runcorn had the box with him and was up to his eyeballs, so to speak, so rather than disturb him, I left the documents I had in my desk. If he’d wanted them, he knew I had them and where they would be. So this morning I thought he’d be finished with the box, and I went in with the documents to put them away . . .” He swallowed. “And that’s when I found him.”

“How very distressing.” Penelope arrived with a mug of strong tea. “Here—drink this, and try not to think about anything for a while.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” Pringle accepted the cup, wrapping his thin hands around it. “You’re very kind.”

Barnaby waited for Pringle to take a sip of the tea—highly sugared, he had not a doubt; Penelope knew what was needed—then he asked, still speaking in a gentle tone, “After you found Mr. Runcorn, what did you do?”

Pringle sighed. “Didn’t know what to do, did I? I panicked, dropped the documents on his desk, and rushed out into the street—and there were the two constables on their beat. I dragged them in and showed them.” Without glancing at the inner office, he nodded that way. “They’ve been in there ever since. I think they’ve sent for help from their station.” He sipped, then glanced at the clock. “It hasn’t been that long. I didn’t go into the office until after nine.” He looked down. “I just thought he was in there working.”

Barnaby glanced at Montague, then walked toward the inner office. The door was fully open, but before he reached the doorway, a burly constable hove into view.

“I’m sorry, sir, but you can’t come in here. Murder most foul. We’re waiting for the doctor and our sergeant—can’t let anything be touched until they say.”

“Indeed. I do hope you’ve touched as little as possible.” Barnaby drew out a card case and flicked it open. “I’m a consultant to the Metropolitan Police and am presently working on a case with Inspector Stokes of Scotland Yard. The case concerns a client of Mr. Runcorn. She, too, was recently murdered. It’s therefore highly likely that Runcorn’s murder is linked to Stokes’s case. That connection is why we”—with a wave, he indicated Penelope and Montague—“arrived to consult Mr. Runcorn.” Handing the constable one of Stokes’s cards, Barnaby added one of his own for good measure; there were times when being an “Honorable” could be helpful. “I strongly suggest you send someone to summon Stokes immediately. He’s presently at the Yard in a meeting.” Imagining Stokes’s response, Barnaby hid a wry smile. “I can assure you he’ll want to be disturbed.”

The constable frowned at the cards, then looked up at Barnaby and nodded. “Right. Thank you, sir. I’ll send my partner right away.”

Barnaby inclined his head and drifted back to rejoin the others. “Let’s give them a few minutes to get themselves organized.”

A few minutes was all it took; the burly constable sent his young, gangly partner off with orders to take a hackney to Scotland Yard and report to Inspector Stokes with all speed.

When the door shut behind the younger man, Barnaby arched his brows at Penelope and Montague, then ambled back, the other two following, to the inner office.

The burly constable saw them coming and straightened. “Sir?”

Knowing that the police surgeon for the district, harassed individuals though they always were, was likely to arrive before Stokes, Barnaby thought it wise to push a little. “I wondered, Constable, if I might take a brief look. Our own investigations are pressing, and as what happened here was almost certainly an outcome of the earlier murder, if I could view the body, and even more the desk and the papers on it, we might be able to move matters forward at a better pace.”

From his expression, it was obvious the constable wasn’t sure he should agree but equally wasn’t sure of the wisdom of refusing.

In an understanding tone, Barnaby promised, “I won’t touch anything.”

The constable glanced past him at Penelope and Montague. “Just you?”

Penelope smiled reassuringly at the man. “We’ll wait in the doorway and just watch.”

The constable considered, then glanced at Barnaby. “All right, then. Just as long as you don’t move anything. Worth me job, that would be.”

Barnaby inclined his head and, sliding his hands into his greatcoat pockets, moved into the room. The constable watched from his station to one side of the open door. Penelope edged into the room, taking up position on the other side of the doorway while Montague hovered on the threshold.

While Adair slowly paced around the desk, Montague scanned the room, identifying what had changed since his previous visit.

Adair noticed. “Anything different?”

“Aside from poor Runcorn being sprawled on the floor”—Montague could see an out-flung hand, the arm, and not much more; it appeared Runcorn had been pulled backward out of his chair—“there’s a bookend missing off that shelf.” He pointed to a shelf behind the desk, midway up the wall; the empty space was obvious once pointed out. “I think it was a horse’s head. And”—he surveyed the documents scattered over the desk; other than the stack that Pringle must have left, obviously dropped on one corner, the entire surface of the desk was awash in a ruffled tide of paper—“that mess isn’t normal. Last time I was here, he had documents on the desk, but most were in stacks. That looks like someone searched through all the stacks, one after the other, without setting the documents back as they went. Runcorn would never have done that.”

“Hmm.” Adair had halted on the other side of the desk, looking down at the body lying stretched upon the floor. “Constable . . . I’m sorry, what was your name?”

“Watkins, sir.”

“Constable Watkins, did you or your colleague move the body at all?”

“No, sir. Just checked his pulse at his wrist and neck—which, of course, there wasn’t any.”

“Good.” Adair glanced at Penelope. “Check with Pringle, will you?”

With a nod, Penelope went, slipping past Montague.

She returned less than a minute later. “He said he didn’t touch the body at all.”

Looking down, Adair grimaced. “Understandable.” Hitching up his trousers, he crouched, then bent lower until all Montague could see were the blond curls on the back of his head. “Very well. I can see the bookend—it’s lying off to one side. We won’t know for certain until the doctor examines him, but I’d wager he was hit on the back of the head with the bookend—it looks more than heavy enough—and then . . .” His voice hardened. “The murderer, whoever he was, and I think we can be sure it was a he, looped a length of cord of some sort . . .”

Adair’s head and shoulders swiveled as he looked about, searching the floor. “And there it is. Rather sloppy of our murderer to leave it, but what looks like a length of silky curtain cord—the sort used to loop back curtains—is lying half under the desk.”

Rising, his hands still sunk in his pockets, Adair bent over the desk, head tilting this way and that as he scanned the documents rumpled and shuffled and flung in disarray upon it. “As far as I can make out, all of these relate to the Halstead estate. There’s nothing obvious, like a piece torn away, or a blot where something may have been copied.” Bending, he peered at the underside of the rocking blotter. “And nothing that looks recent on the blotter.”

“The most likely outcome”—Montague waved—“of all this would be something taken—a letter, an account, a statement—a record of some sort removed.”

Straightening, Adair grimaced. “Which will be very hard to identify.”

Montague nodded. He glanced at Watkins, then looked back at Adair. “When the police are satisfied here, my staff might be able to pinpoint some gap in the records, perhaps with Pringle’s help. We can at least look.”

Adair nodded; his gaze had returned to the body. “I think the blow to his head was powerful enough to render him unconscious. I can’t see any evidence that he struggled, that he fought.”

The weight of the silence that followed suggested that none of them found any great solace in that fact.

Adair was on his way back to the door, and the others were moving back into the outer office, when a dark-suited individual carrying a black bag came through the street door. A sharp, shrewd gaze from very weary eyes found Watkins. “Constable?”

Watkins waved the doctor to the inner office. “He’s in here, and no, no one’s touched him.”

The doctor briefly nodded to Adair, Penelope, and Montague, then strode past and into the inner office.

Montague returned to stand by Pringle at his desk. “The Halstead file—did you notice the documents on Mr. Runcorn’s desk?”

Pringle, whose color had improved, nodded. “Aye—looked like the lot had been thoroughly searched.”

“Any chance of you being able to tell if anything’s been taken?” Montague asked as Adair and Penelope joined them.

Pringle’s brows rose as he considered. “Well, I had the most important records with me, in my drawer, so we know he didn’t get any of them.”

“You’re sure they weren’t searched?” Barnaby asked.

“Aye. I’d left them in a nice neat stack in my drawer there”—Pringle looked down at the second drawer on the right side of his desk—“and set my ink-bottle and capped nibs on the top of them, as I usually do. When I opened the drawer this morning to get the stack out, the ink-bottle and nibs were exactly as I’d left them.”

“Good,” Barnaby said. “So we know those records, at least, are intact. What about the rest of the Halstead documents, the ones Runcorn was looking through?”

“As to that,” Pringle said, his thin chest swelling a trifle, “we have our own system of numbering.” He glanced toward the inner office. “If the police let me at them, I can re-sort the file, check by the numbers if any pages are missing. If any are, there’s a master list of numbers—it was in the file with all the rest in Mr. Runcorn’s office, but unless he knew what the numbers and our notations meant, I can’t see any reason any murderer would have taken the list.” Pringle’s voice had grown stronger. He straightened, meeting Barnaby’s gaze. “I can at least do that if it will help catch whoever did for Mr. Runcorn. Young he might have been, but he was a good man.”