Daniel’s casual tone, dismissing blackmail as merely a nuisance, was having good effect on Mrs. Leigh-Waters. Her crying quieted, and she started to relax.
“Was he blackmailing you too?” Daniel asked her. “I’m sorry if he was.”
Mrs. Leigh-Waters nodded. “Please, please don’t tell my husband.”
“No.” Louisa squeezed her hand. “We understand.”
Mrs. Leigh-Waters looked at them watching her, then she jumped. “But if you are thinking I poisoned Hargate to keep him quiet, I did not. I paid him, as I said, and set up the appointment for him to meet you. I knew he might try for more money in future, but I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.”
Louisa wondered very much what knowledge Hargate had possessed that so shamed Mrs. Leigh-Waters, but she wouldn’t ask. The poor lady had suffered enough without having to worry that someone else knew her secret. Hargate was gone now, and Mrs. Leigh-Waters was safe from him.
“Never fear,” Louisa said. “I don’t see how you could have killed him, anyway, if the poison was in the teacup. How could you know which cup he’d choose? Or which I’d choose to give him? It was me who handed him the cup. I am, unfortunately, the most likely suspect.”
Louisa deflated. She’d come here hoping to learn much more. She’d discovered from their conversation that Mrs. Leigh-Waters did indeed have a motive for killing Hargate, but she had difficulty picturing Mrs. Leigh-Waters thinking of so intricate a way to administer the poison. Besides, would the lady risk killing the man in her own garden? In front of a large party of people?
Someone had. And that someone had shifted the blame squarely on Louisa.
“Thank you.” Louisa squeezed Mrs. Leigh-Waters’ hand again. “I’m sorry you’ve had to go through all this.”
“And I you,” Mrs. Leigh-Waters said. “Will you forgive me?”
“Of course.”
Mrs. Leigh-Waters let out her breath, her relief plain. Louisa and Daniel exchanged a glance, silently agreeing to end the conversation, and they took the rest of their tea in peace.
When Louisa and Daniel left Mrs. Leigh-Waters’ house, Louisa gave Mac’s coachman directions to take them straight to London and Scotland Yard. She would try to keep Mrs. Leigh-Waters’ confidences as best she could, but she wanted to tell Fellows what they’d discovered about Hargate. Immediately. As awkward as it would be to face Fellows again after last night, she wanted him to know.
Daniel agreed, and the coach headed east at a good clip.
When they reached Scotland Yard, however, the sergeant downstairs told Daniel that Fellows was out. So was Sergeant Pierce and Constable Dobbs. But they could always leave a message.
Daniel returned to the coach, where Louisa waited, with this information.
“I suppose I can leave him a message,” Louisa said, unhappy.
“No.” Daniel knocked on the roof of the coach and directed the coachman to the Strand. “We’ll wait for him in his own lair. Might be a while, though. I say we fetch food and drink on the way.”
Sergeant Pierce had suggested to Fellows that they go back to Richmond to reexamine the scene of the crime, but Fellows negated the idea. As he’d contemplated before, this was a crime of Mayfair. The players, and the answer, lay in that section of London.
Fellows began by visiting the Bishop of Hargate’s father, the Earl of Norwell, in Norwell’s Berkeley Square house. Norwell didn’t want to see Fellows, the butler informed them when he answered the front door. He also said that Fellows and Pierce should have gone down the stairs to enter the house via the kitchen.
Fellows did tell Pierce to go down—it never hurt to cultivate those below stairs and learn the household gossip—but Fellows remained squarely in the doorway.
“Tell his lordship that if he wishes me to find and arrest his son’s killer, and quickly, he’ll speak to me,” Fellows said to the butler.
The man looked aggrieved, but at last he obeyed. Pierce sketched a cheerful salute and departed for the kitchen.
The Earl of Norwell kept Fellows waiting in a reception room for at least half an hour before the butler returned and led Fellows up a flight of stairs to a study lined with books. The room’s high walls held a second floor of bookcases, reached by an iron spiral staircase.
Norwell looked much like his dead son, handsome and lean, though twenty years older. His hair was gray, his belly gone to fat from too much rich food and too much port, his black mourning suit making his pale face more sallow.
Norwell ran his gaze up and down Fellows, obviously not liking what he saw. “So you’re old Kilmorgan’s by-blow.”
Fellows made a shallow bow, hiding the sting. “I have that honor.”
Norwell grunted. “You look like him. Kilmorgan was a mean son of a bitch, and the current duke is no better.”
Fellows took this stoically. He’d come to like Hart more and more as he got to know him, but he knew he’d waste his breath defending him to Norwell. Norwell was the sort of man who made his judgments and stuck to them, come hell or high water.
“How can speaking to me help you catch a murderer?” Norwell asked. “It was the Scranton bitch who did it, and we all know it. That entire family is mad.”
Fellows clenched his jaw to keep his temper. “New evidence has come to light that tells me it was not Lady Louisa.”
“What evidence? You’re lying. The only reason you haven’t arrested her is that she’s connected with the Mackenzies, and you have an absurd loyalty to them.”
“No, Lord Norwell,” Fellows said in a hard voice. “I’m after the truth, no matter what. One reason I came here today is that I’d like to look over your son’s bedchamber. His valet told me he often stayed in this house when he'd be in Town only briefly and didn’t want to bother opening up his own flat. Is that correct?”
Norwell looked Fellows over again, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. “You’re a bit above yourself, aren’t you, Chief Inspector? You might be a duke’s son, but you’re still a bastard.”
“Which has nothing to do with me looking at your son’s rooms.”
Norwell heaved a sigh. “What are you searching for?”
“I’ll know that when I find it.”
“This is ridiculous.”
“I’m leaving no stone unturned,” Fellows said firmly. “I want this killer found as quickly as you do and so am looking into every possibility. Don’t worry, I will do no damage to your son’s things, and leave everything as I found it.”
Norwell again looked Fellows up and down, in the most condescending way possible. He heaved another sigh, this one sounding as though it came from his toes, turned away, and pushed a bell on the desk. The butler entered almost immediately—Fellows suspected the man had been listening outside the door.
“Take the inspector up to Frederick’s old rooms,” Norwell said. “Stay there with him, and don’t let him steal anything.”
Fellows didn’t react at all to the statement. Norwell was grieving—Fellows allowed that. Otherwise, he’d be tempted to punch the man in the mouth. Fellows made himself turn his back and follow the butler out of the library without a word.
The butler led him up another flight of stairs. As they entered a large, dim bedchamber, Fellows bade him go down and tell Sergeant Pierce to come up. No one searched a room better than Pierce. He could find nooks and crannies that most missed, and he could do it rapidly and thoroughly. Fellows had always suspected that Pierce, in his youth, might have been a thief, but he’d never asked directly.
The butler looked put out, but he went. Slowly. The stairs creaked, one at a time, as he descended.
Fellows pulled open the heavy curtains, letting cleansing sunlight into the too-dark room. The room was musty—Norwell must have shut it up at his son’s death and not allowed anyone in. Grieving people often wanted to hide away their loved ones’ belongings.