A Regimental Murder (23 page)

I eyed him coldly. "You mean James Denis.
Know this, Grenville. I do not want Denis anywhere near my wife or
anyone close to me. Imagine what he could do with such knowledge
once he had it."

Grenville shrugged, but his mouth tightened.
"A thought only. I will write to my man in Paris. But it may take
time."

"I understand," I said.

He wrote his letter, and my quest was set in
motion.

*** *** ***

Another task I assigned myself was to keep an
eye on the Spencer brothers. I visited Pomeroy again and told him
of my interview with the Spencers, and asked him also to watch
them. If John Spencer were carrying out his revenge, then he would
strike again, probably soon. Breckenridge and Westin were dead.
Eggleston and Connaught would be next.

Two days later, when I returned to my rooms
from a meager dinner at the Gull in Southampton Street, I found
young Leland Derwent waiting for me at the bake shop.

I shook his hand with pleasure. I had enjoyed
myself at his sumptuous supper, where his family had made me feel
welcome and wanted. He had brought with him another young man of
his own age, whom he introduced as Gareth Travers. Travers was a
clean-looking young man with light brown hair and small brown eyes.
This gentleman, however, lacked the unworldly look of the more
innocent Leland.

Because they were the same age, I concluded
they were school friends. Travers referred to Leland as "Eely,"
which I assumed was a somewhat dubious play on "Leland."

I hoped we could visit in the bake shop, with
Mrs. Beltan's bread and coffee, but Leland said he had some
important news to relate and wished to speak privately. He looked
about as though he expected conspirators to lurk in the corners of
Mrs. Beltan's cheerful and clean-scrubbed shop.

I led the way upstairs. The stairwell was dim
and cool, with light filtering through the dirty skylight high
above. I heard nothing from Marianne's rooms, which relieved me. I
shuddered to imagine Leland encountering her.

I let Leland and his friend into my rooms and
opened the windows against the stuffy heat. Leland looked about in
awe, his gaze roving from the flaking plaster ceiling to the
threadbare carpet. "Did you live in tents in the army, Captain?" he
asked.

I limped back to the pair. "Not always. I
lived in barracks or inns whenever we stayed put. Usually near the
stables."

"So that you could ride out at a moment's
notice?"

"So that we could better care for the horses.
A cavalryman needs a decent horse beneath him, or he should simply
stay in bed."

"With a pretty woman?" Travers said
slyly.

"That is preferable," I answered with a
straight face.

Leland did not laugh. He nodded, as though he
were taking particulars for exams.

"You said you had news?" I asked, trying to
steer them back to the reason for their visit. "Are we to move the
appointment to meet Sir Edward Connaught?"

Leland jerked his attention back to me. "That
is just the trouble, Captain. We will not be meeting with Major
Connaught at all. He is dead."

I stopped. "Dead?"

Leland nodded unhappily. "He died in his
sleep at his house in Sussex. Quite peacefully, his valet
said."

I sat down on the chair behind me. So the
killer had already struck again. I had asked Pomeroy to tell me if
John Spencer made a move, and I'd heard nothing. I fumed in
frustration and regret. "You spoke to the valet?"

Leland shook his head. "That is what the
valet said at the inquest. Father had it from the magistrate."

"The inquest was already held? When?"

"Last week. By the time father found out what
happened, Major Connaught had already been buried. Father knows the
magistrate in that part of Sussex. The magistrate says the valet
says Major Connaught was not feeling well one night. He went to
bed, and sometime in the night, he died."

Travers looked at me. "The verdict was not
murder, if that worries you."

Surprised me, rather. But then Breckenridge's
death had been put down to an accident. Connaught
might
have
died naturally, but I was unprepared to believe it. Of the four
officers who'd known the truth about the death of Captain Spencer,
only one remained alive.

One other man had known, too--Colonel
Spinnet--and he had been killed along with Captain Spencer at
Badajoz. I rested my head in my hands. If only the dead could
speak.

I jumped to my feet before that thought fully
formed. The dead
could
speak. The murderer had forgotten
that.

Leland and his friend were staring at me in
concern. I snatched up my hat and walking stick. "Come with me," I
said.

They followed me in curiosity. Leland's coach
waited nearby in Russel Street, and I commandeered it. Leland did
not seem to mind. I directed his coachman to Mount Street and the
home of Lord Richard Eggleston.

"Why are we going there?" Leland asked as we
rattled toward Mayfair. "Do you think Eggleston will be murdered,
like Lord Breckenridge?"

"Anything is possible," I answered, then I
kept silent for the rest of the journey.

Lord Richard Eggleston's front hall was
narrow and shadowy. Little thought had been given to decoration,
and the walnut paneling and heavy-legged furniture of the last
century darkened it still further. The butler who answered my knock
looked like a shadow himself, thin and drawn and gray-faced.

"I regret to say that his lordship is not at
home," he said. "He has gone to the country."

"His doorknocker is here," I said, motioning
to the shiny doorknocker on the black painted door. Only when a
family left Town did the staff remove the doorknocker to show that
the inhabitants were not in residence.

"Her ladyship is still here, sir. But I
regret that she is not at home, as well."

Doubtless she was upstairs and still in bed.
Not that I wanted to speak to the spoiled child.

"Is Lord Richard in Sussex, by chance?"

The butler's eyebrows climbed.
Sussex
,
they said, as though horrified at such a gaffe. "His lordship's
country house is in Oxfordshire."

In the opposite direction. But my elusive
murderer had managed with ease to go to Sussex and visit with Major
Connaught. He might manage Oxfordshire as easily.

"Excellent," I said. "I will write him there.
If he returns, please have him look me up." I thrust a card at the
butler, which he took with another disdainful rise of brows.

We retreated, and he closed the door on us.
Far above a curtain moved. Another servant looked out, perhaps, or
else Lady Richard peered down to see who had knocked. We apparently
were not fascinating, because the curtain dropped almost at
once.

"May I take charge of your conveyance one
more time, Mr. Derwent?" I asked in the act of scrambling
aboard.

"Of course." Leland climbed happily in after
me. Travers followed, curious but much more contained than the
pup-like Leland.

We did not go far, only around the corner to
South Audley Street and the house of the late Lord
Breckenridge.

This hall was much less shadowy--in fact,
anything from the past had been ripped away and the house redone in
the utmost modernity. The butler who answered our knock was much
younger and looked a bit harried.

He began his "I regret-- " speech, but I
pushed a card into his hand.

"If Lady Breckenridge truly is at home,
please let her know that Captain Lacey requests a moment of her
time."

The butler looked doubtful, but left us in a
small, cold, square reception room and reported to his lady. Ten
minutes later, we followed the butler upstairs to a sitting room,
where Lady Breckenridge awaited us.

She wore mourning, as did Lydia Westin, but
her gown showed off her plump bosom and arms, and its long skirt,
falling in a graceful line to the floor, clung to her long legs.
Otherwise, she looked much the same as she had in Kent--cool blue
eyes filled with slight disdain, hair curled and pinned under a
lace cap. The only thing missing was the cigarillo.

"Good evening, Captain," she said. "Did you
call to convey your further condolences?"

Her gaze flicked to Leland and Mr. Travers. I
had worried a bit about bringing the innocent Leland into this
woman's presence, but Leland had insisted on not being left behind.
He regarded Lady Breckenridge with polite indifference.

I introduced the two young men. Lady
Breckenridge looked them over, frowned slightly, and returned her
full attention to me.

"I called to inquire about your husband's
papers," I said. "Do you still have them?"

"How flattering you are, Captain. My health
is quite well, thank you."

I inclined my head. "I beg your pardon, my
lady. I am anxious to review his letters or journals, or anything
you will let me see. They might help me unravel who murdered
him."

Her brows arched. "His horse murdered
him."

I knew differently. I had suspected; now I
knew
. "If his papers no longer exist, then I apologize for
my intrusion. But if they do, may I persuade you to let me see
them?"

She made a show of considering. Lady
Breckenridge owed me nothing, and in Kent, I had insulted her
greatly. I probably had not hidden my disgust well when I'd walked
in and found her in my bed. Also I had not yet paid her the five
guineas she'd claimed she'd won at billiards. I'd written her a
vowel for it, and no doubt she'd call in the note soon.

"Very well, Captain," she said at length. "If
my husband's private papers are still in the house, they will be in
his study. I will have Barnstable escort you."

I nodded my thanks. I doubted she'd gone
through his papers herself. She'd seemed singularly uninterested in
anything involving the late Lord Breckenridge.

A small smile hovered around her mouth.
"While you read them, perhaps Mr.--Derwent, was it? can remain here
and speak with me."

I glanced at her sharply. Her smile was all
innocence, but her eyes said
ha, that's got you,
Captain.

I turned to Leland. He managed to look
polite, but I sensed the acute disappointment that he would not
accompany me. Solving a murder with me far outweighed the young
man's desire to speak to widows ten years his senior.

I made my decision and hoped his father would
forgive me. "Of course. Mr. Derwent would be happy to keep you
company."

Leland bowed and responded politely that yes,
he would. A more blatant lie I had not heard in a long while.

Lady Breckenridge rang the bell and the
harried butler returned. At her instruction, the man led me and
Travers down a flight of stairs and opened the door of a small
study that overlooked a minuscule patch of garden.

The butler unlocked the desk. "His lordship
kept his papers in here, sir. His man of business has not yet
sorted through them."

"We will remove nothing, I promise," I said.
My fingers twitched, itching to begin. "Thank you."

I seated myself when he departed, opened the
drawers, and began to pull out their contents. I found stacks of
letters and documents that had to do with properties and
investments, instructions to Breckenridge's staff and stewards, and
correspondence with friends and colleagues.

Travers looked at the piles in dismay. "Good
lord, are you going to read all that?"

"I hope I do not have to," I said, beginning
to sort things.

Travers dragged a chair to the desk, lifted a
bound bundle of letters and untied the ribbon. "What are we looking
for?"

I gave him a grateful glance. "Anything that
mentions the names Eggleston, Connaught, Spinnet, or Westin," I
said. "Or Spencer, for that matter." I doubted we'd find anything
about the last, but it was worth a try. Travers silently mouthed
the names, and bent over the letters.

Lord Breckenridge seemed to have been quite
orderly, or at least his secretary had been. Documents were neatly
organized into categories, as were his private and business
correspondences.

I skimmed through papers, opened letters,
read through notes to his man of business or secretary. I'd hoped
to find a journal that readily fell open to the entry reading "This
evening, we murdered Captain Spencer," but nothing came that
easily.

In the end, Travers and I created a dismally
small stack of papers that in any way concerned the gentlemen I'd
named.

One was a letter from Eggleston, dated late
in 1811. "I have oiled the levers as much as I dare," it said. "If
Spinnet will not have you as major, Westin will not be brought to
bear, I wager. They are close as thieves in the night. I do not
believe the toad-eater Westin breathes when Spinnet tells him not
to. But I have a few ideas on this, my friend."

He did not elaborate in this or any other
letter. Whatever his ideas had been, he'd either kept them to
himself or told them to Breckenridge in person.

Another letter documented a large sum of
money paid out to Colonel Roehampton Westin of the Forty-Third
Light Dragoons and a smaller payment to Colonel Spinnet. This had
been dated January 1812.

I found a letter from Major Connaught written
in June of 1812, on the back of a letter from Breckenridge to him.
I read this eagerly. Breckenridge had written: "Badajoz went well,
confound you. I should be major. Have you taken a leaf from
Spinnet's book? What must I do?"

Connaught's reply had been terse. "Do
nothing. The wheels turn. Doing things will be the death of
you."

Interesting, if cryptic. "Doing" had been
underlined three times.

"Here's something," Travers murmured. He
handed me the letter announcing Breckenridge's promotion from
captain to major in November 1812.

I contemplated this for some time. It had
always struck me as odd that Breckenridge had never risen further
in rank than major. Lydia had mentioned that Breckenridge had
pestered her husband to be made a colonel, but Westin had resisted.
I myself had been a lieutenant for years, then made captain during
the Peninsular campaign for some of my actions at Talavera. For a
man of my wealth and standing--which was to say, none--that I had
risen as far as I had was commendable. Breckenridge, wealthy,
connected, and a lord, ought to have been at least a colonel.
Wellesley--the Duke of Wellington now--had risen through the ranks
from ensign to general by the time he was thirty-three. And yet,
from all evidence, Breckenridge, no older than I, had struggled to
make even major.