I’ve approached through a back hall, where I can sneak peeks through discreet viewing ports, and I’m not sure whether that makes me feel like a voyeur or a visitor to the zoo.
Here you see the upper-crust Victorian male in his natural habitat, smoking a pipe and reading the newspaper, doing things he could also do at home, but then he might need to... I don’t know, talk to his wife? Acknowledge his children?
I presume the viewing ports are so the staff can be ready to refill those teacups or empty those ashtrays as efficiently as possible.
When I hear Gray’s voice, I follow it down another corridor. I peek out and see him sitting with a man who, again, surprises me. He’s clearly Simpson’s brother, given the resemblance, but Arthur looks more like the lover I pictured for Lady Inglis, handsome and polished. As I said, looks aren’t everything, and it doesn’t take long to understand why Lady Inglis would prefer the elder Simpson.
“Don’t beat about the bush, Gray,” Arthur snaps. “I am not a fool. I know what happens in my own home. Charles keeps a secret as well as a boy in short pants. Someone has stolen private letters from his room. Letters that ought to have been burned the moment he realized what they were. Ladies these days are not what they used to be. They are notladiesat all.”
“Yes, your brother is missing letters of an intimate nature?—”
“Intimate? Pornographic, that is what they are.”
Gray pauses, and I try to see him, but the angle is wrong, and I doubt I’d see anything but a studiously blank expression.
“You have read them?” Gray says mildly.
That gets a satisfying spate of apoplectic sputtering from Arthur Simpson.
Gray says, “You seem to know what the letters contain?—”
“Because he accidentally left one lying about and I picked it up, innocently thinking it a simple bit of correspondence, only to read...” He sputters some more. “Filth one should never find outside a brothel. And the most deviant of brothels at that.”
Read the whole thing, didn’t you, Arthur?
“Do they have such letters in brothels?” Gray says, his tone still so delightfully mild. “Are they intended for reading while you wait for one of the ladies to be available?”
More sputtering as Arthur insists he has no idea what is in brothels, and he was merely making a point.
Gray lets him go on a bit before interrupting. “So you are aware of the missing letters.”
“Yes, I am aware. I could hardly miss Charles rushing about the house, whispering to all the servants, asking whether they had seen any ‘letters’ from a box he keeps locked on his dresser. I waited for him to come to me. He did not, because he knows I would never knowingly soil my mind with such things.”
“Do you have any idea who might have taken them?”
“No, but if it finally forces my brother to make an honest woman of that tart, then I shall owe them my gratitude.”
“That tart being...”
Disgust oozes from Arthur’s voice. “You know who wrote the letters as well as I do, Gray. Lady Inglis. My brother’s mistress. One of them, at least.”
“You do not seem fond of Lady Inglis, though you wish her for a sister-in-law?”
“I am not fond of any of his tarts, but at leastsheis respectable. Outwardly respectable, that is. A widow from a fine family. Still attractive. Clever enough. Well-liked and—” He seems to need to force himself to say the words. “—well-mannered. Charles would do well to marry her and stop this... behavior. I do not know why she puts up with him, but she obviously does and has for years. He is not a young man anymore, and he should not act like one. It is an embarrassment.”
“You think the letters will lead to a marriage proposal?”
“Of course. Whoever has stolen them obviously intends to blackmail Charles. He cannot afford to pay a ransom, so he will be forced to marry her. Finally.”
I peek out to see Arthur sipping his tea while Gray steeples his fingers, as if in quiet thought.
After a moment, Arthur says, “I would not be surprised if she stole the letters herself.”
“Lady Inglis?”
“Certainly.” Arthur leans forward, his tone almost excited, as if he has just solved the mystery. “Now that this new girl has entered the picture, Lady Inglis realizes she is never going to have him to herself without a wedding ring. She steals the letters—easily done, as she has access to my brother’s bedchamber. Then she threatens him with a ransom he cannot pay, and he has no choice but to marry her before this thief takes their affair public.”
Arthur lowers his voice and says, “Cleverly done, ma’am. Cleverly done indeed.” He rubs his hands together. “There. This is settled. He shall need to marry the woman and be done with it.”
