“You don’t know the firm he works for?”Damien asked.
“No, sir.He hired me when my former employer couldn’t pay my wages, said his lordship would be coming into his funds once they settled matters with the estate.”
“Sounds like we need to question Chatham,” Hunt decided.“Sutter, can your valet dry him out and prop him up?Or should I send mine?”
“Depends on whether you want your newly-minted viscount tormented,” Damien said.“Jacques is insistent that he’s a bootmaker and only acting as my valet as a favor to me.He took a dislike to his lordship.”
“My man was once a sergeant, not a peacock like yours.I’ll send him.While I’m gone, find out why this one thinks he’s hunting through attics.”Hunt strode off to set the fox among the pigeons.
Gillespie looked even more nervous.“He’ll blame me.I’ll lose my place.I’ve told you everything I know.His lordship doesn’t know anything.”
“His lordship needs to grow up and accept responsibility,” the curate corrected.“He should know why his solicitor is telling you to trespass.”
“I was just to see if there was any way in,” the manservant protested.“I heard talk of pirate treasure and jewels.I thought it was some game among the gentry.”
“Did you break one lock and jam the new one?”Rafe wanted a crime to prosecute.He felt sorry for this chap but he was still outraged that his orders had been ignored.
Gillespie twitched nervously.“It was what I was told to do.”
“When?”Rafe demanded.
“Ummm.”Gillespie fumbled with his buttons.“Day you told me not to use those stairs?”
“The solicitor ishere, in the manor?”Damien asked with incredulity.
Gillespie shook his head.“No, sir.Elton told me.He works for Mr.Turner.”
Rafe thought he might go through the roof.“Elton?Where is that miscreant?He’s in themanor?I’ve been hunting all over for him.”
“Don’t know, sir.Thought he was at the inn, sir.”
Rafe and Wolfie had scoured the inn, inside and out, but he’d be the first to admit the sprawling monstrosity could hide an army for a week.“Elton is a thief, a liar, and a potential kidnapper.Your lordship and his solicitor keep bad company.”
The servant grew even more pale.“But I know he works for Mr.Turner.I’ve seen them speak.”
Rafe straightened.“You can identify Turner?”
“Yes, of course, sir.He hired me.”
Damien consulted his notes.“Let me see if I have this correct.Mr.Turner, presumably an estate solicitor, hired you to act as manservant for Lord Chatham after his lordship came into his title?Was this in London?How long ago?”
“Yes, sir, in London, sir, about a fortnight ago, after his lordship’s uncle died.”
Beforethe Widow Turner died.Rafe needed to connect all the nefarious events in some manner.When exactly had the widow been buried?This was Saturday.The orphans had arrived last Monday, nearly a week ago.They presumably left Stratford Sunday evening, which meant their mother had died less than a week after Chatham’s uncle?Rafe wanted Verity here to prevent him from leaping to terrible conclusions.
He turned to the curate, who merely acted as witness, and murmured, “Did you not say the servants were seen leaving Beanblossom?Do you know what day that was?”
“No, the neighbor simply indicated she saw a carriage shortly after the widow’s death.I didn’t ask for a death certificate,” Upton whispered.He wrinkled his brow in thought.“I believe the Stratford curate said they’d buried her a few days before we arrived, which was on Tuesday.That would make the funeral most likely on Saturday or Sunday?”Now he, too, looked alarmed.
Good to know the Oxford-educated curate was having the same horrible thoughts.
“And where did you see Elton and Turner together?”Damien continued jotting in his notebook, a lawyer to the bone.
Gillespie wrinkled his large beak in distaste.“In Stratford, sir.Mr.Turner was at the inn there when we arrived on the Friday evening.I believe he brought bank notes for his lordship, because I was paid the wages I was owed from my former employer, as promised.”
Money, always an excellent way to buy loyalty.“And that’s when you saw Elton?”
“No, sir.That was the next day, noonish.Saturday morning, Mr.Turner borrowed his lordship’s carriage to see to estate business.When he returned, he had Mr.Elton with him, to buy a carriage, I believe.The delay forced us to finish our journey on the Lord’s day.Lord Chatham and his friends were displeased as the inn wasn’t to their liking.”Gillespie tugged at his neckcloth.
