Looking well-fed but even grubbier than usual, stout, balding Elton glowered resentfully at the book-lined study and Rafe looming over Hunt’s old desk.Rafe knew he was a peasant like Elton, but he’d worked hard to earn his place at the table.He had his doubts about this thief working hard at anything.
Rafe settled back in Hunt’s comfortable chair as if he were lord of the manor.“You're the gent who looked after Mrs.Turner and her children, are you not?”
“That was me,” Elton replied stiffly and warily.“Did what I was paid to.”
“And who hired you?”Rafe asked, starting with simple questions, the way he used to do in the army, with thieves who raided his food supplies.
“Solicitor, said I was to give him the doc’s reports.She was wasting away and he didn't want the children left alone,” the footman said self-righteously.
“And the solicitor’s name?”Upton asked.
“Turner, said he was related to the late master’s family.But people here been calling him Cooper.”
Rafe bit back a snort.Liars and thieves abounded.“Where were you when the lady died?”
“Weren't no lady,” the servant insisted.“Just a rich man's doxie.His lordship was generous to let her stay.”
“Did the lady have anyone else looking after her?”Upton asked, not showing the fury Rafe felt, although the curate’s jaw twitched.
“Solicitor hired her too.Called herself Nanny Smith, but she weren't no nanny.She cooked a bit.Helped with the brats.Dusted some.But things went missing when she was about.”
Probably went missing when Elton was about, also, but innocent until proven guilty, Rafe reminded himself.“This the woman you claimed was your sister?”Rafe showed Elton the sketch again.
The balding servant shrugged.“Turner told me to say that.Said it would get the brats back faster.Yeah, that’s her.”
Rafe sat back in his chair.“Tell us what happened the day Mrs.Turner died.”
Elton shifted uneasily, no doubt looking for the best way to present himself.“I sent word to Mr.Turner that the physician said she didn't have long.She was writing her family to fetch the childern.”He parsed his words carefully.“So Mr.Turner came early one morning and was there when she died.”
“You weren't in the room when she passed?”Rafe wanted it on record, if only to determine how much Elton lied.He’d believe Daphne before this lout.
“No, I warn't.”
Well, at least that part was truth.Rafe watched for tics that might give him away.“What day was this?”
Elton wrinkled his brow.“A Friday?Cause we was to go to market and couldn’t with her dead.”
“So Cooper tells you the lady passed.What did he do then?”
“He said he needed to arrange burial and all.He took some of the silver with him.I knew it was the end then, and me and Nan would have to look to ourselves.”
“Smart thinking.”The curate scribbled in his notebook.“Is that when you began boxing the silver?”
Elton crossed and uncrossed his legs.“That was our orders, sir.But the little girl was a’weepin’ somethin’ awful and the boy came home from school and had a right fit, and there warn’t time for boxin’ much.”
Consoling distraught children should have come first.Rafe hid his impatience.“So when did you see Mr.Cooper Turner next?”
“On the Saturday, early, he came in a fancy coach and has the corpse takers with their cart.He wouldn’t let us go to the funeral.’Stead, he has Nan lock up the childern and takes me into town in his fancy coach, sells some silver, and tells me to buy an old cart with it.Then he leaves me at the inn, takes his horse, and says he’s a’ridin’ back to the cottage to start closin’ it up, and I was to hurry.”
“When did you see him next?”As far as Rafe could determine, all this agreed with what he’d learned from Gillespie, the viscount’s valet, so Elton got points for sticking to the verifiable parts of the story.
Elton wrinkled his brow as if it was an effort to think.“Took me some to find a vehicle for what little he gave me.Needed a nag too.Finally found an old lady wanting to be rid of her buggy.”
Rafe feared it may have been stolen, but he didn’t interrupt, just nodded encouragingly.
Relaxing, Elton fell into the rhythm of his tale.“Got back to the cottage maybe a bit after noon?Brats were crying and yelling and bein' obstreperous in their rooms.Turner was there, ordering Nan to take them away, refusin’ to let her take their things, rightly so.Couldn’t have nice things at no orphanage.He gave Nan some candies to quiet ’em down.Ordered her to take the buggy and haul them to Birmingham once she got done boxing the valuables.He had me filling a cart with the boxes, for safekeeping.Don’t know why he had me hunting for a cart when he already had one.He coulda just waited until Nan got back.”
Except the nanny hadn’t come back and Cooper planned to be long gone with the silver?Made horrible sense but not Rafe’s immediate concern.He needed evidence, not speculation.“And then what?”
