“Or,” Penelope said as she rose, “something the murderer thinks might still be here.”
Barnaby tipped his head her way. “Good point.”
Leaving Walsh in the office, they headed outside.
Jordan followed the others onto the pavement. When Barnaby and Penelope offered to take him as well as Stokes back to Mayfair in their carriage, Jordan smiled and declined.He nodded across the street. “I’ll pick up Gelman, and then, I believe, we have somewhere else we need to visit.”
Assuming, as he’d intended they would, that the somewhere else had to do with his work for Roscoe, the other three parted from him and climbed into the Adairs’ carriage.
Jordan remained where he was until the carriage rattled off, then he crossed the street to where Gelman was lounging in the mouth of a narrow alley.
Gelman straightened and stepped out to meet Jordan. “Did you see Miss Cardwell peering in the window?”
Jordan nodded. “I thought she was going to come inside.”
“Seemed like,” Gelman agreed. “She looked like she was about to step toward the door, then she froze and, a second later, turned and walked straight back the way she’d come.”
Jordan looked toward the street that would take them to Finsbury Circus. “I’m going to call at the Cardwells’. Miss Cardwell was about to come in and—I assume—speak with me, then she saw Mrs. Adair and scarpered. I’m curious to learn why.”
CHAPTER 7
With Gelman on watch in the central park, Jordan climbed the steps before the door of Number 29. Confronted with the black-crepe-draped knocker, he raised his fist to rap, only to have the door open and Ruth Cardwell step over the threshold.
“Quiet,” she warned and, with both hands, shooed him down the steps. Over her shoulder, she called, “I’m just stepping out to take a turn around the park, Mama. I’ll be back shortly.” She closed the door quietly behind her, then waved Jordan back even more insistently and joined him on the pavement. “Just in case someone looks out, we need to make this look normal.” She looped her arm in his and would have towed him to the park if he’d resisted.
Jordan didn’t resist but willingly paced beside her as they walked sedately across the street and passed into the park. Although the large trees were not yet in full leaf, there were bushes aplenty to screen them from the house.
Ruth glanced back once, then murmured, “I don’t want Mama to hear this—she worries enough as it is.”
“About what?” Jordan asked.
“Us,” Ruth replied. “Everything to do with the family.” She pointed to a bench set in an alcove created by thick bushes. “There will do.”
Jordan obligingly directed his steps in that direction.
When they reached the bench, Ruth released his arm and, drawing in her blue-cambric skirts, sat.
She seemed impatient for Jordan to join her, yet once he had, she hesitated as if having second thoughts about what she’d intended to say.
Jordan held his tongue and didn’t press. In his experience, sensible women were best left to make up their own minds.
Eventually, Ruth glanced at him, a frown in her eyes. “Did you and Mrs. Adair find anything in Thomas’s ledgers to explain why he contacted your employer?”
Jordan couldn’t see any reason not to tell her the truth. “No. There was nothing out of the ordinary. Everything seemed to be stultifyingly above board.”
To his surprise, she slumped slightly as if that hadn’t been the news she’d hoped to hear. He watched as she bit her lower lip, her expression plainly stating that she was wrestling with some momentous decision.
With her conscience, perhaps.
As before, Jordan said nothing and simply waited.
Eventually, her expression cleared. She raised her head slightly, and her chin firmed. “As you already know, I keep the accounts—the actual ledgers—for Thomas’s business.” She met Jordan’s gaze. “I also keep the family accounts—all of them. I go over them weekly, always on a Friday. As usual, I went over them last Friday, and I noticed…” She paused to fortify herself with a restricted breath. “That Gibson hadn’t been leeching here and there from the rest of us as he usually does.”
Jordan frowned slightly. “Leeching?”
“Gibson is a closet spendthrift—he pretends to get by on his allowance, but he’s constantly ‘borrowing’ from the rest of us to cover his expenses. A crown or two here, ten shillings there, that sort of thing. It usually shows in the individual accounts I keep for each member of the family.” She paused, then added, “When my father passed and we realized how financially strained the family truly was, Thomas and I instituted an internal accounting system so that we could keep tight control over the household’s and each family member’s spending. It was very necessary when we first started doing it, and because of that, we’ve never really stopped, even though those straitened financial times are behind us.”
Jordan nodded his understanding and didn’t interrupt.
