Stokes frowned. “So if Sir Ulysses had learned about the gun running and wanted to speak with Thomas…”
“Exactly.” Penelope nodded. “For a start, why would Sir Ulysses think to speak with Thomas about the gun running? But assuming that for some reason he did, then Sir Ulysses is not the sort to go calling at a younger man’s office. He’s regulation army—he would expect the junior man to come to him.”
Stokes slowly nodded. “Yes, I can see that.” He raised his gaze to Penelope’s and Barnaby’s faces. “So what did you learn about Keeble?”
Barnaby glanced at Penelope, then at her urging, commenced, “He’s a widower, and he’s devoted to steadily ascending the social ladder.”
“Rung by sure rung,” Penelope put in. “I sensed his campaign in that regard is very carefully constructed and executed.” She looked at Jordan and Stokes. “For instance, I asked if he’d thought about Josh marrying, and he replied, ‘Not yet.’ It’s clearly a step in his overall plan to socially advance himself and Josh—they’re the only two in the family—but Keeble Senior isn’t the sort to rush into anything. It’s all very calculated.”
“To me, it seemed that he uses his late wife’s higher social status as an excuse,” Barnaby said, “in that, had she lived, it would be what she would have wanted.”
Penelope nodded. “That’s true. However, with respect to the gun-running scheme and Thomas being killed, Keeble appeared truly shocked. Rattled and even distressed.”
“It took some effort to reassure him that Josh’s name is unlikely to be made public,” Barnaby said.
“I suppose,” Penelope said, “that given his plans to advance the family socially, the prospect of having their name feature in some news sheet in association with gun running and murder would, indeed, be upsetting.”
Her mock-earnest tone made Stokes and Jordan smirk.
“Interestingly,” Barnaby said, “when we inquired if he knew Thomas, while Keeble gave a similar answer to the Moubrays—having only encountered Thomas at school events—Keeble added that he knew Thomas’s office was in Broad Street.”
“Oh?” Stokes perked up.
Penelope smiled at him and shook her head. “Keeble pointed out that as he’s a financier and, therefore, often in the area, Thomas’s office would be hard to miss.”
“Hard to claim not to have been aware of it,” Barnaby said. “But Keeble denied ever interacting with Thomas professionally, having an office of his own and no need of the services of another man-of-business.”
Penelope looked from Stokes to Jordan. “That’s all we learned from Keeble and the Moubrays. So”—she arched her brows at Jordan—“what useful insights did Roscoe offer?”
Jordan set down his empty plate and took a sip of his tea.
“Before we get to Roscoe,” Stokes said, “was there anything of note at the Cardwells?”
Jordan shook his head. “No. Nothing that seemed pertinent, just the family trying to band together and get through this terrible time.”
Barnaby had been mulling over the facts they’d collected thus far. “So was it learning about the guns that sealed Thomas’s fate, or was it something else entirely?”
Stokes pointed out, “The gun running certainly qualifies as Thomas’s ‘nefarious activities,’ and little else we’ve come across fits that bill. However, I agree that we need to prove that Thomas did, in actual fact, learn about the guns. Until we have solid proof of that, we’re trying to stitch together a story with unconnected threads.”
Jordan nodded. “We need to get to the bottom of this—identify the reason that Thomas was killed—not least for the Cardwells and, perhaps strangely, most of all for Gibson Cardwell.”
Stokes regarded Jordan shrewdly. “Having an attack of the guilts, is he?”
“Very much so.”
Penelope was frowning. “The only place that Chesterton and Gibson, Harrison, and Josh met was at the Fox.” She looked at the men about her. “So the Fox is the only place where Thomas could have spotted Chesterton and picked up his trail and followed Chesterton to the warehouse and found the guns.”
Stokes grimaced. “We need to find someone who saw Thomas following Chesterton away from the Fox. That’s the very least we need.” He jotted in his notebook. “I’ll send Morgan to ask at the Fox. Depending on how good Thomas’s disguise was, someone there might have noticed him.”
Jordan’s expression stated that he was mentally surveying the sequence of events they were endeavoring to construct. “For the sake of our case, let’s say that Thomas did see Chesterton at the Fox with Gibson and subsequently followed Chesterton fromthe Fox to the warehouse. That had to have been on the Sunday night—thirty-six hours before he was murdered—because on Monday, Thomas sent his letter to Roscoe, and Thomas was killed on Tuesday morning.”
Barnaby nodded. “That’s Thomas’s timetable as we know it to this point. And assuming we do, indeed, find sound evidence that Thomas followed Chesterton and learned about the guns, given the timing, that makes the motive for Thomas’s murder his knowledge of the gun-running scheme.” Barnaby looked at the faces about him. “Presumably, that knowledge made Thomas a threat to someone.”
Jordan glanced at Penelope, then looked at Barnaby and Stokes. “That’s the perfect opening to reveal Roscoe’s insights. When I told him about Chesterton and the gun-running scheme, Roscoe’s immediate question was ‘Who are Chesterton’s backers?’”
Staring at Jordan, Stokes slowly sat up.
On the sofa, Barnaby and Penelope straightened.
