Grenville never approved of my visiting Denis. He knew of my uncertain temper and was convinced that one day I would go too far and induce Denis to rid himself of a troublesome captain once and for all. Grenville was likely right.
"He has told me he will own me outright," I said. "If so, I might as well make use of him."
"The more favors he does you, the more favors he can call in," Grenville said.
"It has gone far beyond that already." James Denis had said he would snare me, and I already felt that web closing about me.
Grenville drove me all the way to Grimpen Lane. Bartholomew joined me there, descending from Grenville's coach and making his determined way toward the bake shop and my rooms, as though resolute that I'd not be assaulted today.
"Come to the theatre tonight," Grenville said as he gathered his reins. "My box at Covent Garden."
I felt tired, wanting to stretch and yawn. "I'm not certain I'm in the mood for frivolity. Funerals tend to dampen my spirits."
"Come anyway. I have invited Mr. Bennington and Basil Stokes. I will introduce you, and you can interrogate them."
"That puts a different complexion on things." I tipped my hat. "Thank you. I will attend."
Grenville told me goodbye, turned his phaeton in a complicated move, and signaled his team on.
Bartholomew had already lit a fire by the time I entered my rooms. Mrs. Beltan brought me my post and some coffee. She'd been quite distressed at the attack on me, but she informed me that no suspicious person had come near the place while I'd been gone. She'd kept watch specially.
Certainly, nothing had been disturbed. I thanked her, read my post, and wrote my letters for the day. Sir Montague Harris had written that Brandon's trial was scheduled for the fourteenth of the month, one week from now. I gritted my teeth. I needed to find firm information that would acquit Brandon, and soon.
Sir Montague had also fixed an appointment to meet me the next day. I looked forward to discussing things with him, because too many questions swam in my head. I wrote a note accepting the appointment, then I wrote to James Denis asking if he knew anything of my Frenchman, and if not, could he find out?
Denis had an uncanny way of being aware of everything involving me, so I would not be surprised if he already knew the Frenchman's name, where he came from, and whether he enjoyed fishing in the Seine.
I posted the letters, ate the bread and butter that Bartholomew had procured for me, and took a hackney to Newgate prison.
Brandon was not best pleased to see me. His cheekbones looked sunken, and untidy bristles covered his chin.
"What do you want?" he growled as I was shown in.
"To save your hide," I answered. "Sit down and let me ask you questions."
He would not sit. Brandon stood stiffly in the center of the room, ever the officer, and eyed me with chill dislike. "If you have come to further impugn Mrs. Harper, you may leave at once."
I dragged a chair in front of the meager fire and sat. If he wanted to freeze in the center of the chamber, that was his own business. "I have met Mrs. Harper. I believe you are both fools."
His eyes widened. "You met her?"
"Yes. She was attempting to search Turner's rooms for whatever letter he had of yours and hers. I am trying to decide how the letter come to be in his possession at all."
"I have no idea," Brandon shot back.
His indignation was so prompt and so adamant that I believed him.
"What I wish to know," I continued, "is why you and Turner entered the anteroom at eleven o'clock and left it together a few minutes later."
"I told you. I called him out. He refused."
"No, that was your lie for the magistrate-you claimed that you resented Turner's intentions to Mrs. Harper. But we both know that Turner's only interest in Mrs. Harper was her liaison with you. Did you meet him to fix a time to exchange money for the letter? Or did you make the exchange then?"
"I do not need to answer you. You are not a magistrate or a judge."
"Damn you, but you are obstinate. I am trying to prove that you did not kill Turner. If you'd already made the exchange for the letter, then you'd have no reason to kill him. Your dealing with him would be over."
"It is none of your business what I did in that room," he said stiffly.
"Very well. Perhaps they will let you weave the rope for your inevitable hanging, because that is what you are doing."
"That is preposterous."
"No more preposterous than you taking Turner aside and driving a knife into his heart."
Brandon looked away.
I grew impatient. "Mrs. Harper believes you killed him, and you believe Mrs. Harper killed him. You are a fine pair. You might be pleased to know that she did not kill him when she found him. A witness saw all she did in that room. While it was true that she searched Turner's coat for the letter-which she did not find-she did not murder him."
He started. I saw it dawn on him that he might be mistaken, that he might be in Newgate for no reason at all.
Then he rearranged his expression. "None of this is your business, Lacey. Leave it alone."
"I truly believe that you did go to the anteroom at eleven to make the exchange," I said. "Turner probably did not trust you enough to meet you somewhere too privately. You are a man of uneven temper after all. Mrs. Harper, he might have handled, but you were a different matter. If he meets you in the anteroom, and you try to obtain the letter by violence, he can cry out. People nearby would come to see what was the matter."
"If that is true, then why did he not call out when he was stabbed?"
"I have thought of that. I believe he trusted the person who stabbed him. Or did not believe they had the strength to hurt him. He was not expecting it."
"A woman, then," Brandon said.
"Perhaps. Or a male lover. I have learned that Turner preferred men to women. That fact might make any of the gentleman present at the ball a candidate."
Brandon made a face. "Such a thing is too disgusting to even contemplate."
The unimaginative Colonel Brandon would never understand or condone such goings-on. I'd felt much the same until I'd become acquainted with two officers during the war, who'd always spent the night before battle with each other. We all, except Brandon, had known but said nothing, and the two in question fought the more fiercely for each other the next day. When one was finally killed, the other had sunk into so much grief he'd retired his commission and returned to England. Those officers had loved as strongly as any devoted husband and wife, or any man and his longtime mistress.
I said none of this to Brandon, however.
"That lover might be your savior, sir. But let us return to your meeting with Turner. How much money did he want?"
"Five hundred guineas."
My jaw dropped. "Good God." A gentleman could live for a year on five hundred guineas. Many gentlemen, indeed, entire families, lived on far less. "That is a princely sum. You paid it?"
"It is what he asked," Brandon said.
Brandon was wealthy enough to have come up with the money. I would query his man of business, make him tell me if Brandon actually did liquidate five hundred guineas.
"You did not have five hundred guineas in your pocket when you were arrested," I said. "Pomeroy would have mentioned that. So you must have given it to Turner. In return, he gave you the letter."
"So you say," Brandon replied, too calm. "I did not have a letter in my pocket, did I?"
"I know." I stood up and faced him. "So what did you do with it?"
He met my gaze, his eyes so cold he froze me through. "I have told you, Lacey, leave it be."
"That letter could save your life."
"You have called me foolish," he said softly. "But you are the biggest fool of all."