"But the lace was caught outside the door. Perhaps a woman slipped through the passage and tore her gown on the protruding nail."
"No, if I am correct, the lace was used to mark the door to the anteroom. So that when the killer hastened down the rather dark servants' passage, with the doors that look all alike, he would know which to go through."
"Then that dismisses the idea that one of the Gillis servants had anything to do with it," Lady Breckenridge said. "They would have no need to mark the door."
I hadn't thought any of Lord Gillis's staff had done this, thinking they'd be wise enough not to kill Turner inside the house, where servants were well supervised and anything out of the ordinary quickly noticed. Though when Leland had first revealed Turner's proclivities, I'd briefly pictured Turner making advances to one of the robust footmen, and said footman taking exception, with Brandon's knife somehow convenient.
But then, if a hearty footman had grown angry at me and picked up a knife, I'd certainly try to fight him off, shout, or run away. No, Turner had not been expecting the blow, which meant it was a person he thought entirely harmless.
"You seem to be sanguine suddenly about the whereabouts of Colonel Brandon's letter," Lady Breckenridge said. "This after your near despair when we could not find it in the house."
"If it is not where I think it is, then it has been destroyed."
"You believe Louisa Brandon has it," Lady Breckenridge said with sharp perception. "You believe that she came to retrieve it on her husband's orders. Perhaps she raved over the cakes and demanded the recipe in order to slip down to the ballroom and find the paper."
"I imagine she truly liked the cakes. Louisa is fond of lemon."
She gave me a steady gaze. "Mrs. Brandon must love her husband very much."
"She does."
Lady Breckenridge laid her hand on my arm and did not speak further.
We rattled through the streets of London against a breeze that held the promising warmth of spring. Still it was chilly enough that I was grateful for the warm interior of the coach. When we reached Bow Street, I told Lady Breckenridge to stay inside the carriage. The rooms of the magistrate's house were no place for a lady.
Pomeroy, luckily, was in. I asked him what he had done with the things he took from Turner's coat. For a moment, as he paused in thought, I feared he had rid himself of them, or perhaps sent them to Turner's father.
"I still have 'em," he said, to my relief. "Upstairs. Was saving them for the trial, in case they could tell us anything about how Mr. Turner got himself stuck."
He took me to a small room on the second floor and removed a wooden box from a cupboard. Pomeroy emptied the contents onto the table and separated what he said were Henry Turner's belongings. They consisted of a snuffbox, a few silver coins, and the scrap of lace that Mrs. Harper had mentioned.
I picked up the lace. As I'd suspected, the ends were blunt, not raveled. It had been cut. The lace was stiff, because, I saw when I examined it, strands of real gold had been woven through the silk thread.
I closed my hand around it. I knew which lady at the ball had worn this lace, because I had seen her in the gown after the ball was over. "May I take this?" I asked Pomeroy.
"It ain't much use to me," he said. "Mr. Turner didn't pull it off the coat or dress of his killer. It was tucked, nice and safe, inside his waistcoat pocket. Can't imagine what for."
"Thank you."
"The trial is in four days, Captain," Pomeroy said. His usually jovial face was grim.
"I know. But Brandon did not murder Mr. Turner. He is only guilty of misplaced honor."
"Best you come up with a way to prove it, sir, or the colonel will swing."
"I am proving it now, Sergeant. Good afternoon."
I descended through the house and outside to the carriage. "Did you find it?" Lady Breckenridge asked, her eyes animated with interest.
I climbed in next to her, took her gloved hand, and laid the scrap of lace into it.
She stared at it. "Good Lord." Her face lost color. "You said this was found in Mr. Turner's pocket? How on earth did it get there?"
"I hoped that you would tell me," I said. "This lace is from the ball gown you wore to the Gillises' last week, is it not? I remember seeing you in it that night when I arrived at Mrs. Brandon's."
Chapter Seventeen
Lady Breckenridge looked up at me, bewildered. "Yes, this is from my gown. But I never gave this lace to Henry Turner. I confess to be amazed."
"I would be less surprised if it looked to be torn," I said. "Anyone might have found a bit of lace that had fallen from your gown while you danced. But this was deliberately cut- "
"I know," Lady Breckenridge broke in impatiently. "I cut it myself. For Mrs. Bennington."
It was my turn to be amazed. "Mrs. Bennington?"
"Yes. We were in a withdrawing room-my maid was helping me into my dancing slippers, and Mrs. Bennington expressed rather gushing admiration for my gown, especially the lace. She asked me for a snippet so she might have her dressmaker find some like it. So I cut a little bit off where it would not show and gave it to her."
I took the lace back from Lady Breckenridge and laid it on my glove. The innocent scrap glittered with wires of gold against my glove's cheap leather. It was feminine and pretty, yet strong, like Lady Breckenridge herself.
"This killer is of ruthless and nasty mind," I said. "He does not mind using another man's dagger to do the deed, nor stealing from an innocent woman to assist him. Every clue left behind will point to a different person, each completely removed from the crime. The killer planned this with deftness and care then sat back and laughed while we scrambled about to solve it."
Lady Breckenridge watched me with intelligent eyes. "What will you do?"
I thrust the lace into my pocket. "Speak to Mrs. Bennington. I wish to ask her why she wanted a piece of your lace and what she did with it after you gave it to her."
"She is performing tonight."
"I will make an appointment to see her after the play. She invited me once before; she might be persuaded to invite me again."
"She will."
"You seem confident," I said.
Lady Breckenridge smiled. "My dear Gabriel, you are handsome, polite, and unattached. She will see you."
"But penniless," I reminded her.
"Some ladies do not mind this. Sit in my box tonight, and we will visit her afterward. We are in Russel Street now. Shall I have my coachman set you down here?"
I agreed, and she ordered her coachman to stop.
"Until this evening, then," she said as I descended. "And tell your Miss Simmons not to accost you under the piazza." She chuckled as the footman closed the door behind me, and then the carriage pulled away.
I smiled to myself and tapped my way down Grimpen Lane to my rooms.
Bartholomew greeted me with hot coffee, and I reflected, as I often did, what a luxury it was to have a valet in training.
I found a letter from Sir Montague Harris waiting for me. As I read it, I mused that I envied his network of resources. He'd managed to find, through inquiries, a man who'd known Mr. Bennington on the Continent.
Said gentleman, a solicitor by trade, had moved from Italy to London shortly after Bennington had. Bennington, the man had told Sir Montague, had come to Italy from the north of England. That interested me, because Bennington certainly did not have a north country accent.
The next statement interested me further. This man who'd known Bennington said that Bennington had been known as Mr. Worth, but at his marriage five years ago had changed his name to his wife's family name, Bennington. Why he'd wanted to, the man did not know, but then, Bennington-or Worth-had always been whimsical.
Armed with this knowledge, Sir Montague had found the man of business of this Bennington-Worth and visited him.