Everyone in the hot room, from the coroner to Eggleston to Brandon to the stable lads, looked pleased with the conclusion.
I kept my feelings to myself.
When we returned to Astley Close, Lady Mary closeted herself with her brother, whom she had summoned home, and left her guests to fend for themselves. The house party over, Grenville ordered his carriage made ready to take us back to London.
I encountered Lady Breckenridge in the downstairs drawing room-entirely by accident; I had been looking for Grenville. I had not seen her since finding her in my bed two nights before. But much as I hadn’t gotten on with her, Breckenridge's death had been sudden and shocking. I paused.
"Please accept my condolences on your husband's death," I said. "I am sorry."
She studied me with glittering eyes that masked emotion. "My son is now Viscount Breckenridge," she said. "Why be sorry about that?"
While I searched for a way to respond, she went on, "Tell your friend, Mr. Grenville, that his company was most pleasing."
I supposed this meant mine had not been.
"I will." I bowed. "Good afternoon."
Chapter Twelve
Grenville and I left Astley Close half an hour later. We talked little on the journey to London because Grenville, though manfully remaining upright for the first few miles, soon had to drink a brandy and lie down again. He spent the journey up much as he'd spent the journey down, flat on his back on his makeshift bed, eyes closed.
I had not had the chance to speak to Brandon after the inquest. He had avoided me when we left the inn, and disappeared shortly after. But I did not need him near to speculate. The half-truths he'd told the coroner and magistrate worried me. I spent the journey deep in thought about his actions and about our past and present, while Grenville alternately dozed and woke, pale and preoccupied.
Grenville's carriage deposited me at the top of Grimpen Lane just at sunset. He bade me a feeble good-night and rolled away to be tended by his footmen. I returned to my rooms and spent a restless night worrying about Louisa, Brandon's lies, and Breckenridge's death.
The next morning's post included a letter from John Spencer. I perused it eagerly. Mr. Spencer informed me that he had returned from Norfolk and invited me to meet him and his brother on the morrow at a tavern in Pall Mall. The tone of the missive was rather cold. Mr. Spencer said that he did not see the point of such a meeting, but his brother had convinced him that we should speak.
I wrote a reply that I would attend, and turned to my other mail.
Someone, I did not know who, had sent me a page from the newspaper tucked into a blank letter. The page featured a another caricature of an overly lean-legged, overly broad-shouldered dragoon captain who pointed at a dead dog that had just been run down by a cart. The balloon from his mouth proclaimed: "It is murder, sir. We cannot let it lie." In the picture, a fancy carriage was just passing, and women in exaggerated bonnets stared out of the windows, open-mouthed, at the scene.
Beneath the picture ran the caption: "The Shortcomings of England's policing, or Murder not Recognized."
I tore it up and tossed it on the fire. The journalists who'd attended Breckenridge's inquest must have found it a perfect opportunity for more levity. I wondered if Billings had sent the cutting to make certain I'd see it.
Lydia Westin had also written. It was a simple note asking me to call on her the following evening, but I savored it a long time. At last laying it aside, I penned a reply that I would be delighted to attend.
I went out to post my letters, then turned my steps to Bow Street and the magistrate's house. The tall, narrow Bow Street house had been lived in by the famous Fieldings-Henry, the author, who had first established the Bow Street Runners, and Sir John, his blind half-brother who had succeeded him. From what I understood, Henry Fielding had taken the post for the money, since he rarely had any, but had grown interested in keeping the peace and detecting crime. The half-dozen men he recruited to help him were at first referred to simply as "Mr. Fielding’s People." Then Sir John had built his brother's Runners into an elite machine that now assisted in investigations all over England. The magistrate lived in private rooms at the top of the house, with the jail and court below. I often wondered how easily he slept in his bed of nights.
I asked for my former sergeant, Milton Pomeroy, and a clerk led me through the hall where the day patrol were bringing in their catches for the morning, to a small private room where he offered me muddy coffee.
I waited on a hard chair while Pomeroy finished his report of his previous night's arrests. He wrote slowly, his pen squeaking, his tongue pushed against his large teeth. A copy of the Hue and Cry lay at my elbow, and I idly studied the reports of various criminals or supposed criminals lurking about England.
Pomeroy shuffled out to deliver his report, then returned with more coffee. Pomeroy was a big man with bright yellow hair and blue eyes that twinkled. He seated himself heavily and sent me a grin. "I heard, sir, that you twitted the magistrate in Kent about Viscount Breckenridge. Ha. I'd have liked to see that. Why were you so certain it was murder?"
I explained my reasons and my speculations. Pomeroy nodded over his coffee, his round face serious. "Could be. Could be. I know you, sir, sometimes you're right. What did you come to me for? Hiring me to investigate it? Have to talk to the magistrate."
"I came to ask you about Colonel Westin. You were investigating him for John Spencer and his brother. I want to know what you found."
His eyebrows climbed. "Do you, sir? That's interesting. I stopped at his death, saw no reason to go on. Can't prove anything one way or another, but I found eyewitnesses that put Colonel Westin at the shooting at Badajoz." He grimaced. "That was a bad time, eh, Captain? Nasty goings-on."
I had to agree. "Do you think Westin was the true culprit?"
Pomeroy shrugged. "Couldn't say. He was there, all right, but I found little more than that. Truth to tell, Colonel Westin was a fine and quiet-spoken gentleman. When I first asked him about Captain Spencer and Badajoz, he behaved like he'd never met the man. And then one day he asked me to call on him." Pomeroy leaned forward, eyes bright. "He said he'd thought it over, and he believed that he had, in fact, shot Captain Spencer. He'd been drunk after the siege, he said, and couldn't remember, but now he was having flashes of it in his mind. He was upset like, sorry he'd caused Spencer's sons so much pain."
"And what did you think?"
He pursed his lips. "Ain't paid to think, am I?"
I eyed him severely. "Yes you are. You are a Runner, an elite investigator."
"Fancy names for sergeanting. All right, sir, yes, it sounded a little too easy. But the magistrate says, we gather some proof, and then we go and arrest him. But before we can get there, Colonel Westin up and falls down the stairs."
He sat back, thick hands cradling his cup of coffee, his eye on me.
"Conveniently avoiding the dock," I finished. "And what truths he might tell there."
"I thought of that, sir. Bit too convenient, eh?" He slanted me a glance. "Think his wife pushed him? Would have gotten him out of her life and just in time, too."
"No," I said sharply.
But the possibility that Lydia herself had killed her husband had occurred to me, much as I disliked the idea. Westin had died quickly, by Lydia's account, without struggle, and she'd found him in bed. We assumed the murderer had killed him then put him there.
But what if Colonel Westin had already been in bed, perhaps with Lydia by his side. She could have stabbed him in the neck and rolled him onto his back once he was dead. I couldn’t help imagining her rising up, her dark hair snaking about her, her body naked and beautiful, with a thin knife in her slender hand.