“We have grown so used to Sothey's turning up like a bad penny,” Mr. Emilious Finch-Hatton observed, “that he might almost have a bedchamber set aside for his perpetual use! But in this instance, Mrs. Austen, I fear that Lady Elizabeth has unconsciously misled you. Sothey informed me of his intention of quitting The Larches some weeks before the day he intended, but I neglected to relate the fact to my sister. I cannot excuse such neglect; I may only plead the coincidence of a summer cold, that rendered me so wretched as to ignore everything that did not have to do with myself. Lady Elizabeth's confusion at the races and likewise her surprised delight, were entirely of my making.”
“I suppose her chief fear at present,” Lizzy said with a slight smile, “is that Mr. Sothey will be gone as suddenly as he came!”
“Experience has taught her, madam,” that gentleman replied, “that I am rarely to be found in the same house for many weeks together. I consider myself quite fixed at Eastwell Park for the present — but should events conspire to divert my attention, I should be gone in a matter of hours!”
“You endeavour to make inconstancy appear a matter for pride, Mr. Sothey,” I objected, “but it will not do. A man of your reputation cannot so lightly risk the world's good opinion. An appearance of sober dependability must be your best friend at present, when many might wonder at your quitting The Larches so precipitately.”
He shrugged almost indolently. “My work there was done. To have remained longer would have looked very odd, indeed.”
“Despite the circumstance of sudden death in the household?”
Mr. Sothey smiled. “You forget, Miss Austen, that Mrs. Grey's murder was the merest coincidence. I had fixed on the date as my intended departure long before, as Mr. Finch-Hatton will attest; my bags were packed and stowed in the chaise I drove to the race-meeting.”
Perhaps so much was true; but I thought the improver's gaze too steady, and his expression too fixed, to permit of easiness. Neddie, I knew, was observing him acutely; and finding his reliance upon Mr. Emilious instructive. Would Mr. Sothey have come to Godmersham, I wondered, without his wise old watchdog?
“Circumstances, it seems, prevented even Mr. Grey from witnessing his late wife's interment,” Lizzy observed. She, at least, was enjoying the exchange. “With so near a relation absent from the rites, Mr. Sothey can hardly charge himself with neglect.”
“Grey, absent from the funeral rites?” Mr. Sothey cried. “You astonish me, Mrs. Austen! I should have said he would sooner cut off his own arm, than fail in respect of so important a duty.”
“Mr. Grey was called from home on Thursday evening,” Neddie told him, “on what appears to have been a matter of business.”
“I suppose only such a claim as that might sway Mr. Grey,” Mr. Emilious observed. “But I cannot stand in judgement of his actions. He is the most honourable man I know of, in either the financial or the political line; and if he felt himself compelled to be from home, he undoubtedly had his reasons.”
“You are acquainted with Mr. Grey?” I enquired, surprised. “I thought he moved but little in Society.”
“Say rather that he is the acquaintance of a very old friend of mine, Miss Austen, and you shall have got it right.” Mr. Emilious's countenance was as bland and charming as ever, but an acuteness had come into his pale blue eyes that warned me away from suspect ground.
“I may hazard a guess as to the friend's name,” I said slowly, as an idea took shape in my mind. “Is it Mr. George Canning, by any chance?”
“The very man!” Mr. Emilious cried.
“Mr. Grey happened to tell me of his acquaintance with the gentleman. Indeed, Mr. Sothey, he credited Mr. Canning with his introduction to yourself, and could not praise the gentleman enough. I suppose you have all met, at one time or another, around Mr. Canning's table.”
“Just so,” Mr. Sothey said. He affected an easy good-humour, but I do not think I flatter myself in declaring that he was considerably disconcerted, and not a little put out. It seemed that George Canning possessed other qualities besides those of clubman and exotic plant enthusiast — qualities more suited, perhaps, to intrigue and subterfuge. He was, after all, Treasurer of the Navy and an acknowledged confederate of Lord Harold Trow-bridge; Mr. Emilious had informed me of the fact himself. Oh, that I might avail myself of Lord Harold's resources, and know exactly how things were!
“So Grey was from home on Thursday evening,” Mr. Sothey mused. “It was hazardous to be abroad that night, I believe. Is it true, Mr. Austen — are you able to divulge so much — that Mr. Denys Collingforth was murdered in Deal on that very evening?”
“He was,” Neddie replied imperturbably. “I suppose the intelligence has travelled swiftly from Prior's Farm, and is presently the toast of the Hound and Tooth?”
“I heard it first from a manservant of Mr. Finch-Hatton's,” Mr. Sothey replied, “but how he came by the news, I cannot say.”
“Depend upon it, he had it of the butcher's lad, who learned it of his washer-woman mother, who takes in laundry from Prior's Farm — or some such roundabout tale,” Mr. Emilious said comfortably. “Poor Collingforth! And so he was done for as he did.”
“Not quite,” my brother countered quietly. “Mrs. Grey, after all, was throttled. Mr. Collingforth's neck was cut.”
“Really?” Mr. Emilious kept his eyes trained on his knife, which was steadily applying a quantity of butter to one of Cook's feather-light rolls. “There is no suggestion, I suppose, that he effected the wound himself?”
“None whatsoever,” Neddie replied, “since he was discovered bound and weighted at the bottom of a pond.” If my brother felt himself to be the subject of interrogation, he betrayed little of his discomfort in his countenance; but I thought Neddie's easy manner was become guarded. “Have you a notion, sir, of the murderer?”
“Why, as to that — it might as well have been Sothey and myself,” Mr. Emilious cried, with a jovial look for his companion, “for we were abroad on the very road to Deal, in respect of a dinner with some friends, on Thursday night.”
“I should never suspect you, Mr. Finch-Hatton,” my brother replied calmly, “for your name does not appear in Mrs. Grey's interesting correspondence. You can have not the slightest connexion to the affair, as those documents attest.”
There was a sudden, appalled silence; and involuntarily, I closed my eyes. Whatever Neddie had done, was done with calculation; he was not a fatuous insinuator, to trade privileged fact as currency with his guests. He was throwing the letters like a scented bait before a pack of roused foxhounds; and I trembled for the result.
“Her … correspondence?” Mr. Emilious repeated, with a swift glance at Mr. Sothey. “You have had occasion to look into the lady's letters?”
“Any number,” Neddie said airily, “and the names found within it should astonish the neighbourhood, I may assure you!”
“Then I hope you will take care, my dear sir, that they never come to light.” Mr. Emilious held my brother's gaze quite steadily. “From what little I know of Mrs. Grey, I am certain she can have said nothing flattering of her acquaintance.”
“Then she merely returned a common favour,” Lizzy observed idly, “for they certainly had nothing good to say of her.”
“Upon my word, Mr. Austen — the ladies will think us decidedly dull,” Mr. Emilious cried, with a gallant look for Lizzy. “All this talk of dusty matters had better be confined to the Port, had it not? We were charmed to see you at Eastwell, Mrs. Austen, on Friday evening; you have been too chary in your visits altogether.”
“Lady Elizabeth shall wish me at the ends of the earth, sir, do I succeed in wresting her improver from her grasp,” Lizzy rejoined. “I rather wonder at her allowing you to ride over to Godmersham at all, Mr. Sothey! — But perhaps she sent Mr. Finch-Hatton as a sort of surety against your return. Are you charged with bringing Mr. Sothey to Eastwell unharmed, sir, and well before dawn?”