They reached the club shortly before three o’clock. Admitted by Gasthorpe, who confirmed he was housing a visitor, they went up to the library, Letitia all but taking the stairs two at a time.
There, they found Justin, at his ease, sharing a tale with Tristan. Both rose as Letitia swept in.
Her gaze raked her brother. She nodded. “Good. You managed to get yourself here without breaking your neck.”
Justin grinned. “Good afternoon, sister dear.” He leaned down to buss her cheek.
Christian offered his hand. “How was the drive down?”
“Utterly uneventful,” Justin replied, with all a Vaux’s contempt for such a happenstance. “It’s bad enough in daylight-at night it’s dead boring.”
Sinking into a chair, Letitia rolled her eyes.
The men had barely reclaimed their seats when a knock sounded on the front door. A minute later Dalziel entered.
His gaze swept the room, locating, and remaining on, Justin’s face.
Justin’s eyes went wide-he clearly recognized Dalziel-Royce Whoever-he-was-even though there had to be a good ten years between them. Justin slowly got to his feet. “Ah…you must be Dalziel.” He held out a hand.
With a nod of approval, Dalziel grasped it. “You’ll be staying with me, out of sight. I’ll come for you later tonight-no need to take any chances whatever, given the authorities’ current bent.”
“I should thank you-”
Dalziel silenced him with an upraised hand. “Time enough for that later. For now”-he surveyed their small company-“what have we learned?”
“Randall’s will was read this morning,” Letitia stated. “Dearne has the details.”
Extracting his notebook, Christian ran through both Randall’s estate and the bequests. The latter, unsurprisingly, became the focus of discussion.
Tristan in particular pounced on the names. “Trowbridge and Swithin-those are the only two gentlemen I turned up who anyone even suggested might know Randall as more than a nodding acquaintance.” He glanced at Christian. “I covered virtually every male haunt of tonnish gentlemen-at least those where we go to meet with friends. Many knew Randall by sight, yet none admitted to friendship, nor did I find anyone who could name any of his friends. Trowbridge and Swithin were mentioned solely as gentlemen my sources had seen Randall talking to on more than one occasion. That was the sum of it-interesting that they weren’t known as his friends, yet he names them as longtime friends in his will.”
“Indeed.” Christian frowned. “Especially as it seems he has met them in recent times, and all live more or less in London, Swithin within a few blocks.”
“Was the will recent?” Dalziel asked.
“Two years old,” Christian replied. “Recent enough.” He looked at Justin. “Any ideas?”
Justin grimaced. “I’ve seen Randall speak with Trowbridge, and Swithin, too-I only know their names because he mentioned them in passing. On different occasions, each stopped him to have a word when he was with me-although they stepped aside, I got the impression it was simply that-a word or two. Nothing of deep import. But…” He grimaced again, and looked at Letitia. “If one goes by how people stand-how close, how relaxed they are-then it did seem as if he knew them well.”
“It sounds as if Swithin and Trowbridge go on our list of potential friends-cum-murderers.” Dalziel raised a brow at Justin. “Can you think of anyone else-anyone Randall classed as friend, whether by word or deed?”
“I’ve spent the last days racking my brains, but other than Trowbridge and Swithin, who I did recall, there’s no one else I can name, or even point to. Looking back, it’s really quite bizarre, but Randall simply didn’t appear to have the usual circle of male acquaintances all other gentlemen do.”
Frowning, as they all were, Tristan asked, “How did he spend his evenings? Surely he must have had some social circle of sorts?”
It was Letitia who answered. “He spent a lot of his evenings in his study. Often to all hours. Business, he said, although I never knew what.” She grimaced. “I had no interest in knowing, so never asked.” She paused, then added, “And I’m not sure even if I had asked, that he would have told me. He was rather secretive about his financial affairs.”
“That’s true.” Justin looked at Tristan. “He probably spent half his evenings out-sometimes with Letitia at dinners, and sometimes trawling the clubs, but at least in the latter case, on the times I went with him or saw him out and about, it always seemed that he was there to see and be seen, not to do anything specific like meet someone or play cards or dice. He’d walk through the rooms, stopping and chatting with whoever was there. If you watched him long enough, you’d see him just keep walking until he’d passed everyone, and then just walk out again. Most never noticed, but I did because I watched-it always struck me as deuced strange.”
A moment passed, then Dalziel said, “So we have Swithin and Trowbridge as possibilities, and no one else. What do we know of them?”
Letitia shook her head. “I never encountered them with Randall-I never heard him mention them, nor heard that they’d called at the house. Swithin I’ve never met at all-I know nothing about him. Trowbridge I have met socially-we’ve been introduced.” She glanced around. “He’s something of an authority on paintings and sculpture, and as the latter is currently very popular with the ladies of the ton, Trowbridge is in demand. When I met him it was at a private exhibition of figurines-he was one of the critics the hostess had invited. But that’s all I know of him, although courtesy of Randall’s will, we now know he lives in Chelsea.”
“That’s more or less all that I managed to learn about Trowbridge,” Tristan put in. “As his and Swithin’s were the only names I turned up, I asked around very quietly. Trowbridge seems well established within the ton. All I heard about Swithin, however, was that he was known as a canny and very private investor.”
“Clearly we need to learn more about Trowbridge and Swithin.” Having stolen his thunder, Letitia turned to Dalziel. “I presume you haven’t heard anything from Hexham yet?”
Dalziel shook his head. “I’ve sent word to contacts I have there-they’ll visit the grammar school and see what they can find, but it’ll be a day or two yet before they send anything back. However, I also made inquiries through other, closer sources, hoping to turn up something on Randall. Unfortunately, all I turned up were negatives-he’s never been in any of the services, never attached to any government department or embassy, never had a position in any ministry, royal house, or parliamentary enterprise. Nor was he ever connected with the church-as deacon, sexton, or any such capacity.”
Letitia wrinkled her nose. “So my late husband remains an enigma.”
No one argued.
Christian broke the silence. “Have any of you heard of the Orient Trading Company?” When they all shook their heads, he went on, “Randall owned a third of the company-we should find out who the other owners are. It’s possible that company affairs provided someone with a motive for murder.” He looked down at his notebook. “Letitia and I have to visit Montague anyway, to ask what he’s learned regarding the original source of Randall’s wealth, and now also to give him the details of Randall’s estate so he can give us an estimate of its worth. As part of that, he’ll need to assess the Orient Trading Company-I’ll ask him to ferret out the other owners, and whether the company is profitable, too.”
“Do.” Dalziel looked around. “It seems we all have clues to pursue. I’ll continue to see what I can uncover regarding Randall’s background. I’ll also see what I can learn about the company.”
Tristan nodded. “The Orient Trading Company sounds like an import-export business-I’ll see what I can learn of them around the docks and through the shipping companies. Alongside that, I’ll keep pursuing Swithin-we know far too little about him.”