Sir Montague eyed me shrewdly. "There is not many a man in England who can simply decide to question Mr. Denis. You are unique, Captain. I do hope you will tell me what he says."
I gave him a nod. "Of course."
Sir Montague tapped his forefinger. "So… there is Rutledge. Next is, who? Mr. Sutcliff is seen by Mr. Ramsay, who swears he ran after Middleton. What about Mr. Sutcliff? Why would he want Middleton dead?"
I shrugged. "I have no idea. He's a nasty bit of goods, though. None of other boys can stick him. Ramsay is so terrified that the lads will think he's cut from the same cloth that he is willing to put snakes in my bed and smoke cheroots behind the wall with the others." I thought a moment. "I have no idea why Sutcliff would kill Middleton, but he is a large enough lad. He could do it if he took Middleton by surprise. However, I have it that Sutcliff spent that night in bed with his mistress in Hungerford. The timing is wrong for him, as well. My actress friend tells me he was with Jeanne Lanier all night."
"Did she see him?" Sir Montague asked. "Or only hear him?"
"That is a point," I conceded. "Marianne is shrewd enough to realize the difference, but I will ask her."
Sir Montague nodded, then continued. "There are plenty of others. The lockkeeper himself, who never heard a body being pushed into his lock. The stable hand, Thomas Adams, who manufactures a quarrel to point to the Romany."
"The lockkeeper lives alone," I pointed out, "so he has no one to vouch for him. And again, the stable hands noticed nothing all night. So either he or Adams could have done it."
"And the tutors? Fletcher, the Classics tutor?"
"Fletcher is not very big. Middleton could easily have fought him off, even if he took Middleton by surprise. And I cannot imagine him being brave enough to lure Middleton to that remote place by the canal. The same with Tunbridge, the mathematics tutor."
"Tunbridge, you say, often went riding."
"Yes. A tenuous connection, if any. As far as I can see, Tunbridge spends his time schooling his favorite pupil, a sixteen-year-old boy who is apparently quite brilliant. He gives the lad private lessons." I'd heard a few of the other boys sniggering about those private lessons, but I'd not yet formed my own opinion.
"Well, it looks as though you need to find out much more about Middleton," Sir Montague said. "The canal maps are interesting. Why should a man like Middleton keep false maps of the Kennet and Avon Canal? You found no other papers?"
"No. Anything that could explain the maps had either never existed or been taken away."
"Indeed. I have come to respect your opinions, Captain. There is definitely more going on at the Sudbury School than meets the eye." His eyes twinkled. "I might fancy a holiday in the country."
My heart lightened. I'd hoped he'd be interested. Sir Montague was a busy man; I could not think how he would escape his duties to come to Berkshire, but I was happy that he would make the attempt.
"Now then," he said, "I suppose you're off to do what every uncorrupt magistrate in London wishes to do-question James Denis."
My good humor dimmed. "He allows me to question him only because he knows I can do nothing against him."
Sir Montague's look turned wise. "Can you not?"
"I do not see what," I said irritably. "He tells me he finds me a threat, but I believe he exaggerates."
"Do you?" Sir Montague smiled. "Well, I do not. I believe that Mr. Denis is a very intelligent man. Very intelligent, indeed."
I left Whitechapel and took a hackney to Mayfair, arriving at James Denis' Curzon Street house as darkness fell.
I did not have an appointment, but Denis seemed to expect me. The correct and cold butler who opened the door took me upstairs to Denis' study without asking for my card or telling me to wait.
As I entered Denis' elegant but rather austere private study, James Denis put aside whatever letter he was writing and rose from his desk.
James Denis was a fairly young man, not much more than thirty. His face was long and thin, but handsome, or would have been were it not so cold. His hair was brown, and he was tall, almost my height. His blue eyes were flinty hard, as though he'd viewed the world for a long time and found it wanting. If an old, jaded man had been reborn and decided to take the world by its heels the second time around, that man would be James Denis.
He did not offer to shake my hand. The butler brought a wing chair across the room to the desk, and I sat, grateful, in truth, to ease my leg. The ride in the hackney had been chilly, long, and jostling.
The butler then brought a tray with a decanter of brandy and two crystal glasses, poured us each a measure, and silently departed.
We were not left alone, however. As usual, two large, burly men had taken up stations, one at each window, to watch over Denis and his guest. Once upon a time, Middleton had shared this task. What must it be, I thought suddenly, to have so many enemies that one could not sit alone in a room in one's own house?
I let the brandy sit untasted, although Denis took up his glass and sipped delicately.
"Oliver Middleton left my employ voluntarily," he said, as though we were already in the middle of a conversation. "He'd tired of the city and wanted the simple life of the country."
"So might many a man," I agreed.
Denis opened a drawer of his desk and pulled out a folded paper. "Middleton spied you the moment you arrived, you know. He wrote me of it."
He handed me the paper. It was a letter, addressed in a painfully neat hand, the creases soiled. I unfolded it. The note was short and to the point. "That captain's come. Should I do anything?"
I raised my brows and slid the paper back to him. "How did you respond?"
Denis dropped the letter back inside the desk. "I wrote him with instructions to leave you strictly alone. He agreed. He said he would avoid you in case his temper got the better of him."
"That explains why I never saw the man in the stables."
Denis did not change expression. "Did you know that Middleton had received threatening letters?"
"No," I said, surprised. The school's prankster had sent letters in blood to a few students, so Rutledge had told me, but I had not heard that Middleton had received any.
Again, Denis dipped into his desk and pulled out a stack of letters. I wondered whether he had kept all Middleton's correspondence near at hand in anticipation of my visit.
"The letters implied that the writer knew who Middleton was and that he had once worked for me," he said. "Middleton sent me the bundle and asked me what to do about it."
He let me leaf through the letters. Each were printed in careful capitals, and each held a similar message. "You cannot hide your past misdeeds. Retribution is at hand," one said. Another: "You came to find peace. Hell has followed you."
"A touch gruesome," I said. "I would not have liked to receive them."
"They did not worry Middleton, particularly," Denis said, gathering the letters and refolding them. "He was a very practical man. He did not fear words. At first, he reasoned that the letters were from one of my enemies, a threat to me in general." He dropped his gaze. "He assumed I would take care of it. It bothers me that I failed him." He folded the last letter with unnecessary firmness, the first time I had ever seen anything but coolness from James Denis.
"A moment," I said. "You said that he thought the threat a general one, at first. Did he change his mind?"
Denis pushed the letters aside with long fingers. "He did. He sent me another message, saying that he'd discovered who had written the threats. The tone was one of irritation. He informed me that he would take care of the matter."
"And he did not say who?"
"No." He looked up at me, eyes quiet with anger. "If he did take care of the matter, I never heard. He was killed first."