She opened her fingers to gesture to the room, like a guide in her personal museum.
“It is quite a collection,” I said. “I have a friend who also acquires things on world travel. When I was a traveller, I hadn’t the foresight to pick up anything at all.”
“Mr. Grenville, you mean.” A smile touched her mouth. “I have heard of you, his dearest friend. Also his famous collection, which, I can assure you does not match my family’s in quantity. My great-grandfather was Captain Woolwich, my grandfather was also a ship’s captain, and my father.”
She was very proud, and I did not confess I’d never heard of the Woolwichs, great merchant captains of the East India Company. My life had been absorbed by the army, and many soldiers considered the merchantmen soft and self-indulgent. We were no doubt completely wrong, but all groups of men believe they are superior to others who are not fortunate enough to be among them.
“And Mr. Bennett?” I asked. “Is he a seafaring man?”
The woman sounded amused. “Indeed no. Mr. Bennett has his feet firmly on dry land, which I appreciate in him. The sea is romantic, I suppose, but one does not see one’s husband much. I prefer a husband who remains in London.”
She would have watched her mother say good-bye to her father often, and the man stay away for long stretches of time.
“I understand,” I said. “Difficult for a wife to accompany her husband on long sea voyages. Your father left all this to you?” I looked around again. My impertinent question perhaps would be forgiven if I seemed sufficiently awed by the treasures, many of which could be bought cheaply in crowded Asian bazaars.
“Left to me?” Mrs. Bennett looked puzzled, then she laughed. Her plainness vanished as her face lit. Perhaps I wronged Bennett—he might have fallen in love with her laughter instead of her obvious fortune.
“My father is not deceased, Captain,” she said. “He is upstairs, in his rooms. He would like to meet you, a friend of the famous Mr. Grenville. Will you come up?”
Chapter Eighteen
I did not mask my astonishment well, and she laughed at me again.
I agreed to meet her so-famous father—my curiosity getting the better of me—and she took me up another flight of stairs to a bedchamber in the rear of the vast house.
This chamber was enormous. I remembered the first time I’d awakened in a bed in Grenville’s home, thinking of myself as a tiny speck in the middle of the ocean of the room. That bedchamber could easily fit into this one.
I’d expected the nautical and Far Eastern themes in the lower parts of the house to carry on here, but that was not the case. The bedroom had been furnished with fairly modern pieces—Sheraton and Hepplewhite predominated here. Unlike the walls in Donata’s house, which were pure Adam, a wallpaper from the eighteenth century, fading now, depicted ladies and gentlemen in powdered wigs and pointed shoes, taking their leisure in the country.
In the middle of this huge chamber, pulled from the wall, was a bed with heavy curtains around it. The curtains on the side facing away from the window were drawn back, while all the others were closed, presumably to keep away drafts.
Mrs. Bennett led me, without hesitation, to the bed.
Lying propped on pillows in the middle of it was an elderly man. He was a bit shrunken, but I could tell he’d once been tall and strong. The strength was evident in the hard blue eyes in his very wrinkled face. There I read anger that his body had weakened without his permission.
“Captain Lacey?” His voice was quiet, raspy, but I could hear that it once had boomed out down a long deck filled with scrambling sailors. “I am Captain Woolwich. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
He held out a hand. I shook it, finding his bare fingers smooth and nearly hairless, but his grip powerful.
Woolwich looked behind me at his daughter. “Run away, Margaret. We men wish to speak alone.”
Margaret, instead of being either offended or subdued, gave her father a sunny smile and left the room. The heels of her soft shoes kicked up the back hem of her dull gray gown as she went.
She closed the door carefully, as though not wishing to disturb her father with the click of the latch, and we heard her footfalls on the landing. Woolwich waited until her footsteps faded down the stairs before he waved me to sit in a chair drawn up to the bed.
“She’s a good girl, but a featherhead,” he growled. “Her mother was a spirited, intelligent creature, but Margaret has none of that in her. I would suspect my lady of a dalliance when I was away, but Margaret looks too much like my family. And I have no brothers my wife could have substituted for my attentions.” He gave a cough and cleared his throat. “Now then, Captain, why are you here? Please tell me you are after my worthless son-in-law.”
“I did come to speak to him, yes,” I began cautiously. “I take it he is out?”
“Yes, he goes to the Stock Exchange and pretends to understand all that goes on. Really, he is making certain my shares in all my investments have not lost any value. What has he done, Captain? Committed a crime? Have you come to take him to the magistrate?”
His blue eyes were bright with both cynicism and hope.
“What can you tell me about Mr. Bennett?” I asked.
“Ha, so you will not give me your purpose. All the same, I have read of you, and heard how you and Mr. Grenville work with the Runners to reveal blackguards and evil men. Now, here you are asking about Bennett. High time, too. He is the worst of blackguards, Captain. An oily rakehell, I’d judge him, though he goes to church of a Sunday and is a pious prig.”
“Where does he come from?” I settled in, happy to have my suspicions confirmed.
“Heaven knows. Oh, he speaks well enough—claims he went to a fine school and is now a scholar, and that is easily ascertained. But though he has the voice of a gentleman, there’s something wrong with him.”
“What about his family? Has no one inquired about them?”
“To be sure, I have. Mr. Bennett’s father was a respectable gentleman of Derbyshire, and none have anything bad to say about him. He died when his son—Andrew—was about sixteen. Andrew had a guardian then, an uncle, but the uncle more or less ignored him, and Andrew continued his schooling at Balliol, so he claims. Again, easily found out, so I believe him. When he came into his majority, Andrew took the money he inherited from his father, cut ties with his uncle—whom he claims was a cruel man—and set up on his own.”
“He married,” I said. “Twice before.”
“Oh, yes, he told us all about it. The tragic life of Andrew Bennett.”
“His first wife …” I prompted.
“Miss Judith Hartman. Lovely girl, he says. Father unreasonable.” Woolwich coughed into his leathery fist. “Father not a fool, I’d say. Poor Judith lost, never to be found again. Oh, well, there’s Miss Watson, with her large dowry. Father a nabob. Made Bennett several thousand pounds richer, then she took ill and died, ever so convenient, poor thing. Never knew what became of Miss Hartman. Either she came to her senses and fled far from his reach, or he killed her and buried her in the cellar.”
I flinched. Too close to the mark. “Miss Hartman has been found,” I said quietly. “I should say—she was found long ago, but no one knew who she was. I have brought to light that the body was that of Miss Judith Hartman. She was struck on the head and dropped into the river.”
Woolwich ceased moving. Breathing. He stared at me, his eyes burning in his wan face, his body motionless.
He didn’t breathe for so long that I became alarmed. I rose from my seat, took a silver flask from the bedside table and opened it. As I’d suspected, the scent of good brandy wafted out.
I held it to Woolwich’s nose. He gasped and began to cough.
The coughing wracked him, shook his body. His eyes watered. I decided I’d better fetch his daughter, but when I started for the bell, the old man wheezed, “No!”