I gave up the idea of selling the volume to the inspector when I saw the title was Household Hints. “You may not be able to look into it, but the Archivist Society can. We’ve found evidence that Nicholas Drake was a thief and a blackmailer.”
Grantham perked up at my last words. “Hard evidence?”
“Nothing anybody would share with you.”
“But you could share what you’ve learned.” He gave me a cold stare.
I did, briefly and without question. We’d been in the same position before, and Grantham had threatened to stop his grandmother’s involvement if Sir Broderick didn’t tell him everything. I respected Grantham as one of London’s best police inspectors, and we needed Lady Westover’s aid in dealing with members of high society. Sooner or later, in this situation, I was sure we’d need Grantham to make the arrest.
“There’s something you can do for me in exchange.”
Grantham looked at me uneasily.
“Find out the details of an investigation from a dozen years ago. No, not my parents,” I said when he opened his mouth, “the murder of a bookshop owner named Denis Lupton.”
His expression showed he was frankly curious, but he agreed.
As Grantham left the shop, Jacob came in, breathing hard from hurrying, his hair standing up from the wind and his scarf over one ear. “Georgia, Emma, this just arrived at Sir Broderick’s. He thought you should see it right away. It’ll need to be followed up on.”
He handed over a letter. Emma crowded close to read over my shoulder. The flowery script said,
Dear Sir Broderick,
There are several people who do not want Nicholas Drake found because he is a blackmailer. He’s an unprincipled swine who preys on the weak and helpless. Therefore, he generally chooses women as his victims, threatening to expose their sorrows if he is not handsomely rewarded.
I am one of his victims. I want the brute stopped and his evidence returned to me. You have the best people to accomplish this, but I dare not approach you in an obvious manner. Nor do I care to commit my story to paper. Since I am aware that you cannot come to meet me in person, I request you send a female member of the Archivist Society to Portman Square on the next nice spring day we have at two in the afternoon. Have her wear a daffodil in her hair. I shall be wearing a green walking dress and carrying a green parasol.
Sincerely yours, a victim of Nicholas Drake
I looked at Emma and then at the dry leaves and paper blowing down the street in front of the shop. “We won’t need to pick a daffodil from our garden today.”
Emma smiled. “As if we had one. Or had the time to take care of one.”
“What shall I tell Sir B?” Jacob asked.
“Tell him I’ll keep the appointment. I’m surprised she didn’t give me a code word to say.” I glanced at the letter again and shook my head. “I wonder how she found out about our investigation.”
“Something you’ll need to ask her tomorrow. It should be nice out,” Emma told me. “And bring home the daffodil. I’d like to try wearing flowers in my hair.”
She gave me a haughty smirk. Jacob looked at her with devotion in his eyes.
*
EMMA WAS WRONG. The next day was cold and drizzling. Leaving Emma in charge of the bookshop at the lunch hour, I traveled to Grosvenor Square and watched the Naylard town house from the park. I couldn’t picture Lucinda Naylard worrying overmuch about the weather, so I didn’t believe she’d written the letter to Sir Broderick. After a few minutes, Lord Naylard left, no doubt for his club, and I approached the house.
As I reached the short steps to the front door, Miss Lucinda came out, bundled in a coat, hat, scarf, and gloves. She put up her umbrella as I said, “Miss Lucinda, I was going to call on you.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t follow that custom.” She looked wistfully at a passing hansom and then shifted her umbrella and plunged determinedly onward.
“May I walk with you?”
“You may do whatever you wish.”
I decided to remain in my Georgia Peabody persona. “I hope you don’t dislike me because of my grandmother.”
“No.” For the first time, I saw a fleeting smile on the woman’s face. She shared the same blond coloring and features as her brother, but there was an intelligence in her eyes that I didn’t see in his. “We have to answer for our own sins, not anyone else’s.”
“Do you know what sins Nicholas Drake must answer for?”
“Do you?”
“I’ve been told he’s a thief and a blackmailer.”
Her steps hesitated for a moment before continuing down the street. “What does Mr. Drake say about this?”
“He’s beyond our power to ask him.”
“Is he dead?” She sounded hopeful.
“No. Not that we know of. Only missing. Tell me about Mr. Drake.”
“He’s a good-looking man, well dressed, but cruel. Evil.”
I would have to have been deaf to have missed the venom in her voice. “Isn’t that a harsh judgment, Miss Lucinda?”
“No less than he deserves.”
“Why don’t you like him?”
Now her steps sped up. “That is a private matter.”
I decided to force the subject. “I’ve heard he’s tried to blackmail several people, so I understand why they don’t like him. Did he try to blackmail you, too?”
Lucinda’s face paled, but she sped up her pace walking east. “No. No, he couldn’t blackmail me. Only people who have something to hide are blackmailed.”
“Everyone has something to hide. Sometimes people want to hide good news from their friends and neighbors.”
“How could someone be blackmailed over good news, even if they didn’t want to share it with the world?”
“Tell me, Miss Lucinda. Tell me how Nicholas Drake could do such a thing.”
“He didn’t.”
“Lying is a sin.”
She gave me a sorrowful look. “Something else for me to confess.”
“Confess?” Then I understood. “Miss Lucinda, you’ve converted to the Roman faith.”
“Yes.” She lifted her chin and said the word more defiantly. “Yes.”
“Nicholas Drake held this against you.”
“He threatened to tell my brother if I didn’t pay him. The fool didn’t realize there are no secrets between Laurence and me. He’s an even greater fool for trying to separate us.”
Her expression told me how very foolish Drake had been. “Why would he do that?”
“So he could take advantage of my brother’s good nature. He quickly learned he couldn’t drive a wedge between us.” She gave me a satisfied smile.
“Your brother already knew about your conversion before Drake tried to blackmail you?”
“Yes. Laurence has no problem with it as long as I don’t leave him.”
We both kept quiet as we waited for a break in the never-ending line of carriages, wagons, omnibuses, and horses crowding the street. Finally, a second’s pause in the traffic let us scramble across the busy intersection.