I laced my arm firmly through his. “Now, Mr.McAdam, we will find somewhere to talk about Lord Peyton and all the things you learned in that house, and decide who murdered him.”
Daniel opened his mouth, likely to make some quip about my eagerness, but we were interrupted by the form of Inspector McGregor, who stepped out of the crowd at the turning of Cheapside to Clover Lane.
“McAdam,” he said.
“Inspector.” Daniel touched his cap. “I thought I saw some of your lads watching us. Seeing us observe a masterfully engineered timepiece and then take tea must have been entertaining.”
Inspector McGregor’s mustache twitched with his annoyance. “They were ready to arrest you, but I held them back until you took the little girl home. Viscount Peyton’s sister and the manservant have insisted thatyoukilled Lord Peyton, McAdam, and that we should detain you immediately.”
20
“He never did,” I stated at once, earning Inspector McGregor’s glare. ““I know full well that Mr.McAdam is not capable of throwing a weak and impaired gentleman down a flight of stairs.”
Inspector McGregor did not appear to be as convinced. “I’ll need a statement from you as to your whereabouts at ten o’clock last evening,” he said to Daniel.
That must have been the time the examining surgeon had decided the man had died. If his neck had been broken it would have been very quick, which was a mercy.
“I can answer that easily,” Daniel said, the least tense of the three of us. “I was with Monaghan. He was explaining to me, as he has been for the past few days, what a poor excuse for an investigating officer I am and how the little evidence I’ve gathered wouldn’t convict a beggar of loitering. I was in his office, which is above yours, by the way, while he harangued me. Helet me go about midnight, but only because he wanted a meal before crawling back to the hole he lives in.”
“And you went home?” McGregor demanded.
Daniel nodded. “I slunk to Southampton Street and my rooms there and slept heavily. Plenty of constables saw me leave the Yard—and plenty heard Monaghan going on at me before that, I’m certain. My landlady greeted me when I went in, with disapproval of the late hour. She prepared me a fine breakfast this morning, however, so all must be forgiven.”
Inspector McGregor listened with his usual surliness. “Monaghan will have to confirm your story.”
Daniel shrugged. “He will. I suppose he might try to deny I was with him for the amusement of watching me be dragged to Newgate, but as I said, there were witnesses, and not all of them fear Monaghan. Sergeant Scott, for example. He was there.”
“Scott is an upstanding fellow,” Inspector McGregor conceded. “I’ll ask him, if Monaghan tries to play a game.” He turned his scowl on me. “My advice to the pair of you is to go home and stay there. Avoid Monaghan as much as you can until this blows over.”
Daniel sent him a wry smile. “Monaghan will blame me for everything, even though I can prove I was far from Belgrave Square when the man died. My fault he was killed, or fell, or whatever happened, in his view.”
“No sign Lord Peyton was pushed,” McGregor said. “No bruising on his back, chest, or arms, except what he got from the stairs. No convenient handprint the exact size of his killer’s.”
“Then how did he fall?” I could not stop myself from asking. “Where was his manservant?”
“Fagan was in his bed, sleeping the sleep of the just, according to everyone in the household,” McGregor surprised me by answering. “He seems broken up about Lord Peyton’s death, though the sister is furious at him for not being by his master’s side all hours.”
“He usually was,” Daniel said. “Odd that he went to bed last night.”
“I asked him why,” Inspector McGregor said. “Fagan claimed he was exhausted, but now is saying someone put something in his tea to make him sleep. There was no sign of that though, or remains of any substance in his teacup. He still had it on his bedside table.”
“Convenient for any killer,” Daniel said. “But it might not have been in the tea. Fagan was known to have a nip of gin when he thought no one was looking. But if you say there’s no sign of anyone pushing the man, we might have to conclude it was an accident. Lord Peyton wheeled himself to the top of the stairs for whatever reason, stood up, and fell.”
“Both the manservant and that Lady Fontaine are insisting it was murder,” Inspector McGregor said. “Lady Fontaine is already starting to be like a burr under my skin.”
From the way Hannah described her, I believed him.
“Did you find any evidence of the blackmailing letters I told you of, Inspector?” I asked.
This was news to Daniel, who blinked, but Inspector McGregor shook his head.
“Lady Fontaine has a diary of tittle-tattle gossip, according to the housekeeper, which her ladyship refused to let us see, though I can insist if necessary. But no letters of the sort you mean. The only correspondence we found was the usual—notes to a man of business, orders to buy or sell shares of stock, instructions to the viscount’s land steward about the estate’sfarm. Most written by McAdam here, who logged them neatly into a ledger.”
“As a good secretary would,” Daniel said with a modest nod. “I saw nothing of the kind you are talking about while I was there either.” He regarded me in bewilderment.
“Lord Peyton bought the ink they were written with,” I continued, making both men stare at me. “A tutor at the Polytechnic did experiments on the paper and ink, and the ink proved to be rare and expensive. Lord Peyton bought bottles of it from a shop in the Burlington Arcade.”
Inspector McGregor’s breath gurgled in his throat. “Mrs.Holloway—”
