Blake nodded. “And Chase was quite prepared to swear that I did if I opened my mouth. I’m not proud if it, but I didn’t dare speak out. We reached the agreement that I would remain silent and break all ties with him and theMary Anne. Then we separated Drayman from his spices and, without paying him for the voyage, bundled him into a ship sailing back east. We pretended Chase was dead and we were saving Drayman fromhanging. But it was undoubtedly a rough ship with a bad captain and a worse reputation. I daresay Drayman deserved it. What Chase deserved was another matter. He certainly got a nasty beating, but the law never touched him.”
“What happened to Drayman? Did you ever hear of him again?”
“I never saw him. But Chase did track me down about a year ago to tell me he’d seen Drayman down by the Pool of London. He wanted to make sure I was keeping my word about silence. I was already ill by then and didn’t much care, except I don’t want my family thinking bad of me when I’m gone.”
Blake began to cough, and Solomon rose to take his glass before it spilled all over him. When the paroxysm stopped, Solomon offered him the glass back, but Blake waved his hand weakly toward another bottle. Sherry. With a sizeable tumbler beside it. Doubting it could do a dying man much harm, Solomon poured him a glassful and brought it to him.
Nodding his thanks, Blake said huskily, “Chase wasn’t doing so well either, when he came to see me. He’d risen high in the business world and was falling fast. Unsound investments, he said.”
“Very unsound,” agreed Solomon, who had discovered a great deal from Lenny Knox’s list and from his own inquiries.
“At any rate, he left me alone.”
“Do you think it’s possible Drayman caught up with him? Would he have borne a grudge for the lie that he’d killed Chase?”
“Oh yes. And for us keeping his pay and the spices he stole from the original thief. You think Draymandidcatch up with him?”
“At the Crown and Anchor,” Solomon said. Or was that wishful thinking because it put David, with his unstable mind and memory, in the clear? “I don’t suppose you know where Drayman can be found?”
“Some dockside brothel, I shouldn’t wonder. Men don’t change much, as a rule.” Blake lifted the glass to his lips and drank it all down, then lay back and closed his eyes as if waiting for some ease.
Solomon rose again and took the empty glass from him. “I’m sorry. I’ve tired you out with bad memories.”
“Will you make it right?”
“Yes,” Solomon said. He owed the captain for taking David to the hospital in Marseilles.
Chapter Fourteen
Miss Mortimer wasnext on Constance’s list of people to see, not just about the delivery of her letter but about the missing bracelet. She didn’t know if the two were connected, but they both seemed odd and out of place. Although few and far between, the missing items were remembered by the village constable, even from childhood. Surely that said something?
She found herself curiously reluctant to go up to the manor house. After last night, it had become a place of danger in her mind, and she had long ago learned to avoid those. At the back of her mind lurked the uneasy thought that if Peregrine Mortimer had pushed her down the stairs because she’d caught him cheating at cards, what might he do to his aunt in order to inherit her fortune more quickly?
Did she prefer to think of the culprit as Miss Fernie so she didn’t have to face him again? She had grown too used to beingsafe, to having her bodyguards in footmen’s livery. And she missed Solomon.
How had he found David? Was his brother even still in the house, or had he bolted again? Part of her wished they could just forget the trivial matter of these foolish letters and concentrate on the more serious crime of this murder and keeping David safe.
But something in Sutton May wasnottrivial. The letters were surely symptomatic of something much nastier building behind them, something very dangerous. Someone, whether a genteelold schoolteacher or an entitled young rake, had pushed her down the stairs.
Outside the Keatons’ shop, she hesitated. Then, deciding it would be quicker to borrow the inn’s gig to go to the manor, she turned back toward the village square and the vicarage.
Mr. Raeburn might be reluctant to talk about his flock, but she doubted Mrs. Raeburn felt the same restrictions.
Alice the maid admitted her at once, though she asked her politely to wait while she found out if the mistress was at home—the fiction by which ladies could avoid receiving those they did not wish to see.
Most vicars’ wives, apart from a few reforming zealots, would have avoided Constance like the plague. Mrs. Raeburn received her at once with a welcoming smile, so if Miss Ferniehadsomehow discovered Constance’s identity, she did not appear to have blabbed it. Yet.
“Mrs. Silver.” Gliding toward her, with her hand outstretched, Mrs. Raeburn glanced beyond Constance’s shoulder, and her smile drooped slightly. “Mr. Grey is not with you?”
“Mr. Grey was called back to London on urgent business. But I expect him back this evening, or tomorrow at the latest.” Constance, though more used to identifying physical attraction in men, was not blind to the signs in women. She knew a spurt of irritation with Mrs. Raeburn, even found herself examining her hostess’s charms with an anxiety she was appalled to recognize as jealousy.
“I do apologize for taking up your time again,” she said hastily. “I know vicar’s wives tend to be kept as busy as their husbands.”
“Oh, I have no appointments until the Christian Women’s Circle meeting this afternoon. We organize the May Day Fairevery year. Do sit down. Does your investigation prosper? Or must you wait for Mr. Grey’s return?”
“I would not waste my time—or Dr. Chadwick’s—in waiting.”
“How very independent you are!” The remark did not seem to be entirely admiring. “Is it true you are betrothed to Mr. Grey?”
