Page 67 of A Murder at Kew Gardens

Graves sat very still.

“The illness did not merely explain why he stopped going into society,” she continued. “It gave him the reason to change everything. His habits. His household. His acquaintances. Even the distance at which people were expected to stand from him.”

“And once they accepted the illness,” Finch said, “they stopped looking at the man.”

“Yes.”

I looked at the names spread across the table. Marsh, who had been given a life on paper. Mercer, who had been given only enough of one to do his work. And above them a man who had spent three years making certain nobody came close enough to question his.

“Harcourt,” Graves said.

“Harcourt,” I agreed. “We know where the road leads. But we cannot tie Harcourt to any part of it.”

Nobody argued. Whitfield had money with Harcourt's name on none of it. Finch had a house that would not leak. Rosalynd had a coughing fit, an absence of witnesses, and a waltz. I had a conviction, which is worth nothing in a court and less in front of a magistrate.

"I can get a warrant on a shape," Graves said. "I cannot get one on a silhouette."

"Then we look where men are fastened to things," Finch said.

Rosalynd set down her glass of claret. "Who dressed him before Benson?"

Nobody spoke.

"The whole household was turned out. So there was a valet before Benson, who bathed and shaved and dressed Sir Reginald Harcourt every day for as long as he had the place." She looked around the table. "No one is left who knew that man closer than ten feet. Except that once there was."

"Vosper," Finch said. “His name was Vosper.”

"You have him?"

“Yes, and the registry office that placed him as well.” He opened his notebook. “One-and-twenty registry offices in London place upper servants. Every recent servant in Sir Reginald’s employ came through the same one. And Vosper before them all.” He turned the notebook flat. “But Vosper’s no good to us. He went to Torquay with his master and died there two years since. Sir Reginald paid to bury him. The clerk at the registry office told me twice, being fond of the story. A kind master burying his own man. That’s how the place fell vacant for Benson.”

“A dead end, then,” Whitfield said.

“The man is. The office isn’t. Wigmore Street, four streets from Sir Reginald’s own front door. Whoever owns a house like that decides which pair of eyes goes into which household in London, and is asked for a character on every servant in Mayfair, and nobody thinks twice about it, because it’s the dullest lawful trade in England.”

I had come out from behind the table without noticing. “The proprietor.”

“That’s where I stopped, and I stopped on purpose. The plate says A. Drayton, and the directory says no more. I’ve not got the Christian name and I’ve not asked, because the moment a stranger asks after the proprietor of a registry office, that is a thing the proprietor is told.”

“Get it. Quietly, and from somewhere else. A rate book, a license, a lease. Mr. Whitfield will show you where such things live.”

“The rate book first,” Whitfield said. “Then the lease. One of them will give us more than an initial.”

Finch nodded. “I’ll have it tomorrow.”

Graves lifted his head. “Wigmore Street. Now that is odd.”

“Say it.”

“It will be nothing. It generally is.” He rubbed the side of his jaw. “Six or seven years back, there was a house in Cadogan Place. A manservant helping himself—plate, chiefly. The family were sore about it and wrote letters, so I remember he'd been placed through an agency, with a character. The agency was in Wigmore Street.”

“What happened to him?” Finch asked.

“He never came to trial.” Graves reached for his glass at last. “He was held at Newgate for the Old Bailey. Three weeks in, he got into an altercation with another prisoner, was stabbed, and died of it that night.”

The fire settled. Whitfield’s pen had stopped moving.

“Over what?” Rosalynd asked.