Page 12 of To Save a Scoundrel’s Soul

“How do you know this?” Hawkins hissed, eyes darting to the servants’ staircase. Tommy laughed as if the answer was obvious, and Mickey almost felt sorry for the miserable old bugger. All this on his well-polished doorstep and most likely before he’d even had chance of a spot of breakfast.

“It’s my duty to know,” Tommy explained, which wasn’t an answer at all. No surprise to Mickey; rule number one for hoarders of secrets: never reveal your sources. Mickey had learned that in his first week at Squire’s. “Suffice to say that I, too, live purely to serve the duke. One could go as far as to say you and I are on the same side, Mr Hawkins. I take special interest in anything pertaining to him and shall oblige that man’s desire for privacy and propriety in all matters until I draw my last breath.” Like a snake lazily unwinding, he took a casual step closer to Hawkins. “I trust we understand each other?”

“I understand I want you and your no-good friend out of this house,” Hawkins hissed.

“And we’ll leave when you’ve given us what we came for.” Tommy turned to Mickey. “Shouldn’t take long, not now we understand each other. Fire away, Mr Maurice.”

*

CRAVEN SELF-REGARD generally won over loyalty, Mickey decided, as they tripped down the grand steps and headed back to Squire’s. The truth of that fateful shooting party had slipped from Hawkins’s wrinkly lips faster than butter sliding from a hot skillet. Talybridge had, indeed, been present that weekend, as had his father. As to whether the marquess was with the indomitable duchess, making the beast with two backs, Hawkins wouldn’t commit. It could have been the marquess’s father, Mickey supposed, but either way, the parure popping up around the pretty neck of Talybridge’s betrothed was far too much of a coincidence to ignore.

“Do you truly think he might have killed her too?” Mickey asked Tommy.

Tommy shrugged. “Possibly. If one is capable of stealing a priceless parure, then one is also capable of murder. Perhaps the murder came first and, to cover their tracks, he or his father hoped it would look like a robbery gone wrong. After all, the Talybridge’s have never been short on blunt. None of them have ever needed to steal anything.”

“Murder committed by the servant who Hawkins said found her dead?” Mickey didn’t care for that version of events. Grandmama’s lifeless body, according to Hawkins, had been discovered by a young footman—a chap called Roberts—who mysteriously vanished soon after. “Convenient for the Talybridges, wouldn’t you say?”

“Very.” Tommy nodded. “And it doesn’t explain how Talybridge has ended up with the parure. According to Hawkins, young Roberts wouldn’t have said boo to a goose, let alone kill his employer’s wife and run off with her jewellery. More likely, he scarpered because he’d been petrified that the true killer thought he’d seen too much and that he’d be next.”

“Maybe Roberts did see too much,” Mickey suggested, staring out of the smeary carriage window. “Maybe he was also killed and his body hidden somewhere that wasn’t the lake.”

They trotted along quietly for a while. It was all speculation, but Mickey thoroughly enjoyed himself anyhow.

“If this Roberts saw too much and escaped alive,” Tommy said at last, “then he’s fortunate the duke wanted the whole thing kept hush-hush. There would have been a manhunt for him, and he’d have swung from the gibbet whether he committed the crime or not—what with being a lowly servant. His humble word against a highfalutin marquess, and all that.”

Mickey pondered for a second. “Unless the old duke didn’t initiate a manhunt because he knew his servant, Roberts, wasn’t the killer.”

“That’s a possibility too,” said Tommy as they stalled on Piccadilly. “If Grandpapa was anything like the current duke, then that’s exactly how he’d have behaved. My Ashington would never allow a servant to take the blame for a crime he hadn’t committed, even if the true culprit could never be proven. Yes.” Tommy nodded again. “More likely, this footman, Roberts, had nothing to do with it. Simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. And I think that’s what Hawkins was hinting at, don’t you?”

“Yes, though he didn’t come out and say it directly. So, a lover’s tiff? Talybridge or his father shot Grandmama in the heat of the moment?” Mickey played it through in his mind. “What if, earlier in the day, Ashington’s grandfather discovered them in flagrante and called for a duel, then purposely missed? Even though he escaped with his life, it would have still humiliated Talybridge—father or son—and the shooting of Grandmama could have been an act of revenge. Why not add in the theft of the parure too?”

So busy speculating, they had already reached the stable block to the rear of Squire’s, hardly noticing the journey had ended.

“I doubt we’ll ever know for sure,” mused Tommy.

“No.” Mickey brought the phaeton to a halt. “Except that now the parure has appeared around Miss Amelia Chesterton’s swanlike neck and in her shell-like ears, a disappearing servant thieving it can definitely be ruled out. Which puts the Talybridge’s squarely in the frame.”

“And, on that note, I must break the news to Benedict and Fitzsimmons. Wish me luck.”

Chapter Five

“ARE YOU CONTENT in your work, Mickey?”

Having completed their morning mission, Mickey and Tommy were now scrutinising Squire’s betting stand accounts. Mickey hadn’t been aware he was under scrutiny too.

“Um…yes? Why?”

“You’re awfully quiet.”

“I’m always quiet.” Mickey tapped on the ledger with his quill pen. “I’m concentrating on ensuring that our chap overseeing things at Epsom isn’t fiddling the books. It’s what I’m good at and what you pay me for.” He recalled the look of dismay on Hawkins’s face. “Amongst other things.”

Dipping his head back to his arithmetic, Mickey ran his finger down the margin, searching for where he’d left off.

The conversation, however, wasn’t over.

“And you’re very solitary.”

Damn, he’d just found it. “It doesn’t always feel that way.” Mickey sighed, keeping his finger on the spot. “But, yes. I suppose I have solitary moments when I’m not working and you’re entertaining your lordling. What of it?”