her footman to escort you out by the tradesman’s entrance, Mr Jones.”
He cackled with delight. “What a fearsome old tartar you’ll be, one day. Now. What can I offer you as an inducement to tell all?”
“To begin with, a promise not to publish a word of what you learn until the first of August, or until I say you may – whichever comes first. Secondly, not to speak about the same, until that time. Thirdly—”
“My dear child, those are conditions, not inducements. Tell me what you want. Money? An introduction to publishers? A penn’orth of lead-painted sweeties?”
“I was just getting to that,” said Mary. She was accustomed to Jones’s style now and, obnoxious as it was, it seemed to be growing on her. “I need your help.”
“Aha.” He leaned forward, his eyes keen. “What sort of help?”
“Finding Keenan and Reid. Today.”
“That I can manage,” he said promptly. “That all?”
“I also want to know how you think Wick died, and why.”
He let out a long, low whistle. “I knew it! I knew we were after the same thing. You secretive little devil, why didn’t you say so in the first place?”
“You’d have sent me packing.”
“Of course I would! But I’d have appreciated your foolhardy confidence.”
“As you do now?”
He shrugged, turning up his palms. “As it happens, I’m feeling generous today. Also, short of ideas. It’s a devil of a problem, isn’t it? How did the scoundrel – for everyone seems to agree about that, if nothing else – how did he die?
“It’s obvious, of course, that the brickies are robbing Harkness blind. All that ‘ghost of the clock tower’ business – it’s not entirely my invention, y’know. It began as Keenan’s thing, to explain mysterious goings-on at night, and the sudden disappearance of quantities of expensive building materials. Although” – he cocked his head to one side – “I suppose it might be true. Many a man perished during the blaze of eighteen-thirty-whatsit that burned the old Parliament buildings to the ground, only that’s not talked of these days. It’s all Big Ben, and the improving effects of Gothic architecture on the morals of the working class.
“But I digress. Keenan and Reid are filling me with this stuff about the ghost, but all the while there’s a big problem in their little gang. Y’see, Reid’s fallen in love with Wick’s wife – scrawny little sparrow, don’t see the appeal myself … though, egad, she’s fertile enough – and Wick and Reid are at each other’s throats. Keenan’s none too pleased with this crack-up, since if the gang splits the profit goes, and who’s to say they won’t start to talk? So he’s at ’em to work things out, and he’s the sort of man who means it. I’d not put it past him to push Wick off the tower, just to shut him up.”
“Why Wick, and not Reid?”
“P’raps Wick looked at him wrong. I don’t know, but he ain’t sentimental, Keenan.”
“Wouldn’t Reid be more likely to push Wick? Being in love with his wife?”
Jones sighed. “In theory, yes. But he’s an anxious, do-gooding sort, is Reid. He’d like nothing better than to marry the widow and raise her brood and go straight for the rest of his life. He’s much more likely to wait twenty years for Wick to die, then marry the toothless widow and call it the triumph of true love.”
“Hmph.”
“Indeed.”
“So you’re for Keenan.”
“Not so fast, young Quinn. There’s an additional problem. Wick was a moody, brooding sort – type of fellow who’s your best friend one minute, don’t know you the next. And he’d been talking back and forth with Harkness.”
Mary tried not to look too suddenly alert. “What about Harkness?”
Jones sighed dramatically. “That’s what I don’t know. Wick was sneaking on Keenan and Reid, maybe. Or trying to bring Harky into their little circle – but that don’t really make sense: why share out the profit four ways, when you can get away with three? My money’s on Wick double-crossing his mates for some paltry reward, for that’s the sort of chap he was.”
Mary thought fast. The theory didn’t account for Harkness’s elevated lifestyle, but that might be a separate matter. Perhaps she and James had been too quick to put together cause and effect.
“And now we come to my little conversation with Reid – the one you were so keen to hear.” He cackled at the memory. “What a load of poppycock that was. Reid’s panicked about something, that’s all I know, and he gets hold