The Custom House Murders (Captain Lacey Mysteries #15) - Ashley Gardner Page 0,101
Mr. Laybourne likely knew where they were. But let me give you a sequence of events as I believed they happened.”
I glanced at my friends. They nodded at me to continue, though Eden appeared apprehensive.
“The Dusty Rose sailed with cargo and several passengers,” I began. “Major Eden, Mr. Warrilow, Mr. Laybourne, Mr. Fitzgerald, and the missionaries, Mr. and Mrs. Kingston. Warrilow was a passenger of the sort most people dread, arguing over every point in a conversation, prying into their business. He was suspicious of Eden, who visited the hold to check on his belongings, and also of Laybourne, Fitzgerald, and the Kingstons. The Kingstons seem to be exactly what they are, zealous missionaries. I’ve met them. But a little too zealous to be true perhaps?”
“Ah,” Thompson murmured.
“I am also interested in Kingston because he is tall. I will come to that in a moment.” I rested my hand on the gold head of Denis’s walking stick. “The voyage continued without much drama, except Eden and Mr. Warrilow resorting to fisticuffs at the dining table. But once the ship landed, there was plenty of drama. First, the ship was delayed. They had to sit downriver for a long time until they were able to inch up to the wharves to unload. This worried men who had many surreptitious things to do. Finally, the ship docked.
“As usual, customs officials boarded the ship first, consulted the cargo master, and then went below to search the hold. Mr. Fitzgerald, who had gathered stolen artwork—I am afraid I don’t know what, but I will leave that to Mr. Thompson—slipped down to the hold and paid the agents some coin to leave his things alone. He then had the items unloaded to waiting carts, which slipped off in the night. Fitzgerald allowed the customs agents to take one object, his painted box, for which he did have paperwork of a sale. This paperwork might have been forged, or perhaps his tale of buying it from a man on St. Maarten is true. Mr. Fitzgerald then disembarked with the other passengers and made his way to White’s to take rooms, like the very respectable gentleman he paints himself to be.”
Seabrook’s face had gone wan. “He bribed my men? Bloody hell. I know corruption goes on, but my men?”
“I believe Warrilow witnessed this exchange of money take place, or he guessed. Possibly Fitzgerald visited him that night and paid him to keep his silence.”
“And killed him,” Eden said with conviction.
“No.” I shook my head. “Not Fitzgerald. He is guilty of smuggling artwork, possibly stolen ones, but not of murder. That was someone else. I haven’t come to Mr. Laybourne. It was he who brought a stolen cache of weapons from the islands to England. I believe it is part of a ring—the weapons are seized on their way from Britain to South America. I imagine the smugglers take only a part of each cache and send the rest on, to avoid an intense hunt for the missing weapons. Mr. Laybourne was in charge of the boxes that went to England on the Dusty Rose.
“Mr. Warrilow found him out somehow, and took one of the carbines as evidence, perhaps to use it to blackmail him once they’d landed. Laybourne was seen speaking to Warrilow in Warrilow’s lodgings, though Warrilow would not let Laybourne into his room. Perhaps Warrilow extracted money from Laybourne at that time, or perhaps they arranged to meet later for the exchange—we likely will never know. Mr. Laybourne was awaiting his payment for ferrying the weapons, enough money for him to contemplate golden retirement near the Yorkshire Dales. I say waiting, because if Laybourne had already received the money, I imagine he’d have lived somewhere other than the dreadful boarding house I found him in. He was most relieved that someone had killed Warrilow, which saved him from having to pay out in blackmail.”
“But then Laybourne was killed too,” Eden said.
“Another reason I’ve dismissed Fitzgerald as the murderer. He’d have had no worry about Laybourne. Fitzgerald had managed to cart away his artwork, but Laybourne was doing something even worse, smuggling weapons. Laybourne would not be a threat to Fitzgerald, but perhaps the other way around, if Fitzgerald saw the wrong thing at the wrong time. No, Laybourne was killed because of the gun smuggling. He knew too much—who was doing it, and how the weapons were taken off the ship and transported on, and to whom. Dangerous knowledge.”