The Custom House Murders (Captain Lacey Mysteries #15) - Ashley Gardner Page 0,14

a match and then defeats them soundly, usually after extracting a wager from them, one of long-lasting consequences.”

“Ah.” I decided I’d been wise to demur. “Have you played chess with him?”

Denis shook his head. “It is not my game. I would not be foolish enough to put myself into his power in any way. I suggest you avoid him.”

“I had not planned to seek him out again.” We stood together in the middle of the room. Gibbons had not taken my hat or offered refreshment. “Is that the only reason you summoned me? To ask about Creasey?”

“It is. I would, however, like Mr. Brewster’s opinion on the attack and how another like it might be prevented. If you agree, he will linger for a time and speak with me.”

I shrugged. Denis meant that the command to attend him had been for Brewster, not me. He’d used the question about Mr. Creasey as an excuse, knowing Brewster went where I did.

“It is hardly up to me,” I said. “Brewster is his own man.”

Brewster scowled at me as though annoyed I’d say so. But while he worked for me, I hardly owned him body and soul.

“I will see myself home,” I told him.

Brewster took a belligerent step toward me. “I’ll not have you running about on your own with men with knives lurking in the shadows. You wait for me, guv.”

“I agree with Mr. Brewster.” Denis gave me a nod. “Adjourn to the dining room, Captain. Gibbons will bring you coffee.”

I surveyed the stony faces of Denis and Brewster and understood that arguing would do no good. So, like a schoolboy dismissed by the headmaster, I made my way down the stairs, following the stiff-gaited butler.

It was nearing the noon hour. Gibbons set coffee before me, along with a basket of assorted breads and a small crock of chilled butter. I was not hungry, but I tried a slice of bread and found it stuffed full of olives and seeds. Unusual, but quite tasty.

While I waited, I reflected on my meeting with Eden and his arrest.

His story was that he’d left Antigua after finding civilian life there unfulfilling and traveled to England. He bought passage on a cargo ship, as did many who needed to cross the ocean, one carrying rum and other commodities. During the voyage, Eden quarreled with his shipmate, Mr. Warrilow, and the quarrel had come to blows.

Not only that but, nervous about his belongings—though he professed to travel with little—Eden had made a habit of visiting the hold to check on them.

Once the ship docked, Eden’s baggage was seized by the excise men and searched, then found to be of no interest. Had someone on the ship—its captain perhaps—believed Eden was smuggling goods?

Eden had made his way, without his bags, to St. James’s and found rooms in a house that took in gentlemen bachelors. He’d spent his day in St. James’s until he’d decided to return to the area of the London docks and look up Warrilow, ostensibly for the return of a book. Eden was lying about that reason, it was clear. Sir Nathaniel Conant, a canny man, had recognized that as well.

In addition, some of the cargo of the ship Eden had travelled on had been taken. I wondered if it had gone missing during the unloading, and the theft discovered later? Or whether a warehouse where the goods were stored had been burgled once the ship was empty.

I could ask. I had a friend in one Mr. Thompson of the Thames River Police. Thompson and his colleagues were tasked with the prevention of this very sort of crime—theft from the merchantmen docked up and down the Thames. He might have more information about the missing goods, and perhaps he would share the information with me. I’d have to explain why, of course. Mr. Thompson did not trust blindly.

I doubted Eden had anything to do with the stolen cargo. Thieves regularly worked the wharves, and the goods that went into the new, enclosed London Docks were high-priced imports like brandy, rum, and cocoa from the East Indies.

On the other hand, while I did not want to believe Eden could kill a man outside a battlefield, I could not dismiss the fact that he might have. Eden could be as much of a stickler about honor as I was. If he had good reason to murder an oafish man, he would.

But then, Warrilow had been found dead in his rooms, slain by a blow to the head.