The Custom House Murders (Captain Lacey Mysteries #15) - Ashley Gardner Page 0,49
of it.” He trailed off. “I apologize for abandoning you this morning. I found Brewster and told him where you’d gone, but I had a devilish important appointment to keep. Business, you know. It wouldn’t wait. I came to see if you’d fared all right against that horrible man.”
I gave him a nod. “He released me without damage. Brewster was charging to my rescue even as I emerged from Creasey’s lair. Creasey didn’t torture me. We played chess.”
Eden looked alarmed. “I thought he was a master. What did he want from you?”
“To teach me my place. He won, of course, but I tried to play better than he expected so he’d not become disgusted and have me beaten for the entertainment of it.”
Eden shuddered. “I met Bonaparte once. He was a man well confident of his own power, fairly certain he was destined to become a god, but he was also polite and intelligent, courteous to an officer of his enemies. He made me know I was less than nothing to him, but he did not frighten me anywhere near what this Creasey does.”
“You will be glad to learn that I have decided to leave him to Mr. Denis. Both Denis and Creasey—and Brewster—are correct that I should step out of the way.” I poured a dollop of brandy into my coffee and sipped. Both beverages were excellent, and combined they made a superb concoction. “Which gives me more time to focus on your problem.”
Eden gave a heartfelt sigh and lifted his coffee. “I thank you. I will be glad to have Pomeroy not popping up to greet me wherever I turn, with that hearty laugh of his. I imagine every criminal in London is terrified of him.”
“They are,” I assured him. I set down my cup and folded my hands on the desk. “But I need perfect frankness from you if I am to help.” I leaned forward and gave him an intent stare. “Tell me, Eden. Who is the lady?”
CHAPTER 12
I had expected Eden to splutter into his coffee, cough, and send me a flurry of lies as his face grew crimson.
Instead, he lowered his cup in puzzlement. “What lady?”
Hmm. Either Eden had improved at deception in the last hours, or my assessment was wrong.
“Come now,” I said. “There are none here but us, and what you tell me will go no further. You have mysterious errands that pull you from important situations, such as fetching your baggage held at the Custom House, or dare I say it, rescuing me. You cannot explain why you visited the hold of your ship many times though you had no cargo there. You quarreled with Warrilow about the horrors of slavery, came to blows with him defending a woman who spoke strongly against it. Perhaps Warrilow knew your secret, and you went to his rooms that night to make certain he told no one. My conclusion is that you fell in love with a lady, who perhaps was owned by a planter in Antigua, and you spirited her away across the ocean where she could live in freedom. I commend you for it, but others unfortunately, like Warrilow, would condemn you and try to send the lady back to her captivity.”
Eden sat in bewildered silence as I put forth my theory, which had made logical sense to me when I’d worked it out. Eden was a gallant gentleman, and it would be just like him to steal away a woman to bring her to the dubious paradise of England and set her free. It would also explain his stumble when Eden had claimed there had been seven passengers, and then spoken only of six.
Eden sipped his coffee with an air of relief. “I say, Lacey, you have a vast imagination.”
Damnation. He did have a secret, a reason he’d done all the things I’d outlined, and he was happy I hadn’t guessed correctly.
“I have told you, your magistrate, and many others, time and again, that I am a confirmed bachelor,” Eden said. “I do enjoy the fairer sex, as you know, and I have had my share of liaisons, but no I did not act the romantic swain you paint. I would help such a woman, of course, but I’d have simply purchased her freedom so she could travel with me openly, and I’d have already introduced you to her. What you have outlined is a superb story for the theatre or a sentimental novel.”