The Custom House Murders (Captain Lacey Mysteries #15) - Ashley Gardner Page 0,59
his accent, which was surprisingly neutral, but perhaps he had lost it during his time in the West Indies.
“Of course.” I removed my flask, which I kept for warmth on chill autumn days such as this and handed it to him.
Laybourne proceeded to pour a liberal amount over his porridge and another dollop into his tea. “Thank you, young man.”
I doubted he was much older than me, but I nodded. Mr. Laybourne had lean limbs in a shabby coat that was too large for him, affirming Eden’s claim that he’d left Antigua to better his health. He wore his graying hair pulled back into an old-fashioned queue, was clean shaven, and gazed at me with doleful brown eyes. His skin held the yellowish pallor of one who’d suffered from the ague.
“Did Major Eden send you?” Laybourne asked. “What the devil does he want?”
“No, I wished to see you myself. To ask you a few questions about Mr. Warrilow.”
Laybourne’s brows went up. “That pestilence? I heard someone offed him. Good riddance.”
He did not invite me to sit, but I scraped back a chair and did so anyway. “He lived in the square behind you.” I glanced at the window but could not see much through the dirty panes. “Your garden almost backs onto his.”
Laybourne briefly turned his head to stare at the window. “Does it? I’d think he’d have more funds, and sense, than to stay in these dregs.”
Warrilow’s rooms had been faded and worn, but Mrs. Beadle kept her place clean and scrubbed.
“His house is a bit nicer than this one. Perhaps you could move there.”
Laybourne scowled at me and jabbed his spoon at the mess in his bowl. “Are you meant to be amusing? Though I suppose they do have an empty room now.”
I hadn’t been attempting humor. I’d thought that I wouldn’t wish anyone to stay in this house. Even my small and cold rooms in Grimpen Lane had been more cheerful.
“I beg your pardon,” I said. “Did you know Warrilow at all in Antigua?”
“Never met the man until he stepped aboard ship,” Laybourne snapped. “A bad day when that happened. He was a menace.”
“Yes, I have heard he was unpleasant.”
“Sneering, small-minded, pompous idiot who pointed out the supposed shortcomings of others to cover up his own.” Laybourne shoved his spoon into his mouth, stopping his words.
The anger in his eyes struck me. He boiled with it.
“You quarreled with him,” I ventured.
“Everyone did.” Unlike Fitzgerald, Laybourne didn’t bother to swallow before he talked, spitting pieces of oats onto the table. “If you think I climbed the garden wall and then in through his window to—how was it done? Stab him, cosh him, strangle him?—you are mistaken. I am not a well man. Bloody malarial islands nearly killed me. I can barely walk up a flight of stairs and am reduced to eating this mush.”
He slammed his spoon into the porridge, spattering the sticky mess. He shoved the bowl away from him.
“I am terribly sorry. I know what it is to be laid up.” I hefted my walking stick then tapped my left knee with it. “Took me almost a year to be up on this leg again, and even now it pains me in this sort of weather.”
“You were an army man. Injuries are to be expected. I went to the islands to make a bloody fortune. Huh. All I got for my troubles was the ague.”
And he was enraged. Had that rage enabled him to march to Warrilow’s—using the conventional means of the street and the front door—and kill him? I wondered who all Mrs. Beadle’s grandson had seen that night.
“I suppose not everyone can grow rich there.” Eden hadn’t been able to find a way to make his life in the islands profitable. Warrilow had been a small farmer only able to afford rooms in this end of London.
“I never said—” Laybourne broke off. He coughed heavily, lifted his teacup, and gulped. The brandy from my flask must have soothed him, for he quieted.
“What exactly did you do there?” I asked when he’d recovered.
His suspicion returned. “Why do you want to know?”
I shrugged. “I might make a go of it myself. Eden said Antigua was beautiful, despite its mugginess.”
“Major Eden is a dreamer. Not a very practical bloke, you might have noticed. The only way a man survives in the Indies is through hard work and luck. You need both. I don’t think you’d have the luck, Captain. You’re already a cripple.”