The Custom House Murders (Captain Lacey Mysteries #15) - Ashley Gardner Page 0,96

could imagine Fitzgerald, smiling and agreeable, calling on Warrilow, perhaps making an appointment to meet him that night. Warrilow would not be on his guard with Fitzgerald, as he sneered that he knew all about Fitzgerald’s smuggling. I could also imagine Fitzgerald, a large and strong man, silencing Warrilow with one blow of the washbasin’s heavy pitcher. There had been no blood on the pitcher that Mrs. Beadle had noticed, but perhaps he’d cleaned it and replaced it carefully before he’d gone.

Fitzgerald would have no need to search the room for the missing carbine, because he was only interested in smuggling his artworks. He’d have gone, dusting off his hands.

Why then, would he have killed Laybourne? I made another note.

For the same reason, I imagined. Perhaps Laybourne, while offloading his contraband weapons, had found Fitzgerald’s pieces. Laybourne had been waxing nostalgic about returning to the affluent spa town at the edge of the Dales. Had the threadbare man been paid handsomely by Fitzgerald to look the other way? And Fitzgerald, fearing Laybourne would not keep silent, killed him.

Whose carts had the fisherman seen surreptitiously take away a few loads? Fitzgerald’s I wagered.

It must have been unnerving for both Fitzgerald and Laybourne when the customs agents were crawling all over the ship, randomly seizing goods. The customs men had already been alerted about missing cargos and were carefully examining everything.

Then there were the Kingstons. Harry, the boy from Warrilow’s lodgings, had said he’d seen Mr. Kingston attempt to visit Warrilow, and Kingston had admitted he’d been there. His story that he hoped Warrilow had made an appointment with him so Kingston could save his soul was thin. Harry had again seen Mr. Kingston outside later that night, and then the next day near Laybourne’s, though Kingston had denied that.

Then again, Mrs. Kingston was tall, though not as slender. I had noted that their heights were not too far apart. If she dressed in her husband’s clothes, she might pass for him in the darkness.

I drew another sheet of paper to me and wrote a note to Sir Montague Harris, suggesting that he investigate a man and wife by the name of Kingston, recently returned from Antigua, missionaries from Lambeth. Brewster was correct that missionaries could easily move about the world, in a prime position to smuggle goods. Port authorities and customs officials might dismiss them as unthreatening. Or, when the Kingstons began to preach at them, wave them through to be rid of them.

I’d sent this letter off with one of our footmen and was finishing my breakfast when Grenville returned.

He was flushed, agitated. “Excellent, you are awake.” Grenville slid out of the greatcoat Barnstable reached to take from him. “I called in at Brooks’s to see if Major Eden might be there. I agree we need to speak to him most pressingly. He’d anticipated my arrival and left this.”

Grenville shoved a folded paper at me. Barnstable slid out a chair, trying to coax Grenville to sit, but he remained standing, leaning his fists on the table.

I opened the paper and read.

Mr. Grenville,

Forgive my rudeness, but please pass word to Lacey to meet me at once at Number 25 Wellclose Square. I fear much and need his help.

Eden

CHAPTER 24

Barnstable had Grenville’s carriage, driven by his coachman, Jackson, ready for us in a flash.

I asked Jackson to take me first to St. Giles, where I would retrieve Brewster. While we crossed the city, I told Grenville what I’d been mulling over breakfast, and we speculated on my ideas.

I was very glad to sit across from Grenville once more, discussing an investigation. His quick mind complemented my plodding one, his diplomacy, my frontal attacks.

“Major Eden is ready to confess, is he?” Brewster asked when I summoned him from his house. Mrs. Brewster was there, greeting me cheerfully as usual, and pushing her Tommy out to help me once more.

“That remains to be seen.” The carriage could not come into the warrens, which suited Jackson, and so we walked through the awakening slum to meet the coach and Grenville at the church. “He is agitated enough to send for me.”

“Or he could be luring you into a trap, as Creasey did.”

“That is why I am bringing you along,” I said.

Once we were aboard, Jackson turned the coach along Holborn then south on Fetter Lane to Fleet Street and east until we were again past the Tower and into the once-elegant Wellclose Square.

The house Eden directed us to was on the east side of the