A Child Lost (Henrietta and Inspector Howard #5) - Michelle Cox Page 0,12

not secret, strictly speaking, was, on the other hand, not one they bandied about, even to Antonia. The agreement was simply that Clive would fulfill the role of Chairman of the Board in name only, as had been the case with his father. Like Alcott, Clive would be merely a figurehead, which would allow for the brilliant Sidney Bennett to employ his astute business acumen in running the company, as he had done for all these years, leaving Clive free to pursue private detective work.

With this agreement satisfactorily negotiated between them, their business relationship now seemed to hover on the brink of being something more, just as it had been something more of a friendship between Alcott and Bennett as the years had gone on. On more than one occasion since his father’s death, Clive found himself turning to the calm, steady Bennett for advice. He reminded Clive of his father at times, but Bennett was more grounded, more practical than his father—the son of an English lord—had ever been. Many times, Clive had to shake himself a bit to remember that Bennett was indeed not his father, such as when he occasionally stopped at the house for a late-night drink, usually under the guise of needing Clive to sign some documents or other. They would sit across from each other in his father’s—now Clive’s—study in the leather armchairs in front of the fireplace, just as Clive and his father had so often done. Bennett could easily have sent whatever documents he needed signed via courier, or request that Clive stop in at the office, if nothing else but to keep up appearances with the staff. So Clive felt it very keenly that Bennett made an effort to come in person, as if Bennett somehow knew he might need to privately talk.

It was during one such evening, about a month after Henrietta’s . . . mishap . . . that Bennett casually asked if Clive had any detective cases yet come his way. When Clive responded that he had not, Bennett suggested that perhaps he try to unearth one—and that he should make sure it was one in which he could involve Henrietta.

“I don’t think she’s quite up to something like that at the moment,” Clive responded, peering intently at the fire.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Bennett answered. “Seems to me that’s exactly what she needs. Take her mind off things.” He glanced sideways at Clive.

“Ah,” Clive said, turning it over slowly in his mind. It wasn’t a bad idea, really. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? “Yes,” he said, sitting up in his chair. “I see what you mean.” He looked over at Bennett, feeling very grateful all of a sudden.

“Merely a thought,” Bennett said quietly.

Clive packed some tobacco into his pipe, wondering how he could find a case, a real case. He couldn’t just rustle one up out of thin air. Nor was he going to sniff around the Winnetka Police Station looking for crumbs, not with that idiot Callahan in charge. Clive had more than once suspected that there was something fishy there. No one could be as unaware and naïve as Callahan claimed to be and still sit as the chief of police, even if it was a sleepy little village twenty miles north of Chicago. And there had been a brief moment during the investigation of his father’s murder when Clive thought he saw something telling, something more knowing beneath Callahan’s bumbling exterior, a chink in his armor, as it were. But it was only a feeling, nothing he could prove. It was enough to cause a certain suspicion on Clive’s part, however, though he had no wish to deal with him at present. Well, he thought, taking a deep puff of his pipe as Bennett poured himself another brandy, at least he now had an idea of how he might help Henrietta.

Weeks had gone by, however, and nothing had surfaced, causing Clive to wonder if he really should formally advertise his services in the local paper. It was a thought he loathed for various reasons, one of them being the chance that his mother might see it, when he had inadvertently heard that Frank Davis was back at the station. After the Neptune affair, Clive was sure an understanding of sorts existed now between them. Indeed, he and Henrietta had visited him in the hospital on more than one occasion, Henrietta noticing that no other family or friends ever seemed to be there, an