Lessons in Solving the Wrong Problem - Charlie Cochrane Page 0,28
you, although your inability to promise me secrecy, while understandable, means I can’t tell you more.” Still the concentration on her hands. “I know that your reputation is for both efficiency and trustworthiness, so it isn’t a case of me thinking the story will go further, it’s—as you say—fulfilling that duty.”
Duty. The word had a particular meaning in the Coppersmith-Stewart household, one that couldn’t be repeated in any company, polite or otherwise. The choice of term, with all the resonance it held of intimacy, promises and undying love, had an impact that all Beatrice’s pleading couldn’t match.
“In that case, I will promise not to repeat anything to anyone, Dr Stewart included.” To have used his lover’s Christian name in this instance would have unmanned Orlando. “The proviso is that I need to be able to act on what I’m told.”
Beatrice at last turned her gaze towards him. “If you can do so without giving the game away, then I’m contented. I have no doubt that your colleague is equally understanding. The story is this. Henry and young Edward were sitting at their father’s bedside in what turned out to be his final hours. He had lost some lucidity, right at the end, and Henry failed to make sense of much that was said. However, at one point, Michael opened his eyes and said, ‘Take care of the boy,’—at that point he meant Edward, because he glanced at him—then, ‘Take care of William,’ which would have referred to his old friend.”
Orlando nodded, slightly puzzled. None of this warranted secrecy.
“Then he looked Henry straight in the eyes and said, “It’s not the boy’s fault. My own stupidity. Were it not for him, I’d be alive. Curse the man.’ They were the last words his father spoke clearly and death wasn’t far off their heels.”
“Did Henry take them as implying that Edward had somehow been involved in his father’s death? I can understand how he’d be reluctant to confess that to anyone. What good could come out of implicating a child?”
“The thought certainly crossed his mind at the time, then again when Edward ran off and was killed the following year. But the boy couldn’t have gone wandering that night, because he was safely tucked up at home.”
“That was proven? I only ask for clarification, given Mary’s history of falling asleep when she shouldn’t.”
“Proven beyond doubt, because he was cutting his first root tooth and was unsettled. His mother came and sat with him. I think Mary had been relieved of her nursery duties by that point.” Beatrice took another sip of sherry. “I’ll anticipate another question, which concerns whether the boy—or anyone else—could have somehow interfered with the tack, meaning that Michael’s saddle slipped. But the groom checked that all was in order later that night, after they’d gone out and found him. The horse had come home riderless, but fortunately the accident had happened not too far from home, or else he might have died of exposure rather than in his own bed.”
“So we can set the boy aside from our thoughts.” A mere juxtaposition of words from the dying man, such as Orlando had made earlier. “So we come to curse the man. Who did Henry think that referred to? William Saggers, given that if he hadn’t gone out to visit him he wouldn’t have had the accident?”
“That would be the logical deduction, but why curse him if you’d already made a point of asking him to be taken care of?”
“Unless take care was meant euphemistically. Wanting him brought to justice?” Although, in that case, why not make the meaning plain?
Beatrice smiled. “You do remind me so much of Henry. When he first told me this tale, he said a similar thing, having asked the same questions of himself. Anyway, once Lord Michael’s funeral and the initial estate business was dealt with, Henry decided it had all probably been a ramble, meaningless to anyone but his father and perhaps not even to him.”
“The nagging doubt remained and remains, though?”
“Yes. Fuelled in part by his father having addressed him directly, as though he were giving the kind of deathbed commission one might read about in a story.”
“Then I must ask you why he hasn’t felt able to say anything openly, either at the time or since? Henry has already told us that bit about being asked to take care of William.” A sudden thought. “Does Richard know?”
“No, he doesn’t. And that situation will prevail unless and until you or Henry or