“At the expense of her happiness,” Daniel said. “If Louisa had accepted Hargate, I would have done anything to persuade her out of it.” He shuddered. “I couldn’t stick having Hargate for an uncle-in-law. Imagine having to be pleasant to him over pudding at Christmas. No, thank you.”
“I would have refused him,” Louisa said. “Hargate did try very hard to persuade me, telling me he’d forgive my family’s debts to him if I married him. My family has paid back most of what my father owed him, but he intended to squeeze me for the rest of it. Horrid man.”
Mrs. Leigh-Waters looked even more distressed. “Oh, Louisa, you mustn’t . . .”
“Speak ill of the dead?” Daniel asked, before Louisa could answer. “It’s not the done thing, no, but death doesn’t change what a person was in life. Hargate wasn’t above a bit of blackmail to get what he wanted. Key to most of his successes, I’d wager. He even tried to blackmail me once.”
Mrs. Leigh-Waters wiped her eyes. “He did? What about? I mean . . . Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. Mackenzie. I don’t mean to pry.”
Daniel shrugged. “Youthful indiscretions. I’ve had so many of those I had to tax Hargate a bit before I pinned down exactly which youthful indiscretion he was threatening to tell my father about. I told Hargate to tell him and be damned. Which he did. My dad came down on me hard, but I confessed my sins, Dad and I argued, he forgave me, we had a whiskey, and all was well.” Daniel’s relationship with his father in a nutshell.
“Rather mean of Hargate,” Louisa said indignantly. “Did he ask you for money to keep quiet?”
“That and a word with Uncle Hart to hurry Hargate’s chances of getting into the House of Lords. Only room for so many bishops’ bums on the seats there. Someone has to die before another can come in the front door. Hargate wanted to be moved to the top of the list. I told him he was optimistic about Hart opening a way for him. Hart’s harder to blackmail than anyone I know. Trust me. I’ve tried. My ears still hurt from the drubbing he gave me.” Daniel rubbed the side of his head. “Of course, I was only ten at the time and not practiced.”
Daniel’s casual tone, dismissing blackmail as merely a nuisance, was having good effect on Mrs. Leigh-Waters. Her crying quieted, and she started to relax.
“Was he blackmailing you too?” Daniel asked her. “I’m sorry if he was.”
Mrs. Leigh-Waters nodded. “Please, please don’t tell my husband.”
“No.” Louisa squeezed her hand. “We understand.”
Mrs. Leigh-Waters looked at them watching her, then she jumped. “But if you are thinking I poisoned Hargate to keep him quiet, I did not. I paid him, as I said, and set up the appointment for him to meet you. I knew he might try for more money in future, but I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.”
Louisa wondered very much what knowledge Hargate had possessed that so shamed Mrs. Leigh-Waters, but she wouldn’t ask. The poor lady had suffered enough without having to worry that someone else knew her secret. Hargate was gone now, and Mrs. Leigh-Waters was safe from him.
“Never fear,” Louisa said. “I don’t see how you could have killed him, anyway, if the poison was in the teacup. How could you know which cup he’d choose? Or which I’d choose to give him? It was me who handed him the cup. I am, unfortunately, the most likely suspect.”
Louisa deflated. She’d come here hoping to learn much more. She’d discovered from their conversation that Mrs. Leigh-Waters did indeed have a motive for killing Hargate, but she had difficulty picturing Mrs. Leigh-Waters thinking of so intricate a way to administer the poison. Besides, would the lady risk killing the man in her own garden? In front of a large party of people?
Someone had. And that someone had shifted the blame squarely on Louisa.
“Thank you.” Louisa squeezed Mrs. Leigh-Waters’ hand again. “I’m sorry you’ve had to go through all this.”
“And I you,” Mrs. Leigh-Waters said. “Will you forgive me?”
“Of course.”
Mrs. Leigh-Waters let out her breath, her relief plain. Louisa and Daniel exchanged a glance, silently agreeing to end the conversation, and they took the rest of their tea in peace.
***
When Louisa and Daniel left Mrs. Leigh-Waters’ house, Louisa gave Mac’s coachman directions to take them straight to London and Scotland Yard. She would try to keep Mrs. Leigh-Waters’ confidences as best she could, but she wanted to tell Fellows what they’d discovered about Hargate. Immediately. As awkward as it would be to face Fellows again after last night, she wanted him to know.
Daniel agreed, and the coach headed east at a good clip.
When they reached Scotland Yard, however, the sergeant downstairs told Daniel that Fellows was out. So was Sergeant Pierce and Constable Dobbs. But they could always leave a message.
Daniel returned to the coach, where Louisa waited, with this information.
“I suppose I can leave him a message,” Louisa said, unhappy.
“No.” Daniel knocked on the roof of the coach and directed the coachman to the Strand. “We’ll wait for him in his own lair. Might be a while, though. I say we fetch food and drink on the way.”
***
Sergeant Pierce had suggested to Fellows that they go back to Richmond to reexamine the scene of the crime, but Fellows negated the idea. As he’d contemplated before, this was a crime of Mayfair. The players, and the answer, lay in that section of London.
Fellows began by visiting the Bishop of Hargate’s father, the Earl of Norwell, in Norwell’s Berkeley Square house. Norwell didn’t want to see Fellows, the butler informed them when he answered the front door. He also said that Fellows and Pierce should have gone down the stairs to enter the house via the kitchen.
Fellows did tell Pierce to go down—it never hurt to cultivate those below stairs and learn the household gossip—but Fellows remained squarely in the doorway.
“Tell his lordship that if he wishes me to find and arrest his son’s killer, and quickly, he’ll speak to me,” Fellows said to the butler.
The man looked aggrieved, but at last he obeyed. Pierce sketched a cheerful salute and departed for the kitchen.
The Earl of Norwell kept Fellows waiting in a reception room for at least half an hour before the butler returned and led Fellows up a flight of stairs to a study lined with books. The room’s high walls held a second floor of bookcases, reached by an iron spiral staircase.