Death by Silver (12 page)

“Just this once,” Julian said. “Then you’re done. Was the window open?”

She shook her head.

“Had he been smoking?”

She looked up, frowning slightly. “I don’t know.”

“Was there a smell of tobacco?”

“No.” She drew the word out, doubtfully, then frowned more deeply. “No, there wasn’t, sir, and he hadn’t been smoking, either, because his cigar was still on the tray. He’d cut it, but he hadn’t lit it.”

Julian nodded. “That’s helpful. Did he usually have a nightcap?”

“Yes, sir, and he’d poured one, but he hadn’t drunk it. The glass was on the desk.”

From the sound of it, then, Nevett had been struck by the candlestick as soon as he sat down at his desk, which made the burglary look even more peculiar. “One more thing. The police said the back gate was open that morning. That’s this gate, here in the garden?”

Sarah looked at her shoes again. “Yes, sir. But it was locked that night, I’m sure of it.”

“I daresay,” Julian murmured, though he didn’t believe her. Whether she was lying out of reflex or to protect someone was a matter for later. “When did they put up the bar?”

“That very afternoon,” Sarah answered. “Miller and Mrs Rule both said they wouldn’t sleep another night in the house if they thought someone could come and go as they pleased. Mrs Nevett wasn’t pleased to have them to think about, but Mr Ellis managed it for her.”

“That was kind of him,” Julian said.

“He’s not a bad man.” Sarah squared her shoulders. “And you should know, sir, I was hired from his mission.”

He’d known it already, of course, but he nodded. “Thank you for telling me.”

Mrs Nevett was holding court in the upstairs parlor and declined to descend, requesting that Mr Mathey come up to her instead; Victor looked a bit sheepish when he came back down to tell Ned so, as if he’d asked her to come down and been refused. For a moment, Ned almost felt sympathetic.

“It’s no trouble,” he said. He followed Victor out into the hall. “Is Mr Nevett’s study on this floor?”

“Just there, behind the stairs,” Victor said, pointing out the room behind the parlor. “Across the hall is the dining room.”

“Nothing was taken from the dining room?”

“No. There wasn’t much kept in there, though.”

Ned supposed there was a butler’s pantry downstairs for cutlery and serving pieces, but Julian would find out about that. He was relieved to have Julian’s help on the case, however reluctant it might be.

“If you want to see the study…”

“Yes, I’d better.” Ned stood back as Victor unlocked the room.

“We’ve had it shut up since the police were here.” Victor pocketed the simple skeleton key again. Ned expected everyone in the house had access to a copy; for that matter, Julian could have picked the lock within seconds using a pen nib, although not everyone had Julian’s particular complement of dubious skills.

Ned stepped in, a little reluctantly, although there was nothing to show that anything untoward had happened in the room. It was a small study, lined with shelves of books, with a desk and chair against one wall and two small leather armchairs crowded up near the fireplace on the opposite wall.

There was a strikingly bare spot on a high shelf of the bookcase above the desk. Ned crossed to look, not touching the shelf. “This is where the candlestick sat?”

“Just there.”

He withdrew his wand from his bag and traced a couple of experimental sigils over the polished walnut of the shelf, but it showed no sign of any previous enchantment. “He was sitting here, then?”

“That’s where he always sat,” Victor said.

“And he fell out of the chair when he was struck…this way?” He gestured to the right of the chair, where a rug that looked too small for its place was lying; it was a bright figured bottle green as well, when the rest of the room was in greens so dark as to be almost black.

“As far as anyone can figure. That’s where he was lying when the girl found him. That’s not the carpet that was there. The police took that one off with them. It was…it wasn’t fit to be used, anyway.” He shook his head. “I suppose there’s no chance it could have been an accident?”

“No chance, I’m afraid. That curse was deliberate.” There was nothing else on the shelves above the desk that could have fallen with enough force to kill a man, and while he felt he ought to check the books for any traces of enchantments, that would take some time. “Why don’t you show me up to your mother?”

“No point in putting it off.” Victor led Ned out and up the stairs. On the first floor above, the door to the front parlor stood open, and Ned could hear the murmur of voices stop as the came up the stairs.

“My mother has the back bedroom on this floor, and my father had the front one,” Victor said, nodding to the rooms across the hall. “The rest of us are upstairs.” It was a generously large house for town, but even so there couldn’t have been a spare bedroom in the place, unless there was one perched under the eaves with the servants’ quarters.

Victor turned and stepped into the parlor, with Ned following at a polite distance. “Mother, here’s Mr Mathey, the metaphysician I told you about.”

Mrs Nevett nodded without rising. She was too pale for her widow’s weeds to suit her, although her black dress was well-tailored and her figure under the layers of trailing crepe still slim; her white widow’s cap, trimmed with black ribbons, showed up the threads of gray in her pale hair. Her gray eyes were clear and observant, though, searching him as if taking his measure.

“How do you do?” Ned said. He couldn’t help notice that although there was a black handkerchief folded on her lap, she didn’t look at all as if she’d been crying.

Victor glanced at the man sitting primly on the other end of the sofa, disdain in Victor’s face. “The Reverend Mr Ellis, Mr Mathey.”

“Mr Mathey,” Ellis said. He frowned over the metal rim of his spectacles, looking as forbidding as possible for a weedy little man with thinning hair and a clerical collar. “Is all this really necessary? I hate to see Mrs Nevett put through more harrowing questions at such a difficult time.”

“I’ll try not to ask unnecessary ones,” Ned said, with his most conciliatory smile. He sat down in the nearest chair and extracted a memorandum-book and pencil from his working case, setting the book on his knee. “But the sooner we can sort this out, the less I’ll have to impose on your grief.”

“I think it’s the best thing,” Victor said, still standing himself. “At least it’s not the police.”

“Even so…” Ellis began, but Mrs Nevett put out one hand to still him.

“If we must,” she said.

“Tell me, if you would, what happened the day of the sad event. From breakfast on, if you would.”

“We had breakfast at the usual hour,” Mrs Nevett said.

“All of you were there, I take it?”

“Freddie didn’t come down to breakfast,” Victor said.

“Frederick has always been delicate,” Mrs Nevett said. “He found Oxford to be a great strain on his nerves. He’s still convalescing.”

Victor made a noise that might have been either clearing his throat or snorting, but didn’t actually speak.

“But the rest of you were there? Mr Nevett, Mr and Mrs Victor Nevett, Mr Reginald Nevett, and yourself?”

“Reginald spent the night at his club, as he often does,” Mrs Nevett said, her lips tightening. “There were only the four of us at breakfast.”

“And after breakfast?”

“I left for Hoare’s,” Victor says. “And my father went out as well. He said he was going to his club, and then to his stockbroker’s. And to the estate agent. He was looking into properties in town he felt I should consider.” His tone suggested the help wasn’t necessarily appreciated.

“Alice went out. Shopping, I believe,” Mrs Nevett said, sounding a bit disapproving. “I spend the morning reading an improving text.”

“May I ask what it was?” Ned asked.

Her gray eyes lifted to his. “An account of missionary work in India.”

“You’ve a particular interest in the cause?”

“In charitable works in general. There are so many unfortunates who ought to have something made of them.”

“My own work is very much along those lines,” Ellis said. “Training children who’ve had no advantages for an honest life in service –”

“Yes, it’s very commendable,” Victor said.

“In the afternoon, Alice went to visit Mr Ellis’s mission in Limehouse. I was obliged myself to return a number of calls. Mrs Satterthwaite was at home, and I stopped there for tea. I came home in time to see that everything was properly prepared for dinner. We had dinner guests, and some of the girls haven’t been in service long.”

“Of course they’ve had suitable training,” Ellis said. “But they’re not experienced when they leave us.”

“I was here for dinner,” Victor said, “my mother and Mrs Nevett of course, Mr and Mrs Boies, and Mr Ellis. Freddie was here for dinner, but he went out afterwards. Said he had an engagement. And Reggie…” Victor trailed off at his mother’s frown.

“It’s a pity when parents and children disagree,” Ellis added as the pause dragged out. He wiped his glasses on a handkerchief. “I had hoped to speak to Reginald, to see if I could provide him with some guidance in his relations with Mr Nevett, but we never found the occasion to talk.”

“Funny, that,” Victor said. It was just short of mockery, but it seemed to go over Ellis’s head, or at least he gave the impression that it did. “He’ll have to hear about it, Mater. Reggie was here that afternoon, but he and my father had some words before dinner. The old man said…well, he wasn’t in the mood for dinner, and he took himself off to his club.”

“Not that any of us would have intruded,” Ellis said, perching his glasses atop his long nose once more.. “But the downstairs parlor is adjacent to Mr Nevett’s study, you see. Not, of course, that we could hear anything
specific
.”

“You were already here, then?”

“The Reverend Mr Ellis was kind enough to escort Alice back from his establishment,” Mrs Nevett said. “It was nearly dinnertime when they came in. Mr Ellis sat with me in the parlor while we waited for Mr and Mrs Boies to arrive, and Alice went up to dress.”

And a blazing row in Nevett’s study could certainly not have been missed by anyone sitting in the parlor. Ned considered his chances of getting someone to admit to having eavesdropped; it would have been barely possible not to, under the circumstances. Perhaps if he could get one of them alone later, he could draw them out enough to elicit at least the general topic of the quarrel.

“Reggie didn’t stay for dinner either, he went out to his club directly after Father, and slept there,” Victor said. “The rest of us went to bed at a decent hour, so I don’t know when my father came in, or for that matter when Freddie did. He was here in the morning, anyway, when we found my father dead.”

“Did you…” There was no tactful way to ask whether Mrs Nevett would have expected her husband to wake her for any reason when he came in. “On an ordinary night, would you have heard your husband coming upstairs?”

“Certainly not,” Mrs Nevett said. “I am a sound sleeper.”

“Thank you,” Ned said, as it became clear that no one had anything to add. “That’s very helpful.”

Mrs Nevett looked for the first time as though she were repressing a smile. “I find that a bit surprising.”

Ned considered her. “Mrs Nevett, forgive my boldness, but who do you believe killed your husband?”

“I expect he brought it on himself,” she said, rather to Ned’s surprise. “The way he bragged about his silver and that ridiculous curse practically invited burglary.”

“And the accursed candlestick?”

“Probably smuggled into the house to ensure that Mr Nevett wouldn’t prevent the burglary. You’d be surprised, Mr Mathey, at the ingeniousness of the criminal classes.”

There was everything in the world wrong with that explanation, but Mrs Nevett’s expression didn’t suggest she was willing to entertain any other ones.

“The trick, if I may say so, or ‘catch,’ is of course to divert such misused talents into more wholesome pursuits,” Ellis said.

“I expect you can tell Mr Mathey all about it sometime,” Victor said briskly, “but he’d better hear Reggie and Freddie before one of them loses patience. It’s been all I could do to keep them both here this long.”

“I’m sure neither of them would dream of going out at such a time,” Mrs Nevett said, folding her black handkerchief over the back of one hand. “This is after all a house of mourning.”

“And I’ve intruded long enough. Thank you, Mrs Nevett, Mr Ellis.”

Ned rose, and followed Victor out into the hallway. Victor shut the door behind him, and the murmur of voices from the parlor became inaudible.

“Never mind what the mater says, Freddie’s no more delicate than I am,” Victor said under his breath as he led Ned around the stairs to the back parlor door. “He just doesn’t like getting up before noon. Well, who does? But the rest of us can’t idle.”

Ned was a cheerfully early riser by nature, but he made a noncommittal noise that he was sure Victor took for agreement.