Chapter 8
Sebastian wasn’t prepared to take anything Princess Ivanna Gagarin told him at face value. But on the off chance there might be something to her tale of a “beastly shopkeeper,” he decided to pay another visit to Curzon Street. If an angry merchant had been personally dunning Ashworth, his staff would know about it.
Ashworth’s butler, Fullerton, was an ancient, wizened relic with watery, myopic eyes, wispy white hair, and liver-spotted, palsied hands. His demeanor was that of an elderly family retainer, and Sebastian had always wondered why Ashcroft hadn’t pensioned the old man off long ago. Now he thought he understood: a tired, indulgent, doddering old man would likely remain ignorant of—or at least choose to overlook—behavior and incidents that would drive away a younger butler.
“Sir Henry and the constables have all gone, my lord,” said Fullerton, blinking, when he opened the door to Sebastian. “And we’ve instructions from his lordship to keep everyone out of the Viscount’s chamber until his lordship overcomes his grief enough to deal with it. Locked up, it is.”
“Actually,” said Sebastian with a pleasant smile, “I was wondering if I might have a moment of your time. There are a few questions I’d like to ask you.”
Fullerton took a step back. “Me, my lord?”
“Mmm. Has Ashworth’s valet turned up yet?”
“No, my lord.” He ushered Sebastian to a seat but insisted on remaining standing himself, his hands folded together behind his back.
“What was the valet’s name, again?” asked Sebastian.
“Digby, my lord. Edward Digby. It’s most curious,” added the old man with a shake of his head. “Can’t think where he’s taken himself off to. Most improper to disappear like this without warning.”
“How long has he been with the Viscount?”
“Five or six years, my lord.”
“And how long have you been with his lordship?”
“Me?” The old man allowed himself a faint smile. “Why, I’ve known his lordship since he was born. Used to be down at Lindley Hall in Devon, you see. The Marquis, he was all for having me retire, but then Lord Ashworth offered to take me on here.”
“That was very kind of him,” said Sebastian, who doubted Ashworth had ever deliberately done a kind thing in his life.
“I’m not one to want to spend my last years sitting in a chair by some cottage fire,” said the old man, his jaw jutting out.
“I can see that,” said Sebastian. “Who do you think killed his lordship?”
“Me?” Fullerton looked surprised by the question. “As to that, I couldn’t say, my lord.”
“No?”
“No, my lord.”
“What about Ashworth’s valet, Digby? Could he have done it?”
“Digby?” The aged butler indulged himself with a faint sneer. “Wouldn’t think he had it in him, my lord. Thing is, the paltry fellow can’t abide the sight of blood. Cut his lordship one day while shaving him and fainted dead away. Wasn’t worth much the rest of the day either.” Fullerton leaned forward and dropped his voice. “You did see the state of his lordship’s bedchamber this morning?”
“I did.”
Fullerton nodded and straightened with a creak. “You ask me, it looked more like an abattoir than a gentleman’s bedroom. Digby would’ve crumpled into a sniveling puddle if he’d seen it.”
“So where do you think he’s gone?”
“Well, he has people down in Kent. Mayhap he’s taken himself there, although I’ve no notion why he’d go off like this without telling anyone.”
Sebastian could think of several reasons, but all he said was “Do you know of any shopkeepers or tradesmen with whom Ashworth might have quarreled recently?”
Fullerton held himself quite still. Only the faint widening of his eyes and a spasm along his jawline betrayed him.
“There is someone,” said Sebastian, watching him.
The butler brought up a hand to pull at one earlobe. “His lordship had a long-standing belief that tradesmen, shopkeepers, and merchants should consider themselves honored to be given the privilege of serving him. Saw their demands for actual payment as something of an insult, he did.”
“I wouldn’t imagine very many of them agreed with that philosophy.”
“No, my lord.”
“So who amongst those his lordship ‘honored’ with his patronage has complained recently?”
“Most complained for a time. Those who kept at it and didn’t give up sometimes got half of what they were owed.” He paused. “Eventually.”
“Anyone not satisfied with that?”
“We—ell.” Fullerton looked thoughtful. “There’s a fellow over on Long Acre who sold his lordship some furniture last September. Cut up something fierce when his lordship refused to pay for any of it.”
“How large of a bill are we talking about?”
“Three thousand guineas, I believe.”
Sebastian was surprised into making a low whistle. “That’s a hefty sum.” A housemaid in a gentleman’s establishment rarely made more than fifteen pounds a year.
Fullerton nodded. “At one point, his lordship offered the fellow eight hundred, but he refused to take it. He’s been following his lordship around, demanding the entire sum—quite loudly. Even stood outside White’s one day, telling anyone and everyone who’d listen that his lordship was a dishonorable cheat. His lordship threated to call the authorities on him.”
“Did that stop him?”
“Not for long. Showed up here just a few days ago, he did, threatening to make his lordship pay—‘One way or another,’ he said.” The butler’s eyes widened in that way he had, as if seeing something for the first time. “You think he might be the one who did that to the Viscount?”
“It certainly sounds possible. What’s this fellow’s name?”
“McCay, my lord. Lawrence McCay.”
“When was this, exactly?”
“That he last came around? Must’ve been Tuesday or Wednesday, I’d say.”
“How did Ashworth react?”
The butler’s thin nose twitched. “Laughed in the fellow’s face, he did. Told him to go ahead and try.”
By the time Sebastian reached Long Acre, the afternoon was still fine, the blue sky above only faintly hazed by the smudge of coal smoke and dust that normally hugged the city. But it was late enough that the light soaking the upper stories of the old brick shops and houses had taken on the golden, tea-colored hues of approaching evening, and the raucous muddle of carts, wagons, carriages, donkeys, and barrows clogging the street already lay in shadow.
There’d been a time long ago, in the days when Henry VIII seized this area along with the convent gardens to the south that became known as Covent Garden, that Long Acre had been a simple lane cutting across fields and pastureland belonging to Westminster Abbey. Building here didn’t begin in earnest until the arrival of the Stuarts. For a while, the district had been prosperous and fashionable, but the street was now given over to coach makers, wainwrights, upholsterers, and cabinetmakers. Sebastian suspected it would be difficult for any of these businesses to sustain a three-thousand-guinea loss to a spoiled, arrogant marquis’s son who viewed tradesmen’s bills as impertinent insults unworthy of payment or even notice.
McCay & Sons, Fine Furniture Emporium, sprawled across a row of three old brick houses on the corner of Long Acre and Cross Lane that probably dated back to the days of Charles I. It was an impressive establishment that included, besides the front showroom, or “ForeWare Room,” a “glass room” for mirrors, a joinery shop, a marble hall, a chair-making workshop, an upholstery room, and a gilding room. When Sebastian pushed open the showroom door, a bell jingled, and a dark-haired young woman who’d been reading a newspaper spread out atop an elegant rosewood chest straightened and turned toward him with a welcoming smile. “May I help you?”
Sebastian handed her his card. “I’m looking for Lawrence McCay. Is he in?”
She fingered the card, her smile fading as she read it. But then, given the establishment’s recent experience with Ashworth, Sebastian supposed a certain amount of hostility toward a random viscount was to be expected. “I’m sorry; he’s just stepped out.” She paused, then repeated with a marked reduction in enthusiasm, “May I help you?”
Sebastian let his gaze drift around the nearly empty showroom. From the looks of things, Ashworth’s default had forced McCay to sell much of his display stock to stay afloat and pay the tradesmen who worked for him. “I understand Viscount Ashworth was one of your customers.”
She shifted to stand behind the chest, as if she felt the need to put some sort of barrier between them. She was an attractive woman probably in her early twenties, built small but strong, with a square chin, short nose, and shrewd brown eyes narrowed with hostile suspicion. “Why are you here asking about him?”
“He’s dead.”
“I know.” She nodded to the open newspaper. “I was just reading about his murder.”
“Oh? How much detail do they go into?”
“A great deal. Is it true? Was he really found tied to his bed and hacked to death?”
“Essentially, yes.”
She gave a curt nod of approval. “Good. I hope he suffered. Maybe he even thought about the way he cheated us as he lay dying—although I doubt it.”
Sebastian studied her pretty, hard-set face. Nothing missish about this young woman. “I understand he owed Lawrence McCay money.”
“He did. More than three thousand guineas.” She shook back her hair. “What do you think our chances of recovering it from his heirs are?”
“From what I’m hearing, they can’t be worse than your odds of recovering such a sum from Ashworth himself.”
A succession of emotions chased one another across her features, comprehension and chagrin followed instantly by fear as she realized that Lawrence McCay made an obvious suspect and that the bluntness of her speech had not been wise.
Sebastian said, “You’re Lawrence McCay’s wife?”
“Daughter.” Her gaze strayed for one telling instant toward a corridor that opened onto a rear woodyard and sawpit—now standing idle—and a curtained alcove that probably led to a private office. She looked away again quickly, but he had heard it too: the soft approach of a man’s footsteps, followed by the faint breathing of whoever was standing there listening.
Sebastian said, “The sign reads ‘McCay and Sons’; you’ve brothers?”
“Not anymore. They’re both dead.”
“So it’s just you and your father?”
“Yes. Why?”
Rather than answer, Sebastian said, “Tell me about your dealings with Ashworth.”
She shook her head, her gaze hard on his face. “What is your interest in all this?”
He came to rest his hands on the edge of the chest that lay between them and leaned into it, his gaze holding hers. “Anthony Ledger was my niece’s husband, but I am under no illusions as to what manner of man he was. He was a vile, dangerous hedonist who harmed more people in his life than we will ever know. Like you, I am glad he’s dead. But his father is a wealthy, powerful nobleman, which means that someone will be arrested for Ashworth’s death, whether truly guilty or not. If you have nothing to hide, you would be wise to cooperate with me.”
He could see the pulse beating wildly in her slim white neck; her eyes were huge. “Why should we trust you?”
“Let me put it this way: Your father’s name has already been mentioned, and he is likely to come under scrutiny from Bow Street whether you cooperate with me or not. But believe me when I tell you I mean you no harm and that if I am able to help you, I will.”
“I don’t believe you.”
He shoved away from the chest. “If you should change your mind, my address is on the card.”
He was reaching for the door when a middle-aged man he took to be Lawrence McCay hurried into the showroom and said, “Wait.”
Like his daughter, McCay was built short and solid. His once dark hair had faded mostly to gray, and the years had scored deep smile lines beside his eyes and mouth. Lines that now seemed out of place in a gravely troubled face.
“Mr. McCay?” said Sebastian, turning.
The man nodded. The fear in his eyes was impossible to miss, but his jaw was clenched. “I didn’t kill the bastard. I won’t deny I wanted to, but I didn’t do it.”
Sebastian said, “But you did threaten to make him pay—‘one way or another’?”
“I did.”
The girl came from behind the chest in a rush. “Papa—”
He put out a hand, stopping her. “There’s no sense in me trying to deny it, Julie. There’s more’n enough heard me say it. But I didn’t mean I would kill him. I just wanted him to pay what he owed me, and, failing that, I figured I’d do my best to make damned sure everyone knows what he does. How he hurts people—little people, like us.”
“I know what he was like,” said Sebastian.
McCay’s daughter made a harsh, scoffing sound in her throat. “Do you? Ashworth came close to ruining us. He did it as deliberately and casually as a normal person might step on a bug. Men like him, they think their wealth and lineage give them the right to do whatever they please to anyone weaker or poorer than they are. And you know why they think that way? Because it’s true—they always get away with it. Always. No one stops them. No one dares to stop them. And there’s no real way for those they harm to fight back.”
“Someone obviously stopped him,” said Sebastian.
“Good,” said McCay. “I’m glad someone finally had the courage to do it. But it wasn’t me.”
Sebastian studied the older man’s closed, hard face. “Where were you last night?”
“Here. We live upstairs.”
“You didn’t go out?”
“No.”
“Can you prove it?”
McCay glanced toward his daughter, then shook his head. “How can a man prove he was in his own bed, asleep? My wife’s been dead these thirteen years.”
“When did you last see Ashworth?”
McCay rubbed his forehead with a splayed thumb and forefinger. “Must’ve been Tuesday or Wednesday; I’m not sure which.”
“You went by his house on Curzon Street?”
The merchant nodded. “I was delivering an invoice. At first, I used to just send them, but the last few months, I’ve taken to delivering them myself.”
“Why?”
McCay twitched one shoulder. “Hoping he’d see me. Hoping maybe I’d see him, so I could tell him what I thought of him.”
“Perhaps even follow him to White’s, shouting at him the whole way?”
Another twitch of the shoulder. “Look—there’s only one way somebody like me can make a man like him pay, and that’s by hurting his reputation. Shouting what he’s done to the world.”
“There are other ways,” Sebastian said quietly.
“Maybe. But I’m not a violent man. You can ask anyone; they’ll tell you. I might lose my temper and shout, but I’ve never been one for brawling.”
Sebastian had no trouble believing that. The problem was, Ashworth hadn’t been killed in a brawl. Whoever murdered him was either a woman frightened by one of the bastard’s erotic “games” or someone who executed him in a cold and calculated revenge.
“He’s telling the truth,” said McCay’s daughter. “My father may be stubborn, but he’s never hurt anyone. There must be scores of shopkeepers and tradesmen who’ve been ruined by Ashworth.”
Sebastian studied her set, angry face. “Can you name others?”
McCay said, “Anyone that bastard did business with, he cheated if he could. It was like a game with him—a matter of pride, a way to show that he was the one with the power, while the rest of us . . .” His face spasmed. “The rest of us were like nothin’ to him. He liked to toy with people. Walk all over them. Make them hurt and then crush them. He was an ugly human being and I’m glad he’s dead, but I didn’t kill him. Not because it would have been morally wrong, because it wouldn’t have been. I’m just too much of a coward. But I’m grateful to whoever finally had the courage to wipe him from the face of the earth, and I pray to God that bastard burns in hell for all eternity.”
Sebastian let his gaze drift around the nearly empty showroom. “What furniture did you sell him, anyway?”
Father and daughter exchanged glances. Neither spoke.
But Sebastian knew. “One of the pieces was the bed, wasn’t it?”
Julie McCay simply stared back at him. But her father sucked in a deep, shaky breath and nodded.