Charlotte was resting when John arrived home, and rather than disturb her, he changed his clothes and settled in the first-floor common area with the files Amelie had found. Dirk joined him, and between the two of them, a harrowing picture began to emerge. After an hour, John sat back and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“This will get ugly,” Dirk said. “Now that we know the players involved, it’s a miracle she even made it across the Atlantic.”
John nodded. “It also explains why her attacker was an American. He was likely hired by one of these families to prevent her from returning home.”
He shook his head. What had her father been thinking? He’d told Charlotte he might have put her in danger, but if he’d mentioned to his enemies that she was returning to England to help him then he’d effectively painted a target on her chest.
“When she left the United States so quickly, the assailant had no choice but to follow. Finish the job.”
“What, exactly, was the job?” Dirk asked. “Intimidate?”
John nodded slowly. “I think so. Perhaps at first to keep her from returning to England, but now that she’s here, scare her into returning to New York so she doesn’t ask any more questions about her mother’s death.” He frowned. “Her father supposedly collected information, but it’s not turned up.”
“That would be useful.” Dirk yawned and rubbed his eyes.
“Thank you for your help,” John told him. “Why don’t we turn in for the night.”
Dirk was to his door when Charlotte’s opened, and she squinted at the light. Dirk looked at John in question, and John waved him on. He patted the sofa next to him, and Charlotte joined him, carefully rubbing her tired eyes.
“What’s all this?” she asked.
He sighed. “Pieces of the puzzle. Are you too tired? I can wait until tomorrow to show you what I’ve found.”
“Now, if you please.” She nodded and leaned toward him, holding her sore wrist to her chest.
“This is the initial accident report. Amelie found it in the Thames Division archives. Interestingly, the clerk she spoke to commented that she was the second person this year to request the old file.”
“Who else asked for it?”
He lifted his shoulder. “The clerk didn’t make note of it, but it was a man. He was allowed to peruse the contents but not remove the file from the building.”
He handed her the initial incident report and watched her eyes fly along the lines written there. The facts were simple: Authorities responded at 10:30 p.m. to activity near the Waterloo Bridge where they found Katherine Hampton Duvall had been pulled from the water after falling overboard from a chartered river ferry. One person whom the officer didn’t name claimed to have heard a splash. Everyone else present was in the salon, unaware the victim had been alone on the upper balcony deck. The report also listed the names of everyone at the scene.
Charlotte tapped her fingertip to the top four names. “James Paddleton, MP. James Worthingstone, MP. James Finebough, MP. James Carter.” She bit her lip. “I spoke with Mr. Carter and his wife after the funeral. She was as nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs—an American patient told me that one.” She smiled faintly.
“Worthingstone and Finebough were in attendance at both the funeral and the gathering afterward,” John said. “I believe I saw Paddleton only at the funeral.” He studied Charlotte’s face. “You seem unsurprised to see these names. If you were unaware of your parents’ social circle, may I ask how you know these men?”
“My mother wrote in her journal that all of them would be together for the Carters’ engagement party. It was her last entry.” She shook her head ruefully and gave a dry laugh. “And all them are named ‘James.’ That doesn’t help much.”
“What do you mean?”
She licked her lips and stared down at the papers in her hand. “My mother wrote in her journal that ‘J’ would be there, and I got the feeling that she was afraid something might happen.”
“And you think the J stands for James,” he said.
Charlotte nodded absently, chewing again on her lip. She pointed to another line in the report. “This mentions a head wound—a lump on the back of the decedent’s head that caused blood to seep through the shroud the coroner’s office had placed her in. This Sergeant Dane makes a note that it will likely come up in the coroner’s report.”
“I saw that too.” John shook his head. “The sergeant isn’t wrong—I’m certain the coroner would have seen the wound, but I am surprised there wasn’t more vigorous follow-through in questioning the witnesses about it on-site.”
“Do you have the witness reports?”
John nodded and flipped through the files. “There are statements from all four men, along with statements from each man’s wife or fiancée, as well as the crew and captain. There were also two witnesses on the bridge who claimed to have seen everything—a Mr. Evans and a Mr. Sheen. Those aren’t much help, though, as the constable says they were ‘drunk and disorderly, and barely coherent in their speech.’ Claimed they heard shouting and a scuffle, but then weren’t sure if it had happened on a boat or on the street.”
Charlotte read through them all, then hesitated. “And . . . my father? Was he . . .” She cleared her throat. “Did he give a statement?”
John wordlessly handed over another piece of paper.
According to the statement, David Duvall had been in the salon below the upper deck and had not witnessed his wife’s fall. He was unsure how long she’d been in the water before the alarm sounded. He said resuscitation efforts had been attempted but failed. It matched what Sally had told John, and he shared the details of the conversation with her.
She absorbed the information, silent for a moment before returning to the issue of her father’s presence. “He never said he wasn’t there,” Charlotte murmured, her brows pulled tightly together. “I suppose I always assumed he would have said if he had been—especially the one time I asked him about it.”
John felt the urge to reach for her, offer her some comfort, but she was entirely focused on the reports in her hands.
“They’re all so similar. Why was my mother the only person on the upper deck when everyone else was in the salon? Who noticed she was missing? Nobody seems to know. They found her and pulled her out of the water so quickly, but she was already gone.” She paused, forehead wrinkling.
John loved watching how her mind worked. She had seized on the same details that had bothered him when he’d read the reports.
“Perhaps the similarities were because there was pressure to close the matter,” he said. “Also consider, none of these men had yet risen to the positions they now hold.”
“No, but they were from families of incredible influence. Families who would do anything to keep their names from any hint of scandal. Even proximity to an accident resulting in a young mother’s death would carry notoriety with it.” She scowled. “People would expect a Notorious Hampton to come to a notorious end.” Charlotte sat back against the sofa and looked at him, lips pursed in thought. “I wonder how long they all stood together and talked before the authorities arrived.”
“By that you mean how long did they have to concoct a consistent story?”
She nodded. “But would my father . . .” She swallowed. “Would my father have been party to some kind of hushed-up story?”
“Perhaps he was busy attending to your mother,” John said, wanting to give her some peace. “There was likely a lot of confusion, a lot of noise. Crowds gather, conversation can be either lost or hidden. If there was a ‘story’ concocted, your father probably knew nothing of it.”
She inhaled slowly and quietly exhaled. “But perhaps he did, and that is the reason he decided to bring it to light before he died.” She closed her eyes. “Did I ever really know him?”
“Charlotte.” John leaned close and put his hand on hers. “What reason would your father possibly have for colluding with these other men? Considering all the Jameses had been your mother’s childhood friends, this entire social circle was largely hers.” He paused, and when she didn’t reply, added, “What does your intuition tell you about your father’s nature?”
She thought for a moment. “He was quiet. Melancholy. Often lost in his own world. He left my brothers and me to our own devices, as though he’d given up on ever maintaining control of his household.” Her expression was pained. “He was the sort to go unseen. He might have been with her on deck himself and nobody would have noticed.”
John arched a brow. “You think your father would have watched her slip and fall and go overboard without attempting to rescue her?”
Charlotte stood and crossed the length of the room, still holding the papers and rubbing her forehead with one hand. “How did she ‘slip and fall,’ and then go overboard? Was there space enough to have slipped beneath a rail?” She was agitated, and with her agitation always came movement. John recognized the habit, had nearly forgotten it. Charlotte was unable to sit still if something was wrong.
“What if he pushed her?” She finally stopped and faced him squarely. “Suppose he grew tired of her love for this ‘James,’ and in a fit of rage, hit her and threw her into the water.”
“How often did your father fly into fits of rage?”
She frowned and dropped the documents on the small coffee table in front of John. She rubbed her eyes with her fingertips and sighed. “Never. He never so much as raised his voice.” She looked at him, troubled, but unflinching. “It happens though, does it not? You’ve seen all sorts in your work, John. You must agree that it could be a possibility. Placid people have been known to lose their wits when provoked to anger or jealousy.”
He sat back, studying her and trying to buy himself some time. “It does happen,” he finally admitted. “But you lived with your father for twenty years after your mother died. You knew his temperament. Do you honestly believe that is a viable scenario?”
She began pacing again. “I wouldn’t have believed my mother had been in love with another man, but here we are.”
“You didn’t know your mother,” he said gently. “You did know your father. Until we know exactly what happened that night, find comfort in the good memories of him.”
She crossed the room to stand near him, eyebrows knit in thought. She was close enough to him that he smelled her light perfume and the laundered perfection of her night dress. Of course she was cleanliness personified—it was paramount to her job. It was also just her. Barely contained energy in a very neat shell.
If the notion took him, he could wrap his arm around her waist and pull her close.
He very deliberately set aside the notion.
He did see, however, the moment when she realized how closely she stood to him and observed with satisfaction her subtle inhalation. The corner of his mouth turned up by the slightest of degrees, but he kept it in check. The last thing he wanted to do was frighten her away like a timid forest creature creeping closer for inspection.
At that thought, he nearly laughed. Charlotte was as timid as a mother bear guarding her den.
He reached for her hand and pulled her knuckles to his lips. He placed the softest of kisses to her skin, lingering there for as long as he dared. He looked up at her, resting his chin on her hand. “We will find your answers.”
“Suppose I do not like the answers?”
“You may not like them, but I don’t imagine you shying away from them either.” He inhaled deeply. “Are you prepared for a storm? If we start asking questions and the wrong people overhear, we could be looking at repercussions.”
“Would the repercussions come down on you?”
“Possibly. But I can handle myself.”
“I do know that,” Charlotte murmured. “I’d hate to have you as an enemy.”
“You, darling girl, could not be further from that.” He smiled at her and placed another kiss on her hand, this one quicker and much more appropriate, before standing up. “As luck would have it, the coroner at the scene was someone we both know—Dr. Neville.
Her eyes lit up. “He was the one who sparked my interest in medicine! I watched him do that autopsy while Eva photographed, and I was absolutely hooked.” She smiled in genuine delight.
“I suppose that would explain the odd friendship.”
“What do you mean?” she asked as he gathered the papers and put them back into his satchel.
“My best women friends are taken in by autopsies and crime scenes. How could I not be intrigued?”
She laughed. “Will you schedule a visit with Dr. Neville, or shall I?”
“I will. I don’t suppose I can convince you to take another day from work?”
“You suppose correctly. I nearly went mad today.”
“Very well.” He put his hands in his pockets to keep from reaching for her. His thoughts were venturing into dangerous territory. There was no future for them beyond friendship. She wouldn’t be allowed to work as a married woman, and she thrived in the professional setting. He would rather die than destroy her career.