Larkin proved to be the butler, younger than Julian would have expected, with a precisely trimmed beard and a flat, expressionless face. The latter was a requirement for the position, of course, particularly since he was young for it, and Julian watched him carefully as he explained that he and Mr Mathey had been hired to supplement the police investigation, and that he required time and place to interview the rest of the staff. Larkin nodded gravely, only his eyes narrowing for a fraction of a second, and led Julian down the back stairs to the kitchen.
“Miller is with Mrs Nevett, I believe,” he said, over his shoulder, “but I will send Sarah to fetch the others.”
“Miller is Mrs Nevett’s maid?” Julian asked, and Larkin inclined his head.
“Yes, sir.”
They had reached the kitchen, enormous and cheerful, a stone-floored, low-ceilinged room that stretched the width of the house, from the entry on the crescent to the back garden. Heavy pillars divided the space, holding up the arches that supported the house, and the cook turned sharply from her range, her words dying unspoken as she saw the strangers. The kitchenmaid, who couldn’t have been more than twelve, yelped and dropped her paring knife, and the cook cuffed her gently.
“Not more police, Mr Larkin.”
She knew perfectly well he wasn’t police, Julian thought, from the cut of his suit if nothing else, and he felt a surge of renewed confidence. He had grown up in a house like this, had first learned to read secrets among his great-uncle’s staff. He knew far more about the ways of life belowstairs than they would expect, and he could use that to his advantage.
“No, Mrs Rule.” Larkin’s voice was delicately reproving. “Mr Victor has hired Mr Lynes – and Mr Mathey, whom you have not met – to assist the police. He is wishful to speak with the staff.”
“When I have tea to make, and then dinner?” Mrs Rule protested.
“It shouldn’t take long,” Julian said. “Nor will I keep your helpers any longer than I have to.” He glanced over his shoulder. The back door opened into a narrow, stone-walled garden, not likely to be overlooked or, if voices were kept low, to be overheard. There would be a bench or a seat there, he knew, as well as the herb and flower beds. “Larkin, I’ll talk to your people outside, please, singly, in whatever order is most convenient for the house. And then if I might have a word with you – in your pantry?”
Larkin nodded. “Very good, Mr Lynes. I believe – yes, I’ll send Sarah first. The underhousemaid. And then Miller and Jane Pugh should be free of their duties.”
“Thank you,” Julian said, and stepped out into the garden. It was exactly as he had expected, a long paved area surrounded on three sides by solid brick walls – seven feet high and topped with broken glass, though he doubted there were many attempts at entry from the gardens to either side. The back gate looked solid, with a modern enchanted lock, and a heavy bar leaned against the wall beside it. The brackets were new, however, and he made a mental note to ask if it had been installed after the murder.
As he’d expected, there were iron chairs and a bench toward the middle of the garden. He shifted one to a respectable distance, and looked up as Larkin appeared in the doorway.
“This is Sarah, Mr Lynes.”
It was the girl who had opened the door, her face carefully blank, her hands folded in front of her.
“You’re to answer his questions, Sarah, just as if he were the police,” Larkin went on.
“Yes, Mr Larkin,” she said.
Larkin gave Julian a last look, not quite disapproving, and withdrew into the shadows of the kitchen. Sarah came forward reluctantly and bobbed a curtsey.
“Mr Lynes,” she said.
She was older than he’d thought at first sight, sixteen or so, a thin pale rabbit of a girl with dishwater blonde hair drawn ruthlessly back under a prim plain cap. “Sarah,” he said, his tone scrupulously neutral. “What’s your surname?”
“Doyle, sir.”
Julian jotted it down in his memorandum book. He’d learned that taking notes made people feel perversely more comfortable, as if he wouldn’t remember the things they said that he didn’t write down. “Thank you,” he said. “I know I’m going to be asking questions you’ve already answered, but I hope you’ll take your time with them. Anything you remember, no matter how small, may prove to be helpful.”
“Yes, sir.” Her voice was as colorless as her hair.
Julian took her through the events of the day of the murder, as much for what she thought was normal as to find anything that seemed odd to him. It had been entirely uneventful, just the usual round of visits and shopping, livened only by a dinner party of friends so familiar as to be almost part of the family. From everything she said, Ned’s visit had been the most excitement the household had seen in months.
“And did you notice anything peculiar about the silver?” Julian asked.
Sarah hesitated. “I can’t say I did,” she admitted. “Not that I have much to do with it. But Mogs – Margaret – she did twist her ankle coming in the kitchen door the first time she’d been set to help clean it. Swelled up like a melon, and Mrs Victor had the doctor come for fear she’d broken it. And Mr Larkin always says he comes over queer when he polishes it.”
Possibly because it was new and in poor taste, Julian thought, or because the polish overwhelmed him. He hadn’t yet seen the size of the butler’s pantry, but it couldn’t be too large. Or, more likely, because Edgar Nevett had spread the story among his staff, and Larkin was astute enough to agree with his employer. Still, it would be interesting to see who first bruited the notion of a curse.
Julian took her through the day’s routine again, but there seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary. The gentlemen had gone to their work, except for Mr Frederick, and the ladies had occupied themselves with visits and charity work. Sarah had waited at table during the dinner party, but she had noticed nothing unusual.
“It was like a family party, really,” she said. “Mrs Nevett and Mrs Boies are old, dear friends, so Miller says, and they both sponsor Mr Ellis’s work.”
“So it was Mr and Mrs Boies, and Mr Ellis,” Julian said.
“And Mr and Mrs Victor,” Sarah said. “And Mr Frederick.”
“Not Mr Nevett?” Julian refrained from looking up, though that was the first unusual thing he’d heard so far.
She hesitated again. “I believe he had to go back to the City.”
There was definitely more there, but Julian merely nodded. “And Mr Reginald?”
“He left for his club before dinner.”
Julian nodded again. “What did they quarrel about?”
“I never said they quarreled,” she said sharply.
“But they did.”
Sarah looked at her feet. “Yes, sir. But I couldn’t hear what they said, not even with them shouting –” She stopped again, flinching. “They argued a lot, sir. It didn’t mean nothing.”
“Mr Nevett was a quarrelsome man,” Julian said. He made it a statement, and after a moment, she nodded.
“Well, not quarrelsome, exactly. Cross, I’d say. Always angry about something.”
That reminded him far too much of Victor, and he glanced at his memorandum book again, as though he had the details of the case written there. “The police said a parlormaid found the body. Was that you?”
What color she had drained slowly from her face, leaving it the color of skimmed milk. “Yes, sir.”
“If you can tell me just once more,” Julian said, “I promise you I won’t ask you again.”
She took a deep breath. “I went in to sweep and air the room, like I always do. And I was startled because the lamp was still lit. And then I saw him. He was lying on the carpet, just like someone had dropped him. His head was all bloody – it hit him right on the back of his head, and it was stove in like a broken basket, and that candlestick was lying there, and there was more blood on it and all on the carpet, too –” She stopped, swallowing hard.
“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.
Over the course of the afternoon, Julian worked his way through the rest of the staff without hearing much new. Miller, Mrs Nevett’s maid, sniffed at the idea of a curse – you’d expect something more dramatic than a kitchenmaid with a twisted ankle – but gave the details of Mrs Nevett’s social round without much prompting. She denied having heard Mr Nevett and Mr Reginald arguing, but admitted that such wasn’t uncommon, and certainly neither man had stayed to dinner. Though that wasn’t uncommon, either, as Mr Reginald spent most of his time at his club. It was hard on a young man to have to live at home, particularly when he was of an age to be setting up his household.
On the other hand, Jane Pugh, the senior housemaid who also served as Mrs Victor’s maid, believed whole-heartedly in the curse, and was sure it must have had something to do with Nevett’s death.
“Not that I don’t think Mr Mathey did his job,” she added hastily, “for I could feel the whole house lighter once he was done, but it’s hard to think it hadn’t drawn a burglar already.”
“It’s possible,” Julian said – and it would have been, had there in fact been a curse – and took her through the events of the day.
She, too, had seen nothing out of the ordinary. Even the break in her routine was familiar: Mrs Victor had spent part of the afternoon at Ellis’s mission, and he had brought them back again in his carriage.
“Which I know Mrs Victor was grateful for,” Jane said, “and so was I, to be honest. It’s a fine place, as such things go, and the girls that come from there are honest and willing, but – I’m nervous every time we have to go there, and that’s a fact.”
Mrs Rule, dragged reluctantly from her range, stood scowling, but recognized quickly enough that the best way to get back to work was to answer his questions. She’d been skeptical about the curse, but it was true that Mogs – Margaret – had hurt herself the very first time she’d been allowed to clean the forks, and in general she was a neat-footed girl, very handy. And Mr Nevett had looked thoughtful rather than angry, which to her mind meant he knew something they didn’t.
Other than that, the day had been much like any other. She hadn’t had to make tea for the family, bar Mr Frederick, who took his tea in his room because he had the headache, but there had been guests to dinner, and even if they were almost family, she had her pride to consider.
“Did Mr Nevett plan to stop to dinner?” Julian asked.
Mrs Rule pursed her lips. “I’d thought so,” she said, carefully. “Mrs Nevett ordered lamb chops with peas the way he likes – liked – them, so I assumed he was. But then she told me he wouldn’t stay, nor Mr Reggie neither.”
“Do you know what they quarreled about?” Julian asked again, and watched her bridle.
“I do not.”
“But you heard them at it,” he said.
She nodded reluctantly. “They did raise their voices, yes. Though it’s nothing new, fathers and sons don’t always get along, the more so when the sons are grown.”
“And it’s not easy having two mistresses in a house,” Julian said.
“Easier than you’d think,” Mrs Rule retorted. “Mrs Victor’s a lady, and she knows her place. And Mrs Nevett is as gracious as may be.”
And that summed up the household neatly enough, Julian thought. He was beginning to feel rather sorry for Victor’s wife.
Margaret Jones the kitchenmaid – she looked more like a Mogs than a Margaret, a skinny active girl with a frizz of red-brown hair and freckles scattered across her nose and cheeks – admitted to having twisted her ankle the very day she’d been told off to help Larkin and Sarah clean the silver after another dinner party.
“Mind you, I didn’t notice anything when I was polishing it,” she said scrupulously. “I rather liked it, actually. It’s pretty, all curlicues, and it’s not hard work to get it shining. Mr Larkin said I did a good job. But then I was running out the areaway, and I missed the step there where it’s cracked, and down I went. Mrs Victor sent for the doctor and there was a fuss, and I had to spend half a day in bed. And Mr Larkin said Mr Nevett said it was because of the silver.”
So Nevett had suggested the curse. Julian nodded, and led her through the events of the day of the murder. She’d seen nothing out of the ordinary, either, and less than the others, being stuck in the kitchen for most of her work. But her room was in the attic, where she shared with Sarah and Jane Pugh, so she’d known nothing about the burglary until Sarah came downstairs screaming.
“And well she might,” Mogs said. “I saw him myself when the police came. Cor, it was ugly, his head bashed in and blood everywhere. I saw a man get run over by a brewer’s dray, and he didn’t look no worse.”
“Nasty for you,” Julian said, though she seemed to have coped well enough. “Tell me about the day before. Was there anything out of the ordinary?”
Nothing, she said, and proved it by a quick rundown of her day’s work. She’d been in the kitchen most of the day, except when she was sent to the shops just before noon because the butter was off, and then there’d been nothing but washing and scraping and chopping things until Mr Reggie came storming down the stairs and out the garden gate.
“He’d been fighting with Mr Nevett,” she said, and stopped abruptly. “Which, please, sir, you shouldn’t take notice of. They argued all the time, him and Mr Nevett. It didn’t mean nothing.”
“But they neither one stayed to dinner?” Julian asked.
Mogs shook her head. “No, sir.”
“The police said that back gate was found open,” Julian said, without much hope, and she gave him a sharp glance.
“It was. They said the burglar must have got out that way.”
“Do you know if it was locked after Mr Reginald left?” he asked, and Mogs shrugged.
“Mrs Rule locks it every evening, and she’s not one to forget.”
That wasn’t exactly an answer, and he thought Mogs knew it, but before he could question her more closely, he saw a figure in the doorway. She took his glance as an invitation and came to join them, a neat and handsome figure in precisely calculated blacks.
“That’ll be all for now, Margaret,” Julian said, and came to his feet. “Mrs Nevett?”
“Mrs Victor Nevett,” she said, and held out her hand. “And you are Mr Lynes. Pugh said you’d been entirely reasonable, but I wanted be sure the staff didn’t feel bullied. You’ll forgive my being blunt, I’m sure.”
“Of course,” Julian said. She was pretty enough, with pleasant features and an ivory complexion, but her looks were marred by a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles. From the look of them, she was only moderately near-sighted, could probably manage quite well without them, and it said something about her character that she preferred clear sight to fashion. He wondered why in the world she’d ever married Victor. “After having the police in the house, I’m sure everything is upset.”
“A death is bad enough,” she said. “But this –” She stopped as though she couldn’t bring herself to call it murder. “My mother-in-law and I are particularly concerned about some of the younger members of the staff. They have been hired through Mr Ellis’s mission, and they already suffer a certain stigma on that account. I want to assure you that they are all honest girls, and very reliable. Mr Ellis would not have placed them with us had they been otherwise.”
“And they’ve given good service?” Julian asked.
She met his eyes squarely. “They most certainly have. It would do them no kindness to keep them on if they weren’t capable of doing the work.”
“And yet Mr Nevett complained.” That was something of a shot in the dark, but Julian was certain he was right.
“Mr Nevett was very exacting in his standards,” she answered. “Sometimes to a fault. But Mrs Nevett and I were satisfied.”
There was nothing to say to that. Julian bowed slightly, and escorted her back inside. Larkin was waiting, and they stepped into the tiny pantry as Mrs Victor drifted up the stairs.
“She’s very protective of her people,” Julian said.
Larkin bowed. “She and Mrs Nevett are ladies.”
There was no good answer to that, either. They retreated to the butler’s pantry, far too narrow for its purpose, and Larkin confirmed that, indeed, Nevett had been the first one to mention the curse.
“And in front of the younger females,” he said, “which is never well. They were overexcited about the mere idea, and I believe Mr Nevett was wise to have the silver looked at.”
He, too, proclaimed the day entirely ordinary, and was adamant that the quarrel between Nevett and his middle son was also nothing unusual. Young men who were trying to make their way in the world could be oversensitive, and Mr Nevett was perhaps not always tactful. But it was nothing more than that. He’d not noticed the silver missing first thing, but the burglar had closed the door of the pantry, and that had hidden it at first glance. It was only after Sarah had found Mr Nevett’s body that they’d thought to look for a robbery.
Julian thanked him, feeling the familiar overstretched, overstuffed exhaustion that came at the end of a day of interviews. There wasn’t anything more to be asked, at least not until he’d had a chance to talk to Ned. He folded his memorandum book into his pocket, and allowed that he was ready to rejoin his compatriot.
Ned followed Victor into the smaller back parlor, a more masculine room, with leather chairs and a number of bookcases; maps lined the walls rather than elaborate still lifes, although a large portrait of a younger Edgar Nevett and his wife hung over the fireplace. Both looked stiffly posed, and neither was smiling, but he supposed that was fashion.
The two younger Nevetts were sitting in armchairs with a decanter between them, both cradling glasses; Ned expected that if he were in their place, he’d want a stiff drink as well. Reggie had changed more than Victor, ruddier and even more plump than he’d been in school, with a curling mustache.
“Mathey, old man,” Reggie said, actually looking a bit pleased to see him. “Victor said he was bringing you in, but I thought you might not want to take on such a mess.”
“I’ll do what I can to sort it out, old boy,” Ned said.
In the other armchair, Freddie shook his head and drained his glass before putting it down. His black frock coat looked stiff and new in a way that made Ned suspect he hadn’t possessed one before going into mourning. His hair curled too long over his collar in a way that would have been unremarkable at Oxford but was probably now meant to signify artistic temperament.
“I won’t keep you long.” Ned settled into a chair himself. “And I think we’re all right here,” he said, glancing up at Victor. “I’m sure you’ll want to attend on your mother.”
“I’ll do that,” Victor said rather sourly, and went out.
“All right, then,” Ned said. He tried to shake the feeling that he ought to be in a Sts Thomas’s uniform with his books piled on the table rather than sitting here in a frock coat with his metaphysician’s case against his knee. “Just so that I can have it entirely straight, if you could tell me where you were the day Mr Nevett was killed?”
“I went to work as usual,” Reggie said. “I’m at Seale’s. My bank, that is. I’ve a position there.”
“You breakfasted here?”
“No, I spent the night at my club. I came here from the office.”
“Around what time would that have been?”
“I couldn’t tell you exactly. Around six o’clock.” He frowned at Freddie. “I didn’t see you when I came in.”
“I was upstairs,” Freddie said.
“Doing what?” Ned asked.
“I had to dress for dinner, didn’t I?”
“That doesn’t take an hour,” Reggie said.
“I didn’t particularly care to encounter the pater,” Freddie said. “I’d been sick with a headache that morning – a late night, you know – and he was never very patient with anyone being ill.”
“And after you came in?”
“I went up to dress for dinner myself.” Reggie shifted uncomfortably in his chair, turning his glass around in his hands. “And then I had a talk with my father. He wanted to discuss some business matters. He called me into his study, and I couldn’t very well – I mean, of course I went in to hear him out.”
Ned made a note, and then frowned. “In his study? He was sitting at his desk?”
“He was.”
“And was the candlestick at that point in its accustomed place on the bookcase?”
“I suppose it was. Oh, I don’t know.” Reggie looked visibly flustered. “I think it was. It must have been, mustn’t it?”
Ned tended to agree, but only made a noncommittal noise. “What did you quarrel about?”
“We didn’t quarrel,” Reggie said. Freddie raised his eyebrows, but said nothing. “We were just talking.”
“What were you talking about?”
“Business matters.”
“What kind of business matters?”
“Banking, if you must know,” Reggie said, with a red-faced defiant expression that Ned would have been more inclined to believe if he hadn’t seen it too many times at Toms’ accompanied by a squeaked I was paying attention, sir, really I was! “Father felt I should have tried to get a position at Hoare’s with Victor rather than going to Seale’s. The family has always used Hoare’s. He felt strongly on the matter.”
“And that was the source of your quarrel?”
“I told you it wasn’t a quarrel. Father had strong opinions. He felt we ought to do what he thought was right. You should hear him – should have heard him, that is, bedeviling Victor about houses he wanted him to buy.”
“Your father wasn’t satisfied with his domestic arrangements?”
“My father felt this was too many of us to bear under one roof, and he was probably right,” Freddie said.
“He made himself clear, that’s all. I told him he probably knew best, but that now that I’d taken the position, I had to go on as I’d begun. It wouldn’t look right to chop and change when I was just starting out. You know how it is, Mathey. We junior men can’t do just as we please.”
Ned’s first impulse was to answer in the same vein, putting them both on the same side, but he couldn’t afford to fall back into a sense of fellow-feeling with Reggie. Not when it was becoming increasingly clear that someone in this house had planned and carried out cold-blooded murder. “I understand Mr Nevett left the house before dinner,” he said instead.
“It wasn’t a quarrel, though,” Freddie said. The words were right, but the tone made it sound less like agreement with his brother than subtle mockery of him. Ned was beginning to wonder if anyone in the family got along harmoniously.
“He didn’t want to have dinner with that lot, that’s all,” Reggie said, motioning toward the front parlor, although he dropped his voice as he did. “He said he’d had enough of their good works to last a lifetime, and that he was going to his club where no one would bother him.”
“I see,” Ned said noncommittally. “And then after dinner?”
“I had an engagement,” Freddie said.
“Which was?”
“I went to the theater. With a party. Or, at least, I was going to meet them there, but then they didn’t end up going at the last minute. It was all very casual.”
“What play?”
“I don’t remember,” Freddie said. “Some new thing they wanted to see. Mrs Somebody, I think. Or Lady Somebody’s Something.” He shrugged with elaborate carelessness, as if he couldn’t imagine it mattering to anyone.
“Which theater?”
“The Criterion,” Freddie said after a pause. Of course, the chances of anyone at the Criterion remembering one unremarkable young man in evening dress were practically nil.
“I went to my club,” Reggie said, rather belligerently. “They’ll tell you I was there.”
“I’m sure they will,” Ned said soothingly. “You often spent the night there?”
“It’s more convenient to the bank,” Reggie said. “Nothing wrong with that, is there?” Ned waited, and as he’d suspected, Reggie couldn’t resist filling the silence. “Besides, it wasn’t exactly peaceful around here.”
“Why not?”
“He and my mother were always quarreling. He had a temper, and she kept doing things she knew he didn’t like, like getting in these girls from the mission for maids. The last one dropped things and couldn’t carry a message, and of course we couldn’t have that. She was in a temper herself when he turned the little girl off.”
“These domestic upsets happen,” Ned said.
“He used to frighten the poor little thing into fits,” Freddie said. “It’s no wonder she dropped things.”
Reggie looked momentarily bemused, as if Freddie had suggested that the kitchen stove were unhappy, and then seemed to dismiss the idea from his mind. “The new one’s not as bad.”
“You stayed at your club all night?”
“I did. The Perseus. And I went straight on to the bank. Of course I wouldn’t have gone if I’d known.”
“Somehow in all the confusion no one thought to send for you,” Freddie said.
“And when did you come in?”
“Heaven knows,” Freddie said. “After midnight, I’m sure.”
“Was there any sign that anything was amiss?”
“I suppose there was a great lot of silver missing from the kitchen, but I didn’t come through the kitchen, of course. There was a light on in the pater’s study when I came up, but I didn’t exactly want to have a chat about why I was coming in at that hour, so I just went straight up to bed like a good boy.”
“Would he have been cross?”
Freddie shrugged, perhaps a little too casually to be entirely natural. “I expect so, but I’m too old to get a thrashing, so I wasn’t particularly worried. I didn’t bash his head in because I was late getting back from the theater, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Of course not.”
“I didn’t want a scene in the middle of the night, that was all. He didn’t approve of late nights. He wanted me to go to work for a bank,” Freddie said, as if the idea were unthinkable. “Thankfully, when my great-aunt popped off, she left me a bit of a legacy. It’s not much, but then I live simply.”
“Writing, and things like that,” Reggie said, in what sounded like an echo of Victor’s scornful tone. “While the rest of us have responsibilities.”
“Such as?” Freddie asked.
“To – to behave ourselves like grown men who have a position to uphold, who can’t just – who can’t do whatever they please every minute of the day,” Reggie sputtered. “If no one else cares about the family, I do.”
“Which makes it curious that you’re never here.”
“I’m sure it’s been a trying day,” Ned said, in an attempt to postpone further hostilities until he could make his escape. “Have another drink, both of you, and try to soldier on. I think I’ve got the general idea.”
“You’re off already?”
“I may have some more questions later, but I won’t keep you any further this afternoon.” He shut his notebook and tucked it away. “Tell me, though, just as a hunch, who do you think might have killed your father?”
“There’s no telling,” Reggie said heatedly. “You can’t think I have any idea. It’s horrible.”
“It must have been one of the servants,” Freddie said, shrugging. “Poor little wretches.”
“Would any of them have had any particular cause?”
“You mean did he get any of the girls in trouble?”
“Certainly not,” Reggie said indignantly.
“Probably not,” Freddie said. “Mother would have…” He looked abruptly taken aback and trailed off, as if realizing what the natural end to that remark would be.
“I think that’s enough, Mathey,” Reggie said.
“I’ll just go see how Lynes is getting on,” Ned said, and left them with each other and the decanter for company.
They took a cab back to Julian’s lodgings, and for once Ned made no objection when Julian asked for an inconvenient supper. Mrs Digby grumbled, but allowed that she could do a bit of cold joint and a dish of peas and maybe a salad. Julian deemed it acceptable, and sent young Digby for a couple of bottles of claret. That settled, he dropped into his usual chair, waving vaguely toward the rest of the furniture.
“Make yourself at home.”
Ned eyed the sofa warily, and chose the client’s chair. Julian slanted a glance in that direction, saw nothing but the piece of plant he’d tossed there earlier – surprisingly still fresh and green – and decided he could ignore whatever was bothering Ned at the moment.
“There’s whiskey if you want it,” he said, and Ned gave him a look.
“Yes, I do, rather, and I suppose you want me to pour you one, too?”
“Please,” Julian said, and tried to dismiss the sharpness in Ned’s tone.
Ned hesitated for just an instant, then poured two glasses and brought them across. Julian took his, and they clicked glasses.
“Our first investigation,” Ned said, and slumped back into his chair. “I wish I thought I’d gotten somewhere.”
“It’s early days,” Julian said. He took a long swallow of his whiskey. “I warned you we’d have to spend a lot of time with them.”
“So you did.” Ned folded both hands around his glass, sinking even lower in his chair.
Julian shook himself. Someone had to stay positive, after all. “We’ve made some progress.”
“Such as?”
He couldn’t actually think of anything, except that Ned had been right about the curse, and he’d never doubted that. “We’ve narrowed down the time when someone could have placed the curse,” he said. At least, he’d managed to eliminate most of the daylight hours.
“I suppose.”
“The servants were in and out all day,” Julian said. “The second housemaid, Sarah, cleans in the morning, and then they don’t touch it because Nevett is usually in and out all day.”
“More than that, he was in his study before dinner, so presumably the curse wasn’t in place then.”
“Although it was still before sundown,” Julian began, and shook his head. “No, that doesn’t really matter, my earlier point applies. Was that when he was arguing with Reggie?”
Ned nodded. “So everyone knew about that? Reggie tried to make it sound like it was just an ordinary discussion.”
“Carried on at the top of their lungs,” Julian said. “And he ran out of the house by the kitchen door, which suggests he really didn’t want to meet any of the family.”
“I can’t see Reggie killing his father,” Ned said. “He wasn’t…he was never the daring sort.”
“You’d know better than I,” Julian said. “I never had much to do with him.”
“Hopeless at cricket,” Ned said. “Could have been decent at football if he’d been able to stand having his shins kicked.”
Julian refrained from saying he felt that was entirely reasonable. Reggie hadn’t won any prizes as a scholar, either. And it was probably time to stop thinking about school. “Be that as it may,” he said, “this means no one could have set the curse until after Nevett and Reggie were done shouting at each other.”
“True.” Ned straightened. “Neither of them stayed to dinner – Nevett went to his club after, so, say, half past six. That means the candlestick had to be cursed between then and when Nevett got home, which seems to have been before midnight.”
“Which makes it hard for it to have been one of the servants,” Julian said. “They’d be busy with dinner and then with the washing-up. Not entirely impossible, of course, but – I didn’t really get much sense of a motive there.”
“Which leaves the family,” Ned said. “Which was pretty much what we expected all along.”
Mrs Digby arrived then with the supper tray, to Julian’s relief, and he busied himself opening the claret while she fussed and made space at the table. It was a better meal than usual, complete with cheese and biscuits for after, but then, everyone had a soft spot for Ned. Julian did his best to keep the discussion cheerful – they had made progress, that much was clear, but Ned seemed determined to see things in the worst possible light. Julian’s own nerves were beginning to fray by the time Mrs Digby cleared the dishes, and he gave Ned a speculative glance as they moved back to the chairs by the fire. If he were alone, he’d visit one of his clubs for release; there were plenty of friends there who’d be willing to oblige him. His breath caught at the sudden image of Ned on his knees, of tangling his own fingers in Ned’s hair, demanding service… And maybe it was possible, or at least maybe it would be possible to take him to bed. If they were both relaxed.
He turned to the sideboard, unlocked the right-hand compartment, and brought out the square morocco-leather case. Ned lifted an eyebrow as he brought it over to the table, but Julian pretended not to see as he fished the key from his watch-chain. The four sides of the case folded away from the interior, revealing the neat fittings: the spirit lamp in the center, the brass bowl, the five neat boxes that held ink tablets, the folded papers and the brass-handled pen with its engraved nib.
“I have a proposition,” he said. He was afraid, so he made himself meet Ned’s gaze with a cool stare. “Join me in a little something to take the edge off – your choice, I’ve everything here – and then – I’d like to fuck you.”
He knew the moment he spoke that it was a mistake. Ned’s eyes widened slightly, and Julian thought he saw a flash of hurt before Ned’s expression froze and he shook his head.
“It’s getting late,” he said, “and I’m exhausted. Another time.”
He rose to his feet, and Julian copied him. “Ned –” He stopped then, not knowing quite what to say. He had meant it, and he didn’t know why Ned was squeamish now, it wasn’t as though they hadn’t already done it. “I’m sorry?”
Ned was already shrugging into his coat, but he managed a smile at that. “Don’t be, it’s just – I am really tired.”
“I-I’ll see you in the morning, then?”
“Oh, yes.” Ned’s smile was as wide and false as anything he’d used at school. “Absolutely.” He set his hat carefully on his head. “Good night, Lynes.”
“Good night,” Julian said, and watched the door close behind him. If he had spoiled everything – but he wouldn’t think of that.
He returned to his chair, moving with new purpose, and lit the tiny lamp. He knew exactly what he wanted, where he wanted the enchantment to take him, and the ritual steadied him, soothed his nerves. He took out a tablet of the violet ink, set it in the bowl to melt over the lamp, and tore off a slip of the thick soft paper. The symbols were familiar, the spell to bring sleep of oblivion, deep and sweet. He traced them in his mind and then, as the ink melted, dipped the pen and wrote them firmly, tracing them over and over until all the ink was gone. He blew out the lamp, leaving the rest to clean later, and went back to the sideboard, poured three fingers of neat gin into a wide-mouthed glass. Absinthe was traditional, the paper added with the water and sugar, but he didn’t have the patience for that tonight. Instead, he swirled the paper in the gin, washing the ink away, dissolving the paper into the alcohol, feeling the enchantment take hold. He drained the glass, the first tendrils of unnatural sleep already curling around him as he set it aside, and went on into the bedroom.
It was early enough that the omnibuses were still running, but Ned let them pass him by, hoping the cool evening air would clear his head. Most of the shops were closed, but there were still pubs open, their gas lamps glowing merrily against the darkness. It was momentarily tempting to take himself into one, but on second thought the last thing he wanted was noise and crowds.
He wasn’t at all sure what he did want, but not what Julian had proposed. It was the tone that had gotten to him more than anything else, the implication that he was there for Julian’s convenience, like the whiskey and the writing-set, and could be set aside just as easily when Julian was done. He wouldn’t even have to be paid for his trouble.
That wasn’t fair, but at the moment he felt tired of being fair. It wasn’t even that he objected to being fucked, on general principle; Julian had introduced him to that particular vice in recent months, playing the amused and knowing tutor and clearly enjoying it. He might have liked to try it the other way round, but he didn’t think Julian would stand for that, as much as Julian preferred to have the upper hand in bed.
Julian had tried using his mouth on Ned exactly once, and had obviously liked it so little that Ned hadn’t asked again, though he suspected Julian would have done it if he’d asked. He was satisfied with being fucked, or relying on the friction of hands and bodies as if they were still schoolboys, and he was reluctant to push. Pushing Julian was rarely a good idea under any circumstances.
He just wasn’t at all in the mood to be pushed himself. He was tired, and he ached from head to foot, and he didn’t want to be ordered about by anyone. All he really wanted was to crawl into bed between cool sheets, alone or in Julian’s undemanding company, and close his eyes on the world.
It might still have been better to stay. If he’d managed to relax and get into the proper frame of mind – but Julian’s idea of the proper frame of mind was apparently being too enchantment-mazed to think straight. It was certainly one way of ensuring a tractable partner –
And that was certainly unfair. The offer had been well-meant, or at least generously intended. Julian’s friends treated that sort of beguilement as casually as whiskey or gin, and Ned had to admit it wasn’t really any more dangerous in sensible hands. Julian wouldn’t come to any serious harm with it, and he wouldn’t deliberately let Ned come to harm with it either.
But it still wasn’t at all what he wanted. He supposed he’d wished unreasonably for the kind of easy comfort they’d managed to be for each other at school, but they’d lost the knack of it somehow. He wasn’t sure anymore that Julian even cared what he felt, or for that matter cared much about anything; it was all an interesting intellectual puzzle that there was no sense in taking too much to heart.
And that was a change he didn’t understand, and one he wasn’t sure he could manage to entirely accept. When they’d met, Julian had cared about a great many things passionately, with a burning intensity that had fascinated Ned even when he felt it was entirely misplaced.
He still remembered the time early in their first year at Toms’ when Julian’s hat had disappeared from his cupboard. It had taken Ned some time to persuade Julian that he mustn’t complain to the masters about it, and that the masters would certainly not allow him to report its theft to the police.
“Stealing things is a crime,” Julian had said, pacing, his sharp face lit up with indignation. “The police are supposed to solve crimes, that’s why we have them.”
“It’s not a crime,” Ned said. “Not stealing hats at school. It’s not like breaking into a house or something.”
“Isn’t it? You mean if I walked up to a man on the streets of town and snatched his hat off and he called for the police, they’d say it was perfectly all right?”
“That’s different.”
“How is it different?”
Ned found himself at a loss for how to explain how. “It’s school tradition.”
“Stealing hats?”
“Taking things. You can’t complain, or it’ll make things worse. They’ll probably bring it back.”
“If I walk on the grounds without a hat, I can be beaten for it. And I can’t very well never go out of doors.”
“Well, yes,” Ned said. “I expect that’s why they did it.”
“And you say I can’t report it to the police.” If it had been anyone else, he would have thought they were joking, but Julian looked genuinely betrayed, as if this offended his sense of how the world worked.
“You’d be expelled in a moment,” Ned said. “Think of the scandal to the school.”
“But it’s not a scandal for the school to be full of thieves.”
“They’re not thieves.”
“Despite stealing things.”
“I think the idea is that it’s all in good fun.”
Julian frowned at him. At twelve he could as easily have been ten, rail-thin and without the height he later grew into, but his expression was far older. “I don’t think it’s any fun at all, and I can’t believe no one intends to do anything about it.”
There had been something strangely attractive in Julian’s outrage. It had made it possible to wonder why exactly it was that petty theft was tolerated at school, and how precisely it was that it built character. He’d been fascinated by Julian’s way of laying bare uncomfortable truths, and by Julian himself, who had been prickly enough that Ned had felt triumphant when he first won a genuine smile.
There had been awkward but heartfelt emotion under that prickly exterior, in those days, something he’d at least taken for passionate and protective devotion. But then they’d both been very young, and he’d probably do better to remember that their school days were far behind them.
The gas lamp of his own boarding-house was a welcome sight. He’d have a cup of tea, or maybe better yet soak in a steaming bath and read the last week’s cricket scores and try not to think very much about anything more taxing. That wouldn’t last forever, but it might carry him through until he was settled enough to sleep, and at the moment he couldn’t face thinking any farther ahead than the morning.