Page 54 of Speculations in Sin

“Mr. Zachary,” Sam answered promptly. “Kearny told me. Zachary was an acquaintance of Kearny’s father and heard Kearny was a bright lad. So, like me, he was given a trial period at the bank and then hired on. Worked his way from clerk to banker. Not that they’d ever let me into such a lofty job, and I knew that. Kearny is from a well-educated family in the gentry. They live in a fine home in Harrow, and I was born in the backstreets of Bermondsey. But it was a soft post, and I was good at it. But now…Even if you are right and I get off, I’ll never be welcomed there again.”

“If they are so quick to accuse you, I’d say you had a lucky escape,” I said.

“Lucky.” Sam laughed bitterly. “You have an odd idea of luck, Kat.”

“I stand by the word. The circumstances are not good, but you will be absolved in the eyes of the world. There will be any number of banks or investment firms who want as diligent a worker as you.”

Again, Sam and Daniel exchanged the look that said I was daft, but they’d humor me.

I opened my bag and removed the notebook and pencil I’d slipped into it before I’d departed the house. “None of this speculation leads anywhere.” I leafed to the pages where I’d begun the notes on Sam’s case and readied my pencil. “Let us take things as they happened. You were late the morning of Mr. Stockley’s death. Why?”

Sam frowned as though he struggled to recall. “That morning, everything went wrong. The cook announced that shecould get no eggs, and we’d eaten all the meat yesterday, and we’d have to make do with bread and butter. I ran out myself to procure the eggs, as no one else could be spared. I had to go a long way to find any, all the way to Leadenhall Market, in fact. Then the children were so unruly while we waited for breakfast that Joanna was at her wits’ end. I stayed behind a bit to help her until they were all fed and finally settled down for their studies. Then an omnibus had an accident right at the end of our lane. No one hurt, but there was a mess of carts, horses, people…It took me time to squeeze through, and I ran the rest of the way. Miss Swann admonished me as I dashed in not only for being a half hour late but for being disheveled and wet as well. Why she was standing in the ground-floor hallway, I have no idea—to plague me, I suppose.”

I imagined the stately Miss Swann looking down her long nose at Sam’s rumpled coat and wet hat as he breathlessly hurried inside.

“The children were unruly?” I asked, this statement the most surprising out of all that he’d uttered. “Even Grace? I apologize if she caused any trouble. Though all the children are so well-behaved.”

Sam’s smile broke through his unhappiness, one so fond it touched my heart. “Of course they are unruly. They are children. On their best behavior when you are there, because they want to please their Aunt Kat. No, Grace was not one of the scoundrels that morning. She was rather impatient with my sons and daughters, wanting to get on with her reading. Grace likes to study.” He finished with some awe.

Was it wrong to feel pride thatmydaughter had been good as gold? Then again, Sam might be exaggerating to spare my feelings or keep me from being cross at Grace.

No, I had to believe that Grace had been annoyed at theother children for vexing Sam and Joanna. She was rather like me in that respect.

I tried to hide my joy in Grace and continued with my questions. “Excellent. We have witnesses as to the time you came in and that you ran through the rain—Miss Swann and presumably the doorman and his assistant. And perhaps anyone else who was inconvenienced by the omnibus crash. What did you do once you arrived?”

Sam’s expression told me he was skeptical about the witnesses. “I went to my desk and started to work. I did ask about Mr. Stockley, because we’d agreed to meet so I could discuss things with him. But he never sent for me, and I worked steadily without moving. Others were looking for Stockley, and I snapped at them that he was likely upstairs, but I was too busy to think anything of it. Until, that is, the police came to arrest me. I even ate my luncheon at my desk, because I was so late. Thank God I did, because the cuisine here is not up to your cooking, Kat.”

“Why did you agree to meet with Mr. Stockley?” I asked, pretending to ignore his feeble joke about the food. I’d brought nothing edible with me today because I’d had no time to prepare, but I’d try to send something along. “Mr. Kearny said the two of you were often at odds.”

“We are. Were, I mean.” Sam stumbled as he remembered Stockley was dead. “Stockley was a high-handed prick, if you’ll pardon my language. He was a Cambridge man, from King’s College, he reminded all and sundry. He was a clerk, if at the top of that heap, but you might have thought he was the lord chancellor, with all his airs.”

I had met such people before. “Was he meeting you to give you a lecture?” I asked. “The fact that you agreed to see him sounds more friendly than that.”

Sam glanced at the closed door, then leaned across the table to us. “We were meeting because I’d finally convinced him that I was not stealing money from the bank. We were going to discuss the problem in private—he said he had some ideas about who it was and wanted my help in proving them.”

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Sam’s words stirred hope in me. The fact that Mr. Stockley thought he might know who the true embezzler was gave that embezzler a strong motive to murder him.

“Did he say who?” I asked eagerly.

Sam shook his head, to my disappointment. “I would have told Mr. Zachary or someone even higher if he had. I truly wanted to squash the rumor that it was me.”

“I am amazed anyone could have ever thought so,” I said in indignation.

Sam sent me a grateful glance, but shook his head. “Once word went round that I used to be a South London villain, everyone’s fingers pointed to me.”

“How did someone find out?” I asked. “Presumably you did not confess your past to all and sundry. Even I did not know. I will scold you about that once we have you home, though it scarcely matters now. You have proved yourself an admirable man, in spite of your origins.”

“High praise, Millburn.” Daniel rested his shoulder against the wall as he stood near us, the guard never having fetched another chair. “I’d accept it.”

“I promise I will give you a full dossier on my youthful activities if you want it,” Sam said. “As long as you don’t tell my sons and daughters. They are a handful enough already—they do not need any more hold over me.”

I liked this banter from Sam, because it told me I was making him believe he truly would be freed.

“Let us return to Mr. Stockley,” I said. “Where exactly were you to meet?”

“In a file room on the third floor,” Sam answered. “I was told he was found in the strong room. Why he went there, I don’t know.”

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