Page 14 of A Measure of Menace

“I offered to be a character witness for Lord Clifford,” Daniel said. “I must inform you, Lady Cynthia, that your father is being too evasive about where he was the night Mobley was killed.”

“Bloody hell,” Cynthia stated loudly. Several of the constables glanced up in surprise at her language, but a few of them grinned at her. “Let me in there. I will make him tell me.”

“Perhaps that might not be the wisest course,” I suggested. If Lord Clifford was hiding his whereabouts, he might have been doing something else that could have him arrested.

“He is my father, Mrs. H., but he is a fool, and I need to extricate him from his follies. Take me in, McAdam.”

Daniel, resigned, knocked softly on the inspector’s door. A barked “Enter” had him opening it.

I caught a brief glimpse of Lord Clifford, his cravat awry, shoulders hunched as he sat on one side of a desk. On the other was a slender man with graying hair and a long nose, presumably Chief Inspector Ferguson. He had dark blue eyes that pinned us with a hard stare.

“Lord Clifford’s daughter has arrived, sir,” Daniel said deferentially.

Ferguson switched the stare to Cynthia alone, silently dismissing Mr. Thanos and me. Lord Clifford, who’d drawn a sharp breath when he’d seen Cynthia, shrank farther into his chair.

Ferguson nodded at Daniel, who gestured Cynthia in, but when Mr. Thanos and I tried to follow, Daniel stopped us. “Please wait,” he said, sotto voce. “I’m sorry, Kat.”

He closed the door, shutting the pair of us out.

“Well,” Mr. Thanos huffed. “There’s gratitude. After I raced all the way to Southampton Street in pursuit of him.” He made a thin laugh, as though he joked, but I could see he was put out.

“Did you find him in Southampton Street?” Daniel had several hideaways around London. He flitted about the metropolis either in his job as deliveryman or investigating whatever he was sent to.

“No, I caught sight of McAdam striding along the Strand,” Mr. Thanos explained. “I leapt out of the hansom, much to the cabbie’s annoyance, and nearly tackled him. Once I told him of Lord Clifford’s arrest, McAdam commandeered my cab, and we came here.”

“I am pleased you did.”

Mr. Thanos glowed under my praise, while I chafed to know what was being said inside the room. Short of bursting in, I would be in the dark until Daniel or Lady Cynthia could confer with me afterward.

A voice at my elbow made me jump. “What is McAdam’s interest in this case?” Sergeant Scott had approached so quietly that neither of us had heard him. “Who exactly are you?” Scott demanded of me.

Mr. Thanos answered indignantly before I could speak. “She is Mrs. Holloway. Quite a respectable woman and also a jolly fine cook.”

“A cook?” Scott gazed at me up and down as he would some sort of strange insect. “Lord Clifford’s cook?”

“No, no, Lady Cynthia’s,” Mr. Thanos again answered for me. “Her family’s that is. Lord Clifford is merely visiting.”

“Why is the family cook being a minder to Lord Clifford?” Scott demanded, eyes still on me. “Why aren’t you home fixing his steak and kidney pud?”

I drew myself up. “I do not like your tone, Sergeant.” Cooks were among the senior staff of households, and I did not believe myself to be lower in status than a police sergeant. Also, I was a child of backstreet London. While we’d had proper fear of the police—who could arrest us for any imagined transgression—we’d also learned never to let on that they intimidated us. “Lord Clifford did have dealings with Mr. Mobley, but if there is no evidence he was near the man on the night in question, I believe you must let him go.”

The sergeant definitely did not like a cook telling him how to do his job any more than I wanted him telling me mine. I sympathized with Sergeant Scott, as catching an elusive murderer when he had little to go on must be frustrating. Also, his inspector had shut him out of that room as neatly as he had us.

“Now you are his lordship’s solicitor?” Scott asked me. “What was he doing at Mobley’s establishment?”

“Looking for clues as to who killed Mr. Mobley,” I said. “How exactly was he killed?”

“That is the police’s business,” Scott answered in irritation.

“It is also Lord Clifford’s business,” Mr. Thanos broke in. “As he has been accused of the crime.”

“Lord Clifford’s, yes.” Scott acknowledged this with a hard nod. “Not yours.”

While I longed for all the details, I understood his point. If he told us every aspect of the crime, we, as loyal friends to Lord Clifford, could concoct him an alibi.

Scott gestured toward the outer door. “Best you wait in the corridor. The inspector will not keep her ladyship long.”

“And hopefully he will not keep his lordship, either,” I said.

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