Page 4 of A Measure of Menace

Lord Clifford regarded me with exaggerated patience. “No, Mrs. Holloway. We gave the money I borrowed to Dougherty. We had to. To convince him that a larger investment would be sound.”

“I see.” I wanted to shake the man. “You were tricking him into thinking that his investment had doubled, when you hadn’t invested the money at all.”

Lord Clifford tapped the side of his nose. “Now, you understand.”

Oh, good heavens. “Is your friend’s steamship company even real?”

“Of course it is. Jacoby’s offices are in Wellclose Square, near the London Docks. He’s got stake in a ship and everything. Only, the income is not what he’d wish. We thought we’d spark it a bit.”

By cheating an honest man out of ten thousand pounds. But the scheme had failed, putting Lord Clifford deeply in debt to a moneylender who was no better than a swindler himself.

I drew a deep breath. “If this false dividend had persuaded Mr. Dougherty to give you still more money, what would you have done with it?”

“Jacoby was going to put it into his shipping company, of course. The investment would have been bound to pay off eventually, and Dougherty would see some return for it. Maybe not the riches Jacoby had claimed, but something. We could have strung him along for a while.”

I briefly wondered how Cynthia, who could be so wise, had sprung from such a gullible parent.

“Would Dougherty ever have seen any money, your lordship?” I pinned him with my no-nonsense gaze.

“Why not? He and I both stood to gain from the larger investment, and Jacoby promised my money would come back to me five-fold, if not in the vast sums we’d promised Dougherty …”

As I continued to stare at him, Lord Clifford frowned, and his fingers began to twitch.

Then his face crumpled entirely, and he fell back against his chair. “Oh, bloody hell. Mrs. Holloway,” he said limply. “What have I done?”

He’d provided himself a motive for murdering the moneylender, was what he’d done. Mr. Jacoby obviously had planned to cheat Lord Clifford as well as Mr. Dougherty, roping Lord Clifford in by pretending to be such a good friend. Lord Clifford might have borrowed still more money and been in a tight spot indeed. Mobley’s death had possibly relieved him of this.

“I’m not certain what you believe I can do, your lordship,” I said after a time. “Catching whoever murdered the moneylender is the business of the police.”

“Good Lord, I can’t have the police mucking about in my business. You have no need to solve the murder entirely, Mrs. Holloway. Only to prove that I didn’t kill the man.”

I decided not to point out that both tasks would perforce be one and the same. “I understand.” I ran through various ways I could help at all, then emitted a sigh. “Very well. I will see what I can do.”

The utter gratitude with which Lord Clifford beheld me almost made me soften to him. Almost.

“And please, please, whatever you do, do not tell my wife,” Lord Clifford begged. “Or Cynthia. She’d rake me over hot coals. Promise me you’ll keep them out of this.”

I had no intention of distressing Lady Clifford or Lady Cynthia with this mess. “I will do my best.”

“Thank you.” Lord Clifford rested his elbows on the table, his face in his hands. “Thank you, Mrs. Holloway. You are an angel of mercy.”

I left Lord Clifford stewing in his realization that he had borrowed a large sum from a crooked moneylender to give to his equally crooked friend. It was clear to me that Mr. Jacoby had planned to fleece Lord Clifford not only out of the ten thousand, but out of whatever Mr. Dougherty had come up with for the full investment. Lord Clifford ought to bless Mr. Dougherty for turning away before Mr. Jacoby pulled the two men deeper into his schemes.

I wondered if Lord Clifford could be forgiven the debt to the moneylender, since the moneylender was now deceased. Mobley’s heirs might want to be repaid, of course, but once the nature of Mobley’s business was exposed to the police, the heirs perhaps wouldn’t be able to collect. But there was no telling.

I descended to the kitchen before Mr. Davis decided to come hunt for me. As far as he was concerned, I’d only gone to the dining room to receive praise for my meal, but I’d been some time about it.

Tess, still exuberant from her unexpected holiday, started to clean up supper and prepare breakfast, refusing my offer of sending her to bed early. She was too keyed up, she said, and would never sleep.

“Hard work helps a body rest, don’t it?” Tess asked as she scraped food scraps into a basket. She ruined this virtuous statement by adding, “Dancing with your chap at a knees-up don’t hurt either. It was glorious.”

“Where was this knees-up?” I asked curiously. It had been an age since I’d danced, or at least, it felt like it.

“You wouldn’t approve, Mrs. H. It were a gin house, but Caleb and I didn’t take no gin. We was there for the piano and the fiddle, and we danced until we nearly dropped.”

Taverns and gin houses often offered music and dancing to entice customers in to purchase spirits. Tess was correct that I did not approve of gin, which led too many to their ruin, but I could not admonish her for enjoying herself.

I was tempted, as we worked, to ask Tess to bid Caleb—Constable Greene of Scotland Yard—to tell me everything he could find out about the death of one Hiram Mobley of the Strand. However, when I’d turned to Caleb for assistance in the past, he’d nearly landed himself in a good deal of trouble, so I resisted. Inspector McGregor, his superior, had not taken kindly to me using the constable to gain information.

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