Page 5 of The Hazardous Measure of Love
‘It appears I have an unfortunate reputation for dealing with murders,’ Luc said, his smile wry. ‘Very well. We will come and inspect the study and the body and then you must summon the doctor and inform the nearest magistrate.’
I remembered to ring for a maid to fetch my bonnet from the store of clothes I left at both the Town and the country houses. Ladies inspecting corpses was bad enough, but without bonnet and gloves it would be a scandal, as I remarked to James, who almost had a fit of unseemly laughter.
Viscount Tillingham’s house was virtually next door but, as all the houses in the Square were built individually, it was arranged differently inside from Luc’s. However, the study was in much the same position, with a view over the small back garden. The window was the kind that reached down almost to the ground and the sash could be raised so that it was possible to step out directly onto the terrace.
‘Was the window closed?’ Luc asked as we entered past a grey-faced butler. The desk was set in front of the glass with the chair’s back to it and with about three feet of clear space between curtains and chair legs.
‘It is just ajar. I did not touch it.’ Adrien edged around the back of the chair, clearly trying not to look down, and peered at the catch. ‘It is completely unlatched. It was warm last night, I thought.’ James nodded agreement. ‘My cousin would often work with the window open, even in the winter – he was a great proponent of fresh air.’ He shuffled back to us. ‘He’s… You can observe that the body is not visible from here.’
Luc walked around the desk and looked down, his expression grim. James followed and stood at his shoulder, but I went around the other side and, as Luc knelt, I did too.
‘He seems completely rigid,’ I observed, summoning up all my Special Constable training to try and study the body dispassionately – and yes, that is every bit as difficult as it sounds. ‘But all we can really deduce from that is that it is probably at least twelve hours since death.’
I sat back on my heels and studied the way the body lay. ‘There are so many variables – the temperature, his health and so forth – but I suppose we can be fairly certain he was killed not long before, or just after, midnight. It does not look as though he was moved after rigor began to set in. The way he is lying seems perfectly natural, as if he was standing at the desk and simply slumped down.’
I met Luc’s gaze, saw his agreement, and thought how good it felt to be working with him like this. If only the cause was not so grim…
* * *
Luc gingerly turned back the sides of the Viscount’s evening coat to expose a blood stain across the left breast of the pale blue silk waistcoat. ‘Stabbed or shot in the heart by the look of it. Stabbed, I would assume, as the waistcoat seems intact and I can see no powder marks.’ He took an ivory page-turner from the desk and gingerly probed the silk. ‘There’s a slit here, I think, although the blood is so thickly clotted…’ He broke off.
‘A shot would have roused the household,’ James observed, looking more than a trifle green.
‘You would think so, but if all the staff were downstairs… Still, this looks like a stab wound to me.’ He lifted the man’s arms as best he could and studied the hands, which were clenched. ‘Can’t tell if he was holding anything until the stiffness wears off.’
Luc stood up and looked around the room. ‘Prescott, can you see if anything is misplaced, or if there is anything here you do not recognise?’
I stood too, as Adrien began a slow, careful scrutiny of the study, then checked the papers on the desk. ‘I can see nothing missing, moved or unusual,’ he said, after laying the paperwork back as he had found it. ‘Those papers look as though he disturbed them slightly standing up, that is all.’
‘Then we had best send for the magistrate, the constable and the doctor, or the delay will seem very strange.’
‘Where is the paperknife?’ I asked, scanning the floor around me. In my experience every desk at this time had a paperknife for slitting seals and cutting the pages of new books and some of them had struck me as lethally dangerous.
‘It should be in here.’ Adrien opened the small top drawer on the right-hand side and lifted out a slender ivory blade with a silver handle.
I took it from him and peered closely. ‘It is completely dry and I can see no sign of blood at all. Unlike a metal blade the ivory would, surely, have trapped some in the tiny indentations. Does it always live in there?’
Adrien nodded. ‘Cousin Henry disliked having anything cluttering up the working surface.’
‘A pity. That would have been useful, to identify the weapon so early,’ Luc said. He tested it with his finger. ‘No, that’s not sharp enough. In the absence of anything immediately obvious, I suggest we interview the butler before anyone else does and he begins to elaborate on his story.’
James nodded. ‘And adds things he did not actually recall.’
Footmen were despatched with messages to the various officials and we steered the butler into the front room.
‘Grainger, is it not?’ Luc asked.
‘Yes, my lord.’ He stood in front of us, pale-faced and looking as anxious as might be expected of someone whose employer was lying murdered in the next room.
‘How long have you been with the household?’
‘I have been with Lord Tillingham for just over a year,’ he said, readily enough. ‘Ever since he inherited the title, that is. I was his late father’s first footman and his lordship most kindly offered me the post when Mr Claridge, the previous butler, wished to retire.’
That burst of explanation seemed to have exhausted him and he stood staring blankly over Luc’s shoulder.
‘The Viscount was an easy man to work for?’ I asked and he jumped, as though he had forgotten my presence.
‘Yes, ma’am. In his way. He was always clear about what he expected and his standards were high. Firm but fair, you could say. Never any shows of temper. I would describe him as very even in his mood.’ He paused and I could see he was chewing the inside of his cheek as though trying to control something that wanted to be said.
