Page 22 of Dead Beside the Thames
Charlie frowned, but it was Claudia who leapt on the point.
“You think,” she said, searching her brothers’ faces, “that Sedbury forced Napier to give him the whip?”
Bryan shrugged. “Who can say, but given all we know of Sedbury’s ways, it’s likely, isn’t it? We know how he operated. He saw something someone else valued and moved heaven and earth to take it from them.”
Charlie noted the underlying bitterness in Bryan’s tone. The younger Hale was obviously speaking from experience, and judging by the looks on Claudia’s and Jonathon’s faces, both his siblings possessed similar insights.
Claudia also heard the emotion in Bryan’s voice and knew exactly what had put it there. She wished her brothers would not go out of their way to paint themselves as the prime suspects in Sedbury’s murder—Jonathon because of that odd letter Sedbury had never finished coupled with the damage to his face, and Bryan because of Sedbury’s efforts to steal Rosalind from him.
Luckily, she was there, and as a devoted sister, she was ready and willing to seize the prospect Napier’s whip being discovered in Sedbury’s collection offered. It seemed likely that Lord Napier, too, might have had reason to wish Sedbury ill. To her mind, the more suspects, the better.
Someone needed to establish Napier’s link to Sedbury, but that shouldn’t involve either of her brothers. She cast the pair a stern glance. “You two need to finish sorting through Sedbury’s things and set aside for the inspector and the Adairs anything that might point to a motive to kill Sedbury.” She glanced around at the display of whips. “Leave the whips for now.” She smiled at Charlie. “I’m sure Mr. Hastings will be able to advise us as to their disposal later.”
Charlie brightened, and she fought to keep her smile from deepening.
“Now, however,” she rolled on, her gaze fixed on him, “I hope I can prevail upon you, Mr. Hastings, to accompany meto Napier House.” She nodded at the whip still in his hands. “I suggest we call on Lord Napier on the pretext of returning his whip and see what we can learn regarding how it came to be in Sedbury’s collection.”
Charlie kept his expression as bland as he could manage. The notion of bailing up Napier at his home and attempting to elicit some explanation of how Sedbury had come to possess Napier’s prize whip in no way appealed, but he could see the determination in Claudia’s eyes, and the truth was, if she was to broach that subject with Napier, it would be sensible for Charlie to be with her rather than one of her brothers, neither of whom knew anything about whips.
“Yes,” he said in response to the look of polite inquiry Claudia was directing at him. “All right.”
He walked forward, and as he joined her, Claudia confidently took his arm. “Do you know where Lord Napier lives?” she asked.
Charlie noted that Jonathon and Bryan were clearly used to taking direction from their older sister as both meekly returned to the parlor and resumed their sorting of Sedbury’s belongings. “I do. He has a house in Brook Street.”
Charlie paused to exchange farewells with Jonathon and Bryan, then Claudia steered him toward the front door. “We can take my carriage. It’s waiting outside.”
While she didn’t exactly tow him along, Charlie felt that he’d been swept up by some irresistible force.
The carriage proved to be a small, unmarked black town carriage, with a groom-cum-coachman who was every bit as large and intimidating as Sedbury had been. Even more discombobulating was the long and plainly recent gash that ran above the coachman’s left eyebrow.
Claudia addressed the looming giant. “Fosdyke, this is Mr. Hastings. He’s helping us with this business about Sedbury. He and I need to go to Brook Street.”
Rather numbly, Charlie added, “Napier House.”
The giant tipped his head and rumbled, “I know it.” He held the door as Charlie handed Claudia inside, then quickly followed.
Once Fosdyke had shut the door and climbed back onto the box, Charlie glanced at the lady beside him. “Is Fosdyke just your coachman?” The man seemed far too alert and aware and, indeed, menacing for that.
“Oh, no.” Claudia peered out of the window as Fosdyke turned the coach. “He was originally Mama’s groom, but over the years, he’s come to fill a role more in the nature of a coachman-cum-bodyguard, not just for Mama but for all her children.”
Charlie sat back and listened to the wheels rattle over the cobbles and wondered just how far a devoted coachman-cum-bodyguard might go in protecting those he deemed in his care.
CHAPTER 5
At much the same time that Claudia’s coach left the curb in Duke Street, Barnaby was making his way along the north bank of the Thames. He’d found the police wagon on Narrow Street and, assuming that Stokes had elected to start his search around the Duke Stairs—according to the River Police, the most easterly point from which Sedbury’s body might have entered the water—had descended from the hackney, told the jarvey to wait, and set off, walking eastward on the path beside the stone embankment.
The weather was gloomy, the sky overcast and gray, and the breeze off the water carried a damp chill. The slap of waves against the stone edging the bank was a counterpoint to Barnaby’s footsteps as he strode along the narrow path between the buildings and the river.
He found Stokes, as gloomy as the day, watching his men as they canvassed the area, asking literally everyone they could find if they’d been in the vicinity on Saturday night and, if so, what they recalled and whether they’d noticed anything untoward.
Barnaby spotted another group of constables carefully examining the stone embankment and the adjacent area, presumably searching for any sign of a recent struggle.
He halted beside Stokes, who stood with his hands sunk in his greatcoat pockets and his shoulders slightly hunched against the breeze. “Anything yet?” Barnaby asked.
Stokes grunted and looked to where a young constable was interviewing a brawny stevedore. “In this area, people have very short memories.” He swung his gaze to the searchers combing the embankment itself. “That said, I’m fairly certain we haven’t missed anything from the Duke Stairs to this point. We actually started a little farther east, at the entrance to Limehouse Dock. I spoke to the River Police again, and they swear that, given the relevant tides, Sedbury’s body couldn’t have been put into the river farther east than that.”
Barnaby nodded. “Being thorough might be slow, but you can’t afford to miss the spot.”
