Somehow in this lovely room it would seem coarse to use words like
He looked down at his hands for a moment. He had fine hands, strong and smooth. Then he raised his eyes.
“No, and I fear we may not,” he answered. “I had believed it was Breeland himself, or Shearer at his instigation. I am delighted that Rathbone proved it was not Merrit, and not learning who it was is a small price to pay for that.”
“It is not necessarily a trade, Mr. Casbolt,” she argued. “Merrit is perfectly safe now. I have considered the matter quite carefully, and I have wondered if it does not stem back to the original letter of blackmail over which you first consulted my husband. After all, they asked for guns as a payment for their silence. And they have been silent.”
He frowned, uncertainty in his face. He hesitated for several moments before replying.
“I’m not sure what it is you believe, Mrs. Monk. Do you think they killed Daniel and stole the guns, because he would not yield to their demands? Was Breeland simply caught up in it by an unfortunate accident of timing? Is that what you are suggesting?”
It was not as simple as that, but she was reluctant to tell him what she feared. Daniel Alberton had been his closest friend, and any slur against him would reflect on Judith, and on Merrit. Did the truth matter now, the detailed truth as to why, as long as they knew who?
“Is it possible?” Hester said evasively.
Again Casbolt sat silently for several moments, his brows drawn down in thought.
As she waited, she realized how unlikely it would be. If guns could be so simply stolen, why would they have bothered with the sophistication of blackmail in the first place?
He was watching her.
“You don’t believe that, do you?” he said softly. “You are afraid Daniel yielded to them, aren’t you? You know he was in the yard that night … it must have been to meet someone.”
“Yes,” she said unhappily. She loathed having to do this, but the truth lay between them, huge and inevitable. There was no possibility of avoiding it now.
“Daniel would not sell guns to pirates,” Casbolt said, shaking his head, denying it to himself.
“The guns missing from Breeland’s shipment were exactly the amount asked for in the blackmail letter,” she pointed out.
“He still wouldn’t do that. Not to pirates!” But his voice was losing its conviction. He was talking to persuade himself, and the unhappiness in his eyes betrayed his knowledge that she could see it.
“Perhaps he had little choice,” she said.
“The blackmail? We would have fought it through! I believe your husband might well have discovered who it was. It had to be someone in London. How could a Mediterranean pirate know about Gilmer?”
“How would anyone?” she said so quietly he leaned forward to hear her. She could feel the heat in her face and yet her hands were cold.
He stared at her. “Are you … are you saying what I think …” He stumbled over the words. “No! He would not do that!”
Just as Breeland could not be guilty because of the times of events, Casbolt could not either. She hated hurting him, but he was the one person she could trust, and who would be in a position to find the truth, and maybe to keep it silent.
“Perhaps he needed the money?”
His eyes widened. “The money? I don’t understand. I am quite familiar with the company books, Mrs. Monk. The finances are more than adequate.”
At last Hester spoke aloud the ugly thought that she had been trying to suppress or deny all day. “What if he invested privately as well, and lost money?”
He looked startled, as if the thought rattled him. It took him a moment to regain his composure.
“In stocks, you mean?” he asked. “Or something of that sort? I don’t think it is likely. He was not a gambler in even the mildest way. And believe me, I have known him long enough that I would be aware of it.” He spoke very gravely, still leaning forward, his hands locked together, knuckles white.
Hester had to pursue it, explain to him what she meant. “Not stocks or shares, and I had never thought of gambling, Mr. Casbolt. I was thinking of something which seemed at the time a certain business deal, with no risk attached.”
He gazed at her, his eyes clouded, waiting for her to continue.
“Like selling guns to the Chinese,” she answered.
His face was unreadable, his emotions too profound to measure.
It was at that moment that she believed he knew. He had concealed it to protect Alberton, and possibly even more to protect Judith. She realized with a jolt how much this whole room spoke of his love for her, and why it was special. Perhaps there would be no need to tell anyone. They did not have to know any more than they did now. Mystery, unanswered questions, would be better than the truth.
“The Third Chinese War,” she finished the thought. “If he invested in guns to sell to the Chinese, shipped them out, and then they refused to pay because a war had broken out between us and them that was completely unforeseeable by anyone, then he would have sustained a heavy loss … wouldn’t he?”
His lips tightened, but his eyes did not waver from hers.
“Yes …”
“Is that not possible?”
“Of course it is possible. But what are you suggesting happened the night he was killed? I still don’t understand how a loss to the Chinese would bring that about.”
“Yes, you do,” she said softly. “What if Breeland were telling not only what he thought was the truth, but what actually was the truth? Alberton could have taken Philo Trace’s money, given in good faith, then sold the guns to Breeland, using Shearer to deliver them to the Euston Square station. He would then have had two separate amounts of money which would come to an excellent profit … more than sufficient to make up for the Chinese losses.”
He did not argue. His face had a bruised, almost beaten look. “Then who killed him? And why?”
“Whoever represented the pirates,” she answered.
“I … suppose so.”
“Or else there was a confrontation,” she added, her voice lifting with hope in spite of herself. “Perhaps he knew who they were, and he may have said he would deal with them because he planned to exact some kind of justice for Judith’s family.” She chose the word
He considered it. It was apparent in his face that he was weighing all the possibilities. He seemed to make a decision at last.
“If your suggestion about Daniel having lost private money on the Chinese war is correct, and that he did indeed sell the guns to Breeland just as Breeland said, and kept Philo Trace’s money … then when Trace discovered that, would he not be the one to exact revenge-or, from his point of view, justice? And the method of … murder … was a peculiarly American one, remember. Do you not think it more likely that Trace went to Tooley Street to face Daniel about it, and there was a furious quarrel, and Trace killed them? Whether he went there alone or not we may never know. Perhaps he had help. He will have had allies here ready to move the guns when he bought them, just as Breeland had. Possibly one man could have made the guards tie each other, at gunpoint, and he could have tied the last himself … I imagine.”
He looked pale, very strained. “Trace seems a gentle man, full of charm, but he is a gun buyer for the Confederate army, fighting to preserve the way of life of the South, and the right to keep slaves. Underneath the easy manner there is a very desperate and determined man whose people are at war for their own survival.”
He hesitated, biting his lip for a moment. “And there is another thing, Mrs. Monk … the watch. Merrit said in court that she didn’t know where she left it, but she was lying. We all know that. She took it off in Breeland’s rooms when she changed her clothes, and forgot it. Someone went up there before we did. The porter said so.” He was looking at her very shakily. “If that were Trace, then he could have taken it and dropped it in the yard to incriminate Breeland. What would be more natural?”
