'The letter made me decide to discover just who had actually killed my father,' John continued. 'I asked questions of officers I knew and then of the soldiers and officers they directed me to. I even advertised in the newspapers. I at last found one man and a woman who had been eyewitnesses.' He took another sip of coffee. 'The man, an infantry corporal, told me that he had seen my father at Badajoz, running toward a group of officers who had been drunk and shouting. There was much smoke and glare of fire, and he could not see precisely what happened, but he heard a shot and then saw my father fall dead to the ground.'
His voice was flat, toneless, as though he had recited this story time and again. 'The woman told a similar tale. She saw my father peering through smoke at a group of officers. According to her, he went suddenly still, looked horrified, then began running toward them. Just before he reached the officers, he fell dead. Where the shot had actually come from, neither could say, but they were certain one among the group of officers had fired it.'
I wondered what Captain Spencer had seen. I was ready to believe that with Eggleston and Breckenridge, anything was possible.
'I at last pieced together the identities of the officers,' John went on in a hard voice. ' Westin, Breckenridge, Eggleston, Connaught, and a Colonel Spinnet, although Spinnet died there himself. Colonel Spinnet's journal told me much about the others, most of which I found disgusting. I hired a Bow Street Runner, and began to investigate them.'
Kenneth fingered his cup nervously. 'I expected them to bring suit against us.'
John frowned at him. 'They would not have dared. The Runner could not discover much, but then suddenly, Colonel Westin offered to confess. The newspapers took up that sensation, and the other gentlemen faded back into the moldings.'
His brother broke in gently. 'I was pleased he came forward. He was ready to pay for what he had done.'
'Kenneth is too quick to finish the business,' John said to me. 'The more I learned about the other gentlemen, the more I decided Colonel Westin was unlikely to have pulled the trigger. He may have been about to tell us the entire truth of the matter himself.'
I fingered the handle of my cup. 'Why do you say that?'
'He made an appointment with us. One he never kept.'
I came alert. 'Appointment?'
John nodded. 'The night before he died. He wrote to me and begged to see us.'
'For what purpose?'
Kenneth said, 'We will never know. He asked us to meet him at a coffeehouse in Conduit Street at an early hour of the morning. We appeared and waited. He never arrived.'
Because he'd likely been dead by then, I thought. Tucked up in his bed waiting for Lydia to find him.
'We assumed he had changed his mind,' John continued. 'Too cowardly to tell us the truth. And then the next day, we heard he'd fallen to his death. I could not help but think it served him right. If he knew the truth, he ought to have told it at once.'
He looked grimly satisfied. His brother sent him an uneasy glance.
'Colonel Westin was an honorable man, by all accounts,' I said. 'He did not deserve to die.'
'Neither did my father,' John snapped back.
I had to agree. 'I, too, am interested in the truth. And now Breckenridge is dead.'
'And can tell no tales?' John asked. He lifted his cup, his dark eyes glittering. 'Well, all we need do is wait and see which is the last man standing.'
Kenneth shot him another look, worried and nervous.
'I hope it will not come to that,' I said. 'If you discover anything more, please write to me.'
John nodded tersely. Kenneth tried to be pleasant.
After an uncomfortable leave-taking, Grenville and I left the tavern.
'Interesting,' Grenville said as we walked up Pall Mall, past shops and booksellers. 'I noted that Kenneth Spencer made bloody certain we knew he and his brother had departed Kent before Breckenridge died.'
'Yes,' I mused. 'I wonder if that is the truth. Did you notice them after the match?'
He shook his head. 'I was busy watching you get bandaged. I wish I had known who the devil they were then, because I could have kept an eye on them.' He looked glum. 'I can always send someone back to Astley Close to nose about the village and discover when they did depart, I suppose. Of course this widens the range of suspects, rather than narrows it.'
I greeted this fact with relief, because it lessened my worry about Brandon.
Grenville stopped. 'What do we do now?'
I considered. 'Do find out when the Spencer brothers departed Astley Close. I would be interested to know also if their appointment with Westin was in fact at his house rather than a coffeehouse. He could have let them in himself, unknown to the servants. I can quite imagine John Spencer killing Westin in anger. He does not strike me as the most self-controlled of men.'
'I agree with you.' We reached a hackney stand, and Grenville shook my hand in parting. 'On with the investigation, then. Here is to swift results.'
We said good-bye, and I hired the hackney to return me home to prepare for my evening call on Lydia.
I thought over what the Spencers had said, as well as what I'd discovered in Kent as I brushed my dark blue regimentals and asked Mrs. Beltan for a bit of thread to repair a torn silver braid. I fussed more than usual about my appearance, wishing for a fine suit of clothes and hair that lay flat, but at last I left my rooms and took myself back to Grosvenor Street.
To my great disappointment, I found Lydia in the company of her daughter’s fiance, Geoffrey Allandale.
Chapter Fourteen
Allandale greeted me cordially enough, his too-handsome face arranged in polite lines that expressed nothing.
I had been invited to take supper. We sat at the long table in the dining room, the three of us, Lydia at the head, with Allandale and I across from each other, I on her right hand, he on her left.
Lydia wore a dull black mourning gown that covered her bosom and circled her throat with thin, pale lace. Long black sleeves fastened at her slim wrists with onyx buttons. She wore a widow's cap, a small lawn piece that fitted snuggly. Her dark hair peeped from beneath it.
She wore the costume like a uniform, the outward shell of it reflecting nothing of the woman inside. Behind her thick lashes, her eyes smoldered with anger and impatience, whether at me and my lack of news, or at Allandale, or at both of us, I could not tell.
Allandale led the discussion and Lydia let him. He talked of conventional things, like the controversial novel Glenarvon, published that year. In it, Lady Caroline Lamb had satirized most of London society in retaliation for her failed, very public love affair with the poet Byron. Byron, sensibly, Allandale said, remained on the Continent and ignored it. Allandale professed disgust for the book and those who had flocked to buy it, but I noted that he seemed to know many of its details.
I could not contribute much to the conversation because I had not read the book, nor was I likely to. Lydia only ate in silence.
As supper and Allandale's monologue drew to a close, I inquired after Lydia's daughter. She was well, Lydia answered, still in Surrey with her uncle and aunt.
'Better that Chloe remains there for a time,' Allandale interposed. 'Let the newspapers calm down before she returns. What trash they do print. I have forbidden William to bring them into the house.' He shot me a look that said he blamed me for the scurrilous stories.
'She will not return here at all,' Lydia said. She broke off a tiny piece of bread and lifted it to her lips. 'My husband left this house to me, and I plan to sell it.'
'Now, Mother-in-law.' Allandale began. He took on a look of patience. 'We have discussed this. You should do nothing in haste.'
Lydia's eyes flickered. She returned her gaze to her food, but not in submission. I had seen her flash of
