'What about Sutcliff?'
'In a towering fury,' Grenville put in. 'He's going about as usual, in high dudgeon. Implying that Fletcher will be sacked, and so forth.'
Bartholomew grinned around the coffee cup. 'The other boys are in transports. They hate Sutcliff. I'll wager every one of them has wanted to thrash 'im themselves. They're likely having their own little celebration.' He chuckled.
'I am not entirely surprised the other boys do not like him, from what I've seen,' Grenville said. 'Does he have any friends here?'
Bartholomew shook his head. 'He is loathed by one and all, sir. My mam would take a stick to him, that's for certain.'
'His mam will likely be dependent on him one day and knows it,' I put in.
'True, poor woman,' Grenville agreed.
I drank my coffee. It had begun raining again, and I was cold, my muscles stiff. Between sips, I informed them of all Jeanne Lanier had told me.
Grenville listened, interested. When I asked what he had done, he confessed he'd chatted with some of the boys, but had not yet had the chance to search Middleton's quarters. I suggested that while everyone in the school was up in arms about Fletcher and Sutcliff that we take ourselves there.
Grenville and I walked through rain to the stables by ourselves, leaving the two footmen to gossip with servants and find out more about Fletcher's outburst. Grenville carried a large black umbrella, held over his costly suit and greatcoat.
As we walked, Grenville told me what he'd learned from young Mr. Timson. He'd found Timson to be a typical bully with a few hangers-on and a cowed younger student who acted as a veritable slave for him. Bribed with a flask of brandy Timson had admitted to sharing a smoke with Ramsay on Sunday night. Ramsay, he'd said, had turned tail and run after the first cheroot.
Timson had seen a man pass on the road, on the other side of the brush, but he could not say who. He'd not set eyes on Sutcliff. Neither had Timson's friends.
I mused, 'I wonder why Ramsay, whose father is almost as wealthy as Sutcliff's from what I understand, needs to obtain his cheroots from Timson. Can he not purchase his own?'
Grenville gave a pained laugh. 'I know exactly why. To keep Timson from despising him.'
I raised my brows. Grenville's black umbrella was beaded with water, and beneath its shadow, he wore a rueful grin. I disliked umbrellas and was letting the rain do its worst to my hat. 'Why on earth should he care whether Timson despised him?'
'Twenty-five years ago, I was Ramsay,' Grenville said. 'Or very like him. I was the son of the man with the most money. I hated that. I just wanted to be one of the chaps.'
'So Ramsay puts up with Timson so that he can be one of the chaps? I suppose that makes a sort of sense.'
Grenville nodded. 'Better to grin and take Timson's sneers with the others than to be universally despised, like Sutcliff. Good lord, I would have.'
'I am beginning to wonder how any of us survived to adulthood,' I remarked.
'My father told me that the boys I'd meet at Eton would be my cronies for a lifetime. Quite frightening, I thought. Perhaps it was that which spurred my fondness for travel.' He chortled.
'With your fondness for travel,' I said, 'I am surprised you've remained in England for this long.'
He looked at me in surprise. 'It has been only a year or so, Lacey.'
'I read a newspaper article about you not long ago, in which the writer made the same observation. He implied that you rarely stayed in England above six months at a time.'
Grenville shrugged. 'I am getting old, belike. I become ill when I travel, as you know, and comfort is beginning to have greater importance.'
'But you are growing tired of London life,' I said. We had reached the stables, and I stopped outside the yard. 'You long to be off, exploring distant realms. That is why you hurried down to Sudbury the minute something sordid happened. This murder should not interest you much. There has been an arrest, and all agree Sebastian the Romany is guilty.'
'Except you,' Grenville said. 'Hence my interest. 'But you might be correct. One can only stand in White's and pass judgment on knots in others' cravats for so long. I am fond of Egypt, as you know. Perhaps, when I take the fit to travel there again, you would accompany me?'
I blinked. I had toyed with the idea of offering to be his paid assistant or secretary when he traveled again, but I'd thought I'd have to persuade him. Now he offered it between one breath and the next. He was offering to pay my expenses, because he knew bloody well I could not.
'How would we fare as traveling companions?' I asked. 'I am not the easiest man to live with.'
'Nor am I. We would arrange something so that we were not in each other's pockets. I would be lying ill in my cabin for most of the voyage, in any case. Do consider it.'
'Unfortunately, at present, I am busy with my duties at the Sudbury School,' I said.
He threw me an accusing glance. 'I know. I apologize, Lacey. I had forgotten what an idiot Rutledge could be. I truly thought you could uncover his problem, and he would shower you with gratitude.' He sighed. 'My benevolence seems to have backfired.'
His contrite look did not quite make me forgive him, but I decided not to be surly. 'Rutledge is not your fault, and the problem is much more subtle than it first appeared. Shall we commence with Middleton's chamber?'
Chapter Ten
The stable hand Thomas Adams grudgingly pointed us the way to the room Middleton had occupied during the six months he'd lived here.
The stable hands slept in a sort of dormitory above the stables, with bunks along the walls. It was warm there, the horses in their boxes below lending their heat and fragrance to the air.
Middleton had had a room to himself, more of a walled off portion of the dormitory. The room was simply furnished. He'd had a low-post bedstead with a straw mattress, a table and a chair, and hooks for his clothes.
The clothes had gone, but the table still held a pile of papers, weighted down by a large book.
The one window looked out over the stable yard and the land beyond. The canal was a flat, gray line across the green. I could see the lock and the lockkeeper's house. A low barge was floating toward the lock, slowing as it approached. The lockkeeper emerged from his house, brushing off the front of his coat, and trudged to meet it.
'This is interesting,' Grenville said behind me.
I turned from the window. Grenville had moved the book and was now leafing through the pile of papers. He unfolded one and spread it across the table.
I moved to him and looked over his shoulder. 'What is it?'
He had spread out a finely detailed map of the Kennet and Avon Canal. The map depicted the portion of the canal from Kintbury in the east to Devises in the west. Every village was marked, as was every lock and every bridge on the canal. A solid vertical line marked the boundary between Berkshire and Wiltshire.
'Was Middleton interested in canal navigation?' Grenville wondered aloud. 'He was a horseman, was he not?'
I flipped through more papers. These were also maps, sketches of the canal and the lands beyond, each focusing on a small fragment of canal. On two maps, a line of another canal intersected the main canal, one at Hungerford and another at Newbury.
'But there are no canals there,' Grenville said. 'Are there?' He looked at the main map. It showed only the Kennet and Avon Canal, with no offshoots. 'I admit I do not know the layout of every waterway in England,' he said, 'but I am fairly certain there are no branches of the canal there.'
'Perhaps they are old maps with proposed routes that were never finished,' I suggested. 'This canal was only opened completely end to end seven years ago.'
'But why would Middleton be interested in the canal before or after it was finished? And keep detailed maps
