Pomeroy went on, 'Mrs. Brandon told me to fetch you here.'
'Mrs. Brandon is a wise woman.'
'Aye, sir. I always obey when Mrs. Brandon gives orders.'
'Good man.'
I lifted the knife and held it between my palms, the point touching one hand and the handle touching the other. The knife told me little. The blade was slim and stained with blood. Neither blade nor hilt contained any markings or engravings. In itself, the knife indicated nothing.
I laid the knife on the table. 'Please show me where he was found.'
Pomeroy raised thick yellow brows. 'Don't know what good that is. It's just a room.'
'All the same.'
Pomeroy gave me the look he'd always reserved for my more questionable orders, but he lumbered away.
Before I left I looked down at Turner once more. A young man, his life abruptly ended. Did he have a father and mother, brothers, a wife, an affianced? His face told me nothing. He'd been a dandy and a well-to-do young man-his clothes and the emerald stickpin attested to that.
Lucius Grenville would know all about him. Grenville would know the young man's crowd, his intimates, his family. Grenville would also be able to tell me where Mr. Turner went to school, what wagers he liked to place at White's, and what kind of horses he drove. The Polite World knew everything about everyone, and this was definitely a crime of the Polite World.
I followed Pomeroy down the staircase. This house was opulent, with no expense spared to impress the invited guest. The staircase lifted three stories from a wide hall paved with marble, and paintings of Gillis ancestors marched up the walls to the domed ceiling at the top. The stair railing was wrought iron, shaped in fantastic curlicues.
Pomeroy's boots clumped swiftly as we descended. I followed more slowly, my footsteps punctuated by the sharp tap of my walking stick. At forty-one, I already walked like an old man, courtesy of a painful wound in my left leg-a wound for which Colonel Brandon was directly responsible.
Lord Gillis had remodeled his abode with modern conveniences-large windows, airy rooms, and hidden halls and staircases through which servants could pass without being seen by the inhabitants or their guests. But the house did not want us there. The cream-colored walls and marble floor were cold, and the ancestors by Reynolds and Holbein frowned upon us. The house did its best to shut out all that was not beautiful and glittering, and so was disdainful of a former sergeant and a captain of limited means tramping through its halls.
We left the staircase and trudged through an equally grand corridor that led to the ballroom. A short staircase from this took us to the ballroom floor. Ladies and gentlemen would sweep down these graceful stairs, announced by the majordomo at the top.
The ceiling was punctuated with ponderous chandeliers, each holding about fifty candles. All but a few candles had been extinguished, rendering the room gloomy. Hours ago, this room had blossomed with light and music, with gentlemen in evening dress and ladies in velvets and jewels gliding elegantly about.
Lucius Grenville waited for us with Lord Gillis. Lord Gillis drank brandy, and from his pink complexion, he'd consumed quite a few glasses.
Grenville, brandy glass in hand, cool sangfroid in place, greeted us with a nod. 'Lord Gillis, may I present my friend, Captain Gabriel Lacey. Captain Lacey, Lord Gillis.'
We might have been at a soiree. Lord Gillis was fifty and gray, but he had the physique of a man who enjoyed hearty walking and riding. He looked up at my six-foot height with strong eyes.
According to Pomeroy, Lord Gillis had been serving as a major on the Peninsula in 1811, when he'd received word that his cousin, the previous earl, had died. He'd quit the army and returned home, but he still retained his military bearing and his interest in military men and events.
'I wish the circumstances of the meeting were happier, Captain,' Lord Gillis said shaking my offered hand. 'Our little ball will be a nine days' wonder.'
'Will you show me where it happened?' I asked.
Lord Gillis pointed. 'In the room just at the foot of the stairs. Forgive me, but somehow I never want to see it again.'
'I am sorry,' I said. 'Did you know Mr. Turner well?'
Lord Gillis looked surprised. 'Not at all. Henry Turner was the friend of a friend of my wife's. So she tells me. But murder is a grim business, Captain. It was a gruesome sight.'
Death in battle was far more gruesome. I recalled piles of bodies before the walls at Badajoz, young men torn in half by blasts, some ripped open but still alive, screaming in pain and fear. Henry Turner had looked peaceful, hardly touched.
Grenville volunteered to show me the room. His face, which was rather pointed, revealed no emotion, and his dark eyes did not glitter with as much curiosity as I'd thought they would.
Tonight, Grenville wore the finest clothes I'd ever seen on him. His coat was black superfine, cut in a style likely invented this morning and which would be all the rage by tomorrow. Next week, Grenville would return to his tailor and invent yet another fashion, and this week's coat would be discarded by one and all.
Black pantaloons hugged muscular legs that ladies liked to admire. I'd seen caricatures and cartoons in newspapers about his legs and the way ladies ogled them. The diamond stickpin in his cravat was large and elegant, though not so large as to be vulgar.
'It was not pleasant, I must tell you,' Grenville said as we crossed the inlaid floor toward the stairs. We walked alone; Lord Gillis stayed behind to speak to Pomeroy. 'Mrs. Harper found him a little past midnight. She began screaming in a horrible way, half mad with it. She had blood on her hand and it seemed to make her crazed.'
'Blood?' Turner's wound had been small and nearly clean.
'I saw it on her glove. The poor woman was horrified. The ladies near her seemed more inclined to recoil from her than to help her. I was able to take her aside to pour brandy into her.'
'Where is Mrs. Harper now?'
'Home. Her servants rallied round and got her away.'
I was becoming more and more intrigued by this Imogene Harper. Why had she gone into the room where she'd found Turner? How had she gotten the blood on her glove without putting her hand on the knife or the wound itself? And why the devil did Brandon agree to Pomeroy's accusation that Mrs. Harper was his mistress?
'I must meet this woman,' I said.
Grenville gave me an odd look. 'I'd never seen her before tonight. You did not know her?'
'No.'
'Hmm.'
He opened a door with panels picked out in gold. The room behind the door was small, a retiring room for the convenience of the guests.
Scarlet damask covered the upper walls which were framed by gold-painted panels. The wainscoting was pale gray, also framed in gold leaf. The ceiling, much lower than that of the ballroom, had been painted with a gaudy scene of Apollo and his chariot chasing nymphs across an arch of sky.
The only furniture in the room was a slim-legged Sheraton writing table and a small Sheraton chair with two carved slats on its back. The tastefully austere table and chair contrasted sharply with the ornamentation of the walls and ceiling.
'He was found here.' Grenville pointed to the chair. 'Slumped forward, as though he'd fallen asleep or was foxed. Lord Gillis himself lifted him, and then we saw the knife in his chest. His eyes were open, but he was quite dead.'
I studied the chair and writing table. Both pieces of furniture were innocuous, betraying nothing of Turner's sudden and violent death. The desk presented a smooth, golden satinwood surface with an inlaid design on its edges. Nothing rested on its top.
The chair faced the desk, away from the door. I circled chair and desk once then stopped.
'Grenville, would you mind?'
'Show you how he looked, you mean?' Grenville gave his usual cool shrug, but his face was white. He strolled to the chair and sat down. 'Slumped over the desk, as I said.' He arranged himself in an untidy hunch, resting his
