'Is he kind to you?' I asked.
'I suppose he is.' Mrs. Bennington pressed delicate fingers to her temples. 'Really, Captain, my head does ache.'
Grady, her face set, poured a thick liquid into a small glass and pushed it at Mrs. Bennington.
Lady Breckenridge, still looking interested, sat down amid a pile of velvet gowns. 'So you handed over the scrap of lace to your husband. When was that?'
'Oh, good heavens, I hardly remember.' Mrs. Bennington took the draught from Grady and drank it down. She sighed in contentment when she handed the glass back, as though her headache already had started to fade. 'Before supper, certainly. My husband escorted Lady Aline to the supper room. He'd told me to obtain the scrap of lace from her, but I'd only had opportunity to speak to Lady Breckenridge. Mr. Bennington was annoyed, I remember, that I had not approached Lady Aline.'
Who was large and strong and could have driven a knife into Turner's heart were she cruel enough to do so.
'Do you love your husband, Mrs. Bennington?' I asked abruptly.
Her eyes widened. 'Why ask that?'
'Because he is a murderer,' I said. 'And I wondered if you would help me or be loyal to him.'
Chapter Eighteen
Lady Breckenridge looked at me in complete astonishment. 'Mr. Bennington?' She grew thoughtful. 'Yes, I see.'
Mrs. Bennington lowered her gaze. 'I should be loyal. He is my husband.'
Grady broke in fiercely, 'She's nothing to do with it. I'll not see her in the dock for this.'
'Nor will I,' I said.
I tried to sound reassuring, but Grady moved between me and her mistress. 'She is innocent. She can't help what that fiend of a husband does.'
'I know,' I said. 'I imagine Mr. Bennington used her from the moment he met her. He knew that as the husband of a celebrated actress, he would be eclipsed by her, and he was correct.'
Grenville did not look terribly surprised by my assessment, but he was not happy.
Lady Breckenridge's eyes sparkled with interest. She was possibly the only person in the room not charged with emotion.
'I can work out how he must have done it,' she said. 'He challenged Mrs. Bennington to obtain a bit of lace from a lady. Which she did-from me. Mr. Bennington goes into the anteroom at some time before supper, opens the door to the servants' passage, and affixes the lace to the nail to mark the door he needed. He does not want to use something of his own or his wife's in case it is found.
'He makes an appointment to meet Turner in the anteroom at midnight. Just before midnight, he slips out of the ballroom and into one of the sitting rooms along the hall. He waits until the servants' passage is empty, enters it, finds the door he marked, and enters the anteroom, taking the bit of lace in with him. He stabs Mr. Turner, eases him into the chair, and places the lace in the pocket. He leaves Colonel Brandon's knife in the wound and exits through the back passage just before Mrs. Harper enters.' She stopped and drew a breath. 'Yes, I believe that explains everything neatly.'
'Though not how he obtained Brandon's knife,' I said.
'Nor why Mr. Bennington should want to murder Mr. Turner at all,' Lady Breckenridge added, looking only at me.
'I've made some guesses about that,' I said. 'Both Turner and Bennington were on the Continent at the same time and both recently returned to London. Perhaps Turner knew things that Bennington did not want others to know. Turner seems to have been good at finding guilty secrets. Perhaps he knew the things that led Mr. Bennington to change his name. ' I fixed my gaze on Grady. 'Do you know?'
Grady glanced at her mistress, who kept her gaze fixed on her lap. Grady wet her thin lips and said, 'Bennington is a bad sort. But my lady, she was deep in debt-she will wager recklessly. That was not the first time she'd been in deep.'
'You should be more careful,' Grenville said to Mrs. Bennington. She flushed but did not look up.
'Aye, that's what I tell her,' Grady said. 'One of her creditors, he was threatening her with arrest. And us being in Italy, what would happen if she was taken by foreign police? Then this Mr. Worth, he comes backstage one night and says he'll pay the debts, all of them, free and clear, if only she'll marry him, in name alone.'
'That must have seemed an answer from heaven,' I said.
Mrs. Bennington raised her head. 'I was so relieved, I could not refuse him. I saw no reason to refuse him. He said I could do what I pleased, and he would keep me out of trouble with the creditors. Why should I not marry him?'
'Because he is a blackguard,' Grenville said. 'Did you not sense that?'
'But he offered to help me. I wanted to go to London to perform, and he enabled me to do so. He has heaps of money. He was left a grand inheritance.'
'He was,' I said. 'From a relative in Scotland.'
'Yes,' Mrs. Bennington answered.
'Did your husband know Mr. Turner on the Continent?'
Mrs. Bennington looked blank. 'I have no idea.'
'Aye, he knew him,' Grady said, her face grim.
I started to ask why the devil she hadn't mentioned this on my previous visit, but I remembered that Grady had not been in the room when I'd discussed Turner with Mrs. Bennington. When I'd spoken to Grady, she'd only wanted to talk about Grenville's anger at her mistress.
'You saw him?' I asked Grady. 'In Italy?'
'Yes,' Grady said. 'Mr. Turner came to visit Mr. Bennington when we were in Milan. Talked to him like he wasn't a stranger, like they'd met before, but Mr. Bennington wasn't best pleased to see him. Then Mr. Turner went away, and I forgot all about it.'
'A magistrate would be interested in knowing this,' I said. 'Why have you said nothing?'
'I didn't think it mattered, and I didn't want my lady bothered by Bow Street. That's the truth. That Runner, the one who came to the ball, was a great bully. And my lady had nothing to do with Turner getting himself killed. Besides, if her husband's convicted of murder, my lady loses his money. What's to become of her then?'
Grady looked anguished, but Mrs. Bennington seemed more resigned. 'I have my money from the stage,' she said. 'And I have been poor before.'
'You will not be again,' Grenville said. 'I will see to it.'
Both Lady Breckenridge and I looked at him in surprise. Grenville's face was flushed. 'I will take care of you, Claire,' he said. 'I offered to before, remember?'
Mrs. Bennington turned to him, eyes wide. 'You frightened me. You said I must divorce my husband. I did not know what to think.'
Neither did I. Grenville and Mrs. Bennington looked at each other, and the pair of them seemed to forget that the rest of us were in the room.
'When you are free of Bennington, I will take care of you,' Grenville said. 'I told you this, and I promise it. I should have done so long ago.'
I exchanged a glance with Lady Breckenridge. She raised her brows, and I shook my head slightly, to indicate that I too did not know what to make of the conversation.
Lady Breckenridge broke in. 'Mr. Turner is dead now. So who can know what he wanted with Bennington? To blackmail him, presumably, over the fact that Bennington was not Mr. Bennington. Did Bennington want to leave Italy because of Turner, or because others also had got wind of his deception? And why did it matter so much?'
'I plan to ask him,' I said. 'Where is Mr. Bennington at present?'
Mrs. Bennington shrugged. 'I never notice where he goes.'
