‘Lord Riley, my lady,’ Gregg said, withdrawing again and closing the door quietly behind him. Riley had yet to encounter a butler who closed doors in any other way. He wondered if that particular skill formed part of their training and if they were ever overcome with a burning desire to give one a satisfying slam. He made a mental note to ask Stout. He would know.
‘Ah, Riley, thank you so much for coming! I am at my wits’ end.’
Riley heard Salter gasp and then clear his throat as Ida Randall descended upon Riley and offered him both of her hands. Riley dutifully took one of them and bowed over it, disturbed by her extreme agitation. She wore a diaphanous robe that left little to the imagination, which was nothing out of the ordinary for Ida. In other circumstances Riley would have grinned as he saw Jack Salter fix his eyes on the open window and the garden beyond. What struck Riley as incongruous was the dishevelled state of her hair and the fact that her eyes were red and swollen, obviously as a result of excessive crying.
‘Do sit down, Ida,’ Riley said solicitously. ‘You don’t look at all well.’ He led her to a chair and forced her into it. ‘This is my colleague, Sergeant Salter. We came as soon as we got your message.’ Riley perched on a chair across from her and Salter returned his attention to the room and its occupants, standing as always with his notebook and pencil poised. ‘Now, what’s all this I hear about your being careless with your household staff?’
Riley’s attempt at levity was met with a heartfelt sob. ‘He did not come back after his day off. It’s not at all like Ezra to be unreliable, and I am working myself into the most terrible state of anxiety about him.’
‘Ah, Ezra.’ Salter sounded relieved.
‘Your missing footman is called Ezra?’ Riley asked.
‘Yes. Ezra Dawson.’
Riley sent Salter a sharp look. ‘Ezra is his given name?’
‘Yes, of course.’ She slapped a hand against her brow. ‘Actually no, I call him Ezra and so everyone in this house does too. His real name is John, but that’s so pedestrian, don’t you think? He looked much more like an Ezra, a strapping hero of modern fiction, and I told him so. We used to laugh about it.’
‘I hesitate to offend my sergeant’s sensibilities, but I assume that you and Ezra were intimately involved.’
‘Well of course we were, Riley. Why else would I be so upset?’
‘Blimey,’ Salter muttered.
‘In your own household?’ Riley said softly. ‘Randall didn’t object?’
Ida flapped a hand. ‘Silly boy! You know how things are with Philip and me. He has no interest in that sort of thing nowadays. All he cares about are his stuffy political battles. He understands my needs and doesn’t mind in the least. I sometimes wish that he did, but he lost all interest in that side of our marriage after our third child was born. He told me that he had more than done his duty in that regard. The only thing guaranteed to make him jealous nowadays is when his ideas are eclipsed by one of his fellow bureaucrats.’ She glanced up at Salter and smiled, some of her old spirit evident in her swollen eyes. ‘I see what you mean about your sergeant. We are definitely embarrassing him. His ears have turned quite red.’
‘I’m sorry to distress you, Ida,’ Riley said gently, ‘but I’m afraid we are the bearers of very bad news.’
‘No!’ she gasped before Riley could say more, clutching a handkerchief to her face, as if she knew what to expect.
‘You must be very brave.’ He gave her hand a brief squeeze and released it again. He doubted whether Ida had followed Dawson to Clapham and clouted him over the head in a fit of jealous rage, but it wouldn’t do to show her preferential treatment either. ‘A man’s body was discovered this morning and my sergeant recognised him as John Dawson, a young man with a family in Clapham.’
She nodded slowly, tears pouring down her cheeks. ‘His mother lives there,’ she said, and subsided into a fresh bout of sobbing.
There was a brandy decanter on the sideboard. Riley moved across to it, poured a small measure and pushed the glass into Ida’s hand.
‘For the shock,’ he said.
She drank it down in one swallow but still seemed incapable of coherent speech. She was more upset by the demise of her servant than Riley had anticipated would be the case, despite their intimacy, which created a whole raft of possibilities in his mind.
‘One imagines your household all knew the true nature of your relationship with Ezra,’ he said, when she had regained a modicum of composure.
Ida gave a negligent shrug. ‘One assumes so, but they would know better than to speak of it outside these walls. I pay my servants above the going rate, and I require their total loyalty in return.’
‘What of your children?’
‘What of them?’
Riley smiled at the distressed woman. ‘Were they aware of your affection for your footman?’
‘Possibly.’ She lifted one shoulder, apparently indifferent to their feelings on the matter. ‘I didn’t
