A Regimental Murder (17 page)

I advanced to shake hands, but Grenville
stopped, staring. "A moment," he said in an odd voice. "I remember
you. You were in Kent, at Astley Close, four days ago. I saw you
there, at Jack Sharp's boxing match."

* * * * *

Chapter Thirteen

I looked from the two of them to Grenville.
Grenville was scowling at them, and the large man scowled back. The
other wet his lips, his gaze flicking to me and back to
Grenville.

"You must be mistaken," he said.

"I'm not," Grenville said flatly. "I saw you
both. You watched the match. I did not know who you were, but I
remember you."

I did not recall seeing either one of them in
Kent, but then, I had backed out of the crowd, and later been
distracted by Breckenridge and Eggleston. My pulse quickened with
my speculations. These men certainly had motive to murder the
officers from Badajoz, and now we knew they had been on the spot
for Breckenridge's death.

The smaller man shot his brother an anxious
glance. "Shall we sit down, gentlemen? And discuss this?"

He pulled back a straight-legged chair with
trembling hand and sat down. Grenville took the seat next to him.
His larger brother waited until I'd seated myself, then he joined
us. I noted he chose a chair with the least obstructed path to the
door.

The smaller gentleman offered his hand. "I am
Kenneth Spencer. My brother, John."

I shook his hand. John Spencer did not offer
his. He sat with arms folded, regarding us in deep suspicion. He
certainly looked strong enough to break a man's neck, even a man as
muscular as Breckenridge had been.

Keeping my expression neutral, I said, "So
you did not go to Norfolk, after all."

"We had," Kenneth answered. John shot him a
glare, but Kenneth plunged on. "But John discovered that Lord
Breckenridge was traveling to Kent and decided we should go there
to speak to him."

"Why?" I asked.

John Spencer unfolded his arms. "By all
accounts, Lord Breckenridge was present at my father's death. That
makes me interested in him."

"And did you speak to him?"

His lip curled. "No. Their lordships do not
take kindly to being approached without introduction."

And the two of them had no doubt closed ranks
against Captain Spencer's sons, just as they had against
Pomeroy.

Spencer fell silent as the proprietor brought
port for Grenville and coffee for the rest of us. We sipped in
tense silence for a moment, then Kenneth took up the tale. "We left
Kent immediately after Mr. Sharp had fallen at the end of his
match, and reached London that night. We found Mr. Grenville's
letter, sent on from Norfolk, waiting for us. I believed that
meeting Captain Lacey would be a good idea." He glanced at his
brother, who scowled back. "Perhaps together we can see an end to
this matter."

"There will be no end until my father's
murder is avenged," John said fiercely. "Colonel Westin escaped
justice, and now Lord Breckenridge has as well."

"I consider Colonel Westin's death a
blessing," Kenneth said quickly. "It saved us all from being
dragged through the courts. The newspapers were bad enough."

John frowned at me. "If you gentlemen have
come here to convince me to give up my search for the truth, save
your breath. I am not satisfied that Colonel Westin killed my
father, much as he was ready to admit to it." He shot his brother a
stony look.

"I agree with you, Mr. Spencer," I broke in
to what sounded like a long-standing argument. "I think the
conclusion too pat, and it does not tally with what I have learned
of Colonel Westin's character."

John lifted his brows in surprise. "You share
my assessment? I assumed you friends of their lordships."

Grenville gave a half-laugh. "Good heavens,
no."

I looked at John. "I would be interested to
know how you discovered that your father's death was murder at all.
That he was not a random and unfortunate victim of the rioting at
Badajoz."

"Colonel Westin himself," Kenneth said.

I stared at him. "I beg your pardon? He told
you?"

John sipped his coffee, face dark. "He wrote
a letter to our mother. Just after my father's death. We did not
know; she kept it to herself, and I found it among her papers after
she died last winter. In it, Colonel Westin apologized profusely
for our father's death at Badajoz. As though an apology could ever
suffice."

His brother broke in. "Colonel Westin was
kind to write. He said the incident had been unfortunate, and those
men who had caused it deserved to be punished, but he was powerless
in the matter. He was trying to console her."

John snorted. "It was not kindness. Guilt,
rather. I wondered why the devil he had chosen to write at all. He
was not my father's commanding officer; they were not even in the
same regiment. I concluded that he must have been present at my
father's death, and had known how utterly wrong it had been."

I watched him pensively. The remorse that
moved Colonel Westin to pen the letter fit with what I'd learned of
his character so far.

"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 temper
at Allandale's impudence. Allandale was overstepping his mark,
trying to slide in as man of the house before he'd even married
Lydia's daughter. I was pleased to note that, because she'd
mentioned selling the house, Colonel Westin must have left it to
her outright. I hoped he had left her everything absolutely, as a
man with no entail and no son might do. Doubtless she held any
money left to her daughter in trust. It would be in Allandale's
best interest to ingratiate himself to Lydia, but the fool
obviously did not know how to do it.