The Masterful Mr. Montague (13 page)

Stokes’s lips slowly stretched in a predatory smile. “Which brings me back to the question of how to deal with the Halsteads.” He glanced around the table. “Given we believe the murderer is one of them, I intend to tell them as little as possible.”

“Hear, hear,” Barnaby said. “As Montague just illustrated, the less they know, the better.”

Stokes faintly grimaced. “In addition to that, however, at this juncture I think it will be best if Miss Matcham and Miss Westcott are also not informed of our progress. Even though we believe they’re entirely innocent, they are nevertheless suspects, at least in the family’s eyes, and”—he raised his shoulders in a slight shrug—“like it or not, we need to treat them as such.”

Penelope didn’t share that view and said so. Somewhat tartly.

Even though neither lady had yet met Violet Matcham or Tilly Westcott, Griselda agreed. “For all you know, they might be in danger, and not telling them of your findings might fail to put them on guard.”

Montague cleared his throat. “As to that, I believe Miss Matcham’s intelligence is such that she is already well aware that the murderer is most likely a family member. That being so, I can’t see that telling her of Runcorn’s murder at this point will serve any purpose other than to add to her distress.” He met Stokes’s gaze. “She met Runcorn recently, several times, when he called upon Lady Halstead.”

Stokes nodded. “So it’s agreed—we do our best to investigate the family while keeping our findings close to our collective chest.”

The men all agreed; the ladies abstained but didn’t argue.

“Right, then.” Stokes set down his empty ale mug. “I need to return to Runcorn’s office and finalize things there. And while I’m doing that, I’ll have the constables go around again and ask for any sightings of a veiled lady.” He met Adair’s, then Montague’s, gazes. “Just to ensure our mysterious lady hasn’t played a larger role in this drama.”

Adair nodded. “And I rather think I should return to Grimshaws Bank and see if anyone noticed which way the lady went. You never know—that might give us some clues.”

“While you’re there,” Montague said, eyes narrowing in thought, “you might ask to speak with the head clerk again and inquire as to how the payments were made. It’s a very long shot, especially with deposits made in cash, but one never knows—the tellers might recall.” He met Adair’s eyes and shrugged. “It’s worth asking. And if the head clerk doesn’t recall your connection to this matter”—he pulled out a card and handed it to Adair—“feel free to use my name.”

Adair took the card, raised it in salute. “I will. It’s a good point.”

“And I,” Montague stated, “will continue to seek information in my usual sphere. Those payments are puzzling. If I can’t get to the bottom of them by analyzing the Halstead accounts, I might call in a few favors and see if any of my colleagues have any suggestions.” He looked at Stokes. “All with the utmost discretion, of course.”

Stokes nodded and pushed back his chair. “So we all have things to do.”

Adair rose, too. “Matters to pursue, avenues to follow.”

Montague hid a smile and got to his feet. With compliments and thanks to Griselda, and a bow to Penelope, he followed Stokes and Adair through the house, out of the front door, and out through the gate.

Stokes paused on the pavement, met Adair’s, then Montague’s, eyes. “I suggest we meet again at your office in the City later this afternoon and pool what we’ve learned. We’ll need to see the family again, clearly, but I would like to have as much information as possible before we call them together again.”

Adair nodded. So did Montague. With salutes, the trio parted and went their separate ways.

Penelope stood at the front window of the sitting room and, with Griselda beside her, watched the three men stride away. “Off they go, busily investigating. What odds will you give me that they plan to meet later—just the three of them—to compare notes?”

Griselda snorted. “That’s no wager—it’s a certainty.” Arms crossed beneath her bosom, she nodded toward the pavement. “That’s what that little gathering was about—setting a time and place.”

“I suppose,” Penelope said, head tilting as she considered, “in the circumstances, the violence of murder can only be expected to make them more protective.”

“Not that they weren’t protective enough to begin with, but I take your point.” Griselda glanced at Penelope. “Matters have changed, and adequate adjustments have yet to be made.”

“Indeed.” Penelope nodded. “So they’ve headed off, and we know what they’re doing. What does that leave us to do?” After a second, she answered her own question. “I rather think we should see what we can learn about the Halstead family from a social perspective. The Halsteads, and the Camberlys, too.”

“Oh,” Griselda said, her voice rising with interest and subtle excitement, “I know just where to start.” She met Penelope’s eyes, read her speculative, questioning gaze, and smiled. “Just let me have a word to Gloria and make sure Megan’s settled, then I’ll grab my bonnet and show you.”

“Show me what?” Penelope asked.

Griselda grinned. “The other side of fashionable shopping.”

Penelope looked intrigued. She waved Griselda on, then followed on her heels. “I’ll get my coat and bonnet on and meet you at the door.”

Chapter 7

S
tokes spent an hour and a half at Runcorn’s offices, finalizing details and overseeing the securing of the premises. “Just as a precaution,” he said to the local sergeant, “I want two men watching the place at all times, but there’s no need for them to make themselves visible. One can be inside, the other keeping an eye on the door and the street from the pub across the way.”

The sergeant arched his brows. “Think he’ll come back?”

“I think it’s a possibility.” Stokes looked up as the three constables he’d sent to ask around as to any veiled lady sighted in the area over the last days returned.

They saluted. At Stokes’s questioning look, the more senior shook his head. “No luck, sir. We’ve asked up and down both legs of Winchester Street, even managed to catch that match-seller again—she’s an observant one—but no one’s seen any veiled lady loitering about.”

Stokes nodded. “It was a long shot, but one we had to rule out. Good work.”

Two minutes later, he left the sergeant and the constables to organize the details of the watch and headed back to Scotland Yard.

B
arnaby elected to question the bank staff first, before the head clerk had a chance to forget him. He produced Montague’s card anyway, judging that Montague’s reputation had more weight in this sphere than his own.

“Mr. Montague suggested that some of your tellers might recall the means by which recent cash deposits into Lady Halstead’s account were presented.” He took care to affect a hopeful expression. “Any help you or the staff can give us would be much appreciated.”

“Hmm.” The head clerk, a somewhat officious, self-important little man, pursed his lips, but then nodded. “While I can’t promise anything—this is a busy branch with many accounts—if you will give me a few minutes, I’ll see what I can learn.”

Barnaby inclined his head and drifted to where a row of chairs stood against one wall. Sitting in one, he watched as the clerk returned to his desk, flipped through a stack of papers, and withdrew one—presumably another bank record of some sort. After perusing the document, the head clerk took it with him. He scanned the four tellers at their stations, then made his way to one particular teller, an older man at the last window along the counter.

The clerk waited until the teller finished with the customer before him, then stepped in and, showing the teller the back record, pointed to it and asked a question. The two men exchanged words, then the teller nodded.

Barnaby fought the urge to rise and go and see, to question the teller directly . . . he would need to speak to the man directly, regardless of what the head clerk thought or said.

Luckily, the head clerk looked over and beckoned.

When Barnaby came to the counter, the head clerk smiled with arrogant satisfaction. “Mr. Wadsworth recalls receiving the last cash deposit into Lady Halstead’s account clearly, and believes it was presented in the same manner as the previous cash deposits over the last year or so.”

Barnaby inclined his head to the clerk. “Excellent.” He looked at the teller. “Can you remember who paid in the money?”

“Indeed, sir,” Wadsworth said. “I and my colleagues noted it especially, as it seemed . . . well, out of character for what one might imagine for a lady of Lady Halstead’s standing.”

Puzzled, Barnaby asked, “Out of character in what way?”

The teller glanced at the head clerk, as if confirming he was permitted to speak. When the clerk nodded, Wadsworth returned his gaze to Barnaby. “It was a courier service, sir. Always a different person, but they have a valid deposit slip, all properly signed, so we have to accept the cash.”

Barnaby hesitated; the news wasn’t at all what he’d anticipated, but . . . perhaps he should have. “A courier service—by that you mean the sort of service that criminals use for . . . shall we say, suspect payments?”

Wadsworth nodded. “Exactly that sort of service, sir. We tellers get to recognize the couriers, and we certainly recognize their sort. It’s really rather obvious, of course, because they aren’t the sort of person one would imagine having the amount of cash they’re handing over the counter.”

Barnaby nodded. “Thank you both. I’ll take this information back to Mr. Montague and Inspector Stokes.” He met both men’s eyes and lowered his voice. “I’m sure I don’t need to mention that this information is highly sensitive and needs to be kept under your hat.”

“Of course not, sir,” Wadsworth said.

The head clerk drew himself up. “We at Grimshaws Bank pride ourselves on our discretion.”

Hiding a smile, Barnaby inclined his head. “Again, thank you. I bid you gentlemen a good day.”

With polite nods all around, Barnaby left the counter and, suppressing the spring in his step, strode out to the pavement. “One matter accomplished.” He looked about. “Now for the second.”

He spent the next hour in fruitless ambling along the streets surrounding the bank, asking any of those who were, for whatever reason, fixtures along the way if they had sighted the veiled lady earlier that morning. He’d almost given up hope—had almost accepted that one success a day was as much as he could expect—when he saw a boy of ten or so years wielding a broom at the corner of a lane just around the bend in Bishopsgate.

Strolling up to the lad, hands sunk in his greatcoat pockets, he used the line of patter he’d developed over the past hour. “I was supposed to meet my sister here this morning, and, of course, I slept in. She was supposed to go to the bank back there and meet me outside, but now I don’t know if she came and left, or if she hasn’t shown at all. She’s a lady, and she would have been wearing a veil—she usually does when she travels here.”

“Yeah?” The boy eyed him. “So what does she look like, this sister of yourn? Other than being female and wearing a veil?”

Barnaby rattled off the general description—brown hair, middle height, about Barnaby’s own age.

He could barely believe it when the boy nodded. “You saw her?” he asked in response to the boy’s nod.

“Aye.” The boy pointed along the street. “She came walking up from Threadneedle Street, and I’m sorry to have to tell you this, guv, but a gentleman was waiting for her in a coach pulled up to the curb just along there.”

“A gentleman?” Swallowing his leaping excitement, Barnaby adopted a resigned air. “I expect that must have been my cousin. Did you see him?”

“Not well—he stayed in the carriage. Just opened the door and gave the lady his hand to help her inside.” The boy looked at Barnaby questioningly.

Barnaby sighed, pulled out a half crown, and held it up. “So what did he look like?”

“Gentleman—couldn’t say how tall ’cause he was sitting down.” Like a magpie’s, the boy’s eyes had fixed on the shiny coin. “He didn’t have a beard but those side bits as is common now, and his face was roundish, and he had brown hair.” The boy looked at Barnaby as if to ask if that was enough.

“One last thing—how old was this gent?”

The boy blinked. “Thought he was your cousin—don’t you know how old he is?”

“I have several cousins. I’m trying to decide which one it was.”

“Oh.” The boy hesitated, then screwed up his face. “Can’t be sure, can I? I didn’t see him clearly, but . . . the same age as the lady?”

His tone made it clear that his estimation was pure guess. Nevertheless, Barnaby handed over the coin. “Good enough.”

The boy had told him enough to be sure that the veiled lady was working with—or perhaps for—one of the five Halstead males.

Barnaby turned to leave, then halted, hunted in his pocket, and pulled out a sovereign. He swung back to the lad, who had pocketed the half crown. “Here!” When the boy looked up, Barnaby tossed him the sovereign.

Swift as a hawk, the boy plucked the coin from the air. The dawning wonderment in his face as he turned it between his fingers and realized his good fortune made Barnaby grin.

When the boy glanced up, Barnaby jauntily saluted him. “That’s for being observant. Put it to good use.”

He left the boy staring at the wealth in his palm. Feeling thoroughly pleased, Barnaby strode down the street toward Montague’s office.

A
fter returning to Chapel Court and his office, Montague’s first act was to check on Pringle. Seated at the desk Slocum had cleared and assigned to him, Pringle was steadily working his way through the accumulated Halstead financial records.

“They go back nearly thirty years.” Pringle held up one account. “Sir Hugo dealt with young Mr. Runcorn’s father, who had the business before him. I can’t tell whether it was the villain who did it, or the constables when they gathered them up, but the papers are in a right jumble.”

“So you can’t yet say if anything’s missing?” Montague asked.

Pringle shook his head. “Not until I get everything in order again.”

Leaving him to it, suppressing his impatience to get on and do—to analyze the accounts and find the murderer and so ensure Violet Matcham was safe—Montague spoke with Gibbons and Foster, reviewing their on-going work with the firm’s clients, then he confirmed the arrangements to have the pair take over all scheduled meetings for the next several days. His own slate thus cleared, he retreated to his office and settled behind his desk.

The papers Pringle had copied and sent to him sat in a thick sheaf to one side. They beckoned, but Montague resisted. There was one other effort he could and should make, an avenue he could pursue to directly identify the odd payments. Returning to his copy of Lady Halstead’s bank statement—the document that had given rise to the intrigue of money and murder—he made a neat list of all the odd deposits stretching back over the last fourteen months.

List completed, he studied it, then called in Slocum and dictated four letters.

Each letter was a separate request, reminding the recipient, each of them one of his peers, of a past favor done for them by Montague or his firm, before describing the pattern of deposits into the Halstead account and asking whether the recipient was aware of any similar deposits made into their clients’ bank accounts, and, if so, if they had identified the source and the purpose behind said deposits.

Within the circle of select men-of-business to which all those he’d elected to contact belonged, absolute discretion was assured.

As Slocum retreated to dispatch the letters, Montague stared at the list of deposits, then grimaced. “Who knows? Perhaps this
is
a more widespread occurrence, something that’s happening to others as well.” Alternatively, one of his peers might have some insight into possible sources of such not-quite-regular mystery deposits.

Inwardly sighing, he turned to the Halstead records, the pile comprised of the papers Runcorn had initially given him, as well as those documents Pringle had subsequently copied and sent; lifting the inches-thick pile, he placed it squarely on the center of his wide blotter. Leaning back in his chair, he considered the stack.

Could Runcorn have been a party to whatever scheme the murderer had been running?

In his mind, Montague returned to his meeting with the younger man-of-business, studied again his fresh, open face, reviewed again his eager expression, his patent wish to please . . . the touch of awe he’d accorded Montague.

Everything Montague had sensed about Runcorn had rung true; even in hindsight, he could see no reason to change his assessment of the honesty and trustworthiness of the younger man.

“So”—Montague refocused on the pile of papers—“Runcorn had no idea what was going on, but the murderer believed that when Runcorn reviewed the file to get Lady Halstead’s affairs in order, he would discover something, enough to be alerted to whatever illegality the murderer was engaged in.”

Getting a client’s affairs in order involved, among other things, a complete listing of all assets, including all investments currently held, an estimate of their current capital worth, and an accounting of the income deriving from them, as well as a complete reconciliation of bank accounts and monies in the Funds and similar deposits. The last review of the Halsteads’ affairs would most likely have been done ten years earlier, at the time of Sir Hugo’s death.

Between them, Runcorn and Pringle had extracted, copied, and had delivered to Montague all the papers necessary for him to perform such a review, essentially to get both the Halstead estate’s affairs, as well as Lady Halstead’s personal affairs, in order.

“Which means,” Montague murmured, reaching out to check the numbers inscribed in Pringle’s neat hand at the bottom left corner of each page, “that somewhere in this pile should lay some sign of what the murderer has killed twice to conceal.”

Confirming via Pringle’s notations that the pile was assembled earliest to most recent, Montague lifted the top sheet and started at the beginning.

The clock on his desk stolidly ticked on. Immersed in the documents though he was, checking and making notes on past and present investments, he found his gaze drawn, again and again, to the list of the odd, unaccounted-for deposits that he’d made earlier and had laid aside.

An hour passed. Then another fifteen minutes and he could stand it no longer.

Setting aside the larger pile along with his notes to that point, he picked up the list of deposits, studied it one more time, then rose and went to his door. Looking over the outer office, he called, “Gibbons?”

When Frederick Gibbons looked up, Montague waved the list. “If you would, I’d like your opinion.”

Sometimes a fresh pair of eyes saw matters more clearly.

Gibbons promptly rose and followed Montague back into his office.

Returning to his chair, Montague waved Gibbons to a chair before the desk. He waited until Gibbons sat and leveled a curious look at him, before saying, “I want you to look over this list. It’s a set of deposits made into a bank account—I’ve listed both the amounts and the dates on which each deposit was made. I’m trying to identify what the source of these payments might be.”

With that, he extended the list.