“Well I remember it. The solicitors appeared at Scargrave immediately upon the Earl's death, but stayed only a few hours; thereafter all matters were conducted by post. And what a quantity of post! Madame Delahoussaye undertook several times to tidy the Earl's library, and was all agog at the mess.”
“According to Lord Scargrave, he never varies from routine in matters of business. In writing a letter, he painstakingly draws up a draft, and then copies it for clarity's sake onto another sheet of paper. It is the final copy which he sends to the recipient.”
“He has copies of all his correspondence?”
“He does. I think it possible that the phrase in question was torn from just such a draft—left lying about the Earl's library desk, to which everyone might have access — and the rest of the sheet destroyed.” The barrister slapped his knees in excitement, and sat back in his chair.
“But how to find the very letter?”
“I am directed to Fitzroy Payne's valet,” Mr. Cranley said, looking about him as though the man were hiding in one of the corners, “who retains a list of the Earl's correspondence, as well as his personal papers. If the draft of a letter is missing, we may discover to whom the final copy was sent, and search for the incriminating phrase in its text.”
I wished to partake of the barrister's evident satisfaction, but a doubt assailed me. “Do we look among the Manor household as you suggest, Mr. Cranley — where any might have access to the Earl's library and his drafts — or must we consider that the letter's recipient might also be the murderer?”
The barrister looked thoughtful at this, and rose restlessly from his chair. “If the maid's murderer received a letter from the Earl containing the incriminating language, he should have no need of a draft; it required only to tear the phrase from the letter itself and send it to the maid. If that is the case, we cannot hope to locate the damaged letter itself.” “But we may learn the murderer's identity, from finding the phrase of the maid's note in a draft of the letter in Danson's possession,” I observed.
Mr. Cranley beamed at me in approval. “If, however, the murderer is a member of the household — who searched among the Earl's drafts, and tore the incriminating phrase from the page — then the draft itself should be absent from Danson's collection.”
“This cannot show the Earl's innocence,” I mused, “but it may demonstrate that anyone familiar with the household — and Fitzroy Payne's habits of correspondence — might readily have secured a sample of his handwriting, and without his knowledge.”
“We are of one mind, Miss Austen,” the barrister said. “Our best hope of securing the Countess's freedom, as well as that of Fitzroy Payne, is to show the guilt of another. There is no avoiding that. But until we may locate our murderer, I shall send for Danson.”
I rose as Mr. Cranley made for the door. “And do you know where he is to be found?”
“Fitzroy Payne sent him on to his London establishment near his clubs in Pall Mall. Danson awaits his master's trial there in solitude — and, one assumes, some measure of despondency. For if the Earl is condemned, his valet's chances of obtaining a suitable new position must be very slim.”
“Danson should be active, then, in assisting us,” I replied. “For his future, too, hangs upon it.”
MR. CRANLEY BELIEVED THAT HIS ONLY DEFENCE LAY IN attacking Sir William on narrow points of law; but it seemed to me a wiser course to present an equally plausible case for the guilt of another — and though I felt myself to be taking on the crushing role of the Divine Creator, in assaying to mete out punishment or pardon, I felt it incumbent upon me to exert myself to that end. While the barrister was about locating Danson, I determined that I should visit Jenny Barlow's sister — and discover why her name had been the cause for such passionate vituperation between the incipient curate, Mr. George Hearst, and his uncle. I suspected it was due to righteous outrage on that gentleman's part at the late Earl's seduction of one of his own servants; but proof was nonetheless necessary.
Did I arrive in the Scargrave carriage, with its arms emblazoned on the doors, I should probably turn Rosie's humble establishment all aflutter; and so I deemed it best to secure a hackney carriage, the better to progress unknown, and thus made my way across Westminster Bridge to South London.
THE ADDRESS JENNY BARLOW HAD GIVEN ME WAS SUCH AS did not disgrace her sister. From the appearance of their exteriors, the homes of many estimable families sit in Gracechurch Street — modest tradesmen, no doubt, and men of profession, whose means have not yet ascended to the West End. I observed many a marble stoop scrubbed clean, and doors pulled wide to the milkman by fresh-faced young maids in starched aprons and mob caps; and felt assured that Rosie Ketch's fortune had been less melancholy than it might.
The hackney pulled up to a well-kept lodging house, with a doorman ready to hand me down; and to him I conveyed my card, and directed that it should be sent to Number 33, in search of Miss Rosie Ketch, and waited for what I might learn. The vestibule of the establishment revealed it to be of modest pretensions and circumstances, as befit the neighbourhood and its inhabitants’ means; and I confess myself as ever more puzzled as to how the girl came to be placed there.
Presently a kindly-faced woman of advanced years descended, and made herself known to me as a Mrs. Hammond — a name which must make me start, as having been attached to the woman identified by Harold Trowbridge as Fitzroy Payne's mistress. Observing that she might rather have been his mother, I decided it to be the merest coincidence; and forebore from impertinent questions. She bade me follow her up several flights of stairs, to an apartment of a few rooms and some comfort, though little style.
“And how, Miss Austen, may I be of service?” Mrs. Hammond said, in the manner of a genteel servant, having seated me on a worn settee by the fire and taken her place opposite. “Your card and your name are unknown to me.”
“But the name of Rosie Ketch is not?” I enquired.
“I have known a Rosie Ketch,” she replied, her kindly eyes nonetheless steely.
“I am come at the behest of Rosie Ketch's sister, Mrs. Barlow, whom I met while a visitor at Scargrave Manor. Mrs. Barlow is in some distress from the fact that she cannot hear from Rosie, and would have news of her by any means; and thus she prevailed upon me to call on her behalf, knowing that I was to be in Town.”
“Dear Jenny!” Mrs. Hammond exclaimed, her features softening. “As kind a girl as ever lived. How those two were born of that father, I'll never understand; but Susan Ketch was a lovely woman, and her children take after her, though she died so young in their rearing.”
“The girl is within, then?” I said.
“Aye, and she is. Jenny will have told you of her trouble?”
I replied in the affirmative.
“I'll have her out for you in a moment, then, and you can be the judge of her yourself,” said Mrs. Hammond; and rising with an energy commendable in one of her advanced years, she disappeared in pursuit of her young charge.
She had no sooner returned, with a slight girl of angelic appearance behind, than there was a knock upon the outer door; and with a curtsey, Mrs. Hammond left me with Rosie Ketch.
That she was far along in her condition was immediately evident; although how frail a girl, and of such apparent youth, could be expected to bear a child, was indeed to be wondered at. She had Jenny Barlow's fair hair and blue eyes, but where her sister's face showed that awareness of the world's harsher cares that maturity brings, Rosie's countenance was altogether innocent. I might readily believe her to have come by her condition, without any understanding of how she had been got that way; and pitied her deeply for the vagary of her fate. That any man could so impose upon such a child, was incredible; but that it should have been the late Earl — as I doubted not from Jenny Barlow's dark looks at his name and George Hearst's accusatory words in his study — must detract from his reputation for goodness.