Page 38 of The Curse of Ill-Gotten Gains
Leith’s gaze fell to Regina. “Oh. I heard you were walking with your sister at the time. I apologize for bringing up the subject—I’d forgotten that.”
“Ah…” Regina shot a wide-eyed pleading look at Rosalind and, beyond her, at Richard.
Rosalind smiled reassuringly at Regina and smoothly replied, “That was one aspect for which I’m grateful. Regina had been with me, but at that point, we’d parted ways, and she’d continued via a different route.”
“Ah, I see.” Leith’s expression suggested that he, too, was grateful that his question hadn’t caused Regina any undue distress. “Now,” he said bracingly, looking ahead, “how is a company of this size going to manage a game of croquet?”
“It’ll need to be a tournament, surely?” Richard did his part to redirect the conversation.
“But how will we select the teams?” Elliot, too, stepped in, and those walking ahead heard and turned, and the remainder of the distance to the green passed in a lighthearted discussion of increasingly nonsensical criteria for team selection thatlifted the collective mood considerably and effectively swung all thoughts from the finding of a dead body in the orchard.
After the investigators finished their meal and Gearing cleared away the platters, they resettled in the armchairs. The men lounged while Penelope studied her list of guests.
Eventually, she ventured, “I believe we can place Richard and his aunts at the bottom of our suspects list.”
Replete and comfortable, Stokes arched a brow at her. “We have a suspects list?”
The look Penelope sent him was severe. “Of course!”
Barnaby smiled. “She has a list for everything. Of course she has a list of suspects.”
“If that’s the case,” Stokes returned, “then for my money, Lady Pamela doesn’t rate highly, either.”
“No, she doesn’t,” Penelope agreed.
“Based on what we know thus far,” Barnaby said, “we can’t discount Leith, but if we find corroborating evidence that he stayed within the house, he, too, will be out of contention.”
Penelope waggled her pencil. “There was no hint of hostility toward Monty—not from Leith.”
“So Leith’s at least halfway down the list.” Stokes glanced at his fellow investigators. “What about Morland?”
“While we might all agree that he had no idea Monty was his blackmailer,” Penelope stated, “logically, he has to remain on the list for now. However, I suspect the gentlemen who were with him in the library at the time of the murder will provide him with a sound alibi.”
“He’s also not the type to crack open a man’s skull in a fit of rage,” Barnaby said.
Pencil raised, Penelope stilled, then said, “I hadn’t actually thought of that—that the murderer was, almost certainly, seeing red at the time he attacked.”
Stokes nodded. “Judging by the force behind the blow, he definitely was.” After a moment, he added, “While I’m not sure what help that might be to us, it’s worth bearing in mind.” He met Barnaby’s and Penelope’s gazes. “Anyone needs a powerful motivation to cave in a man’s skull, and blind fury fits the bill.”
Penelope frowned. “By that reasoning, there has to be a more compelling motive than anything we’ve thus far heard. If any of the victims had learned Monty was their blackmailer, why not just threaten to expose him? In society’s eyes, blackmailing is a far worse sin than minor peccadilloes such as kissing a footman or having an affair. He was at least as vulnerable as his victims to such pressure.”
“You’ve just answered your own question,” Barnaby said. “In the murderer’s case, the secret of theirs that Monty discovered is too critical to the murderer for them to ever countenance another knowing it. The murderer simply can’t live with the ongoing threat of their secret becoming widely known.”
Stokes was nodding. “The murderer’s secret is so damning they can’t risk it ever coming out.”
Comprehension lit Penelope’s face. “The murderer’s secret is something that will ruin them. Utterly ruin them, not just cause a minor scandal.”
Barnaby tipped his head in acknowledgment. “And that’s why Morland isn’t a strong suspect. While from his point of view, keeping his secret buried—especially Monty’s twisting of it—was worth paying the price Monty asked, that secret simply isn’t sufficiently powerful. It’s not the sort of secret that would push a man to murder.”
“Remember what Percival said.” Stokes duly repeated, “‘There are more secrets within the ton than most will ever know, and many of those secrets are powerful ones.’”
“Indeed. And on the basis of the rage required,” Barnaby said, “I think we need to leave Susan on the upper part of the list. Not at the top, perhaps, but she was outside, alone, and no matter how she tried to play it down, she deeply resented Monty refusing to support a match between Vincent and Samantha.”
“I agree.” Penelope jotted, then straightened and studied her list. “So, at the moment, we have only Susan on the ‘likely, meaning actually might be’ part of our list.”
Barnaby exchanged a look with Stokes. “We knew this wouldn’t be easy.” He glanced at Penelope. “Who’s next to be interviewed?”
“Lord Kilpatrick,” she replied.
