Page 36 of A Captain, a Corpse, and Miss Bridges
James recognised hostility when he saw it; he’d have a devil of a time getting anything from the woman. And he wanted not only to question Mrs Fitzhenry about Henderson but a few other matters too—like his suspicion that Sir Ambrose had been stealing from Flora’s fortune.
Sometimes the truth was best won by a broadside rather than a polite request, he realised, and decided to go on the attack.
“Lord Crabb requested that I go through Sir Ambrose’s ledgers, Mrs Fitzhenry. I’m afraid I’ve discovered your little scheme,” he began, referencing the small anomalies he had noted in the household budgets whilst looking for bigger crimes. He’d seen pursers aboard ship squirrel away biscuit-money the same way.
“I don’t know what you mean, Captain,” Mrs Fitzhenry replied, drawing her shawl tighter, full of righteous indignation.
“What I mean is that I know the butcher’s bill was rounded up more often than down. The grocer’s, too,” James said evenly. “A steady leak in the barrel—half a dozen shillings here, a pound or two there. Enough to line a careful woman’s purse over many years.”
“If you’ve come to accuse me, I’ll not deny it!” Mrs Fitzhenry snapped, sinking into the chair opposite him. “I might have feathered my nest a little. What else was I to do? I gave this house the best years of my life, and did he ever set aside a pension for me? No. A woman has to think of her old age.”
James rather thought she had been considering her next bottle of brandy more than her pension, though he kept this to himself.
“I see.” He kept his voice level. “And did Sir Ambrose know of your…retirement plan?”
“Pah!” She gave a scornful sniff. “If he did, he said nothing. He knew better. For he knew that I knew about all his thieving.”
James stilled. At last, here it was—the confirmation he had been hoping for, offered without his even asking.
She leaned forward, her voice sharp with long-harboured resentment. “Always involved in this scheme or that, he was—forever chasing some promised fortune. But stealing from the children of his own friends? That was low, even for him.”
James stilled, a cold knot tightening in his stomach. Children? Flora he knew of, but Mrs Fitzhenry’s words suggested there had been another. He kept his features schooled, unwilling to press too directly for fear she’d snap the shutters down again.
“You mean Miss Bridges?” James asked carefully.
“Her, aye,” she confirmed with a jerk of her chin. “And the other one”
“Another?” James kept his voice neutral, though his mind leapt at once to the nameless sums he had seen crossing the ledgers some years earlier.
“I never met her, never knew her name,” she shrugged. “Only that he convinced one of his old friends to make him guardian, then when he held the purse strings he squandered everything. Poor girl had to go into service after, from what I heard.”
There was not much sympathy in Mrs Fitzhenry’s tone for another being forced to work like she.
“Was Sir Ambrose involved in some sort of scheme with Mr Henderson? The butcher’s lad?” he ventured, worried that if the conversation halted she might clam up like a shell.
His question won a snort.
“The only thing that boy’s interested in is his own reflection,” she chortled.
“But had he visited lately?” James pressed.
“Aye. Called once to deliver the bill himself, a few weeks past. I remember it, for it was my task to settle the household accounts,” she said with bitterness James attributed to a lost opportunity to pinch a penny. “Sir Ambrose took it from him directly, and was in fouler humour than usual after. Which is saying something.”
“Did he call again?” James asked, to which Mrs Fitzhenry shrugged.
“The day of the murder, I think, to drop off some offal.”
It wasn’t much, James thought grimly, but it was something. A thread linking Henderson to Sir Ambrose, just when the butcher’s boy had begun to swagger about in new clothes.
“You’ve been a great help, Mrs Fitzhenry,” he said, rising to his feet.
She jumped from her seat along with him, her bravado now vanished.
“You’ll not be reporting me to Mr Marrowbone, then?” she asked, with a tremor in her voice.
“I won’t,” James said, shaking his head. “I’ve no time for thieves, but I’ve even less for employers who fail to pay their staff. Good day, Mrs Fitzhenry, and my thanks for your hospitality.”
He offered her a bow, then showed himself out. Triumph buoyed his step, though he tried to calm it. He would not makethe same mistake he had with Mr Goodwin—assume the case solved, and dive into daydreams of being Miss Bridges’ hero.
