Page 15 of A Murder on London Bridge
But when several quiet moments passed, I asked gently, “You knew Mr. Merton professionally, I assume?”
“I did.” A faint smile softened the corners of his mouth. “We met some ten years ago at a symposium on Anglo-Dutch trade relics. He was clever, insatiably curious, and more of a scholar than many gave him credit for. We disagreed on almost everything, of course, but respectfully. That’s a rarer gift than people think.”
I nodded, keeping my tone neutral. “His widow mentioned your name. She said he’d recently consulted you.” That's not what she said. But it made sense given his area of expertise.
Whitford gave a small grunt of acknowledgment. “He paid me a visit about three weeks ago. Said he’d come into possession of a rather sensitive manuscript and wanted my thoughts on its authenticity.”
“A manuscript from the seventeenth century?”
His gaze sharpened. “So you do know something about it.”
“Only that it may have been tied to a plot against Queen Catherine of Braganza,” I said carefully. “And that it may have named names.”
“That is more than something, Miss Worthington.” Whitford leaned back slightly, fingers drumming once against his teacup. “It was no forgery, I can tell you that.”
Rather than ask about how he’d determined it was authentic, I took another tack. “What did the manuscript look like?”
Whitford’s brow furrowed in thought. “Small. Bound in dark leather, quite worn. I couldn’t say how many pages it held, but it had weight to it. He only allowed me to read a few lines, and even then, he handled it carefully. He never let it out of his sight.”
“Was it damaged?”
“A bit. Some charring at the edges. I suspect it survived a fire at some point, though he never said as much. The pages I saw were coarse and yellowed, written in iron gall ink. Some sections were in cipher, others in a distinctly seventeenth-century hand. A diary, perhaps. Or a personal ledger. But intimate in tone. Confessional, you might say.”
He paused, then added, “The portion he showed me—just a page and a half—was badly scorched at the edges but still legible. It referenced a group of men meeting in secret. Parliamentarians. Courtiers. A planned discrediting—or something even darker.”
“Targeting the Queen?”
He nodded.
“Why her?”
He gave a wry smile. “Catherine was Portuguese, Catholic, and politically inconvenient. There were men who believed the crown would be stronger without a foreign bride to an English king. Men with ambition will use any excuse to carve out their own path to power.”
“And the names?”
Whitford shook his head. “There were no names in the fragments I examined, only initials, and veiled language, references to rank, positions held at court. But Merton hinted that one of the names, perhaps in a later section, belonged to someone whose family still sits in the House of Lords.”
I felt the faintest prick of unease. “So the danger lies not only in what it says, but in who it implicates.”
“Exactly.” He studied me. “I warned him to keep it hidden. To lock it away and tell no one else.”
“Unfortunately, he didn’t. Instead, he arranged for a private auction.” I paused, watching him carefully. I suspected he’d been asked to attend, but I wanted to hear him say it. “Were you invited?”
“I was. It was to be held next week.” He gave a rueful laugh. “I am an expert on antiquities, Miss Worthington. My pockets, unfortunately, would not have allowed me to bid. But I wanted to see more of the manuscript.”
“You advised him against it, though.”
“I did. But he paid me no heed.” Whitford gave a rueful shake of his head. “He saw it as an opportunity. A way to finally claim his place among serious collectors and to sell it to the highest bidder.”
He settled back into his seat, steepling his fingers. “Did you know Merton personally?”
“We met at supper just days ago. He was a guest in my home. That’s one of the reasons Mrs. Merton reached out to me.”
“The other being, she knew of your reputation as a detective.”
“Yes.”
“Your husband, Lord Rutledge, is also a chief detective inspector at Scotland Yard, I believe.”
