Page 47 of Death of a Courtesan
Chapter Ten
The following morning’s visit to Adelaide’s brothers at the family warehouse in Cheapside bore little fruit. The brothers were characterless individuals responsible for the mundane side of the operation—accustomed to following orders rather than issuing them. Just a year apart in age, they looked and spoke alike and were almost impossible to tell apart. It was the charismatic uncle, Riley assumed, who found their customers and charmed them into purchasing their goods in bulk.
‘Didn’t either of you ever wonder what had happened to your sister?’ Salter asked, looking appalled by their apparent disinterest in her murder and the lack of emotion in their expressions.
‘Her name was never mentioned in our house,’ the elder brother, Cyril, replied, ‘not after our mother died. Our aunt forbade it.’
‘But at the time of her disappearance,’ Salter persisted. ‘Didn’t you care what had happened to her?’
‘We didn’t know she had run away. Not until it couldn’t be kept from us for any longer.’ Frank, the younger brother, offered that paltry explanation. ‘Mary was quite a bit younger than us, so we didn’t have much to do with her. She was our father’s favourite, spoiled and indulged, and repaid him by running off the moment he tried to put his foot down.’
‘About what?’ Riley asked. ‘Did they have a disagreement?’
Cyril shook his head. ‘Not to my knowledge. Like my brother just explained, she had everything—’
‘Give or take a strict aunt.’
‘What?’ Both brothers looked confused by Salter’s mumbled aside.
‘Your father was seldom there,’ Riley pointed out. ‘Who took responsibility for your sister’s welfare when he was away?’
The brothers shared a blank look and simultaneously shrugged.
‘Our mother and aunt, I would imagine,’ Frank said. ‘Mother was a soft touch but Aunt Ruth made sure she wasn’t taken advantage of. We were either at school or helping with the business when Mary went missing but didn’t know at the time what had happened. Aunt Ruth told us that she had gone to stay with friends for a while.’
‘And now we find that she ran away and became a whore, bringing shame on our entire family’ Cyril added bitterly.
‘Aunt Ruth was in the right of it,’ Frank said, tapping the side of a wine barrel and making a note of a piece of paper. ‘She insisted that no good would come of overindulging a sister who was too pretty for her own good. It will be disastrous for the family’s reputation if her profession becomes public knowledge.’
Both brothers were sanctimonious individuals without an ounce of compassion. Cut from the same mould as their aunt, they were jealous and resentful of a sister who, regardless of what she’d been forced to become, had at least shown a little initiative.
Riley badly wanted them to be culpable for Adelaide’s death but they had been at a prayer meeting on the night of the murder and had dozens of witnesses who could attest to the fact, led by their aunt. Riley couldn’t see any reason why either of them would want their sister dead, much less possess the wits to make such elaborate arrangements to have the deed carried out—unless they had discovered what she’d become and wanted to avoid the damage to their precious reputation that worried them so much.
Her death had squarely focused the attention that she managed to avoid whilst alive on Adelaide and her real identity was bound to leak out. She had been as anxious to distance herself from her family as the majority of them were to see the back of her. But if the meeting with her uncle had resulted in Adelaide making threats of some sort against the family’s standing then something would have had to be done to silence her.
Permanently.
‘Families, eh,’ Salter said, scowling as he and Riley were driven away in yet another hansom. ‘Think I’d be tempted to jump ship if I was related to that lot.’
‘We are all of us the product of our upbringing to a greater or lesser degree,’ Riley replied, sighing as he thought of the differences between himself and Henry—and the alarming similarities between Henry and their father. Had he not exerted himself from an early age Riley would have been moulded into a mirror image of the pompous marquess. Not that he had seemed quite so pompous the previous night when he’d admitted to his association with Celeste. More than an association, Riley conceded. Henry had become completely captivated by a woman who had a defining hold over his baser instincts. He had dropped everything and rushed up to London, a city he disliked, presumably in the hope that Celeste would entertain him again if he persuaded Riley to call upon her.
Pathetic or desperate? Riley was unable to decide.
He looked forward to making Celeste’s acquaintance, if only because he was curious about her. The majority of women in her line of work, having secured the affections of an influential marquess, would fight off all competitors for his sole attention. But Celeste had declined Henry’s offer and quit the area, thereby increasing Henry’s determination to have her. But was it an indication that she’d tired of Henry or was it a clever ploy to…to what? Men in Henry’s situation routinely kept mistresses and supported any children that resulted from the relationship. But they never, ever abandoned or divorced a legal wife so that the mistress could take her place. Society was tolerant of a man’s needs, but not that tolerant, and its doors would be firmly shut in Henry’s face if he was foolish enough to rid himself of his marchioness.
‘Our earliest influences never completely leave us—especially if those doing the influencing are as straitlaced as Adelaide’s aunt, with fixed opinions and an aversion to anything pleasurable,’ Riley added hastily, aware that he had fallen into silent contemplation upon a subject he wasn’t yet ready to share with Salter. ‘Those boys have been taught to look upon pleasurable activities as sinful.’
Salter grunted.
‘I wonder why they have storage for their wine here, close to the docks. Well, actually I don’t. It’s obviously the most convenient location. What I don’t understand is why they have more storage at their home in Ware. All those outbuildings we saw, remember?’ Salter nodded. ‘Seems like a duplication of effort.’
Salter sat a little straighter. ‘Do you think there’s some funny business going on?’ He grinned. ‘Please tell me those pious bastards are trying to evade paying duty on their wine, or something equally underhand that we can nab them for. I would dearly love to haul them in and throw the book at them, destroying their precious reputation in the process, even if we can’t get them for neglecting the gal.’
Riley chuckled. ‘Sorry to disappoint you, Salter, but the wine would come in through the port here. They sell in large quantities to clubs and private establishments so they wouldn’t risk trying to evade duty.’ Riley rubbed his chin as the cab rattled along the rain-slicked streets towards Maiden Lane. Its wheels trundled through deep puddles, covering unwary pedestrians with a muddy spray. ‘Makes you wonder what those sheds on Huxton’s land are used for, but I don’t suppose they have anything to do with Adelaide’s murder, so we’ve got no reason to look into them.’
‘Yet,’ Salter growled. ‘Dare say I could invent one, if only to embarrass that sanctimonious old bint by having uniformed policemen crawling all over her property as ostentatiously as possible.’ He chuckled. ‘That would well and truly set the cat amongst the wine barrels. Imagine trying to explain that one at the church picnic.’
‘Now, now, Jack,’ Riley replied, chuckling. ‘Let’s not allow spite to dictate our actions.’
