Page 91 of The Trick of the Treasure
“Mr. Devine came to seeme!” Jemimah piped up with defiance.
Lloyd started angrily toward Devine and was yanked back by Syndey’s unexpectedly strong hand on his shoulder.
“Not helping,” Sydney said.
“Not at midnight, he didn’t,” Constant said firmly. “We know exactly where he was then and in what kind of state, so don’t muddy the waters with yet more lies.”
“You can’t speak to her like that!” Devine exclaimed furiously before he swung around on Lloyd. “And as for you, sir, it’s time you knew exactly who it is you are employing!” He pointed dramatically at Constance. “That woman is no more than a common prostitute with a brothel only three streets away from here.”
Sydney cast his eyes to heaven, muttering, “Imbecile.” Everyone else was staring at Constance in horror. Only Constance herself appeared to be quite unmoved, although Solomon knew otherwise.
Her smile was too bright, her eyes too hard in their glitter. “Oh, there is nothing common about me, sir. I own that establishment.”
Devine almost choked.
“Mrs. Silver,” Solomon said, deliberately attracting all attention to himself, “is the owner of the largest charitable institution in London catering for fallen and abused women. As you would know had you been granted entry and not turned away at the door for the kind of drunken abuse her establishment mitigates against. To more important matters.”
Everyone was still staring at him, but it was the wonder in Constance’s eyes that almost broke his heart. Just because he had stood up for her. Just because he had told the truth of the way things were, not as they were perceived. Perhaps he erred alittleon the side of charity, but not by much. The women were protected from men like Sydney and Devine. There was more that he could do, but that was for later.
“What?” Sydney asked sulkily. He must have known he was in for a massive dressing-down from his father—providing Lloyd was not arrested for murder.
“You, Devine, and your other friend left that establishment just before midnight,” Solomon said. “Where did you go?”
Sydney scratched his head. “Dashed if I can remember, old man. Ben?”
Devine frowned. “White’s? Might have been White’s. Actually, itwas! Rawleigh’s idea. You were against it, though, and you were quite right because I only lost.”
Sydney nodded wisely.
Solomon’s heart beat like a drum. “Did you lose, too, Sydney?”
“Must have.” Sydney smiled ruefully, pulling out the linings of his pockets to show their emptiness.
“Not at White’s, you didn’t,” Devine said. “You must have gone to some other hell, because there was only Rawleigh and me at White’s. I’m sure that’s why I lost… What?” He stopped, swallowing nervously as he glanced from Sydney’s fixed smile to Solomon and Harris.
Got you,Solomon thought.
“No,” Rachel said. “Whatever you’re thinking, Sydney came home at midnight. I saw him. He left Ben and came home.”
Of course he did. He needed his pistol and the cushions to muffle its report. “And then he left again, didn’t he?” Solomon said gently. “With a bag or a roll under his arm?”
The scared look in Rachel’s eyes, the awful understanding that would forever ruin her innocence, tugged at his heart. He was sorry, but he could not go back.
“Inspector, I think you might like to search Mr. Sydney Lloyd’s rooms for the murder weapon.”
“No! I will not have it!” Barnabas Lloyd exploded. “I forbid you! My son never touched that man.Ikilled Clarke, because ofAudrey and the treasure. My wife told me where he lived and I went there and I shot him.”
“But it wasn’t you she told, was it?” Constance said. “It wasn’t you to whom she gave the key she had taken from Audrey. That’s why you looked so surprised when she said it and why you’re taking the blame now. Because it wasSydneyshe told, and Sydney is the one person you will protect. The apple, as they say, never falls far from the tree. He thought it was his right to kill Clarke for the treasure.”
“Only you couldn’t find it, could you?” Solomon said to Sydney. “And I expect you took fright, with all that blood. So you ran until you talked yourself into going back. Fortunately, your father sent you to me that morning, because of your aunt’s disappearance, so you were able to nip back to Clarke’s house on the way—only to discover Constance there. So you hit her and came to me. No wonder her name was almost the first thing you said to me. She was on your mind more than your aunt. You thought you might have committed murder twice.”
Sydney smiled, walking toward him. “Only a jumped-up carpenter and a whore,” he said deliberately. “Or so I thought.”
He moved quite suddenly, snatching Solomon by one arm, and Solomon felt the cold, sickening metal at his throat. The barrel of a pistol.
“You see,” Sydney said apologetically, “the murder weapon isnotin my room.”
*
