Page 37 of A Silence in Belgrave Square (Below Stairs #8)

My question was hoarse enough and dramatic enough that even Hannah flicked a startled gaze to me.

Lady Fontaine leaned forward. “Have you contacted him?” she asked eagerly.

I couldn’t bring myself to lie to the poor woman, so I didn’t answer the question directly. I continued to skim my fingers along the pipe.

“He came into the hall,” I said. “Did he hear a noise? See a flash of light? Why was he on this floor at all?” I asked Lady Fontaine in a more normal voice. “Did he use this drawing room?”

“His bedroom and study are the other chambers on this floor,” Lady Fontaine answered impatiently.

“It was easiest that way, so he didn’t have to move up and down more than necessary.

There’s a cubby behind his study, which the secretary used as his office.

” Her lips pinched. “I still think the secretary was to blame. He was very charming, but I always thought there was something furtive about him.”

I was certain Daniel would find that interesting.

I resumed my observations. “His attention was caught somehow, and he entered the hallway. Or he simply wanted to look out of a window. He could take himself about if he wished?”

“Oh, yes,” Lady Fontaine answered. “His chair is wicker, with cushions, so he could be comfortable. Edwin could move the wheels easily by himself, though Fagan usually insisted he do the pushing.” Her eyes filled again.

“I can’t bear to look at the thing, waiting in the corner of his study.

I will have to burn it, to purge myself of the memories. ”

I did not tell her that she could donate it to a hospital or other home for invalids instead, so another could get some use out of it. I reminded myself that if she wanted to make a pyre to her brother, it was her business, no matter how much I disapproved.

“He moved to the top of the stairs,” I said. “Something he saw out of that window frightened him, or angered him. He stood up…and fell.”

I closed my mouth, and Lady Fontaine regarded me limply, the tears trickling to her cheeks.

“Poor Edwin.”

“Can you think of anything that would upset him so?” I asked.

Lady Fontaine shook her head. “I can’t imagine what. Perhaps a burglar, coming for the house. But there are usually grooms or stable lads in the back, at all hours. They’d stop a burglar, surely.”

Or Lord Peyton saw someone else. Someone he didn’t expect, or maybe someone he did expect, and feared. Perhaps he’d ordered the curtains to remain open so he could watch for that person.

Why then, would he have sent Fagan to bed, instead of having him stand guard? Unless he hadn’t wanted Fagan to know whom he looked out for.

I released a breath and removed my hands from the pipe.

“That is all, I am afraid. But your brother loved you very much, and misses you,” I added quickly as Lady Fontaine eyed me morosely.

“He said to tell you that.” That sort of small falsehood I could bear, because it was probably true.

Lord Peyton would have found ways to keep Lady Fontaine from his house if he hadn’t cared for her.

Lady Fontaine relaxed. “Dear Edwin. He always looked after me.”

Hannah, who’d barely moved for the entire conversation, rose to her feet. “Her ladyship should rest now. Thank you for coming, Mrs.Crowe.”

Lady Fontaine put a fluttering hand to her chest. “Yes, yes, I need to lie down. See our guest out, Marjory, and then help me to my chamber.”

Hannah gestured me coolly to the door. I sent Lady Fontaine an encouraging smile as I rose and compliantly exited the room.

I glanced at the closed doors which I guessed hid Lord Peyton’s study and bedroom, but Hannah guided me inexorably down the stairs, a maid who wanted an unnerving guest to cease upsetting her mistress.

When we reached the ground floor, which was deserted, Hannah abruptly seized my elbow and steered me into the reception room.

“Stay here until I tuck the old dear into her bed,” she whispered to me. “Her chamber’s up on the fourth floor, so she’ll be well out of the way. I’ll fetch you, and you can have a rummage round.”

“What about the housekeeper and other maids?” I asked with uneasiness. “And Fagan?”

“I’ll keep ’em out of the way.” Hannah gave me her impish smile. “Here’s your ten guineas.” She handed me a thick envelope that a peek showed me contained a wad of one-pound notes. “I collected the fee for you beforehand, so she couldn’t change her mind.” She winked. “A good day’s graft, innit?”

* * *

I spent the time waiting for Hannah’s return studying the landscape paintings I’d noted before. One portrayed a lavish country house built in a square, classical style with many columns and porticoes. Meadows dotted with flowers surrounded it, and wooded hills became misty blue in the background.

A closer look showed me tiny figures in the meadow, possibly a young Edwin and his sister, though I couldn’t be certain when this picture had been painted.

A man with a shotgun blasted away in the distance, which was ridiculous.

The scene was of spring or early summer, and one didn’t shoot grouse and other birds until autumn.

I suppose the painter was trying for an ideal picture of the house, presumably Viscount Peyton’s country estate.

Hannah returned before I’d had the chance to examine more than the one painting. She put her finger to her lips and guided me out.

We went quietly back up the stairs to the floor where we’d met with Lady Fontaine.

I feared we’d encounter the housekeeper or Fagan shuffling about, but we saw no one.

I was prepared to make an excuse that I’d left my handbag behind or perhaps had another message from Lord Fontaine, but it proved to be unnecessary.

Hannah deftly unlocked the first door from the staircase and opened it noiselessly. I couldn’t see if she had keys or had picked the lock.

Once we were inside, Hannah closed the door behind us.

“What are we looking for?” she asked.

“I wish I knew.” I stood in the middle of the neat room, surveying its entirety. “Anything that tells us who killed Lord Peyton, or anything tying him or anyone in the house with either the blackmail letters or Fenians.”

Hannah’s eyes widened. “Fenians?” her whisper held alarm. “You threw me among them , did you?”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you before. I was sworn to secrecy.”

Hannah regarded me in disquiet, then she blew out a breath.

“Don’t matter. If I see a man who might be laying a bomb, I’ll hit him with a brick and drag him off to the police.

Don’t like that it’s not safe to walk in the streets without worrying about being blown to bits.

” She shivered. “D’ye think Fagan is one of ’em?

I can see him blowing things up and feeling justified. ”

“I once thought so, but I’m not certain now that I’ve met him,” I confessed. “He is very upset about Lord Peyton’s death.”

“That don’t mean he ain’t a mad anarchist. He’d a done anything for Lord Peyton, including plant dynamite in train stations.”

“In any case, we’d need to find proof that Lord Peyton asked him to do it.” I paused as we surveyed the large and rather cluttered chamber. “Why were the draperies open?” I asked.

Hannah blinked. “Eh? What draperies?”

“The window curtains on the landing. Whenever I’ve seen this house, the drapes have always been drawn in the back. Now they’re wide open.” I gestured to the drapes in this room that had been pulled back from the window, which also looked out into the mews. “Why were they open that night?”

Hannah regarded the curtains in bewilderment.

“I don’t know, but now that I’m thinking it through, you’re right.

Lord Peyton liked everything closed up tight.

After he died, Mrs.Proctor had me open all the drapes in the upstairs rooms, saying they needed light and air.

” She thought a moment. “The ones on the landing was the only ones open when Fagan found the viscount, and we all came rushing downstairs. I don’t know why. I’ll ask Mrs.Proctor if she knows.”

“Thank you. That will be a help.”

We fell silent and searched. Lord Peyton’s wheeled chair stood in the corner, as Lady Fontaine had indicated. Made of wicker, it had a deep cushion on the seat and a smaller one for Lord Peyton’s back. Blankets that must have warmed his legs had been neatly folded on the seat.

Hannah and I thoroughly looked through the desk, shelves, and tables, finding nothing but innocuous books and letters.

Hannah knew how to locate secret drawers or nooks in the furniture, including chairs and the sofa, that might contain valuables and other things worth stealing.

Between us, we had every possible hiding place opened and explored.

We moved to Lord Fontaine’s bedchamber, reached by a connecting door. It had fewer furnishings, but we searched those too, and Hannah slid under the bed to look for things tucked beneath the mattress.

After a half hour of this, we’d turned up no stacks of blackmail letters or envelopes addressed to the victims, nor any damning plans of how anarchists or the Fenians would terrorize London until their demands were met.

Nothing in the study or bedchamber hinted that Lord Peyton was anything other than a formerly fit man who did little more now than read books, debate current politics with his friends, tolerate his sister for their childhood’s sake, and once in a while suck on a pipe he could no longer smoke.

“Well, I don’t know what they were talking about in here so furtively,” Hannah said when we returned, disgruntled, to the study. “I could swear they were planning something sinister, and your man, Daniel, was certain of it too.”

Daniel could not have been wrong. Likewise Hannah had much experience with crime and would have recognized the signs of a conspiracy.

Lord Peyton had been in on a plot, I was certain, but what plot, we couldn’t say. I was equally certain that both Lord Peyton and his former secretary had been killed for it.

We could remain no longer. Hannah had warned the other servants to stay below stairs and make no noise to disturb Lady Fontaine, but at some point, they’d have to continue their duties on the main floors. The more I lingered, the less plausible my explanation would be for doing so.

As I began to follow Hannah out of the study, my eye fell once more on the wheeled chair.

Hannah turned back when I paused, giving me an anxious gesture to come away. I ignored her and approached the chair, fixing it with my gaze as though commanding it not to move.

I lifted the folded blankets that reposed on the chair and handed them to Hannah, who’d joined me. She took them, mystified, while I pried the cushion from the seat.

There was nothing beneath it. I probed the wicker, thrusting my hands down the sides of the chair to seek anything tucked there, but I found nothing but bits of broken-off wicker.

As I turned the cushion over, my fingers brushed something beneath the velvet that rustled. Quickly I examined the cushion’s edges and found tiny hooks that secured the fabric together.

With Hannah’s breath on my neck, I undid the hooks and pulled out what had caught my attention.

It was a paper, thick and worn, that had been much folded into a two-by-two-foot square. I handed Hannah the cushion and carried the paper to the desk and spread it open.

It was a map, or rather, several maps drawn on one page. The most prominent and largest was of London, from Kensington in the west to Stepney in the east, from Hampstead Heath north to Lambeth south.

Small X ’s lay here and there, some larger than others. A few were underlined, and two had question marks next to them.

An X at what I knew to be Victoria Station, a few streets south of Buckingham Palace, had Feb written beside it. Marks next to the Westminster Bridge Underground station and also Paddington station were labeled Oct . Other X ’s were designated Mar and May .

The May X ’s had the number 30 next to them as well. Those lay in Pall Mall and Trafalgar Square, and also in Whitehall, right next to the buildings of Scotland Yard.

Last October, the Westminster and Paddington Underground stations had been rocked by explosions. This past February, one had gone off inside Victoria Station.

I did not recall any incendiaries detonated last May. My breath came faster.

If the May dates were in the future, then Scotland Yard and a building in Pall Mall were due to see explosions on the 30th of this month.

Tomorrow, in fact.