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Stokes set down the notebook and picked up Forbes’s statement. “And this is a signed statement from the manager of Moreton’s bank, listing the owner of that account as”—Stokes looked at Winter—“you.”

Winter stared at Stokes. On the table, his hands gripped tight.

After a moment of silence, Stokes sat back and asked, “Regarding the charges brought against you, do you have anything to say?”

Winter’s earlier angry color had faded entirely. Pale and plainly out of his depth, he stared at the damning evidence resting on the table before Stokes and wrestled with his options in a situation he’d never thought he would face.

Eventually, Penelope took pity on him. “Trust me, Winter, it will go much better for your family—especially your sons and daughter—if you stop trying to cling to the facade of innocence and, instead, confess and assist the police.”

Winter had glanced up at her mention of his family, and her comment about his children clearly struck home. After staring at her for a moment more, he slowly straightened, then he drew in a long breath and looked at Stokes. “What more do you want to know?”

Stokes, with Barnaby assisting, led Winter through the details of the scheme, including how it came about.

“That was purely by chance,” Winter explained.

“Chesterton came seeking backers at a race meeting in Doncaster. He fell in with us, and after realizing we might be open to the idea, he explained how his scheme would work. He’d already put together a crew of disgruntled workers at the gun factory who were ready to supply him with guns.

For a price, of course, but it was easy to see that massive profits could be made by selling the guns overseas. ”

“Purely out of interest,” Mann said, “did Chesterton tell you how the workers got the guns out of the factory?”

Winter paused, lightly frowning as he dredged his memories.

“He said that there was always a pile of guns set aside as faulty. Those were the guns the workers were proposing to supply Chesterton with, I suppose on the grounds that they’d be least missed.

He didn’t say how they would get them out of the factory, but the impression we got was that they’d be smuggled out one by one, under men’s coats, that sort of thing. ”

Jotting in his file, Mann nodded. “I assume that’s the reason for the irregular gaps between Chesterton’s runs. He had to wait for the factory workers to smuggle out enough guns to make a run worthwhile.”

Glum and deflated, Winter shrugged. “I suppose so. That just seemed to be the way it worked.”

Now leaning back in his chair, Stokes asked, “So what happened with Cardwell?”

Winter looked at Stokes, and his brow slowly furrowed. Eventually, he asked, “Who?”

Watching Winter, Penelope nearly groaned. He doesn’t have a clue who Thomas is.

Confirming that, still frowning in an apparent effort to recall the connection and failing, Winter shook his head.

“I don’t know any Cardwell. Where does he fit into this?

” He looked from Stokes to Barnaby and Penelope.

“If he was a part of Chesterton’s organization, then we—the three of us who supplied the funds—never met anyone but Chesterton himself. Everyone felt it was safer that way.”

While answering their questions regarding the scheme, Winter’s defensive facade had fallen, and his expression had grown increasingly easy to read.

It was obvious he truly knew nothing of any Cardwell.

Accepting that, Barnaby explained, “Last Sunday evening, a man named Thomas Cardwell stumbled upon the cache of guns Chesterton had stored in a warehouse near Tilbury. Less than two days later, before Cardwell could notify the authorities as he intended, he was stabbed to death, apparently by a gentleman wearing a fashionable dun-colored coat and a black top hat.”

Penelope arched a brow at Winter. “Do you own a black top hat and a dun-colored coat, Winter?”

Winter blanched. “Of course I do—along with half the gentlemen in the ton.” He looked at Stokes and Mann, then apparently came to a decision.

“Look, I might own the right sort of hat and coat, but I have no idea who this Cardwell person is. As I said, we—the three of us—never had anything to do with Chesterton’s arrangements or the people he employed.

That was his side of the business, and we didn’t want to know anything about it.

” He paused as if hearing how that sounded, then shook his head impatiently and continued, “So we know nothing about any warehouses. Until you mentioned it, I didn’t know he used such places—I never thought about how he managed things at all.

That wasn’t our part of the bargain to meddle with, and as for Cardwell, until you mentioned him, I’d never even heard his name. ”

Penelope would wager that not one of the investigators thought Winter was lying. He truly knew nothing about Thomas Cardwell or anything of the circumstances that had led to his murder.

“For the record,” Barnaby said, “where were you on Tuesday morning between the hours of seven and nine?”

Frowning, Winter thought back. “Tuesday morning? I would have been at home at that time. Breakfast is served at eight—I usually get down a trifle earlier and start reading the news sheets, then my wife and daughter arrive, and lastly, my sons come down. They’re just old enough to join us.

On Tuesday… I didn’t leave the house until close to noon, when I went to my club to meet with friends.

” He glanced at Stokes. “The entire household can vouch for that.”

Stokes held Winter’s gaze. “The friends you met for lunch—were they the same friends who joined you in supporting Chesterton’s scheme?”

Winter shook his head. “The three I met were not in any way involved in that.”

After a moment studying Winter, Stokes nodded. “All right.” He glanced at Mann, who’d been taking notes beside him. “We’ll leave you to the tender mercies of Inspector Mann, who is taking over the gun-running case.”

The door at the investigators’ backs opened, and a young constable came in. He walked to Stokes and Mann, halted between their chairs, and bent to whisper some message.

When the constable finished speaking and straightened to attention, Mann met Winter’s gaze. “I’m sending you to the cells for the moment. It seems we have your coconspirators in custody. I’ll see you after we learn what they have to say.”

With his shoulders slumped and looking defeated, Winter glumly nodded. From his expression, the reality of what his future was to be was inexorably sinking in.

With the other investigators, Penelope left the room.

Stokes and Mann paused in the corridor, and after a quick word, the pair dispatched sergeants and constables to Winter’s, Haverstock’s, and Huxtable’s residences to question their wives and staff as to the men’s alibis for Tuesday morning.

“Best we get those nailed down.” Stokes grimaced. “It would be nice if Haverstock or Huxtable didn’t have an alibi, but I think we’re more likely to get the same result as we got from Winter.”

Barnaby huffed. “Let’s not count chickens either way.”

“Indeed.” Stokes waved them on, and they proceeded to another interrogation room farther down the narrow stone- walled corridor. There, they found Haverstock waiting behind a wall of bluster.

His resistance quickly faded when Stokes laid out the evidence against him, Winter, and Huxtable.

As with Winter, Haverstock was too intelligent to continue protesting and denying his complicity, and once again, Penelope’s mention of his young family eradicated the last of his defiance.

The tale he told of how the three gentlemen had fallen in with Chesterton matched Winter’s in every respect.

Also like Winter, his puzzlement and confusion as to who Thomas Cardwell was rang true.

After Mann sent Haverstock to the cells, they moved on to interrogate Huxtable, with a near-identical result.

At that point, the men sent to question the three households regarding Winter’s, Haverstock’s, and Huxtable’s alibis returned with the unsurprising news that all three gentlemen were vouched for as being at home on Tuesday morning not only by their wives and older children but also by their staff.

With Huxtable on his way to the cells, the investigators trudged up the stairs to the foyer.

Through the interviews, Mann had grown increasingly alert. He turned to the others. “Unless you need me, Stokes—and I can’t see why you would—I’ll leave you to your endeavors. I need to get my crew up to speed so we can head up to Enfield first thing tomorrow.”

“To the Royal Small Arms Factory?” Barnaby asked.

“Indeed.” Mann’s smile was one of anticipation. “I plan on spending the rest of this afternoon leaning on Chesterton for a list of his contacts there. Whoever they are, we have to put a stop to this caper as soon as we possibly can.” He tipped a finger to his forehead in a salute. “Wish me luck.”

With smiles and good wishes, they watched him stride away.

His expression sobering, Stokes faced the others. “Let’s head to my office and take stock and think again about the Cardwell case.”

As soon as they were seated, Penelope, Barnaby, and Jordan in the chairs before Stokes’s desk and Stokes in his usual chair behind it, Penelope stated, “While I’m faintly disappointed that none of those three are guilty of Thomas’s murder, I always suspected Chesterton’s backers would prove too distant to be the killer. ”

“Distant?” Jordan asked, beating Stokes and Barnaby to it.