A Ruse of Shadows, page 14
Guilt. The boy had tried hard to come across as uncaring, but in truth he was racked by guilt.
“Mr. Underwood raised Jessie’s and my stipends, too,” added Mumble, “just to be fair, even though we weren’t in dire straits.”
All that Mrs. Watson had known about Mr. Underwood was that he had been a trusted and loyal lieutenant to Lord Bancroft. A more complex picture was emerging from those who knew him in different capacities. He appeared to have been a good mate to Mrs. Claiborne, suspicions of another woman notwithstanding; he certainly seemed to have been an exceptional sponsor to these three young people.
“All I know is that he never touched me. And he never commented on me except as a boxer,” said Jessie. “He never told me that I ought to be a different sort of woman inside or outside the ring. Never said anything about how I looked or how he’d like me to look. I know it may not seem like much, but you wouldn’t believe the things a woman hears in a gymnasium, especially on a fight night.”
Mr. Underwood, not only shrewd and capable but also principled and kind?
Could a kind man have served as henchman to Lord Bancroft all these years? Mrs. Watson was unclear on everything Lord Bancroft had done, but he had very clearly orchestrated the murder of one completely innocent bystander, so that he could have a body to use to frame Lord Ingram. And given his fastidious nature, Mrs. Watson would be surprised if he hadn’t delegated the deed to Mr. Underwood.
How, then, did one reconcile Mr. Underwood, the cold-blooded killer, with Mr. Underwood, the softhearted sponsor?
Not to mention Mr. Underwood, the probably devoted lover?
Their waiter came into the dining room; Miss Charlotte ordered for the table. She then said to Mumble and Jessie, “So the two of you want, as much as possible, to stand by Mr. Underwood?”
Mumble and Jessie exchanged a look—and nodded.
Johnny, who had just then looked up, bent his face to the table again.
Miss Charlotte continued her questioning of his friends. “I understand you’ve been searching for him. Have you found anything?”
“We spoke to Mr. Constable, his accountant,” answered Mumble, the obvious leader of the trio. “The ledgers and records looked shipshape. But Mr. Constable also didn’t know any more about Mr. Underwood than we did. And the only address he had was of Mr. Underwood’s old flat, the one he moved out of a while ago.”
“When did you speak to Mr. Constable?”
“You mean, specifically to ask about Mr. Underwood? It was after Mr. Constable told us that he had given us the last installment of our stipend, and that there would be no more unless he heard from Mr. Underwood again.”
“I believe your stipends ran out in April?”
“Yes, but it came as such a shock to us—I’m not sure why, but it did—that it took some time before we recovered enough to even think about asking questions.”
The boy was skilled at answering questions without giving concrete particulars—he had yet to provide a date, or even a time frame, for this meeting with Mr. Underwood’s accountant. And he managed to do so without looking calculating.
Mrs. Watson wondered how hard Miss Charlotte needed to press him for the specifics. But Miss Charlotte abandoned that line of questioning altogether.
“Have you ever heard that Mr. Underwood had a mistress?” she asked instead. “This might be the most interesting rumor I’ve chanced upon about Mr. Underwood since I started asking—that he kept a mistress in St. John’s Wood.”
Jessie and Mumble again glanced at each other. Then Mumble’s gaze settled on Johnny. Mrs. Watson couldn’t be sure whether he was expecting the latter to give an answer or instructing him to.
“I always assumed he had a family somewhere,” said Johnny, after a glimpse at Mumble. “But he never brought a woman to the gymnasium—or anywhere I’ve ever seen him.”
Mumble picked up his glass of water and drank, indicating that he had nothing to add. Jessie, after a moment, did the same.
And Miss Charlotte failed to pursue this line of questioning, too, but cheerfully welcomed the waiter who returned with their soup, and encouraged everyone to enjoy the repast.
Johnny ate with the speed and efficiency of someone who had lived too long not knowing where his next meal would be coming from. Jessie also had a healthy appetite and consumed more pudding than Miss Charlotte, a sight Mrs. Watson did not witness often. Mumble, more restrained in his dining, carried on a conversation with Miss Charlotte concerning, of all things, the mystery of where eels originated.
Unlike Jessie, who retained a slight Scottish lilt to her speech, the Romani—or perhaps half-Romani—Mumble spoke with an accent that made it difficult to pin down his geographical or class origin. He hadn’t been educated at a public school like Eton or Harrow, of that much Mrs. Watson could be certain. Otherwise, even someone of her sensitive ears couldn’t glean much more about him from his consonants and vowels.
His table manners were also excellent. Jessie, too, seemed familiar with the veritable parade of silverware on the table, though she waited to see which dining implement Mumble selected, before she made the same selection. Johnny, on the other hand, made Mrs. Watson think of a schoolgirl abruptly thrust into the midst of a London Season, with no preparation other than a hasty skimming of Debrett’s.
At the end of supper, Miss Charlotte offered to send the boxers home, and they all, to a one, declined firmly. The young people left on foot; the consulting detectives climbed into their carriage.
As the vehicle pulled away from the curb, Mrs. Watson exhaled. “They are pleasant enough company, Mr. Underwood’s boxers. But this evening wasn’t exactly the most productive use of our time, was it, when we still have so much to do?”
“I’m afraid I must disagree vociferously, ma’am,” murmured Miss Charlotte. “This has, in fact, been a most illuminating evening.”
Mrs. Watson stared at the girl—the carriage lanterns cast just enough light to make out the gleam in her eyes. Then she looked out the rear window at the boxers on the curb, walking shoulder to shoulder, their eyes fixed on the carriage.
“How? How was this meeting illuminating?”
Miss Charlotte smiled very slightly. “Because now I know who searched Mrs. Claiborne’s villa shortly before I did: Mumble and Jessie.”
Thirteen
Mrs. Watson stood at the back door of Mrs. Claiborne’s hired town house and rang the bell again.
Still no response.
She’d sent a message the night before, informing Mrs. Claiborne of her intention to call. Mrs. Claiborne should have been anxiously waiting for any news that might shed light on Mr. Underwood’s fate.
But even if Mrs. Watson’s letter had gone astray, she would still have expected Mrs. Claiborne to be home. After all, this was a woman who, out of fear, kept her drapes drawn all day and no longer answered her front door.
Mrs. Watson rang the doorbell one more time, pulling on the cord repeatedly. But after the clamor of the bell died down, the house remained resolutely silent.
Where had Mrs. Claiborne gone? And what had motivated her departure, when she had seemed so determined to hide in her shelter either until Mr. Underwood came for her or until she learned that he never would?
* * *
The sea was a brilliant, almost tropical blue, the sky dotted with fat puffs—another idyllic day on the English Riviera.
Lord Ingram walked along the gently curving beach, the tip of his walking stick sinking into soft sand. The sun shone warmly on his shoulders, the breeze soft yet cool. He could drop to his stomach and fall asleep this instant, but that he would do on the train instead, in an hour. For now, he quickened his pace and did his best to look brisk and energetic.
Two women, each holding a lacy white parasol, ambled toward him from the opposite direction. Beyond them stretched slopes dotted with holiday villas, a postcard-perfect view. One of the women spied him and waved eagerly. He raised his hand in salute.
“Mrs. Calder, Miss Dearborn, how do you do?” he said with grave courtesy when the other party drew closer.
The silver-haired Mrs. Calder grinned. “Oh, but we haven’t seen you for some time, have we, Mr. Faraday? It must have been a good ten days. Don’t you think so, Miss Dearborn?”
The woman she addressed as Miss Dearborn nodded. “I do believe you’re right, Mrs. Calder. You have a wonderful memory for such things.”
She had a pleasant face and becoming manners, Miss Dearborn. Before this, Lord Ingram had known her as Norbert, lady’s maid to Holmes’s irascible mother and also, in secret, an agent of the crown who worked for his brother Remington.
He turned and strolled with the women. “Have you been well, Mrs. Calder? Has the area continued to agree with you?”
“Oh, it agrees with me splendidly, my dear Mr. Faraday. We visited Dartmouth, a most appealing town—and Paignton again, too, you know how I adore Paignton. Miss Dearborn and I hosted a mother and her two daughters for tea three days ago and had a roaring game of cribbage going afterwards. Yesterday we found a charming little bookshop on our walk. And, of course, one runs into handsome young men here and there, too.”
Mrs. Calder winked. Lord Ingram looked more or less the same as he had when he’d met Holmes last, not a day under sixty. But to Mrs. Calder, well north of eighty, he was indeed a young man still.
He chatted another ten minutes with Mrs. Calder before he took his leave. As he straightened from his bow, Norbert, who had been largely silent, tapped her fingertips three times against the shaft of her parasol. All is well.
He wished the women a good day and left Norbert to her task.
* * *
Mr. Constable, Mr. Underwood’s accountant, received Charlotte in his spartan office with a pained smile. “If you don’t mind my saying so, Mr. Herrinmore, you’re the fourth party I’ve received, inquiring after Mr. Underwood.”
Charlotte, disguised yet again as Mr. Nelson’s underling, adjusted her weight in the uncomfortable chair, the edges of which dug into the backs of her legs. “Let me guess. The first party must have been late last year, most likely in November. The other two, including a visit from Mr. Underwood’s boxers, would have been more recent.”
“Why, yes.” Mr. Constable took a moment to contain his surprise. “But no matter how many inquiries are raised, my knowledge of and involvement with Mr. Underwood remain limited. This portfolio contains the entirety of his transactions with this firm.”
Charlotte had been contemplating a break-in at the accountant’s office in order to see the transactions Mr. Underwood had routed through him—that is, until she’d learned that Mumble and Jessie were allowed to inspect those ledgers.
Still, Mr. Constable’s ready compliance was a little too…compliant. Charlotte glanced at the large brown paper envelope in the accountant’s hands and gauged that her question would not make it disappear. “I am very much looking forward to reviewing the transactions, sir. I will admit, however, a certain surprise that I am granted this privilege.”
Mr. Constable unwound the twine that held the envelope together. “Believe me, Mr. Herrinmore, I am even more astonished than you. But Mr. Underwood’s instruction, from the very beginning, was that the accounts should be open to anyone who wished to scrutinize them.”
So Mr. Underwood very much did not want his sponsorship of those young people to be viewed as a secret?
“Well, whatever his reasons, I’m glad of it,” said Charlotte. “Ready when you are, Mr. Constable.”
The accountant pointed at a date from the spring of 1884—more than three years ago—written in ink on the corner of the envelope. “That would be the first time Mr. Underwood called on me and explained what he wished to do. I didn’t see him for some time after that, until he came in again with the first installment of funds.”
He pulled out a ledger from the envelope and flipped it open. “You’ll see the sum recorded here.”
Six months passed between the first time and the second time Mr. Underwood came in to discuss business.
Mr. Constable then took out several small envelopes from the larger envelope and opened the first one, marked 1884. “This is the receipt for that first sum—you see my signature. A duplicate was given to Mr. Underwood. Here’s his acknowledgment of my fees, which are also reflected in the ledger. With that subtracted, we arrive at the amount to be distributed. So I began distribution, leading to signed receipts from Mr. Giovanni Esposito for each of the two remaining months of the year.”
He collected all the slips of paper, returned them to the 1884 envelope, and then opened the next one, marked 1885. “A new sum was wired by postal order. No signature from Mr. Underwood this time, but the postal order itself, specifying the fees to be paid to the firm and the amount to be subsequently distributed, is attached. Again, I signed for the amount due me. Here is one month’s receipt signed by Mr. Esposito and from then on, every month, receipts from all three of the boxers.”
So Mumble and Jessie joined the group in February 1885.
Mr. Constable laid out more receipts and referenced them back to the ledger. It was as Mumble had said, everything shipshape. Whenever a signature was missing, reasons and reasonable substitutes were supplied, such as the cables that came along with the wired sums that served as Mr. Underwood’s directive on how the money ought to be apportioned, and Jessie’s signature for Mumble’s stipend, the one time he had to work late and could not go to the Unicorn of the Sea to receive it in person.
“Every penny was signed and accounted for, up to the very end,” said Mr. Constable, not without a trace of pride.
“Excellent record-keeping,” Charlotte concurred. “If you don’t mind, I’m curious to know whether this is all the work you’ve done for Mr. Underwood. Has he ever entrusted you with other tasks?”
The accountant scooped up the contents of the last small envelope and slotted everything back into the portfolio. “None whatsoever. I broached it with him once, when I saw him at the Unicorn of the Sea. He answered firmly that he did not require other services, and I did not raise the topic again.”
“So he didn’t ask you to direct funds to any other recipients?”
“No, indeed.” Having tidied his desk, Mr. Constable patted the rather thin portfolio with the satisfaction of one who loved order. He looked up at Charlotte, his plain face serious and earnest. “I’m not sure how I can make this clearer, Mr. Herrinmore, but I have shown you the entire extent of my business dealings with Mr. Underwood. I was willing to participate in his other ventures—provided they were reasonable and legitimate—but my participation was not needed, much to my disappointment at the time. Now, however, I’m grateful that he did not entrust me with more, given all the questions I’ve had to field.”
If Mr. Underwood did not use an intermediary to pay Mrs. Claiborne but instead footed her household expenses, etc., directly, then did that lend more credence, the possibility of the other woman notwithstanding, to Mrs. Claiborne’s account of the two as a close and loving couple?
But she was not going to get an answer to that question here. Charlotte shifted topics. “Mr. Constable, what do you think of Mr. Underwood as a man?”
“Well, his boxers are decent and hardworking, no doubt about that.” The accountant’s forehead furrowed. “Mr. Underwood himself—I’m a little less sure. I mean, as a client he was above reproach—until recently he sent money when he promised to and was courteous and reasonable in all ways. But other than that, he was a complete mystery.”
Mr. Underwood did seem to become more of a puzzle the more Charlotte pursued his disappearance: The knowledge she’d acquired arrived in disjointed pieces, and a partially filled-in picture with key sections missing raised more questions than a completely blank canvas.
“Do you by any chance remember what exactly Mr. Underwood said when he came in for the first time, in terms of what he wanted you to do?”
“From memory, not quite, but I keep a record of my meetings with clients and prospective clients. Let me find that particular entry.”
Mr. Constable went to a locked cabinet and brought back a large notebook with 1884 embossed in gold on the cover. “Aha, here it is. ‘Mr. William Underwood. Declined to give occupation and source of income. Stated only that he aimed to transfer funds to Mr. Giovanni Esposito, apprentice bricklayer, but not until further notice. In addition, he instructed that minutes of meetings and any future transactions be open to inspection by one and all.’ ”
Could Mr. Underwood have anticipated that so many parties would wish to plumb the depth of these accounts?
“Do you recall whether he mentioned the sponsorship of a boxer?” Charlotte asked. In the brief entry, there was no reference to the Unicorn of the Sea. Or to boxing.
“I would say no—something like that I’d have noted. I remember being surprised when we met the next time and he specified that Johnny was a boxer. Let me see.”
He flipped some pages. “Yes, indeed, in my minutes on our next meeting, I wrote that ‘Mr. Underwood informed me that Mr. Giovanni Esposito is a boxer he has decided to sponsor.’ I even jotted down at the bottom that I felt ‘trepidatious about the prospect of dealing with boxers. The reputation of the group as a whole is hardly sterling.’ ”
He gave a self-deprecating grin. “Obviously I overcame my qualms.”
“Would you mind reading me the entries from the other times Mr. Underwood called on you?”
Mr. Constable obliged. But those offered nothing of interest. Each time Mr. Underwood came in with money, signed his name in the ledger, commended Mr. Constable on his excellent work, and left.
There was something entirely self-contained about Mr. Underwood’s venture into boxing. The night before, Mumble had commented incisively that they seemed more interested in Mr. Underwood than in his boxers. By the same token it could be said that Mr. Underwood appeared more interested in his boxers than in boxing as a sport.
_preview.jpg)
