I turned in a circle, taking in the room. Lord Gillis's servants would be certain to clean these chambers thoroughly every day. They were correct, well trained, and aloof, probably some of the most experienced in their class. Where could Brandon hide something where they would not find it?
Then again, this was Colonel Brandon. He had not made it through the ranks to colonel for nothing. He was a good and inspiring commander, and sometimes, uncannily perceptive. Only where his personal life was concerned was he lacking in wisdom.
The place he would hide his letter was in plain sight.
My gaze went to the books in the glass-doored bookcase, and my heart beat faster.
I saw in my mind, clear as day, Colonel Brandon striding into one of these rooms, snatching a book from a shelf, sliding the letter between pages, jamming the book back among its fellows, then striding out again before anyone in the ballroom wondered where he'd gone. By the time Pomeroy arrived to begin his questioning, the letter had been well hidden.
I crossed the room, pulled open a bookcase door, and began examining the books.
Most of the leather spines were uncreased and unbroken. The pages on the few I pulled out likewise were uncut. When a man bought a book, the pages were still folded into sixteen- page signatures; many signatures made up a book. One used a paper knife to cut each folded bundle open so that the book could be read. Some men purchased libraries for the look of them rather than for intellectual pursuit; often pages of entire collections remained uncut.
In one of these books, unread by the inhabitants of the house, must lay the secret Brandon was willing to go to the gallows to protect.
"Help me," I said. I began pulling out books and opening them.
Lady Breckenridge's cinnamon and spice perfume touched me as she came to assist me. I was close--so close. Her slender hands touched mine as she pulled out books and copied my movements.
The books in the silver-gilded room yielded no secrets. Anxiously, I shoved the last book back into the shelf and hobbled back to the gold-leafed room. Only a dozen books decorated a bookcase here--I searched those and found nothing.
There were four more rooms along this corridor. Lady Breckenridge and I looked through every book in each of them. By the time I'd slit open the last book, I'd found nothing. My leg was hurting, and I wondered if my suppositions were wrong. But they felt right--seemed right. My vision of Brandon's actions had been so vivid.
I sank down on one of the chairs, in too much pain now to stand.
Lady Breckenridge stopped before me and smoothed a strand of my always unruly hair. "Are you well?"
"No, I am disgusted," I said. "The bloody thing must be here. I know Brandon. He would have hidden it. He would not have risked Pomeroy finding it."
Lady Breckenridge's cool fingers felt good. She rested herself on my lap and continued to stroke my hair.
I did not want to push her away. My head ached from speculating, and her presence, her touch, soothed me. I closed my eyes.
"I am not a man of complex thought," I said. "In the army I solved problems as they came to me. I did not sit in a chair and contemplate them."
"You were a soldier," she said, her voice low. "Not a general."
"What the generals decided after sitting back and contemplating was often foolhardy. They could not solve problems that were right in front of them." I opened my eyes. "Neither can I, it seems."
"You are working your way through lies."
"I know. The only person who has not lied to me is you."
Lady Breckenridge smiled a little, her red lips curving. "Are you certain?"
"You never hide your opinions."
"That is true. I was brought up to be demure, which I was until I married my foul husband. Then I realized that a demure and timid lady won nothing. But I did lie to you, Gabriel."
"About what?"
She reddened. "About why I helped Louisa Brandon the night of the murder. I told you I did it because she was your friend. That was not entirely true."
I fixed my full attention on her. "No?"
"I helped her because I wanted to observe her. To learn what sort of woman had won your adoration."
I studied Lady Breckenridge in silence. Her eyes held a defiant light, but behind that defiance lay--worry?
"It is not adoration," I said.
"Is it not?"
She challenged me. She wanted truth. I was not certain what truths I could give her, because I was confused about truth these days myself.
One thing I knew was that she was warm, and that her touch delighted me in ways I had not known for a long time.
"No," I answered. "It is not. Admiration, certainly. And friendship."
"And love," Lady Breckenridge said.
"Love." I touched her face. "But not love that is covetous. I would see Louisa happy, but I do not need to possess her."
She looked unconvinced. "Gentlemen often express admiration, when in truth they mean desire."
"Your husband might have done so. My desire lies along another path." I drew my finger across her lips.
Her eyes still held caution. "I can never be this paragon you admire. No matter how I try."
"I do not want you to be. I want you to be witty and acerbic and blow smoke in my face when I am stupid and soothe me when I am hurting. You have proved excellent at all these things."
She dropped her gaze. "From the beginning I have made a complete cake of myself for you. That you do not despise me amazes me."
I regarded her in surprise. Lady Breckenridge had always seemed a woman who did exactly as she pleased for reasons of her own.
"You make me long to be tender," I said.
She looked up at me. In that moment, when her eyes met mine, I knew that I'd never in my life met a woman like her.
"We do not have time to be tender," she reminded me. "We must find your colonel's letter so that you may save him from the noose."
Thus, Colonel Brandon, even imprisoned, reached out to make my life difficult.
"Yes," I said. "But damned if I know how I will do it."
Lady Breckenridge slid from my lap and pressed a kiss to the crown of my head. "You will find a way, Gabriel."
I gave her an ironic look. "I am pleased at your faith in me."
She took my hand and helped me to my feet. "If Colonel Brandon did not leave the letter in a book, then we must look elsewhere."
"He did," I said with conviction. "I know he did."
I thought glumly that in truth, a servant must have found it, had not realized what it was, and destroyed it.
As I studied the room again, I noted that the paneling in one corner did not fit quite right. Closer scrutiny showed that a door had been cut into it, probably one that opened into the servants' passage behind the walls. No attempt had been made to completely hide the door, but the paneling had been fashioned to make it unobtrusive. Few would pay attention to it until the servant came through with tea or to lay the fire or whatever his or her particular duty might be.
I ran my fingers down the edges of the paneling until I found a piece of gilded molding that moved. The designer had cleverly used the molding to conceal the door's latch. I pressed the latch, and the door swung smoothly toward me.
I looked inside at a narrow passage with plastered walls lit with sconces. A footman, hurrying through on some errand or other, saw me and started, his eyes going wide.
"I beg your pardon," I said to him.
The footman regained his composure, changing from human being to well-trained servant in the space of a moment. "Sir?" he said coolly. "May I assist you?"
"Yes." I motioned with my stick. "Where does this passage lead?"
"To the ballroom, sir. And in the other direction, to the stairs to the kitchens."
"Do all the rooms have access to this passage?"
"Yes, sir." I heard the Of course they do, in his voice.
"May I look?"
His brows climbed. "It is no place for a gentleman, sir. O
r a lady."
"Even so. Please show us."
The footman gave me the same look a put-upon colonel had when wives new to the regiment requested a tour of the army camp. Lady Breckenridge and I did not belong there, the look said. This passage was the servants' territory, and ladies and gentlemen were not welcome. However, the footman gave me a nod and led us inside.
The passage was dim and stuffy, but I could see that it would be handy for moving about the house quickly, not to mention unseen. The walls were plastered but not painted, and the doors were rough wood, very unlike their elegantly disguised counterparts on the other side.
The doors also looked alike. "How do you know which leads where?" I asked. "For instance, which would lead to the anteroom in which Mr. Turner was killed?"
The footman led us to the door second from the end on the left. "This one, sir."
"But how do you know?"
He gave me his look of faint disdain. "We know."
"You are thinking the murderer came this way," Lady Breckenridge said. "How would he have known which door it was?"
"He might live in the house himself," I said. "Or, someone in the house told him, or he scouted beforehand." I turned to the footman, who remained stiffly disapproving. "Did you or any of the other servants observe anyone back here who should not have been the night of Mr. Turner's murder? Or anything unusual at all?"
"I did not, sir. But I will ask Mr. Hawes. He is butler, sir."
"One more question. Did you or any maid or footman remove a paper from any of the books in these rooms? Say the day after the murder? While they were cleaning? Perhaps they found something sticking from a book and pulled it out?"
"I clean these rooms myself, sir. And I did not find anything unusual among the books. But I will ask Mr. Hawes, sir."
Hawes seemed to be the font of all wisdom. "Please do," I said. "We will wait in the anteroom."
The footman opened the door, and I ushered Lady Breckenridge through to the anteroom.
I examined the passage side of the door before the footman closed it but could find nothing to differentiate it from the other doors in the servants' corridor. Inside the anteroom, the door fitted well into the scarlet and gold wall, although the line was visible if one knew where to look for it. The door was not a secret.
The footman disappeared, obviously relieved to see us back on our side of the walls. I studied the gilded molding and red silk above the wainscoting. The scheme was bright and a bit overwhelming, as I remembered, but I saw nothing to indicate that someone could have marked the door from this side--nothing shoved through the crack or any such thing.
"So the murderer entered through the servants' door," Lady Breckenridge said. "Which is why no one noticed him enter from the ballroom. Guests roamed in and out of the ballroom and all over the downstairs rooms all night. I do not think anyone would notice who was in or out at a given time. Even so, the murder must have been very quick."
"It likely was." I left my examination of the door and laid my walking stick across the writing table. "The murderer has made up his mind to kill Turner. He makes the appointment, leaves the ballroom, and enters the servants' passage through one of the other rooms. He comes here, meets Turner. He has Colonel Brandon's knife, which Brandon must have left about somewhere, or he'd previously stolen it from Brandon's pocket." I turned to Lady Breckenridge. "He approached Turner. Turner knew him--or her--and did not fear. There was plenty of noise in the ballroom, the orchestra, the dancing, the conversation. Before Turner knows what is happening, the killer steps to him, possibly covers Turner's mouth so he won't cry out, and drives the blade home."
I saw it in my mind. Without realizing what I was doing, I covered Lady Breckenridge's mouth with my hand and pressed my fist against her chest, right where the killer would have plunged the knife.
It would have been fast and quiet. Turner would have grunted if he'd made any noise at all, then fallen limp. The killer had caught him, lowered him into the chair, and arranged him to look as though he were drunk or asleep. The murderer then left the way he'd come.
Lady Breckenridge's eyes glittered above my hand. "Very exact," she said, stepping away.
I came back to the present. "I beg your pardon."
"Not at all. It was an apt demonstration. You do know, do you not, that you are only succeeding in making the case against Colonel Brandon tighter? He was in a room with a door to the passage. He admitted it. Basil Stokes saw him."
"And likewise, Brandon saw Basil Stokes. Stokes said they exchanged a few words, then Brandon made for the back of the house. Why Brandon says he saw no one back there, I don't know, unless Stokes is lying about the entire encounter. Stokes claims he went back to the ballroom and then heard Mrs. Harper scream, but we have only his word on it."
"But why should Basil Stokes kill Henry Turner? Mr. Stokes is rather irritating, but he hardly seems the sort to kill in such a clandestine fashion. He'd challenge Turner to a fight if he truly wanted to harm him. Loudly."
"I agree with you, in part," I said. "But Stokes, by his own admission, owed Turner a huge debt. And he expressed relief that Turner was dead and that he no longer had to pay it."
Lady Breckenridge shivered. "It is all so horrible."
"Murder is horrible. Death while fighting is one thing--a deliberate and underhanded murder is another."
"It is good of you to help your colonel," she said. "No matter what I think of your motives."
"I need to," I said. "Not simply because of Louisa. Colonel Brandon aided me when I needed it most. He took me, a callow young man with no future, and made me into something. No matter what else is between us, he gave me that."
Lady Breckenridge did not answer. She did not need to. She slid her arms around my waist and rested her head on my chest.
At this inauspicious moment, the butler, the all-knowing Hawes, entered the room.
Lady Breckenridge stepped away from me, looking in no way embarrassed.
Hawes, like a good butler, pretended not to notice. "Sir," he said. "My lady." He turned to me, his butler hauteur in place. "John told me that you wish to know if anything unusual was seen in the passage the night of the ball, or any person not meant to be there."
I nodded. "That would be helpful."
"I am afraid none of the staff saw any person untoward at the time in question. I have inquired. Most of the footmen were circulating champagne in the ballroom or cleaning up the supper rooms. The passages would have been empty for a time, so someone might slip through without us noticing. However, one of the maids did mention that she noticed a scrap of lace caught near one of the doors."
I came alert. "A scrap of lace?"
"Yes, sir. As might come from a lady's gown."
"Near which door?"
"The door to this room, sir. I will show you."
He glided across the room and unlatched the panel that led to the servants' corridor. He pointed to a small nail that stuck out a little from the wooden doorframe. "Just there, sir. The silly girl left it there, and when she reported it to me, I ordered her to return and take it away. But she claimed that when she returned, the lace had gone. Possibly another footman saw it and disposed of it."
Or possibly, I thought, excitement rising, the killer had taken it from the door and put it into Turner's pocket, where Mrs. Harper found it when she examined the dead man's coat.
"Will there be anything else, sir?" Hawes asked.
I distinctly felt his wish for us to leave. We were intruding on his and his staff's routine.
"That will be all, thank you. You have been quite helpful."
Hawes bowed again. "Her ladyship has retired to bed. She asked me to bid you good afternoon when you take your leave."
I inclined my head. "Tell her ladyship that we wish her good health."
Lady Breckenridge added her wishes and the message that she would visit again when Lady Gillis was feeling better. Hawes saw us upstairs and the footmen brought our wraps.
Befo
re we departed, Hawes handed me a folded piece of paper, written over in fine printing. The words were English and the message seemed to be about cakes, so I dismissed the idea that Hawes was handing me the document that Colonel Naveau and I sought.
"Begging your pardon, sir," Hawes said. "The cook asked leave to give you this receipt for cakes that Mrs. Brandon admired."
"Mrs. Brandon?" I asked in surprise.
"Yes, sir. She expressed a liking for Cook's lemon cakes when she visited, and asked for the directions, so that her own cook might prepare them for her."
"I see." I took the paper. "I am certain that Mrs. Brandon will thank her."
"Not at all, sir." He saw us out the door, and then Lady Breckenridge's footmen took us in hand. I tucked the paper into my coat and climbed into the carriage, trying to stem my excitement.
Lady Breckenridge saw through me. "What is it, Gabriel? You look positively triumphant."
I settled back and stretched my leg toward the box of hot coals while she watched me. "I now know what became of the letter."
Her eyes widened. "Do you? Shall you retrieve it at once, then? What direction shall I give my coachman?"
"It will keep. First, I would like to return to Bow Street and look at the scrap of lace that Pomeroy took from the dead man's pocket."
Without waiting for explanation, Lady Breckenridge told her coachman to drive to Bow Street. Then she sat back and looked at me. "You are very interested in this lace. Do you think a woman did this murder?"
"Not necessarily," I answered.
"But the lace was caught outside the door. Perhaps a woman slipped through the passage and tore her gown on the protruding nail."
"No, if I am correct, the lace was used to mark the door to the anteroom. So that when the killer hastened down the rather dark servants' passage, with the doors that look all alike, he would know which to go through."
"Then that dismisses the idea that one of the Gillis servants had anything to do with it," Lady Breckenridge said. "They would have no need to mark the door."
I hadn't thought any of Lord Gillis's staff had done this, thinking they'd be wise enough not to kill Turner inside the house, where servants were well supervised and anything out of the ordinary quickly noticed. Though when Leland had first revealed Turner's proclivities, I'd briefly pictured Turner making advances to one of the robust footmen, and said footman taking exception, with Brandon's knife somehow convenient.