The Sign of Death (Victorian Book Club Mystery 2)

William kept his mouth closed. They were taunting him, trying to get him to say more, but the entire situation was frightening enough without him blundering about and saying something that would only get him in deeper.

“Detective, Lord Wethington’s barrister has arrived.” A young police officer entered the room after giving a slight knock.

“Send him in.”

Mr. Nelson-Graves entered the room and nodded at them. “Good afternoon, Detectives.” He took the seat next to William. “Before we go any further, I would like to speak with my client in private.”

Without a word, the two detectives stood and left the room.

“Start from the beginning.” Mr. Nelson-Graves pulled out a pad of paper and a pencil.

William took the barrister through everything step by step, from the time he had visited with Patrick Whitney to when he had spoken with Mrs. Johnson at the pub and then returned home.

“You are in a mess here, my lord.”

“I know.”

“Right now we need to get you out of here. I will arrange for bail, but if the detectives insist on continuing their interrogation, I will insist it happens at another time. We need to gather some facts first.”

William nodded, hopeful for the first time since he’d been arrested. Mr. Nelson-Graves stood and walked to the door. “Detectives, we are ready.”

They both lumbered into the room, taking the same spots they’d occupied when William arrived over an hour before.

“Is you client ready to confess, barrister?”

“No. Of course not, and I find the question ridiculous. We are requesting Lord Wethington be released with a bond.”

“No.”

William’s stomach sank.

Mr. Nelson-Graves didn’t flinch. “You are speaking of a peer. Lord Wethington is a viscount and an upstanding member of the community. He has nothing in his background that would suggest he would commit a crime such as murder.”

“Nothing in his background would suggest he would be fleecing people, setting up false business, and therefore robbing investors either.”

“We’ve been over this before, Detective. My client denies any knowledge of the information contained in the file you found in Mr. Harding’s home.”

“His signature is on the papers.”

“Again, we’ve covered this already. Those are forgeries. However, I do not intend to try this case here in the interrogation room.”

Try the case? Does Nelson-Graves believe it would go that far? William broke into a sweat.

Nelson-Graves stood. “I have an appointment this morning with the magistrate to release his lordship with a bond.”

“Until its granted, his lordship will stay here.”

It looked as though Nelson-Graves was going to argue the point, but apparently deciding against it, he nodded. “Very well.” He turned to William. “I shall be back within the hour.” He looked over at the detectives. “Based on his lordship’s peerage, I demand he be allowed to wait here. I do not want him subjected to a jail cell.”

To William’s surprise, the detectives agreed, and they left the room with Mr. Nelson-Graves.

William slumped in the chair and rubbed his forehead. With all that had happened since the detectives stormed his house, he hadn’t had a chance to even think about Mrs. Johnson being murdered.

Obviously, someone who had been in the pub the night before had heard her tell him and Amy to meet her today. There were four dark corners in the place, as well as other spots that were poorly lit, so there could have been several people William and Amy hadn’t seen who overhead the conversation.

Here the poor woman had done a good deed by taking Whitney in when he was so sick and nursing him, and because of that she had been dragged into a murder investigation and ended up dying for it.

William also wo