“Miss Hemphill?” Amy asked.
“Another puzzle piece. She wanted to marry the man, so why kill him? You are confident she was the author of the missive you received about Mr. St. Vincent’s connection to illegal drug trade, so that points the finger to her wanting the man whole and hardy.”
“Yes.” Amy sat for a minute, pondering that. “I think we need to give her more thought, but I am not prepared to remove her from the list yet.”
William leaned back on the settee, looking quite comfortable. Only a few weeks ago, she mused, they had shared no more than a light friendship. “We have yet to uncover the middleman for St. Vincent’s opium trade. There could be any number of reasons why that man would want your fiancé dead.”
“Ex-fiancé.”
“I need to spend some time questioning those who know the shipyard and opium trade to see if I can come up with the name of any man who should also be on the list.”
They both looked up from their notes as Lacey once again entered the room, holding a small white card that she held out to Amy. “Milady, Sir Holstein requests to speak with you.”
“Yes, Lacey, we are expecting him. Please show him in.”
Sir Holstein was tall, slender, and of a serious mien. Which was not unexpected, given his line of work. He wore wire-rimmed glasses and carried a portfolio. While not expensive or even fashionable, his clothing was neat, clean, and pressed. A dark beard and mustache, matching his wavy hair, covered most of his face.
He bowed over Amy. “Good afternoon, my lady. Your father sends his best wishes and regards.”
She smiled and nodded, not fooled by that message from Papa. He wanted to make sure she understood that Sir Holstein was here at his behest and that she was expected to fully cooperate.
Cooperate she would. Fully—not entirely.
“Please have a seat, Sir Holstein, and I will send for tea.”
He sat across from her and placed his portfolio on the floor. “Tea will not be necessary, unless it is your teatime. I do not wish to interrupt your normal schedule.”
“No. That is fine. It is a bit early for tea.” She and William sat side by side, watching as Sir Holstein took out a pad of paper from his portfolio, withdrew a pencil, flipped a few pages, and then looked up at them expectantly.
Not sure what the man intended for her to say, she merely smiled in his direction. “My father tells me you are acquainted with Lord Carlisle.”
Sir Holstein sat back. “Yes, indeed. I did some work for him, and we became friends. He’s a wonderful man, very progressive in his thinking. I am honored to be invited to his home for dinner on occasion.”
He looked down at the page with scrawled notes over it. “I have a bit of information here from Lord Winchester. You were engaged to one Mr. Ronald St. Vincent, the owner of a shipping company. You summoned him to your home on Friday, the eighteenth day of April, and ended your arrangement with him, to which he was not amenable.” He looked up and waited for her to nod her concurrence, which she did.
“According to your father, Mr. St. Vincent arrived at your house, uninvited and unexpected, on Tuesday, the twenty-second day of April.”
Again he looked up for her acknowledgment. When she nodded, he returned to his notes.
“When you were notified of his arrival, you took some time in joining him in the library, and when you entered the room, he was not there and the French doors were open.”
“Yes.” Amy was tired of nodding her head and decided to use her voice a bit.
“Excellent. Then you went to the garden to search for him, and upon returning, you stumbled over his body.”
He switched his attention to William. “You, my lord, were in the drawing room awaiting your expected visit with Lady Amy. Upon hearing screams, you left the drawing room and entered the library, where you found Lady Amy upset, her hands covered with blood, staring at the deceased.” He looked up once again at Amy. “Whereupon you fainted.”
Silence filled the room, and Amy shivered at the memory of how St. Vincent had looked, staring up at nothing, the large knife in his chest. “Yes. That is the way it happened.”
Sir Holstein turned his attention once more to William. “Please tell me what you saw, my lord.”
William repeated the story of arriving in the library, seeing Amy staring at the floor, then fainting. He explained how he had sent a staff member to summon the police and encouraged Amy to wash the blood from her hands and face.
“How did the blood get on your hands and face, Lady Amy?”
“When I fell, my hands landed on Mr. St. Vincent’s chest. Then at some point I rubbed my cheeks and transferred the blood to my face.”
The investigator snapped his notepad closed. “I would like to see the library.”