‘No. He would have picked a quarrel over something else entirely,’ Luc said.
I wondered if he’d ever duelled and decided not to ask on the grounds that it would only encourage him. ‘So, we can’t rule out a woman, although she’d have had to plan carefully or be very lucky. But we can rule out murder to avenge someone’s honour?’
‘Yes,’ they agreed in unison.
‘Right. Then what do we do next?’
‘Could you make a list of patients from the uncoded ledgers for the past two years?’ Luc asked. ‘Garrick is going to discover if any of the servants in the houses in that road, or the grooms in the mews behind, saw anything.’
‘On what authority?’
‘I will imply I’m with Bow Street,’ Garrick said. He certainly looked as though he might be a thief-taker.
‘James and I will see what we can discover about Sir Thomas’s section of the Home Office.’
‘See if anyone has heard of Mr Dettmer,’ I said. I still wasn’t prepared to give up on my spy theories. I drained my tankard, the contents of which would have reduced any member of the Campaign for Real Ale to incoherent delight, and sighed at the thought of an afternoon of clerical slog. ‘I’ll need paper. A lot of paper. And a pencil. I’m not using a dip pen, let alone a quill.’ I was sulking, I admit it. I wanted to dress up as a youth and join Garrick or put on a new bonnet and flutter my eyelashes at some Home Office spies.
‘I’ll take you to the surgery, see you settled,’ Garrick said. ‘There’s a stationers’ just up this street and then we’re virtually at the house.’ I suspect he was picking up vibes from me that the brothers were not aware of. Women and servants, however well-regarded, did what they were ordered and ladies, at least, submitted to being put somewhere safe and told to get on with a nice genteel occupation involving, if not needle and thread, then pen and ink.
On the other hand, this probably was the best use of my time. I just wished it involved something more exciting.
Let me give you some advice – do be careful what you wish for.
Bromley let us in at the house door and meekly led the way down to the surgery. Garrick produced a key and unlocked it and glanced around. ‘Has anyone been down here?’
‘Not since the Constable and his men left, no, sir.’
I turned and looked properly at Bromley. He was even whiter than he had been that morning and I wondered if he was eating or sleeping. I don’t think I would have cared to spend all my time alone, day and night, in a house where an unsolved murder had been committed a short time before.
‘Miss Lawrence will be working here for a while,’ Garrick said, putting the package of paper on the desk. ‘Bring her tea when she rings.’
‘Yes, sir.’ The manservant sounded cowed. He and Garrick were both gentlemen’s gentlemen, although I assumed that they took the relative status of their employers. But even so, I’d have expected him to say Mr Garrick, not Sir.
‘I will be back in an hour, perhaps two, Miss Lawrence. Will you be all right?’
‘Yes, certainly.’ I broke open the packet, took out paper and a pencil and settled myself behind the desk, then made myself look at the space in front of the hearth. The rug that had been so hideously stained had been replaced with a brightly-coloured Oriental. I wondered what the polished boards beneath looked like and repressed a shudder. Bloodstains couldn’t hurt me. ‘Thank you, Bromley.’
He left on almost silent feet, the door closing with a soft click behind him. I waited a minute, then removed the desk drawer, found the key and went to fetch the first ledger.
After an hour I was making good progress. I gave each initial letter its own sheet of paper to make sorting easier afterwards and jotted down name, medical condition and date. Once I was halfway through the first ledger I was finding repeats, so could just add the dates under the name.
I turned the last page in the second ledger and heard a sound, just a whisper that, for a moment, I could not identify. Then I realised there was someone in the room. That sound had been the brush of the lower edge of the door against an uneven floor board that I must have noticed subconsciously when I’d entered before. The door was behind me.
There was no weapon on the desk, not even a paperknife or a steel-nibbed pen. I had taken off my bonnet so had no hat pin and my reticule was on the fireside chair, which left only a pencil and the ledger. The final page crackled under my palm as I smoothed it down. One name. I added that to my notes and closed the volume, setting it upright on the desk and keeping hold of it ready to throw. Then I turned, as though getting up.
‘Bromley.’
I didn’t make the mistake of thinking he had brought tea and crumpets. His eyes were intent and full of some desperate emotion I couldn’t read and his jaw was working as though he was about to burst into speech at any moment. Then I looked down at his hands. He was holding an open cut-throat razor.
Chapter Ten
Breathe. Get up and put the desk between you. I stood slowly, not making any abrupt moves, pushed back the chair and edged to the far side of the desk, still holding the ledger. ‘What is the matter, Bromley? You shouldn’t hold an open blade like that, you might cut yourself.’
He didn’t seem to hear me. The wild gaze followed me as I moved, then, when I stopped, began to flicker around the room.
‘Bromley? Put the razor down.’ I tried for calm and authoritative but I might as well have been out on the street whistling for all the notice he took of me. The solid bulk of the ledger was some comfort, but I didn’t underestimate the destructive power of a razor. If I tripped or he feinted and I misjudged… I’d seen images of razor slashes, I knew what they could do to a face, to an artery. Don’t think about that.
‘Brom– ’