‘Thank you, but I must be going,’ I said, getting to my feet. ‘You’ve all been very helpful. There’s just one thing – what is the longest ladder you’ve got on the premises?’
‘Eight foot, Miss. Nothing long enough to get up to that bedchamber window,’ Foxy said, picking up my point instantly. ‘When we do the windows on that floor we have to sit on the cill with our bodies outside. Not much fun, that.’
‘No, it can’t be.’ I stood up and went to the door, Lucian rising just in time to meet me there. I waved my reticule at him and made a gesture that, it seemed, was unnecessary because he was already turning to the foxy footman.
‘Thank you for your time.’ Coins clinked. ‘That is for everyone. We will let ourselves out.’
I waited until we were walking down the street before I spoke. ‘Did that get us anywhere? Sir Clement is out on your say-so and I cannot believe that she would have gone willingly with a forty year old, whether or not she knew he was impotent. What do we know about the sinister Lord Welney?’
‘That I would not allow any female relation of mine within a hundred yards of the man and on the only occasion I have been a guest at one of his evening entertainments I left early. He likes beautiful women and he has a reputation for the most dissolute behaviour.’
‘So Miss Trenton might be very tempting to a man like that?’
Lucian made a sort of agreeing grunt. ‘And you are right, we need to search the house.’
‘The male staff seems to be the butler, those two footmen and the boot boy.’
‘And Cottingham’s valet but, as I recall, he’s an exceedingly weedy specimen,’ Lucian said thoughtfully. ‘I cannot imagine him turning on Miss Trenton, let alone being able to overpower her.’
‘And the butler looks as though he suffers from rheumatics, so I can’t see him becoming inappropriately frisky around the young mistress, managing to kill her and hide the body,’ I said. Lucian snorted with amusement. ‘And the boot boy is far too young. What about the footmen? The foxy one doesn’t strike me as being likely for some reason, but the dark one has a roving eye and they are both big enough to cope with a delicate young lady if she has no idea how to defend herself.’
Lucian stopped dead. ‘How do you know he has a roving eye? Was he looking at you in an impertinent manner? I will not stand for that.’ He looked inclined to march straight back.
‘Of course not, he just automatically checks out the opposite sex and he is a bit obvious about it, that’s all,’ I said and tugged at his arm to get him going again. ‘But we need to get in and search, because we can’t eliminate the possibility something has gone wrong at her home.’
‘I agree we need to do it, in case the footmen have done something. But Cottingham himself is a pillar of society,’ Lucian said. ‘Belongs to all the best clubs. I am not a close friend of his, but I have never heard a bad word about him, other than that he is somewhat intense.’
I managed not to point out that the best clubs doubtless included amongst their members wife-beaters, rapists, embezzlers, libertines, paedophiles and not a few murderers and that their fellow members thought them all jolly good fellows.
‘They could have been having a row about Sir Clement, he shook her, she slipped, hit her head on something sharp – next thing he knows, he’s got a dead body on his hands,’ I suggested. ‘An accident, he panics…’
‘True.’
‘So, we have to work out how to get in there at night.’
‘Getting in is not the problem. I have a key.’ He held up his hand to show me a large iron key pressed against his palm. ‘I pocketed it when I was in the passageway just now. They have a whole collection neatly labelled on hooks, and there were four back door keys, presumably for when the staff have evenings off. Tidy organisation, appalling security.’
You see? The best clubs have members who are skilled sneak thieves as well. I kept the thought to myself. ‘Excellent. So, when do we go in?’
‘We? We are not breaking in anywhere.’
‘Entering, not breaking,’ I pointed out. The fact that I was an officer of the law, albeit part-time and unpaid, did not escape me, but this was to save someone, I told myself firmly. I could hardly apply for a search warrant first. ‘You can’t do it alone and it would be dishonourable to expect your valet to break the law.’ That should ring all the right bells.
‘It would be e
ven more dishonourable to put a lady into such a position,’ Lucian pointed out.
Damn. ‘Yes, but I am a liberated twenty-first century woman trained in unarmed combat.’ Sort of.
I could almost feel the weight of Lucian’s sideways glance. ‘True,’ he said.
I almost tripped over a paving slab in surprise. Not an impressive display of fined-honed co-ordination by a twenty first century superwoman.
‘I must think about it,’ he said as he steadied me with a hand under my elbow. ‘I need to find out what Cottingham is doing tonight before we plan anything. Garrick will know.’
‘How would he?’
‘You heard the footmen just now. The valets know who is going to be where because they are intensely competitive and want to outdo each other in turning out their employers.’