“Because I much preferred you to learn of the company through Randall’s association with it, not directly from me, or, indeed, Swithin. Once you’d had
time to assimilate Randall’s connection with such an enterprise, as I told Swithin, we then stood in no danger of you exposing Randall’s—or our—less than acceptable source of income. Such a revelation would harm Lady Randall as much as myself and Swithin, perhaps more.” He inclined his head ruefully to Letitia. “Such is the nature of our world.”
“Indeed.” Christian waited for Trowbridge’s gaze to return to him. “I take it our world is one the three of you set out to join from your days at school?”
“Oh, indeed.” Trowbridge sat back, hands folded in his lap. “We had a terrible time of it, our first year. But then Randall discovered how much the other boys—all of whom came from much wealthier families—liked to gamble. But he, and we, quickly learned that if you gamble, you’re just as likely to lose as to win, even when you grow skilled. But Randall saw another way to turn their hobby into our career. Indeed, into our future. He started organizing gambling nights in a local barn. He charged admission, and took a small percentage of the winnings. We—Swithin and I—were his lieutenants. We quickly discovered that we’d found a way to make money—a steady stream of it.”
Trowbridge paused, then his lips lifted wryly. “Of course, we were still not accepted by the other boys. Out of that—because of that, you might say—we came up with our Grand Plan. Our thesis, as it were, was that as people we were all the same, that it was only circumstances that set us apart. Through those other boys, we saw that money, lots of it, combined with the right sort of behavior, the right sort of dress and so on, could see us pass for members of the ton. Not the aristocracy—that was aiming too high—but the higher gentry, members of the upper ten thousand? That we could become.”
Letitia was fascinated. “So what was your Grand Plan?”
“We studied our peers—those boys, and as we grew older, young gentlemen we wanted to be. Alongside that, we continued to develop our business by providing the right environment, the right inducements, to get those same peers to pay us for the privilege of parting with their cash.” Trowbridge smiled. “It was ridiculously easy. As our peers grew older and went to university, so did we—but not as students. Our den in Oxford was our first serious venture into what eventually became the basis of the company’s business.”
He paused, gaze distant, as if looking back down the years. “It wasn’t always plain sailing, but Randall was the primary organizer, I had the flair to grasp what our customers wanted, and Swithin was our cautious, painstaking calculator. He was the one who always ensured we had a position to fall back to if things went wrong. As they inevitably occasionally did in those early years.”
“So by the time you came to London…” Christian prompted.
“We were entirely confident. We’d worked through all the hurdles in Oxford, and then later when we set up a den in Cambridge.”
“Do those still operate?” Christian asked.
Trowbridge nodded. “Oh, yes. Two of our most lucrative venues. London, however, required more care in selecting the right properties and finding the right staff. We were wealthy enough by then to take our time—and if I do say so myself, the years have proved us right in doing so. We’ve never had to close a hell once it opened, and only twice in all our years have we had to dismiss a manager. The entire network of hells—twelve in London, one each in Oxford and Cambridge—is now very well established.” He met Letitia’s and Christian’s gazes, and smiled. “These days there’s precious little for us to do other than keep the books, which Randall always did, and watch the money roll in.”
“We’ve learned,” Christian said, “that there are three company bank accounts, each with a group of four hells paying in, and each group was managed by one of you alone. Why was that?”
“Our Grand Plan,” Trowbridge said. “It was always our intention to become accepted by the ton—that was the end point of our game, our ultimate aim. We knew that to achieve that we needed to maintain absolute secrecy about the source of our wealth. So from our Oxford days we were very careful to limit any chance of exposure—the fewer people who even knew of our threesome, the better.”
“So that was why you, Randall, and Swithin hid your friendship?” Letitia asked.
Trowbridge nodded. “We agreed it was the best way to conceal even the possibility of the existence of the company. If by any chance it became known that one of us owned a gambling hell, there was no reason for anyone to suspect the other two. That’s why I was so surprised by Randall mentioning me in his will—he’d always been the most insistent about us not meeting socially, or even greeting each other as anything more than passing acquaintances—but of course he hadn’t expected to die when he did.”
“Randall’s secret room must have been a godsend,” Christian remarked.
“Oh, it was! So like Randall, to buy a house with a secret room. No one other than the three of us knew of it, at least as far as I know.”
“Did you have keys to the outer doors?” Christian asked.
Trowbridge laughed. “Dear me, no! Randall was positively paranoid about security—I’m quite sure he never gave those keys to anyone. No—when he wanted to see us, he’d send a note via a street urchin. He’d set a time, and the doors would be open so we could simply walk in. He was usually waiting in the office, although if the discussion wasn’t about something in the books, we’d often go into his study. More comfortable there.” His face clouded. “I heard he was killed there—in his study.”
Christian nodded. He waited a beat, then asked, “Have there been any recent developments with the company?”
“Yes, indeed. We’d decided to sell.” Trowbridge looked at Letitia. “Of course, that’s now on hold, as it were, until you decide what you wish to do. The way the company is set up, we all have to sell, or none of us can—at least not for anything like full value.”
Letitia opened her mouth; Christian closed his hand hard about her wrist. Ignoring her resulting stare, he asked, “What prompted your decision to sell?”
Trowbridge opened his eyes wide. “It wasn’t anything in particular, but Randall had reached the stage of deciding that continuing to court exposure was no longer necessary, or indeed wise. He had a canny instinct for when to draw back, and indeed, when he approached me I was only too ready to agree. We’re all very well established financially, all with significant income from investments and the like—all of us entirely accepted by the ton, as we have been for years—there was simply no reason we needed to continue with the company. I suppose, as Swithin and Randall would say, it had become more an unnecessary liability than a vital asset.”
“So you all agreed to sell.” Christian watched Trowbridge carefully. “When was this?”
“Quite recently. A few weeks before Randall’s death. He suggested it, I agreed, Swithin presumably did, too, and so Randall started the process, whatever that was. I always left that sort of thing to him, and so did Swithin. Business was Randall’s forte.”
“Did anything come of his…process?”
“Yes. He told me he had a buyer, and then, a few days before he was killed, he asked me for a letter stating that I agreed to sell my share at the same time he sold his.” Trowbridge met Christian’s eyes. “He told me the prospective buyer had requested the assurance, which I was happy to give, of course.”
“Did Randall tell you the name of this prospective buyer?”
“No.” Trowbridge shrugged. “But that wasn’t unusual. He might have told Swithin—because he might have thought to ask. For me it made no difference who bought the company as long as they paid a fair price—and I knew I could trust Randall to secure that.” He looked at Letitia. “Have you any idea whether you’ll want to sell or not?”