“Was money the reason Jack Jewell took his own life?”
Flannery sucked in a sharp breath. “Did Scarlett tell you that?” He didn’t wait for an answer but leant across the table and in a low voice said, “I should have known something was amiss when he gave me a few trinkets for Scarlett and asked me to bring her to the Serpent should anything untoward happen. But a man like Jack Jewell doesn’t put a pistol in his mouth and pull the trigger.”
“Then you suspect foul play?”
Had a lord sought violent means to regain his vowels? It seemed the most likely explanation. But hadn’t Scarlett mentioned an attack in the alley led her to marry Lord Steele? What if the event had nothing to do with Steele and he simply happened to be in the right place at the right time?
“Let’s say I doubt things happened as the coroner said.” Flannery paused but then added, “But I beg you not to tell Scarlett.”
An icy shiver raced across Damian’s shoulders.
What if someone did shoot Jack Jewell?
But what motive would they have for killing his daughter?
Damian tapped his breast pockets looking for his flask but remembered leaving it at home. “And you gave Scarlett these trinkets?” Perhaps there was something valuable amongst the items, an heirloom lost in a game of hazard.
“She has them, just a bible, a shawl and her mother’s ring.”
They didn’t sound like items that might induce a man to murder.
“And Jack gave you nothing else, nothing for safe keeping?” There had to be something else, something of value. The coroner’s verdict meant all property was forfeit, confiscated by the Crown. The more Damian thought of it, the more he believed Scarlett’s problems had to do with her father.
Flannery shook his head. “Nothing.”
Silence descended.
“I mean he left a letter case after his last visit but didn’t live long enough to reclaim it,” Flannery continued. “There’s nothing in it, nothing at all but dockets and receipts.”
Hell’s teeth!
Did the man not think it an important piece of information?
“Where is the case now? Do you still have it?”
Flannery shrugged. “Somewhere. Most likely the attic. Should you like to see it, Mr Wycliff?”
“I think that would be a good idea.” Damian couldn’t suppress the hint of sarcasm in his voice. “After all, it may hold the key to this damnable mystery.”
While Flannery stomped from the room in search of the letter case, Damian’s thoughts turned to Scarlett. Was Lady Rathbone fawning over the widow, trying to establish if she might make a suitable wife for her besotted grandson? Would Lord Rathbone’s constant dribbling spoil his dinner?
He could imagine the pretentious babble.
Scarlett did not belong with them—she belonged with him.
Flannery returned some fifteen minutes later, carrying a black leather case under his arm. “This is the one, so it is.” He shook the case and brushed off the dust. “I’m surprised the rats haven’t nibbled the corners.”
The portfolio looked like it had been abandoned in a loft for thirty years, not a little more than three. “And he said nothing to you about storing it for safekeeping?”
“Jack arrived with the case. When he left, it was under his chair.”
Damian placed it on the desk, flicked the catch and withdrew the pile of musty papers. The dust made him sneeze. “There must be a hundred receipts here.” He snatched the top one and scanned the faded words. “Lord Mulberry’s vowel, though it says repaid.”
Flannery dropped into the seat behind the desk, took a handful of receipts and examined the first one on the pile. “Another vowel repaid. And a bill from that place in Bath.”
And so it went on.
More of the same—papers that meant nothing now.