The Sign of Death (Victorian Book Club Mystery 2)

She patted his hand. “That’s good, dear. And thank you so much for the extra gardener you sent. He did a wonderful job with that part of the flower garden that was looking quite sad.”

“Extra gardener?”

“Yes. A lovely man—even did some arrangements in the house for us.”

He had no idea what Mother was talking about, but with more important issues to deal with, he dismissed her words.

His first trip of the day would be to the Principal Probate Registry, which had copies of every will proved in Somerset County. He wanted to see for himself if Patrick Whitney had in fact received a great deal of money from his father, as he had stated.

The clerk at the Registry was a pleasant young man. He handed William a paper to fill out to see a copy of the probated will. Within minutes the will was placed in front of him.

He flipped through the pages, taking notes. When he was finished, he thanked the clerk and left the building with very interesting information.

Patrick had inherited one pound from his father. There had been a notation in the will that Mr. John Willingham Whitney, being of sound mind and body, was leaving his son one pound because that was all he was worth.

Apparently there had been no love lost between father and son. The next thing of note was that Mr. Whitney had left his entire estate to his wife, Mrs. Carol Swain Whitney, in trust, with Mr. James Harding acting as trustee.

Feeling more confident than he had in weeks, William made his way to Mrs. Johnson’s house for a bit of surveillance.

There was a tea shop across the street from the house. William checked his timepiece. Two o’clock in the afternoon. He ordered tea and a sandwich and was fortunate enough to find a table at the front of the store, with a full view of Mrs. Johnson’s house.

He took his time eating his food and drinking his tea. When nothing happened after about an hour, he paid his bill and left. He then entered an ale house three stores down. The window in the pub was small, but if William stood against the wall, he could watch the house.

After another two hours and one more watered-down ale, he left the pub and head

ed for home. As he slowly rode his horse back to the townhouse, his thoughts were in a jumble. If Patrick was indeed the talented actor Mother seemed to think he was, he was certainly capable of convincing William that he was ill, then grieving, the two times William had seen him.

He decided to stop at his club and have a decent drink before he returned home and was again subjected to his mother’s enthusiasm about the dinner party. Also, there was a good chance one of the members who was familiar with the law might be able to answer a few questions for him.

The club was more than half-full. He viewed the area and walked toward Mr. Adam Richards. The man was a solicitor. William had sought his advice before when his own solicitor was unavailable.

“Wethington, haven’t seen you in a while.” Richards stood, and they shook hands.

“Yes. I’ve been busy.” William waved at a footman to bring him his favorite brandy.

Richards lowered his voice. “I heard some rumors that you are being looked at by the police as a suspect in a murder? That can’t possibly be true.”

William nodded his thanks at the footman and poured brandy into the glass. “I’m afraid it is true. My man of business, Mr. James Harding, was found floating in the River Avon. For some bizarre reason, they have placed their focus on me.”

“Whyever would they have come to that conclusion?”

“They have confiscated the man’s files, and unfortunately, Harding was doing some finagling with various businesses and forged my name on some documents that made it look as though I was involved.”

Richards let out a low whistle. “That’s not good.”

“Not at all. That leaves me with another mess to clean up, even after the murder charges are dropped. Based on that, the police have foolishly assumed we were partners in crime and I killed him to take over the businesses.”

The man’s brows rose. “That is the best they can do?”

There was no reason for William to share that their suspicion had been furthered when he’d been caught twice trying to get his files. “They have refused to look at other suspects and are spending their time trying to build a case against me.”

“If there is anything I can do to help, let me know. It’s a very bad position they’ve put you in.”

“Yes. However, there is one thing I wanted to ask you.” He paused. “If a man is a trustee for an estate, is it possible to transfer the trust to another person?”

“Yes.” He nodded. “Given that it is quite hard to come by trustees because it involves a lot of work, transfers occur all the time. Considering the age of the beneficiaries of the trust, the responsibility could last a considerable length of time.”

“How is a transfer done?”