Page 24 of A Murder at Kew Gardens

Finch laughed softly into his tankard. “The inspector's right.”

Graves leaned forward, his hands folded upon the scarred table. “We do not touch the estate. Not yet. The moment we do, the game is up. Papers vanish. Boats move. Men disappear. If this fellow has built walls around himself in money and law, he will have built warnings around the place as well.”

“Then we watch it,” I said.

“We watch it,” Graves agreed. “Quietly. From the river if we can, from the road if we must. But no constable knocks on that gate until we know what waits behind it.”

Finch nodded. “I can put two men on it. Men who know how to look idle.”

“That leaves Marsh,” I said.

“Mine,” Finch replied. “A man of straw still drinks somewhere, sleeps somewhere, and fears someone. I'll find him.”

Whitfield smoothed the edge of his papers. “I shall continue with Mallow and Company, and with the land beyond Hammersmith. Rates, assessments, leases, old conveyances. If the place has ever changed hands, someone wrote it down.”

“I will make a few quiet inquiries along the river,” Graves said. “Not as an inspector asking after a crime. As a man asking whether trouble has ever come out of that gate.”

“And I shall call upon the Argosy. A gentleman asking after another gentleman excites little notice. The porters carried his coat. The waiters served his dinners. A steward may remember which chair he favored, which wine he ordered, and with whom he took his meals.”

Finch smiled.

A man. A club. A place. It was more than we had possessed an hour before. Not enough to seize him. Not enough to name him.

But enough to begin.

For three weeks we had hunted a ghost. Now the ghost occupied land, kept accounts, dined at a gentleman's club, and paid lawyers to conceal his face. He was still invisible.

But invisible men could be found.

Beneath our feet the chop-house roared on, all knives and voices and ordinary hunger, while above it four men divided the hunt between them and set out to give the ghost a face.

Chapter

Eleven

A Most Elevated Evening

Claire's note arrived just after breakfast.

I knew before I opened it that she had not slept. Her hand was ordinarily a graceful thing, all elegant loops and careful restraint. This had been written by a woman who had spent the night pacing.

My dear Rosalynd,

You asked where Mr. Crane was most often found. I wish I could tell you he was not found anywhere at all, but that would be a comforting lie.

He had a talent for appearing in drawing rooms where no one quite remembered inviting him. Musicales and small soirées were his natural hunting grounds. He did not thrive at large balls, where too many gentlemen knew him for what he was—or nearly so. But among widows, young wives, and self-appointed patrons of the arts, he prospered exceedingly.

Lady Pembury is holding a musicale two evenings hence. Mr. Crane attended several of her gatherings. If you can contrive to be present, you may hear something useful.

I dislike sending you into rooms where he was welcomed. But needs must. Forgive me.

C.

A musicale. So I had been right after all. Sir Basil Crane’s secrets had not been confined to dark alleys and whispered bargains. Men like him cultivated respectability as carefully as vice, and drawing rooms often concealed as much as any shadowed street. A drawing room was no safer merely because the lamps were lit.

Arriving alone, however, would invite questions I preferred not to answer. I needed a companion. Fortunately, I had a sister. Unfortunately, it was that particular sister.

I found Chrissie in her bedchamber with a fashion journal open upon her lap. She looked up as I entered, regarded me for a moment, and quietly closed the magazine. "You have that look again."