Page 70 of The Case of the Curate

“He arrived very quickly after the shooting last night. And at the scene of Dinah’s murder.”

Chadbon’s jaw dropped. “You suspect Kemp? My dear lady…”

“We have to look dispassionately at everyone. What do you actually know about him, my lord? Has there ever been any trouble between him and the other servants?”

“What sort of trouble?” asked Chadbon, mystified.

“Any sort. Over his discipline, for example. Have any of your staff ever left suddenly with no good reason given?”

Chadbon did not want to talk about that. And yet the nightmare wouldn’t end until something was done. He didn’t want his household turned upside down, but a servant of any kind would be an easier sacrifice than a well-born ally. There would still be hope of covering up Kemp’s arrest by a retirement story, perhaps, and the pulling of a few strings… But what the devil had Kemp to do with any such matters?

“Well, there was a maid a few years ago who had to leave,” Chadbon admitted reluctantly. “With child, you know. Can’t have such immorality in my house. Kemp fully agreed with me.”

“Dinah was with child too,” Lady Ambrose pointed out.

“Yes, but not—” He broke off, his face heating, and cleared his throat.

“Not by the same man?”

God, did she have to be so blunt? Washing his dirty linen in public, as the saying went, was against everything he stood for and everything he believed in. But it was true that Society turned a blind eye to the peccadillos of young men. No one who mattered would think any worse of Chadbon or Gerald for this one.

“Gerald, my son, was once an undisciplined cub. Marriage has sorted him out.”

“Was that an option for the maid concerned?”

“What? How the deuce should I know? My wife and Mrs. Thornfield dealt with the practicalities.”

“She was dismissed without a character,” Lady Ambrose said, as if it mattered.

For some reason, Chadbon tugged at his cravat. “Probably. It’s how such things are managed. I acknowledge it may not be just.”

“Could Mr. Chadbon be the father of Dinah’s child too?”

“No! He has not visited us in almost a year.”

“And Kemp himself does not bother the maids?”

Chadbon’s jaw dropped. “Good grief, no! He is more than sixty years old and as respectable as they come!”

“I may need to speak to him again, and for your sake, he must be honest.”

Chadbon felt he should object to everything about that statement, but somehow he couldn’t find the words. And the girl was already talking again.

“What about Mr. Otteridge?”

He saw the pattern, of course. Both men had been first on the scene after the shot last night. And she did not regard them as rescuers.

“A respectable, married gentleman,” Chadbon said with what dignity he could muster, “who has been my trusted friend and aide for a decade, and more, my closest ally in the Commons.”

“But a man of ambition. Do you think he covets your unique position in the party?”

Chadbon closed his mouth and sighed. “Of course he does. Any man of ambition would—including your husband.”

His reminder was quite deliberate, but it didn’t appear to surprise or offend her. “I rather suspect that is part of Gilbert’s use to you. But Gilbert is not here. Do you know anything, anything at all, that might help us prove that Otteridge did not kill Dinah, or shoot at me?”

“Only that a man of Otteridge’s position does not risk everything by murdering a maid, let alone a lady!”

“Not even if the maid blackmailed him?”