“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Mawgan said again. “If you think I killed him, then you had better ask your— You had better ask Lady Barclay. The French took him and killed him. She was there. She will tell you.”
Your—? Lover, perhaps? It was the closest he had come to a slip of the tongue.
“Your orders came, I suppose,” Percy said, “from your uncle. But tell me, Mawgan, was he acting merely as an agent for someone above him? The head man, maybe, the leader of the gang, the kingpin? Or was he acting for himself?”
It seemed impossible, incredible, laughable—that dusty, shambling old man, surrounded by the estate books, forever writing in them in his meticulous, perfect handwriting, almost never leaving his study. But what other books and accounts did he work on in there? And he had not always been old, had he?
Paul Knorr had not moved since Percy came into the room. The clock on the mantelpiece, which Percy had not noticed until now, ticked loudly.
Was one allowed a third gauntlet? If so, he had flung that too.
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Mawgan said. “My lord.”
“In that case,” Percy said, “you had better return to your house. Mr. Knorr, will you ask Mimms, my personal groom, to accompany Mr. Mawgan, if you please, and remain with him? I have spoken to him—he will know what you are asking.”
When they were gone, Percy stared glumly into the unlit fire for a minute or so and then took himself off with firm step to the steward’s office. He probably should have summoned revenue officers, he thought. But how could one summon them for the mere whiff of an idea without even a shred of real evidence? He would be the laughingstock.
He supposed everyone concerned realized—or had been told—that if no one said any more than I don’t know what you are talking about in answer to any question on the topic, they were all perfectly safe. There was no evidence against anyone.
The only real error made so far was that letter to Imogen. For someone who was obviously very intelligent, it had been a stupid mistake. But it was not evidence.
He opened the office door without first tapping upon it.
The estate books were piled neatly on shelves and tabletops and upon one side of the desk. But surely half their usual number was missing.
So was the steward.
He had better not ever think of applying for a position as an investigator with the Bow Street Runners, Percy thought. He had been signaling his suspicions ever since Saturday afternoon, when he had gone knocking upon Mawgan’s door.
Ratchett was gone, and so were all the books and ledgers that were, presumably, not estate records.
* * *
They were down on the beach again, a large party of them, on a gloriously sunny afternoon that felt more like full spring than very early March. And everyone was merry after all the tensions of the day before.
Imogen still felt a bit numb with shock. Mr. Ratchett! Not only was he involved in the smuggling ring that had plagued their part of the coast for years, but it also seemed very possible that he was the leader, the ruthless organizer and beneficiary of the trade, the man who ruled his subordinates with a fist of iron but whose identity very few even of his own men knew or suspected. There was no proof that would stand up in a court of law, but the fact that he had disappeared and that he had apparently taken with him half the contents of the steward’s office was strong corroborative evidence.
He had been living among them for years and years, a seemingly harmless eccentric.
Imogen wondered if her father-in-law had had any inkling.
It was no wonder they had tried to get Percy to leave almost as soon as he had arrived. It was no wonder they had resorted to threats when he had not only refused to budge but had also declared war on the trade on his land.
Oh, how they had had everything their own way for the past two years, with only two unsuspecting women living in the main house and one at the dower house!
And it seemed more than probable that Mr. Mawgan had drowned Dicky’s valet. But what had upset Imogen more than anything else and kept her awake through much of last night, listening to the light snoring of Mrs. Hayes’s maid, was the equally unproven theory that James Mawgan was a trusted lieutenant of Mr. Ratchett’s army, perhaps even his heir apparent, and that it had been carefully arranged that he accompany Dicky to the Peninsula to ensure that he did not return.
But . . . it was a French scouting party that had come upon them in the Portuguese hills and captured them. James Mawgan could not have had anything to do with that. Could he?
He had been put briefly under house arrest yesterday. But with the disappearance of Mr. Ratchett there had been no grounds upon which to hold him, and Percy’s groom, who had been guarding his cottage, had been called off.
James Mawgan had also disappeared by the time Sir Matthew Quentin had sent for him later in the evening to question him further in his capacity as the local magistrate.
Percy had sent for him, and Sir Matthew in his turn had summoned a customs officer, who had arrived late in the evening. The three of them, as well as Mr. Knorr, had conferred well into the night. Meanwhile Elizabeth, who had come with her husband, had sat in the drawing room holding one of Imogen’s hands and listening to the story being told and retold and told again by everyone else who was gathered there.
The four men had spent the morning together again, conducting interviews both at the house and in Porthmare. The ladies, with a male escort, had buzzed about in what Imogen deemed pointless preparations for the ball in four days’ time. The servants had the mammoth cleaning chores well under way, and the cook had the menu fully organized.