“I could have told you this much myself,” I pointed out, waving the paper at him. “What possible purpose did this serve, except to cost us a week?”
We were in his sitting room again, the room unchanged from the previous week, save for the seedlings. They had disappeared, and in their place was an elaborate set of scientific equipment, such as often used for laboratories. A beaker full of greenish-yellow liquid was bubbling away on a burner, but Brisbane did not seem concerned about it, and for all my knowledge of chemistry, it might have been his laundry.
He sighed and settled himself more comfortably in his chair.
“My lady, I did attempt to explain to you last week that inquiries at this late stage would be difficult if not impossible. We have notes of a threatening variety, but a death certified as natural. We know of one person who was cowardly enough to strike with a poisoned pen, but we do not know that he was sufficiently vicious to do worse.”
“You think that hounding a dying man is not sufficiently vicious?”
“I did not say that. You have a gift for putting the worst possible construction upon my words,” he said, an edge creeping into his voice. He always seemed slightly irritable with me, but I could not tell if it was the result of my company. Perhaps he was just a very cranky man. I liked to think so. I would have hated to think I was responsible for such incipient nastiness.
I adopted a tone of deliberate sweetness. “Oh? I do apologize. Please, do go on and explain how a person could be capable of tremendous cruelty, but not murder.”
“That is just what I am trying to explain,” he said icily. “People are cruel and horrible to one another all the time, but only rarely do they commit murder. There is a boundary there that most people cannot, will not cross. It is the oldest taboo, and the hardest to break, despite what you doubtless read in the newspapers.”
I ignored the barb. “You sound like the vicar at St. Barnabas.”
“St. Barnabas?”
“The church at Blessingstoke, the village in Sussex where I was raised. The vicar likes to talk about the great wall that exists in all of us, the end place at which each of us will say ‘That is as far as I shall go.’ He is very interested in how those walls are formed.”
“For example?” Brisbane’s brow had quirked up, a sign, I believed, that he was intrigued.
“For example, perhaps a woman would never steal, under any normal circumstances, but to feed her starving child, even she might be tempted to a loaf of bread from a baker’s basket.”
Just as suddenly as the brow had raised, it lowered, and his nostrils flared a little, as a bull’s will when its temper is beginning to rise.
“A very diverting problem for a country vicar, I’m sure, but hardly germane to what we are about,” he said. “Now, I have delivered the report, as promised.”
“And you mean to leave matters there,” I finished flatly. He shrugged. “That is not good enough, Mr. Brisbane. You seemed convinced a year ago that something criminal was afoot. The passing of time does not change that. It simply makes your task more difficult. I would not have taken you for a man to shy from a challenging situation. In fact, I would rather have thought you the sort of man who would relish it.”
His expression was thoughtful, but his eyes, watchful as always, gave nothing away. “Oh, very neatly done, my lady. If I refuse to pursue this goose chase of yours, I am either a lazy cad or a coward.”
Too late, I remembered Portia’s tale of the duel he had fought with Lord Northrup’s son. This man was far from a coward. He was headstrong, audacious. Some might even call him violent. And with characteristic March fecklessness, I had just baited him dangerously.
“Did I imply that? I am so sorry. I simply meant that I thought this would appeal to your intellectual curiosity. I was so certain that you were the man to help me, I was perhaps overzealous.” I smiled ingratiatingly.
He smiled back, a baring of the teeth that was more wolfish than engaging. “I shall pursue this for you, my lady. Not because you nagged like a fishwife, but because my curiosity is indeed piqued.”
Nobly, I ignored the insult. “Edward’s murder did not seem to pique your curiosity a moment ago.”
Brisbane blinked, like a cat will when it is sunning itself, slowly, hypnotically. “I did not say that it was the possibility of murder that aroused my interest.”
Before I could decipher his meaning, there was a scratch at the door. Brisbane did not reply, but the door opened, anyway, and a man appeared bearing a tray. “Tea,” he pronounced, looking pleasantly from Brisbane to me and back again.
Brisbane waved a hand. “This is Theophilus Monk, my lady. My factotum, for lack of a better word. Monk, Lady Julia Grey.”
Monk was a very superior sort of person, perfectly groomed and very poised. He had an eager, almost educated look about him, and had Brisbane not introduced him, I would have mistaken him for a gentleman, a country squire perhaps, much given to vigorous exercise. He looked robustly healthy, with a very slight embonpoint that seemed the result of the thickening of old muscles rather than too many pastries. His hair was neatly trimmed and silvering, as were his mustaches. His eyes were an indeterminate colour, but assessing and shrewd. He took a moment, as he laid the tray, to take my measure, but he was so quick, so discreet, I almost missed it. I had a very strong suspicion that he assisted Brisbane in his inquiries. I could easily imagine him proving quite resourceful in an investigation.
He bowed very smartly from the neck.
“Do you enjoy being called a factotum?” I inquired, taking the cup he poured. Most bachelor gentlemen would have expected their lady guest to do the honours of pouring. It was a relief to be spared that. I was always rather clumsy around tea things and I fancied Brisbane thought me odd enough without my spilling the tea or dropping the saucers.
“I have suggested majordomo, but Mr. Brisbane finds it too grandiose for such a small establishment,” Monk explained in a gravelly Scots voice. “I am in fact his batman, my lady. Feather cake?”
“Ooh, yes, please. Batman, Mr. Brisbane? You were an officer in the army?”
Brisbane stirred his tea slowly. “I have been many things, my lady, none of which would interest you, I am sure.”
Monk coughed quietly. I had heard that cough often enough from Aquinas. It was the upper servant’s method of tactfully correcting his employer. But if Brisbane was aware of his rudeness or of Monk’s disapproval, he did not show it. In fact, if anything, he seemed vaguely amused.
“I shan’t need you further, Monk. Her ladyship and I can manage the rest.”
Monk bowed again and withdrew.
I faced Brisbane over the teapot. “Did you mean what you said? You will pursue this?”
Brisbane sipped at his tea. “I suppose. I have a few other matters that I must bring to conclusion, but nothing that cannot wait. And I have no other clients questioning either my integrity or my courage at present.”
I bit my lip. He was right to needle me. I had behaved wretchedly. Out of my own impatience and frustration I had offered him an insult that few men would have borne so calmly. I was only surprised that he had borne it at all, considering his bald threat of the previous year to have me horsewhipped for impugning his character.
“Yes, about that,” I began slowly. “I spoke in haste. I am truly sorry. I really did not mean it as an insult. I do find the whole matter puzzling in the extreme, and as you are in the business of conundrums …”
“You thought I would find yours irresistible?” he supplied.
Again, his voice was perfectly even,