‘Of course, if that would help.’ Hopefully I managed not to give the impression that I would have had my ear glued to the keyhole otherwise.
‘We will go into the drawing room, I think. Some formality might be helpful, but I see no need for us to be uncomfortable.’ He led the way and tugged on the bell pull, then sat in an upright chair with a small table to one side.
Luc and I followed and arranged ourselves just behind him. I took out my notebook again and concealed it as best I could in the folds of my skirts.
Grainger came in answer to the bell and was taken through the full events of Saturday, the night, and that morning in some detail. I noticed that despite his bald head gleaming in the light from the window there was no sign of perspiration. He looked upset, but not as though he had something to hide, and his account tallied closely with what he had told us.
It emerged that Lord Tillingham had been at his club on the Saturday morning and had also visited his tailor and his dentist. He had returned home in the afternoon and had worked in his study until he had taken dinner alone. Then he had returned to the study and that was the last Grainger had seen of him.
Yes, he assured Sir William, the Viscount’s mood and health appeared to be normal. He had received several deliveries of post which Grainger had brought to him. There had been nothing unusual about any of the items that he could see. Yes, his lordship habitually opened the window onto the garden. No, he had not been aware of anyone loitering around the house or any unexplained incidents in the neighbourhood recently.
‘Who was sent with the message to Mr Alexander Prescott?’ Luc asked.
The butler looked blank. ‘No one, my lord.’
‘You said he told you he had come last night in response to a message from Lord Tillingham. How had he received it?’
‘I have no idea, my lord. I was not asked to send any of the footmen with such a message.’ He frowned. ‘It is possible that his lordship stepped outside and used one of the lads who wait about in the Square for errands. Or he might have gone out of the back gate and sent one of the grooms or stable lads from the mews.’
‘Is that likely, would you say?’ Sir William asked him.
Grainger shook his head. ‘No, Sir William. It would be unprecedented in my experience.’
‘Very well. Please send up the housekeeper.’
We worked right through housekeeper, cook, two footmen, three maids, the kitchen and scullery maids, the boot boy and then three grooms, a coachman and two stable lads, all without learning anything that was of the slightest help, other than nobody admitted to taking a message to Mr Alexander, or anyone else, come to that.
Eventually we emerged with very few notes and, speaking personally, a distinct feeling that we were getting nowhere slowly.
Adrien was in the dining room, using the table as a desk, and making lists. He stood up when we came in and I thought how pale and shaken he looked and how different from the energetic young man who had looked after the twins so well. ‘I have sent one of the footmen with a message for my father asking him to come, but not saying why. It will be too much of a shock to break it in such a way. He should be the one to tell my Uncle Frederick. This will do his health no good at all.’
‘What is wrong with him?’ Sir William asked.
‘Phthisis. He has suffered from it for years, but has deteriorated very badly in the last few months. The winter weather was particularly bad for him. If we were not at war I am certain my father would have tried to persuade him to go to the Mediterranean coast. He suggested one of the southern English resorts, but my uncle is very stubborn.’
‘What is phthisis?’ I whispered to Luc.
‘Consumption.’
Tuberculosis, in other words. A terrible killer, with no cure at the time, or well into the twentieth century, come to that.
‘And after your Uncle Frederick, your father, Mr Alexander Prescott, is the next heir to the title?’
‘Yes.’ There were set lines bracketing Adrien?
??s mouth. He was clearly well aware of that fact and the implications of his father’s presence in this house shortly before Lord Tillingham’s murder. I saw suddenly why he had been so hesitant to talk about his uncle earlier – he had realised that his father had a very strong motive indeed.
‘There is a younger brother, I believe?’
‘Yes. My Uncle Horace.’ He took a deep breath then added, ‘My father has four sons and two grandsons.’
‘Quite so.’ Sir William looked approving of Adrien’s fairness in pointing out just how far removed his youngest uncle was from the title. ‘Your father is still in Town, I assume?’
‘Yes, sir. He came up because of an invitation to attend the reception at the Palace. He and Uncle Horace share a house in Upper Wimpole Street. I believe – ’ The sound of the door knocker interrupted him and we all listened as it was answered. Then Adrien said, ‘That is my father.’
Mr Alexander Prescott looked a little like his youngest son, I decided when Grainger showed him in, although the gangling frame had solidified with maturity and the mousey hair was flecked with grey. He was respectably dressed but, with my eye now attuned to the kind of tailoring Luc wore, I thought him more country gentleman than Town buck.
‘Adrien? Where is Tillingham?’ He stopped just inside the door and surveyed us. ‘Lord Radcliffe? And you are Sir William Abernathy, are you not?’ The magistrate’s missing arm and general air of military authority must have made him easily identifiable. Mr Prescott gave me a rapid bow. ‘Madam.’