Children of the Shadows, page 18
A furrow formed between the girl’s brows. “I don’t remember. One day she just wasn’t here.” She shrugged, the movement raising the box a fraction of an inch.
“Did you ever notice anyone bothering her? Following her?”
A long consideration. “Sometimes a few older boys try to bother us, try to take our money or tip over our boxes. But I tell my guv, and he takes care of the mean boys. My guv doesn’t like us to have trouble. Says it keeps us from making him money.”
“Who is your guv? What does he do to the mean boys?”
She shrugged. “Mr. Baxter. I don’t know what he does to those mean boys, because I never see them again.”
“Where do you live? With your parents?”
“No, I live with Mr. and Mrs. Baxter. They sell seeds. Flower seeds, garden seeds, birdseed. There’s six of us girls who go out with birdseed to the parks and squares every day. Mr. Baxter makes up the packages at night, and we have to sell them all before we can come home. Sometimes it’s hard to sell them all.”
Juliette’s heart broke for the child, but it warmed to the gentle way Daniel questioned her.
“What street is the Baxter shop in?”
“I don’t know the street. It’s across from St. Clement’s.” She bit her lip. “Are you going there? You won’t do nothing to get me into trouble, will you?”
“If I visit the Baxters, I will tell them you are an exemplary employee.”
The child frowned as he rose. “I’m what?”
“You’re very good at your job.” He smiled. “Thank you for talking to me.”
He rose and turned away. His eyes met Juliette’s, and he stopped, his face spreading in a wider smile. He bowed. “Your Grace, Lady Juliette.”
She wanted to run into his embrace, or at least take his arm and lean her head on his shoulder as they strolled the square, but neither would be proper nor prudent.
“You remember my colleague, Mr. Wilkinson?”
Owen bowed low, holding the birdseed. “Honored.”
“Were you going to call upon the duke?” Charlotte asked. “I’m afraid he’s not at home at the moment.”
“Not at this time. Our investigation brought us here. We’re now looking for other missing children, questioning those who have worked in the vicinity of the ones we know have been taken, hoping one of them will lead us to a viable clue or solution.”
“And have they?” Juliette asked.
“We’ve gathered some information that will require us to follow up, but nothing solid.”
“And the poor man who worked for Miss Montgomery?”
His jaw tightened. “We’ve linked his death to another case, one also involving murder.” He grimaced as if he realized this was not a topic considered acceptable for discussing with ladies.
Charlotte must have assumed the same, for she linked her arm through Juliette’s. “We will not keep you from your duties, but I am looking forward to seeing you at the ball in a few days’ time. We all are, aren’t we? In fact, the dowager was just speaking of your invitation today.”
Juliette looked at her friend and hostess, biting her lip and raising her brows. Charlotte had a mischievous streak she kept well hidden.
“I can only imagine what the dowager had to say. I look forward to the evening as well, Your Grace. I thank you in advance for your hospitality.” He touched his hat brim, elbowed Owen Wilkinson, who did the same, and took their leave.
Charlotte drew Juliette toward the house, though Juliette was sorely tempted to look back over her shoulder and say with her eyes all the things she couldn’t say with others present. But she kept with decorum and didn’t look back.
Footsteps sounded on the walk behind them, and they stopped. “Lady Juliette.”
She turned to face Daniel, only inches away.
He pressed the bags of birdseed into her hands, squeezing her fingers at the same time. “Until the ball.”
She nodded.
Please, God, let him be my future.
“How could this happen, and here of all places?” Daniel surveyed the wreckage that used to be his desk. “The building is full of investigators and clerks and officers of the courts nearly every hour of the day.”
“Why is it only your desk that was broken into?” Ed asked. “What were they looking for?”
“It has to be the ledgers. They’re the only thing of value that I had in the building.” Daniel picked up the splintered front of the only drawer in his desk that locked. Used to lock, rather. Papers, quills, a letter opener, spare notebooks—every drawer had been emptied onto the floor.
“So we’ve lost the most important potential evidence in the case?”
Daniel shook his head, his mind racing. Had Sir Michael done this? He had been oddly desperate to get the ledgers returned to the club. Or had an intruder gotten in? But how would an outsider know which desk to ransack? It had to be someone in the building. Sir Michael or someone acting on his orders?
“I didn’t feel my desk or the interrogation room we’ve taken over for the investigation provided enough security. I took them upstairs to Lord Creevy’s chambers, and he locked them in his safe for me.” Daniel rubbed his palm against the back of his neck. “I was going to fetch them first thing, since the accountant had to cry off coming in yesterday and made an appointment for this morning. He’ll be here any moment.”
Ed stroked his cheek, his eyes shrouded in worry. “Be careful, lad. This makes me uneasy. I feel as if we’re in a struggle with someone very powerful, someone hidden in the shadows but whose reach is growing.”
His partner’s words echoed what Daniel felt in his gut. “I’ll take care, and you as well. I need to go fetch the books. Can you and Owen clean this up before anyone sees it? The accountant will be here at any moment, as will the staff and other investigators. I’d just as soon not advertise the break-in.”
“We’ll see to it, though hiding that broken drawer front will be difficult.”
Daniel clapped Ed on the shoulder as he headed upstairs. The magistrate’s courtroom and chambers occupied the upper story of the Bow Street building, and his footsteps echoed in the cavernous court. In an hour or so the room would be filled with those on court business, but for now it remained silent and empty.
He found Lord Creevy’s suite of rooms and tapped on the oak door.
“Come,” a loud voice barked from the other side.
“Good morning, Lord Creevy. You’re here early. I wasn’t certain anyone would be about up here just yet.”
“Can’t uphold justice by lying abed. I suppose you want those books.” The magistrate, a spare, angular man with a narrow nose and alarmingly bushy gray eyebrows, motioned him to follow. They passed from his clerk’s office into the magistrate’s sanctum sanctorum. “They’re in the safe.” He produced a long brass key from his waistcoat.
“Milord, I wonder if I could share a concern with you,” Daniel said.
“Of course.” Creevy didn’t turn around, bending to unlock the safe behind his desk.
“Someone pillaged my desk last night. I believe they were searching for these ledgers, which tells me there must be information in them vital to the case.” He didn’t go so far as to cast suspicion on Sir Michael. He had no evidence, and as far as he could tell, nothing had been stolen from the desk, only scattered about.
“A thief? Here?” Creevy straightened. “Who?”
“I do not know, milord. You may be assured I will attempt to find the miscreant.”
“It’s good you followed your instincts and brought the books up here. You may use this safe as long as you need.” Creevy handed Daniel the stack of ledgers.
“Thank you, milord. I will return them when the accountant has finished with them.”
Daniel carried the books downstairs, checking the hallway before he hurried to the interview room he had commandeered for the case.
An anxious hour later, Daniel checked in with the consultant again.
“The ledgers are extremely well maintained. Meticulous record-keeping right up to the evening he was killed.” Mr. Drew, who looked as if he could never be anything but an accountant, pushed his spectacles up onto his bald head. “Mr. Haskett had a well-ordered mind.” He spoke as if this was the highest praise he could bestow.
“That’s fine, but what do the ledgers tell us about the Olympian Club and its patrons?” Daniel kept his voice low as he leaned against the closed interview room door, ensuring only he and Mr. Drew would be privy to the conversation.
“The Olympian Club was doing a healthy business. I’ve recorded”—he consulted a list—“a clientele of nearly two hundred names from the first half of the ledgers. Now, not all are current patrons. Some have not visited the club for some time. They tend to come and go. New people are added, and some are removed, for a variety of reasons. Some have died, which makes removal simple. Others, it would seem, grew to be so in arrears to the club that their membership was suspended. And they were either reinstated when the debts were paid, or they were struck off the rolls.”
“Anything unusual about the records in the first half of the books? We’ll talk about the second half in a moment. I want to be sure I am not missing anything there.”
Mr. Drew shook his head, sucking his teeth. He wriggled his eyebrows and his glasses dropped down over his nose again. “Everything seems in order in those pages. The only unusual item I found was that Mr. Haskett appeared to keep very little money on hand at the club. Now, for his more well-known clients, members of the aristocracy, that makes perfect sense, as their voucher would guarantee their payment, but for those clients who must deal in gold or banknotes, he seems to have kept remarkably little on the premises. Almost as if …”
“As if he was having it removed daily?” Daniel finished for him. “According to the secretary, Mr. Haskett was in the practice of sending the profits of the night before by courier to be banked elsewhere every morning.”
Drew nodded. “I see. Do you know where it was being banked? If I could have access to that account, I could compare it with these ledgers and ascertain if the deposits and the amounts taken in matched. Mr. Haskett wouldn’t be the first man to have discrepancies between reports and reality.”
“I do not know where it was being taken, but I would be surprised if it was in a conventional bank. I suspect the shadow owner of the club is keeping the money in his own safe.” Daniel had thus far been unable to penetrate that secret. Alton claimed not to know for whom he worked. Tomorrow, Daniel would attempt to follow the man who picked up the money each morning. “What about the second half of the ledgers?”
“Most peculiar. There are two types of entries on these pages. Some include interest paid, or at least percentages that work out to how I would record interest paid. A moneylending operation, and quite lucrative, as the rates charged are quite high.”
“And the other types of entries? You said there were two types?” Moneylending. Had someone who had borrowed money considered killing Haskett a better option than paying?
“I’m not altogether certain, but it reminds me of another case I worked on for Bow Street. That case involved blackmail. These entries are very similar. Clearly not gambling debts, but rather money in at regular intervals? And not broken down into principal and interest as the loans are? If I had to give my opinion, I’d say that’s what it was. Records of blackmail.”
“How many different blackmail victims are there?” This would certainly take the investigation in a new direction.
“Each account gets its own page, and there are about forty pages that are thus encoded in each book. Some clients carry over from year to year, and some of the code names disappear from one ledger to the next. I would estimate there are about sixty different clients? Fifty or so who have borrowed money and another ten who are paying blackmail?”
“And there is no way of knowing who these individuals are, from these books?”
“I’m sorry, no. Your Mr. Haskett encoded the names of those clients. He was quite up front with the club members accounts, no doubt to be able to show them if any query was raised.”
“Did you come across the name Bobby Puck anywhere, other than that one note in the back of the first ledger? And anyone with the initials H.C.?” Daniel had asked him to look especially for that name.
“The name Bobby or Robert Puck does not appear anywhere else in the ledgers. There are three clients with the initials H.C. listed in the first part of the accounts as patrons of the club. And one H.C. in another section.” Drew moved the ledgers about, seeking the slips of paper he had used to mark various pages. “The first is one Herbert Croft, now deceased. Account closed two years ago. The second is Henry Cobbler. He has only a handful of entries, and from what I can ascertain, frequents the club in October of each year. Perhaps he lives outside London and his business brings him to the city in the autumn? A farmer or sailor or the like? The last is also a Henry. Henry Canfeld. Silk merchant. He has a home and business near St. James Park. All these men were up to date with their accounts, and none of their gambling is large amounts. The most that was owed at any one time was one hundred pounds by Mr. Canfeld, and he paid the amount due at the end of the month as per usual.” Drew dragged the blunt end of his pencil across a ledger page as if drawing a line beneath the account.
“Do any of the clients surprise you? Are there any outliers?” Daniel grasped at anything to help narrow his search.
“There is one little section in last year’s records. Here, someone was apparently paying for services rather than financing a loan or paying blackmail. There are half a dozen of them.” Again he consulted his papers. “Yes, here. ‘Paid for three parcels. Sent via canal boat to Birmingham.’ There are others like it. This one says, ‘Paid in full for the entire load. Seek new distributor. Current one closing doors.’ I do not know if these are part of the expenses of running the club or if he was taking in money for services he provided. It’s all unclear. Perhaps if I go through the other papers you’ve brought, invoices, and the like, I can match up the entries with an expenditure or income.”
“Are there names on these accounts?”
“Some.” Drew read them out while Daniel wrote them into his notebook. The fourth name on the list made him jerk his head up. “Repeat that name.”
“H. Cadogan. And he is in these books from the beginning, and he is the fourth H.C. in the accounts.”
Cadogan had business dealings with Haskett? A gambling debt or something else? The jarvey had said he knew Haskett years ago but had given no indication he’d had recent dealings with the man. Just the opposite, in fact. “Was it money owed or money paid to Haskett?” Perhaps it was merely carriage fares, accumulated by club members, and paid through Haskett?
Drew flipped to the beginning of the oldest ledger and ran his finger down a column. “It appears Mr. Cadogan owed Haskett money. At the largest point, Mr. Cadogan owed seventy-five pounds, but it does not appear to be a gambling debt.”
“How much is still outstanding?”
“Nothing. The account was closed two weeks ago, paid in full. Mr. Cadogan had been making payments right along in the amount of two pounds per week, which wasn’t seeing him get ahead much, as the interest on the loan amounted to fifteen shillings a week.”
“That’s robbery.” How did one dig oneself out of a hole like that?
“I agree. But two weeks ago he put down the sum of fifty pounds and cleared the debt.”
Where had a London carriage driver gotten fifty pounds? Cadogan’s carriage was old, though well cared for, his horses of ordinary breeding, and his clients not the wealthiest. He worked long hours, hustling to find fares. Add to that he had the overhead of stabling and feeding the mares. He’d also had to buy a new horse to replace the retiring Sprite. He had mentioned coming into funds recently, though he had not specified the origin of the money.
Daniel jotted some notes, plus questions he would have for Cadogan. The man was above reproach and would surely have satisfactory answers. He’d saved Daniel’s life, after all. Such a man could not be up to anything nefarious.
“Anything else?”
“Not that I have found. The majority of the clients recorded here also appear in the ledgers of other gaming and gentlemen’s clubs I have examined. It is a sort of fraternity. Those who gamble tend to have accounts at several establishments. A few are more in debt than is prudent, but there were no real surprises. The moneylending and possible blackmail—and that is conjecture on my part—I have seen such things before.”
“You understand that everything you see here is confidential?” Daniel pointed to the leather tomes, mindful of the promise he had made to Sir Michael to safeguard the information. “Unless or until there is a trial and your testimony is needed, you are to say nothing about what you’ve found.”
Drew nodded, sucking on his teeth again in a mannerism that made Daniel’s skin prickle. How did his coworkers stand it?
“I am used to keeping my clients’ secrets.” He rose, patted his pockets, searched the table, then reached for the glasses perched on his nose. He folded the stems and put them into a cloth case. He’d forgotten the pencil behind his ear. “You know where to find me. What should I do with these?” He pointed to his notes.
“I will keep them with the ledgers under lock and key for now. Thank you for your assistance.” Daniel opened the interview room door.
Sir Michael leapt away as if startled, then blinked, swallowing. “All finished? Find anything of note? I was just passing … on my way upstairs, you know?”
Daniel stifled a frustrated laugh. Listening at a door? He wouldn’t have suspected Sir Michael would stoop to that measure, and then to do such a clumsy job of covering it up?
“Inquiries are ongoing. There are a few things I must follow up on. Mr. Drew has been most helpful.”
“Has he? What did you find?”
Mr. Drew donned his hat and picked up his cane. “I shall be going, gentlemen.” He edged past Sir Michael, who raised his hand as if to stop the accountant, then let it fall.
“Thank you, Mr. Drew. Send the bill for your time.” Daniel went to close the door, but the guv’s hand pressed the glass panel, forcing it wide.
