Read Online Death by Silver by Melissa Scott - Free Book Online

Julian thought Hatton relaxed just a little.
    “The papers made it sound – rather odd,” he said, and gave Hatton his best smile. “May I ask if that’s true?”
    “It depends on what you mean by odd,” Hatton said, warily.
    “One, that Nevett was killed at all,” Julian said. “Two, that the burglar didn’t take the candlestick.”
    Hatton sighed. “Yes, those two things don’t go well together. Our best guess is that it’s an amateur, and he panicked.”
    “And then calmly went and fetched the rest of the plate?” Julian shook his head.
    “He might have had the silver with him already,” Hatton answered.
    Julian opened his mouth to answer, realized abruptly that he was showing off, and paused to reconsider. The waiter chose that moment to appear, and they ordered their chops and a bottle of hock, Ned presiding gravely over the ritual.
    “You were saying?” Hatton asked, as the waiter left, his voice deceptively mild, and Julian rested his elbows on the table.
    “It seems unlikely that a burglar would take the bulk of the plate out of the pantry and then go looking for the smaller pieces. Or that he’d be in a position to seize a candlestick for a weapon while he was carrying a great bag of awkward swag, though I suppose that’s arguable. But it seems just as unlikely that someone cool enough to kill a man and then go fetch the family silver would feel squeamish about taking a candlestick even if it was the murder weapon.”
    “That’s what I thought, too,” Ned said.
    “But that’s going by what I read in the papers,” Julian said again.
    Hatton gave a slow smile, revealing a small gap between his front teeth. “No, they were right enough. And you’ve hit the crux of it, Mr Lynes. It doesn’t fit and right now I don’t see how to make it fit.”
    “There couldn’t have been a second man?” Julian said, and Hatton shook his head.
    “No signs of one. One set of footprints in the yard – size eights – and the marks of one man’s muddy shoes in the library.” He paused. “The back gate was open, which I’ll thank you not to repeat. The servants all claim it was locked the previous night as usual, but –” He shrugged. “It’s certain the man got out that way, however he got in.”
    “They’d say that regardless,” Julian said. “The servants. But if there was an accomplice, why wouldn’t she – or he – warn our burglar of the master’s unfortunate habit of sitting up late in the library?”
    “You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Hatton was relaxing a little, his face animated. “But there’s no evidence either way. Mind you, Mrs Nevett takes an interest in the poor, and she’s gotten some of her staff from the Reverend Mr Ellis’s Limehouse mission.”
    “I don’t know it,” Julian said.
    “But I do,” Ned said. “The Mission for the Education of the Employable Poor. It’s a mouthful, but it’s not bad, as such things go. Their mission is to teach the children their letters to make them fit for decent work, and then to find them that work so they don’t have to steal or starve. It has a decent reputation, and the people it places generally do well for themselves.”
    “We don’t see so many problems with Ellis’s graduates as with some,” Hatton said. “But there’s always the chance of a bad apple.”
    The waiter arrived then with their first course, and the conversation became more general. Julian made a mental note to ask Bolster what he knew about the reverend gentleman, and settled in to enjoy the food and what proved to be an excellent bottle of wine. He still wasn’t sure what Hatton wanted, or why Ned had invited him, but he was content for the moment to wait.
    It was Ned who brought it up, after the pudding had been brought and nibbled at. “Did Carruthers ever give you an answer, Hatton?”
    Hatton drained the last of his wine, and shook his head. “He’s putting me off, and mumbling about curses and the general inadequacies of any