"Are you so unpopular?"
"I'm successful, which comes to the same thing. Naturally one has to step on a number of people and offend a good many more. I'm honest, Mr. Kestrel. What I say, I stand behind, and what I promise, I fulfill. I don't think many in the City can say as much. But I give no quarter, and I have scant patience with foolish or faint-hearted people. So I make enemies."
"What you're saying is that you had no desire to attend the party, other than your usual reasons for mixing with Falkland's set?"
"Exactly."
"When you told him you wanted to come, he asked, ‘Do you think that's wise?' What did he mean?"
Adams's fingers tapped tensely on the chair-arm. "I don't recall his asking that."
"My source says he did."
"I say he didn't."
They locked gazes, giving no ground.
At length Julian said, "Tell me how you came to know Alexander Falkland."
"I met him about a year and a half ago. A mutual acquaintance recommended him to me as a possible investor. He went in with me on a financial scheme that turned a large profit. After that there were several others. Sometimes he asked me what I thought about speculations he was considering."
"Did he ask you about those two mining ventures that failed a few months before he died?"
"Oh, yes, he asked." Adams smiled sardonically. "I told him they weren't sound, and he'd be mad to risk his money. But he'd got out of the habit of listening to me. He asked my advice but didn't take it. There was nothing more I could do. He was my protege, not my puppet."
He sat back, braced for Julian's next question. No doubt he expected it to be about the thirty thousand pounds. But Julian preferred to keep him off balance. "Did Falkland ever write to you?"
"On business matters, yes."
"Did you keep his letters?"
"I believe we have half a dozen or so in a drawer somewhere."
"I should like to borrow them."
"You can have them. I'm not sentimental."
The clerk with the green eyeshade brought in the coffee urn and two fresh cups and saucers. Adams told him to hunt up any correspondence from Alexander Falkland and give it to Mr. Kestrel when he left. The clerk kept an impassive face. If he was curious about his employer's involvement in a notorious murder, he was too well-trained to show it.
After he had gone, Julian praised the coffee, which was excellent, then returned to the matter at hand. "You arrived at the party at a quarter to eleven. Soon after, Mrs. Falkland withdrew on the plea of a headache. Have you any idea why she did that?"
"I assume, because she had a headache."
"Some people thought she and Falkland had quarrelled."
"Some people are busybodies."
"That's undeniable. But I should like to know what you think."
"I think it's a waste of time to ask me. I know nothing whatever about Mrs. Falkland's headache, or her reasons for leaving the party."
"You seem unnecessarily vehement."
"It may astonish you, Mr. Kestrel, but I don't relish talking about a lady of Mrs. Falkland's quality as if she were a light-skirt accused of kicking up a row with her fancy-man."
Julian's brows shot up. "Chivalry, Mr. Adams?"
"Hardly!" Adams laughed mirthlessly. "But thank you for crediting me with one of the gentlemanly virtues."
He looked into the fire, his profile hard as granite. Julian regarded him thoughtfully, then proceeded, "About an hour after you arrived at the party, you witnessed a brief conversation between Falkland and his wife's maid, Martha. She told him Mrs. Falkland wouldn't be returning to the party. Do you know of any reason her words or manner should have disconcerted him?"
"No. I know Mr. Clare says he looked taken aback. But I don't regard him as a particularly reliable witness, since Bow Street told me he also says that after she left, I looked daggers at Falkland."
"And that was a lie?"
"It wasn't the truth. Whether it was deliberately false, I couldn't say. There must be an overwhelming temptation to make me the villain of this piece. Perhaps Mr. Clare was indulging in a little wishful thinking."
Julian thought Clare might well be lying about a number of things, but this was not one of them. "When those two mining ventures of Falkland's went to smash, he was left owing some thirty thousand pounds. You bought up his notes-of-hand, and about three weeks before the murder, you forgave them unconditionally. Why?"
"You mean, why such generosity in one of my race?"
"Such generosity would be astonishing in anyone, Mr. Adams."
"Why shouldn't I have done him a good turn? Surely that's not a ground for suspecting me of murder?"
"On the contrary, Mr. Adams, it raises two disturbing possibilities. One is that he paid you for the notes in some fashion the two of you couldn't or wouldn't put on paper. The other is that he held something over your head to make you forgive his debt. Either way, you must see the affair needs explaining."
Adams's eyes glinted. "When you put your cards on the table, Mr. Kestrel, you don't do it by halves! But you don't seem to understand how important Falkland's friendship was to me. A business like mine stands or falls on its reputation. People are very chary whom they trust with their money—they want to know you're sound, and that you can offer them something your rivals can't. To hobnob with lords and MPs gave me that advantage. What I actually learned from them about trade or taxes wasn't half so important as giving the
impression
I knew about those things. I had Falkland to thank for that—and for a certain amount of amusement as well."
"Amusement?"
"A window on his world. A chance to peep through the bars of exclusivity at the
societe choisie
enjoying their
recherche
amusements."
"While you remained an outsider?"
"I'm a realist, Mr. Kestrel. I never deluded myself that Falkland's friends would accept me on equal terms. One day, perhaps, I'll be so rich they can't afford to despise me. You don't see people sneering at Nathan Rothschild—at all events, not to his face! Meantime, I was willing to bear with the contempt of Falkland's friends and use them for my own purposes."
"What about Falkland himself? Were you using him?"
"If I was, it was a fair exchange. He got exactly what he wanted out of our association: money."
"Was that so important to him?"
"Important!" Adams shot up out of his chair and walked rapidly back and forth. "It was essential. Falkland loved money. Or, rather, he loved the things it would buy: ornaments, enjoyments, power, people. That's why he sought my advice about his investments—and why he stopped taking it in the end. My business was too tame for him. I take risks, but they're well considered; in gentlemen's parlance, I don't bet on long odds.
"It wasn't only that he had a lust for money. He liked speculation: its ups and downs, its dangers, its prospects of great gains from little investments. He was bound to dish himself in the end—that's what happens to investors who treat the Stock Exchange like a gambling house. I warned him. I enjoyed warning him, because I knew he wouldn't listen—"
He stopped walking and clenched his fists. When he could speak more calmly, he finished, "So I just want you to know, I didn't lure him into making rash investments. Those mining ventures were entirely his own affair."
"It would be rather an expensive sport," Julian agreed, "inciting him to run up debts, then buying up his notes and presenting them to him tied up with a ribbon."
"I bought them at a discount, you know. I didn't pay the full thirty thousand."
"It's still an extravagant gesture—for a man you hated."
"Hated, Mr. Kestrel?" Adams opened his eyes in mock horror. "Falkland and I were friends."
"Indeed?"
"As surely as my name is David Adams."
But it was not David Adams, Julian recalled. His witness statement said he had changed it from Abrahms. An empty, ironic gesture, since he made no secret of his Jewishness. But irony was Adams's lifeblood. "What do you mean me to infer from that?"
"That facts are nothing, and appearances everything. You say I hated him—very well. You can't prove it. I was his friend, I salvaged his fortunes. I had the highest regard for him—such a charming, talented, open-hearted, principled young man!"
"In short—whom the gods love die young?"
"Whom the gods love die young." Adams broke into harsh, hitter laughter.
"But not young enough!"
13: London Clay
When Julian left Adams's office, the clerk in the green eyeshade gave him a neat paper parcel containing Alexander Falkland's letters. He read them on his way home in a hackney coach. They were all short, written on monogrammed note-paper in Alexander's elegant hand. Most consisted of requests to buy or sell securities and enquiries about particular investments. The earliest dated back about a year; the most recent had been written this past March. They were all courteous and informal, more like notes to a friend than orders to a man of business. Alexander had had a knack for charming his subordinates—though Adams clearly had not succumbed to his spell.
One letter was a little longer than the others. It had been written last November from Mrs. Falkland's house in Dorset. It began with the usual enquiries about business matters, then continued:
This is a charming house—a sort of fairy cottage on a grand scale, all over gables, with great wooden window casements and a myriad of dwarfish doors. All the floors are a bit crooked; the sugar bowl tends to creep slowly down the table as breakfast progresses. All agreeably rural and idyllic, but the very devil for getting any news of town. So be a good fellow and write to me about what goes on at the Stock Exchange. I believe I miss it more than all the clubs and theatres combined.
Julian read the letter through twice. The idea that had first flashed across his mind in Clare's chambers became a certainty. He would need proof, of course. But he knew how and where to find it.
*
When Julian got home, Dipper told him Vance had called and had asked that Mr. Kestrel look him up at Bow Street as soon as convenient. Julian set off.
The Bow Street Magistrate's Court consisted of a pair of narrow brick houses hard by Covent Garden Theatre. Julian arrived just as the prisoners arrested that day were being paraded out, handcuffed in pairs, to be taken to their various gaols. They were the usual thieves, prostitutes, and vagrants, many no older than eighteen. Some were putting on a brave show, others looked dull-eyed and indifferent, and a few hid their faces in shame. A girl of about twelve, her rouge mottled by tears, was dragging the hem of a grown woman's pink silk dress along the dusty pavement. The entire neighbourhood seemed to have turned out to goggle at them. Julian wondered irritably if they had nothing better to do than watch the children of the poor on their dreary progress toward prison, transportation, or death.
He threaded his way through the crowd and went inside. Vance had once assured him the Bow Street office was regularly cleaned, but it always looked unutterably dingy, with grime caked into the mouldings and paint peeling off the walls. The hallway was packed with the angry or dolorous people who always seemed to hang about here. Julian picked out a Bow Street patrol by his scarlet waistcoat and asked him to find Peter Vance.
"Mr. Kestrel." Vance pushed his way through the crowd. "Hope you didn't mind me taking the liberty of sending for you, but I didn't want to lose any time."
"Not at all. What have you found out?"
"You remember you asked me to hunt up Mr. Underhill, the landlord of Cygnet's Court? Well I found him, and we had a confab, and it ended with him giving me the key to the house Mrs. Desmond used to live in. I thought we'd hoof it over there and have a look round. Though if you don't mind me saying so, sir, I don't quite see why you take such an interest in Mrs. Desmond and her doings."
"It may be all a mare's nest. My friend MacGregor says I'm too prone to spin extravagant theories about trifles. But it's certainly curious that a woman of Mrs. Desmond's character should have any dealings with Mrs. Falkland, that Mrs. Desmond should disappear a fortnight later, and that Alexander Falkland should be murdered a week after that."
"It
is
a bit rum, when you put it that way, sir. Anyhow, no harm in nosing around the house and seeing if there's aught to be found."
They set off for the Strand. On the way, Vance told Julian about his interview with Underhill. "He's a banker, retired, lives in Clapham. The houses in Cygnet's Court came into his hands through some relative's will. He complains they're nothing but bother. I wish some relative'd bother
me
like that—don't I just! He had two of the houses furbished up, but the others didn't seem worth the trouble. Nobody plump in the pocket'd want to live there. The court's too little and dark, and the entrance is too narrow to let in anything bigger than a gig. There's a story the place was going to be called Swan's Court, but it was reckoned to be too small." Underhill did not know much about Mrs. Desmond, Vance said. He had only met her once and considered her "common"—probably somebody's bit of muslin discreetly tucked away. But he did not much care how his tenants got their living, as long as they paid their rent and gave no trouble.
"Did he have any idea who her protector was?" asked Julian.
"No. Though he thinks it must have been the man who wrote him this note after she hooked it."
He handed the note to Julian. It said simply that Marianne Desmond had permanently vacated the premises at Cygnet's Court, and that a month's rent was enclosed in lieu of notice.
Julian examined it more closely, turning it over once or twice. "Written on plain paper, in the kind of anonymous hand clerks use, and anyone can imitate. If Mrs. Desmond's lover wrote it, he obviously wanted to keep his identity dark. What do we know about him? Only what Mrs. Wheeler told Dipper: that he was young and dressed like a gentleman and only visited Mrs. Desmond at night. Quentin Clare is a possible candidate; so, unfortunately, is my friend Felix. Eugene is probably old enough, and Adams young enough. We can even envision Luke or Valere in borrowed evening dress. And then again, the whole affair may have nothing to do with Falkland's murder."