Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen

I t’s teatime when Jack—dressed in her maid clothes—comes into the laboratory to tell us our guest has arrived. Our other guest, that is. Our first guest joined us earlier this afternoon for the fingerprint analysis, as he has requested—possibly demanded—to be present anytime we need to do such a thing.

We leave him behind and meet Lord Simpson just inside the front door.

“What’s this about, Gray?” Simpson says, and Miss Howell might not have been able to imagine him piqued, but he definitely seems piqued right now.

I step forward. “Thank you so much for joining us. We do appreciate you coming on such short notice, sir.” I pause and then say, “I fear it is about your valet, and we wished you to hear this in person.”

“My former valet?” Simpson exhales. “He stole the letters, didn’t he? You could have just said that, instead of summoning me to speak on a ‘delicate matter’ in regards to your investigation.”

“It is delicate,” I say. “Now, if you will permit our maid to take your coat, we shall have tea upstairs and explain the situation fully.”

Gray, Simpson, and I have settled in the drawing room, where Jack has served tea. I wait until we’ve started to eat, then I exclaim, “Oh! Lord Simpson, that plate is not supposed to be used. It has a crack.” I rise and put out my hand. “Can you pass it to me, please?”

He does, with some confusion, and I give him a fresh plate from a stack on the sideboard. Then I sit back down.

Gray clears his throat. “About your valet...”

“Yes,” Simpson says. “You believe he is responsible for this, but I assure you, I cannot see it.”

“Because you offered to pay the blackmail if he was.”

Simpson pauses. “Yes.”

“That is what we wished to speak to you about. The fact that you offered to pay—and did not tell us—meant we went into the interview missing vital information. We need everything, Charles.”

Simpson sighs. “So you have summoned me to rap my knuckles? Fine. I deserved that. I could not help myself. Lewis was the obvious suspect, and so I had to be sure.”

“And how did you intend to pay him, should he have been the culprit?”

Simpson stops with his teacup raised. “Hmm?”

“This is the other delicate part of this meeting,” Gray says. “We had several accounts that your finances are in disorder, and so I investigated, because it seemed odd that you would attempt to pay your valet five hundred pounds if you did not have such funds at hand.”

“You investigated my?—”

“Yes.” Gray meets his gaze. “We are investigators. That is what we do. It appears you have recently defaulted on a loan. It also appears that you have planned a trip to Europe but have not paid for it.”

“How the devil?—?”

A knock at the door. Gray calls a greeting. It opens, and McCreadie walks in, having only come from downstairs, though he rubs his hands, as if still warming them from the winter cold.

“Hugh,” Gray says. “How good of you to join us. Hugh, this is Lord Simpson. Lord Simpson, this is my good friend, Detective McCreadie, criminal officer of the Edinburgh Police.”

Simpson visibly blanches before daubing his lips with his napkin and rising to shake McCreadie’s hand.

“It seems you have another guest, Duncan,” Simpson says. “I shall take my leave?—”

“No, Detective McCreadie is here on business. And has shown up just in time for tea.” Gray waves to the fourth spot, which Simpson obviously hadn’t noticed was set.

“Have you heard of finger marks?” Gray says. “And their applications to criminal science?”

Simpson looks at McCreadie, as if this question is clearly intended for him.

“I am asking you, Charles,” Gray says.

“Me? I know nothing of criminal science.”

“But you said the other day that you wished to know more about my cases and the application of science in them, and so I thought you might find this interesting. If you look at your fingertips, you’ll see tiny ridges in fascinating patterns. No two people’s patterns are alike.”

Simpson’s brows rise as he looks at his fingertips. “They are unique?”

“Yes. In fact, for well over a century, China has used finger marks as an acceptable substitute for contractual signatures. Japan has used them. India has also used them. We are slower here, but European scientists have been studying finger marks for over a century.”

“That is fascinating,” Simpson says, in a tone that suggests he’s simply being polite.

“Finger marks are everywhere,” I say. “Every time we touch something, we leave our mark, quite literally. Like this plate.” I gesture at the one I took from him. “You touched one side, so your prints are there. I touched the other. Mine are there.”

“And the maid’s are all over it,” Simpson says, with an easy smile. “The maid’s, the cook’s... I can only imagine how many of these finger marks are on it.”

“Only the two sets,” I say. “It was cleaned before we ate.” I look at Simpson. “Would you like a demonstration? I can show you the marks.”

“That’s hardly necessary. While this is all very interesting, we are in the midst of tea?—”

“Detective McCreadie? Would you assist me?”

I produce four blank cards and a stamp pad that Gray helped me devise. With McCreadie’s help, I roll my fingertips in the ink and press them onto the cards. Then I do the same to take Gray and McCreadie’s prints. Simpson hesitates, but then he decides to be a good sport and lets me take his prints, which saves me from needing to use the ones on the plate.

“So these are your fingerprints,” I say, holding up the card. “Earlier, we conducted the same experiment on the ransom note Lady Inglis received.”

Now Simpson stops short. “What?”

“Detective McCreadie? May I have that card?”

He produces an envelope, and I open it with all due drama. “We lifted two sets of prints. One belonged to Lady Inglis, who provided an exemplar so we could exclude hers. The other...” I lay it down beside the card with Simpson’s print. “Hmm... Am I correct, Detective McCreadie? Do these match?”

I knew they would. I’d memorized a part of the pattern from the letter and noted the match as soon as I took Simpson’s prints. If it hadn’t been a match, I’d have just pretended this was a very peculiar piece of teatime entertainment.

“It is indeed a match,” McCreadie says, his gaze rising to Simpson.

Simpson blusters. “Because I touched it. When Patricia showed me. I held the note.”

“No, you didn’t,” I say. “We asked about that before we took it. Only Lady Inglis handled it. She read it to you aloud and then returned it to the envelope, which she immediately put into her safe, along with the letter.”

There are several ways Simpson could play this. The most obvious is to call bullshit on the science. Most people would—it’s not even admissible in court yet. But there’s a reason Gray liked Simpson. The viscount is a curious and intelligent man, interested in science. He is a believer, and so it never occurs to him to call this bullshit. He knows it isn’t.

Instead, his gaze goes straight to McCreadie. “I stole nothing. The letter from Lady Inglis was my own property, and therefore, I cannot be charged with theft.”

“Hugh was only here to witness the fingermark identification,” Gray says. “Unless you wish to press the point—and have him agree it was not theft, but it was blackmail, which is also illegal.”

“The situation is not as it seems,” Simpson says.

Gray simply nods, but some offenders need only the vaguest hint of empathy to unburden themselves. As a detective, I interviewed suspects where I couldn’t bring myself to fake empathy, but sometimes, even a nod was enough.

“I am not a bad person,” Simpson says. “You know that, Duncan. I care very much for Patricia. The problem is... Blast it, this was never supposed to go so far.”

I open my mouth, but he’s not looking at me. Not looking at McCreadie. His confession is for Gray alone.

“You expected her to pay,” Gray says.

“Yes, blast it. She has the money. I was very careful about that. I would not have asked for more than she could afford. I never thought she’d bring someone else into it. It wasn’t as if she would take such a case to the police.”

Because she’d be too ashamed. It wasn’t only the amount he’d been careful about. He’d chosen a method of blackmail designed to shame Lady Inglis—his lover, his friend—into paying.

It’s probably a good thing Simpson only has eyes for Gray right now, because if he looked my way, I’m not sure I could hide my disgust and outrage well enough to keep him confessing.

“You offered to pay the ransom because you knew she would never allow that,” Gray says, still calm, his expression blank. “You also offered to pay your valet because you knew he didn’t have the letters. And, if Lady Inglis accused him, as the obvious culprit, you could say you’d attempted to buy them back. That would stall any further investigation until it was too late.”

Simpson had let the valet go at exactly the right time for Lewis to be the obvious culprit. Offering to buy back the letters would deliberately muddy the waters. Lady Inglis would think Lewis stole the letters, yet Simpson’s offer seemed to prove otherwise, and the date for payment would arrive too quickly for her to make a decision. She’d be forced to pay.

“I would have repaid her,” Simpson says.

“Then why not simply ask for a loan?” Gray says.

Frustration darkens Simpson’s face. “Because I do not wish to be treated as a child. If I told Patricia that I needed money for my trip, she would say I do not need the trip. She does not understand that I do need it. My mind must be stimulated by travel, or I grow bored.” His lips jut in something dangerously close to a pout. “I am poor company if I am bored.”

I try not to stare at Simpson. Is this what it’s like to be born into the nobility? To never need to work for a living? To not even understand the difference between a want and a need? It all blurs together into your unalienable rights.

“I would have repaid it,” he says, that lip jutting a little more. “So it would have been a loan.”

“For which you threatened her with public humiliation,” Gray says, his tone still deceptively mild.

“I’d never do such a thing. Not to Patricia. Not to any woman. I am not that sort of man.”

Gray says nothing. I inwardly seethe with all the things I want to say, all the things I can’t say. Gray’s silence speaks enough, and under it, Simpson squirms.

“I would never have exposed her,” Simpson mutters. “The letters are all safe. No one has seen them.”

“Good,” Gray murmurs. “Then you shall return them to Lady Inglis.”

Simpson perks up. “Yes, of course. I will quietly return them, and she need never know that I was the one?—”

“No.”

“I can still credit your investigation. Whoever stole them realized you were on the case and returned them to me in the post?—”

“No.”

“But you cannot tell her the truth,” Simpson protests. “She will be hurt, and there is no need?—”

“Yes, there is.” Gray meets his gaze. “The only question is who tells her the truth. You or me?”