Free The Masterful Mr. Montague by Stephanie Laurens Page B

I’ll go downstairs and write the certificate, then take my leave.”
    Stokes watched him go. As Milborne passed through the doorway, Stokes narrowed his eyes and raised his voice. “Just make sure you send the certificate to the Yard.”
    R ight, then.” Basil Stokes sank into a chair midway down one side of the dining table in Lady Halstead’s Lowndes Street house. Barnaby drew out the chair to his left as Montague, having seen Miss Violet Matcham to the chair opposite Stokes, settled into the chair opposite Barnaby.
    Stokes regarded Violet Matcham with no expression but with a degree of sympathy. He was not a naturally empathetic man, yet it required little insight to comprehend that Miss Matcham had been sincerely fond of her late employer. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and the tip of her nose was a trifle pink, but she was making every effort to remain calm and composed. Something Stokes appreciated.
    Once the doctor had quit the scene, Stokes had sent one of the constables he’d brought with him back to the Yard to summon their medical man to take charge of the body. He’d left the other constable on guard in the room, watching over the deceased and any evidence yet to come to light.
    Stokes and Barnaby had accompanied Miss Matcham and Montague downstairs to the kitchen, and there had met the other two members of the small household—her ladyship’s maid and the cook. Both had exhibited a mixture of alarm and resolution; if Stokes was any judge—and he was—the alarm was caused more by the unexpected necessity of having anything to do with a crime and the police, while the resolution stemmed from the same devotion that was keeping Violet Matcham’s spine poker straight.
    They’d all liked the old lady and wanted her murderer caught.
    None of the three women showed even the vaguest sign of guilt, nor even any hint of an uneasy conscience.
    Which suited Stokes; he was quite happy to cross them off his list of suspects. Although he would interview each of them, his focus would be on learning everything they knew that might be relevant.
    Leaning forward, resting his forearms on the polished mahogany, he took a moment to order his thoughts, then fixed his gaze on Miss Matcham’s face. “I understand you’ve been with her ladyship for several years.”
    She nodded. “Yes. Eight years this August.”
    “And before?”
    “I was companion to Lady Ogilvie in Bath. I was with her for five years—from soon after my father died.”
    “And your father was?”
    “The Reverend Edward Matcham of Woodborough—it’s in the Vale of Pewsey.” She hesitated, then added, “My mother had died several years previously, and I was left to find my way.”
    Stokes appreciated her candor. “Thank you. With regard to her ladyship’s murder, the first question I must ask is whether you have any reason to suppose that anyone—anyone at all—might have wished the old lady dead.”
    Violet hesitated, very aware of the two shrewd gazes trained on her—Stokes’s slate gray, hard and uncompromising, and Adair’s quietly observant blue—then she lifted her chin and firmly stated, “I have no reason to suspect that anyone bore her ladyship any degree of animosity. I’m not aware of any direct quarrel, recent or otherwise, much less any clash of the sort that might lead to murder. However”—she glanced at Montague, seated alongside her—“as Mr. Montague can explain in greater detail than I, Lady Halstead had become . . . concerned over a matter of unidentified payments into her bank account.” Returning her gaze to Stokes’s dark-featured face, she went on, “Over the past week, her ladyship had grown increasingly intent on learning what those payments were about—where they came from, who the money really belonged to, and why whoever it was was using her account.”
    Stokes looked at Montague. “That’s the reason her ladyship gave you that letter?” Montague had already shown him the letter of authority Lady