What Happened at Midnight(34)

“What’s this all about?” Lawson asked. “You’d think, Mason, that you might give us more than twenty-four hours before calling an urgent meeting.”

John glanced at his sister and Mary, but they both sat at the table, looking on with silent interest. Apparently, the introductions were to be left to him. If only he knew what he was introducing.

“Thank you for coming on such short notice,” he improvised. “We’ve just received some, uh, some information.” Safe enough. “We thought it would be of interest to you gentlemen.”

“This is about the partnership, yes?” Lawson sighed and brushed past him to pull out a seat from the table. “Don’t tell me you’ve managed to track down Chartley’s bitch of a daughter.” He sat—and only then realized that the women sitting at the table were not, as he’d supposed, Mrs. Elizabeth Tallant and a servant, but Mrs. Tallant and…

He sat back and coughed heavily.

“Yes,” Mary said calmly. “Mr. Mason did find—how did you put it?—Chartley’s bitch of a daughter.”

Lawson flinched at her wording. But John knew that light in her eyes. It was the way she’d looked when she’d given him Lady Northword’s earring. If ever she’d directed that look at him, he’d have run screaming for his life.

“As it turns out, gentlemen, I had something in my possession that I believe will shed some light on a few things.” She undid a clasp on a large brown envelope and pulled out a few pages—frayed along the folds, well-inked, and charred on the edges.

“These are the pages that were missing from my father’s account book,” she said. “As the book I sent earlier documented, some eight thousand pounds were taken over a period of four years. This shows the final withdrawals from the account where my father kept them: around two thousand pounds. Leaving a balance, on the day of his death, of five thousand, nine hundred and sixty-seven guineas.”

John’s heart began to pound. They’d told him the account had eight hundred pounds in it—eight hundred, not almost six thousand.

Lawson, who hadn’t seated himself, snorted dismissively. “Surely you aren’t trusting to the accounting of a thief—and a document held by a liar.”

“No,” Mary said calmly. “He doesn’t need to trust me.” She passed over another sheet of paper. “This is a copy of the account balances and withdrawals, certified by Mr. Waring, the bank director. According to this, the balance—which precisely matches my father’s figures, once one accounts for the interest that was paid in—was withdrawn two weeks after my father’s death by Mr. Frost on behalf of the partnership.”

Silence. She was beautiful in her triumph, so beautiful. John held his breath, waiting to see what Frost would say to that accusation.

“Lies,” Frost breathed.

Lawson didn’t move.

“And this,” Mary continued, “is an accounting of what was done with those funds. They were rolled over into a new account on behalf of the partnership again. Don’t you find it odd, Mr. Mason, that the partnership has had an entire new account and that neither you nor your sister were told about it? It’s nice to know that the partnership has finally begun to prosper. Over the last year, they’ve managed a thirty-five-percent profit. Extremely handsome.”

John took the pages and rifled through them. “Thirty-five-percent profit, it seems, after the distributions made to Frost and Lawson. More than that before.” The silence stretched.

“How did you get this?” Lawson’s voice was hoarse.

Now, John supposed, was the time for him to start being—how had his sister put it?—a hulking male. He leaned over the table and fixed the men with a glare. “Did you think you would get away with this forever?”

“An oversight,” Frost said, coughing into his fist. “Purely an oversight, I assure you—the paperwork must have been, ah…misplaced. There will be no more mishaps like this now that you’ve brought the matter to our attention.”

“No,” John said. “There won’t.”

Eliza hadn’t spoken the entire time. But she raised her chin now and glared at the gentlemen. “You lot should be convicted and beaten about the square,” she said passionately. “I can only think about how I’ve worried this last year. An oversight. It was nothing of the kind. You saw your chance to make a profit after a sad bit of business, and you took it. At my son’s expense. I will see you publicly brought down.”

“Now, now, Mrs. Tallant.”

John could have told the man that condescending conciliation would only make matters worse.

Eliza stood, slapping her gloves against the table. “Don’t you take that tone with me, sir. You stole from a widow and a seven-year-old child. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves.”

“No need to make a fuss,” Frost said. “It’s been a dreadful ordeal. I think this all demonstrates that it’s more than past time to liquidate the partnership and divide the proceeds—taking into account, of course, the amounts that we have already—I mean, that have already been paid to some parties. To the third owed to you, Mrs. Tallant, I should like to put in an additional five hundred pounds—for your trouble.”

“And from mine,” Lawson added hastily.