The Sign of Death by Callie Hutton (children's books read aloud .TXT) 📗

four of them made their way into the dining room, where they were seated at a table close to a window overlooking Queen’s Square. It was a pleasant day. Unfortunately, there was no sun, but the air was cool and crisp, so there were strollers out and about.

Once they ordered their food, Colbert looked away from the server and regarded William. “Have you heard any more about your man’s death?”

William groaned to himself. He had hoped to forget about Harding for the afternoon.

Frustrated, Amy balled up the paper she was working on and tossed it toward the fireplace to join several others already there. She was a murder mystery author. Why couldn’t she figure out this code Mr. Harding had used?

A slight tap on her door drew her attention, for which she was grateful. She needed to clear her mind, and hopefully this would do it. “Yes?”

Lacey entered. “My lady, Lord Wethington requests your presence. He is in the drawing room.”

“Wonderful!” Amy jumped up and grabbed the ledger and headed downstairs. Right before she reached the staircase, she came to an abrupt halt and turned toward Lacey, the poor girl almost crashing into her. “Is my papa at home?”

“No. He left earlier this morning with your brother for a meeting.”

Amy sighed with relief. At least she needn’t deal with Papa eyeing William as if he were to be served up at the next meal. She’d also been avoiding Papa because of the E. D. Burton predicament. He had been livid at the letter sent from her publisher.

After haranguing her about the problem of her possible exposure as the murder mystery author, he did a complete turnabout and very calmly told her she should put it from her mind and he would deal with it. She hadn’t heard any more about it since then.

Downstairs, William was standing in front of the window that faced the street, his hands behind his back. “Good afternoon,” she said as she joined him.

He turned and offered her a smile. Something in his eyes warmed her insides.

“I came to see how you are doing with the ledger coding.”

“Join me.” Amy walked over to a small sofa on the north wall and sat. William settled alongside her.

“No luck so far. It looks to me like it should be quite simple, but it eludes me. I’ve been working on this one entry: ‘Rg42UY 74OHEEB9.’ That name appears quite a bit. One thing I did learn from the ledger, however, is that if these are the names of those he was blackmailing, he had three victims. The only one we know for sure is Miss Gertrude.”

“Does having her name help at all in figuring out the code?”

“One would surmise, but that’s not the case.”

He studied her. “The names on the files the police took from us at Harding’s house were probably clients he was stealing from. And that fits, because along with my file, we pulled Lemmon, Montrose, and Mrs. Whitney from those folders, who we know were clients. I can’t imagine he would need a file on someone he was blackmailing. Thus the use of the ledger.”

William took the paper she’d been working on from her hand and scrutinized it. “We know about Miss Gertrude, that it appeared from her file that she started out as a client of Harding’s and then he began to blackmail her. Therefore, with three names in the ledger, that means there are two others who would had a good reason to kill Harding.”

“And until you can find him and speak with him, Patrick Whitney is also on our list.”

William took the ledger from her and flipped through the pages. He let out a low whistle. “This has been going on for some time.”

Amy nodded. “So it seems.” She leaned over his shoulder and looked at the book. “It appears, the way the book is set up, that each person has their own section where Mr. Harding recorded their payments.” She pointed at the ledger. “If you study the entire book, there are a few names in sections where no payments were recorded for some time. I’m thinking they either died or found a way to get out from under Mr. Harding’s clutches.”

William flipped through the book and ran his finger over some of the headings, which appeared on each page as a strange combination of letters and numbers. He shook his head. “Between the two of us, we should be able to figure this out.”

“I’ve tried.” Amy hopped up and walked to the desk in the middle of the room. She opened the center drawer and withdrew several sheets of paper and two pencils, then handed a pencil and a piece of paper to William. “Let’s try again.”

They sat for about fifteen minutes, playing with various letter combinations. Soon her eyes grew wide, and she looked back and forth from the garbled name to what she’d written. She sucked in a deep breath and looked up at him, her eyes sparkling. “I think I have it.”

William looked up from his paper. “Pray tell.”

She opened her mouth to speak just as Stevens entered the room. “My lady, there are two detectives here to see you.”

“What?” She quickly shoved the journal under the settee cushion and turned to William. “Why would they come to my house?”

He shrugged just as Detectives Carson and Marsh entered the room. Carson looked directly at William. “Ah yes, my guess was correct. When your man at the door at your residence said you were not at home, we assumed we would find you here, my lord.”

William’s jaw tightened. “What is it you want this time, Detectives?”

“My goodness, aren’t we on the querulous side today.” Carson waved to the sofa. “Why don’t we all sit.”

The four settled into their seats. Amy placed her hands in her lap, her back stiff as if waiting for a blow. She did not like the look on the detectives’ faces. She glanced over at William, who appeared more annoyed than concerned.

Carson looked at