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

“I believe I will be on my way.” He bent over Mother’s hand and kissed the air above it. William rolled his eyes.

“I will walk you out, Colbert. I have an appointment myself.”

“Your mother is a most charming woman, Wethington,” Colbert said as they made their way down the front steps.

William merely nodded.

Colbert put his hand on William’s arm to stop him. “I want you to know I have no improper designs on your mother. It is important for me to tell you that, because if anything more develops between us, I don’t want you loading your pistol.”

“Thank you for that, Colbert. I understand my mother is an adult and has been a wife and mother. But on the other hand, she is under my protection, and I will not tolerate any sort of shenanigans where she is concerned.”

Colbert gave him a slight bow. “I admire you for that, Wethington. Have a good day.” He turned on his heel and, whistling slightly, continued down the pavement.

William decided to ride his horse to Amy’s house instead of taking the carriage. If they needed privacy, perhaps they could go for a walk.

When he arrived, Stevens opened the door and waved him in. “I will notify Lady Amy that you have come, my lord. You may wait in the drawing room.”

William thanked him and made his way up to the drawing room; he’d been here so many times that he knew his way around quite well. He wandered the room, too restless to sit.

He thought about the summons he’d received from Nelson-Graves earlier in the day, asking him to visit the next morning to go over some paperwork. The barrister had also mentioned the appointment book that William had yet to locate.

Hopefully Nelson-Graves had received William’s business file that the police had been holding. He had requested copies of the documents contained in the file. Since copying papers was a time-consuming and arduous job, William had his doubts that everything in the file would be copied. He assumed Nelson-Graves could subpoena the file, but that thought scared him even more, because such things usually happened in preparation for a trial.

William firmly hoped to have the entire mess straightened out before it went that far.

“Good afternoon, William. How are you today?” Amy entered the room, looking quite pleased with herself.

He grinned, always happy in her presence. “I am as well as can be expected, given the state of my life recently. You, on the other hand, look like the cat who stole the cream.”

“Yes. Well, I have something here that might be of interest to you.” She waved a paper at him and then moved to the settee and settled there, waving him over. “Do you want tea?”

“No. I just flooded my body with tea while I watched over my mother and Colbert.”

“How did that go?”

William shifted and rested his foot on his bent knee. “He really is a nice man. I know I’m just being overprotective because—well, because she is my mother, and I am overprotective.”

Just then Persephone raced into the room, jumped up on Amy’s lap, looked over at him, and growled.

“Your dog just loves me.”

Amy shook her head and sighed. “I don’t understand what is wrong with her. I have learned that there is a man who practices veterinary medicine in London. I was thinking of taking her there to have her examined.”

“That is quite a trip; is there no one local?”

“I will continue to ask around, because I’m not sure I can take her on the railway. I believe there is accommodation in a special car for horses, but I’m not sure about dogs.”

“Well, that is something to consider once we have all of this straightened out.”

Amy scooped Persephone off her lap and placed her alongside her on the settee. The dog turned in a circle and then settled right next to Amy’s thigh. Between her and William.

“Now I want to share with you what I discovered.” She picked up the papers she’d brought into the room with her. “I tried my best to figure out the name of the person on the page that was muddied up.”

She shifted so she could show William the paper. “This isn’t definite, since I only had a few letters to go by. Probably about every other one was smeared. Here is what I made of the name with our code.” She handed the paper to William.

His brows rose. “George Davidson?”

“Yes. Do you know Mr. Davidson’s first name?”

William shook his head. “I don’t think I do. I never heard him referred to as anything but Mr. Davidson. That should be easy enough to discover, however. If it is our Mr. Davidson, that makes two people in our book club that were being blackmailed by Harding.”

Amy nodded. “Who would think quiet book club members would have done something so horrid that they were willing to pay Mr. Harding to keep his mouth closed?”

“You never know, do you?” His thoughts immediately went to Mr. Colbert, who was also a very benign, innocuous sort of man, and was also interested in his mother. It would do well to investigate him too. After they found the murderer. “I think our next step is to see if this man is our Mr. Davidson, and if he is, do some investigation on him.”

“I agree, since it appears the police have no intention of doing their job correctly and fairly.” Amy tapped her chin. “Davidson is almost always at the Assembly. Since I’ve never seen him dance with anyone and he’s not terribly social, I’ve often wondered why he attends. But I suggest we spend some time with him tomorrow night.” Amy paused. “Were you planning on going?”

“I have no choice. I must conduct my life as if nothing were wrong. If I hide away, it won’t help our investigation and may start some talk. I want this kept quiet until we can resolve it. My business reputation has already been smeared, thanks to Mr. Harding. I have hired a new