The boy? He meant Dante.
“You know where he lives?”
“I made enquiries years ago. Margaret had nightmares about the child and wondered what happened to him.” He cursed. “You’re his whore. He’s put you up in that house in Howland Street, got you to do his dirty work and visit Manning.”
“I am not Mr D’Angelo’s whore. I’m his friend. And he doesn’t own the house in Howland Street. Besides, after your mistake at the Falstaff inn, yo
u—”
“Mistake?”
“In a fit of temper, you mentioned Mr Manning. You presumed it meant nothing to me. That I was a governess seeking the truth, assumed I lacked the wherewithal to find answers.”
And she would have struggled had it not been for a twist of fate.
“You hoped Mr D’Angelo would blame his grandmother for the death of his parents,” she continued. “You hoped to bide time until Mr Manning’s trial and execution. Then he could not name you as the man who owed him money eighteen years ago.”
It was a logical guess. Cases were often won on conjecture.
His ugly sneer made him look almost like himself. “I know what the boy does in Hart Street. You hired an enquiry agent. That’s how you met.”
“Mr D’Angelo is by no means a boy.” No, he was every inch a man. She’d give anything to feel his strong arms surrounding her, holding her tight. “But yes, I hired him to find the villains who murdered our parents.”
“Did Margaret give you the money? Did she plan this before she died?”
Beatrice thought carefully before speaking. “Aunt Margaret wished to see justice done. She urged me to find answers, gave me the means to seek the truth.”
Her aunt had rescued the random notes, but it was enough to lead Beatrice to Dante D’Angelo. Surely it was her aunt who’d kept the newspaper cuttings describing the crime, who hid them in a book, a book she’d purposely left askew on the bookshelf in the parlour.
Her uncle muttered to himself, called his wife a liar, a deceiver.
“You were my father’s client,” she said, piecing together the clues. “He went to Mr Manning and pleaded for clemency because you couldn’t settle your debt.” She threw a lie into the pot. “My father begged for your life. Manning told me so.”
John Sands lurched forward, wagging his weapon like a finger. “Do you know what Manning does to people who cannot pay? He tortures them to within an inch of their lives, thinks nothing of stealing wives and daughters and shipping them to brothels abroad. He slits the throats of the lucky ones.”
Anger erupted. “Then why borrow money from him?”
“It was a gaming debt,” he snapped. “I had no other way of paying. Blame your father. He’s the one who brought me to London, thought it would be good for me to experience life in the metropolis while Margaret cared for you.” He gave a contemptuous snort. “Now, look at us.”
Mr Cole said Manning was known for his extortionate interest rates, which increased substantially the longer the debt was left unpaid.
“You cannot blame my father for your weaknesses.”
“I wouldn’t be in this mess if it weren’t for him.”
A few things occurred to her all at once. If he’d borrowed money, he would have given Mr Manning his address. If Manning had an address, he could have easily traced her uncle to Rochester. So the debt must have been paid. But it couldn’t have been paid with the loot stolen from the attack because Mr Coulter found that.
“You cannot blame my father,” she repeated, but tears were already welling as she contemplated what her uncle had done. “He was conscientious, diligent, made a will naming my aunt as beneficiary because he knew she would always take care of me.”
“Like a lamb to the slaughter, he left me alone in that iniquitous den. They pounced within seconds of him leaving the tables. Goaded me to bid more, play harder, questioned my integrity.”
Seasoned gamblers knew how to play against weak, arrogant men.
“But you found a way to settle the debt.” Bile bubbled up to her throat. The realisation she had lived with a murderer all these years made her want to scrub her skin till it bled. “Didn’t you?”
The truth would come at a price.
It meant Uncle John would have to do away with her, too.