“Might we sort out the staffing problems later?” his cousin asked, waving a hand at the figure in the chair.
Darcy returned his attention to the man in the chair. Evans did not flinch. In fact, he smiled. “Remember me now, do you?” he asked. “Turns out Vaughan didn’t hang after all, eh?”
It was the rough, gravelly voice that did it. This was the corporal who, after Bennet was wounded, had inquired what was to become of Vaughan.
Evans’s smile evaporated when Darcy smiled back. The man had been close enough to him in Portugal to do the deed himself, yet he had not. He had been close enough in Meryton, too. Though Evans had no qualms about paying someone else to commit murder, he would not do the deed himself.
Evans might be an accomplished thief, but for all his bravado, he was not a killer. He was instead a bully and a coward. “You were not a soldier at all, were you?” Darcy asked. “You just put on a uniform and pretended.”
In the waning moments of peace before a battle began, before a shot was fired or a cannonball announced by a puff of smoke across the field and a screaming whistle in the air, a change always came over Darcy; his vision focused, his thoughts sharpened, and his concentration intensified to an astonishing degree.
That happened now.
“Ah,” he heard Fitzwilliam say. “There you are.”
They broke their fast rather late the next morning. Darcy dismissed the servants, shut the doors, and sat at the table. Elizabeth had taken the chair closest to him, and he marvelled at how her presence calmed the worst of his frustrations and allowed him to think more clearly. The express that had arrived at Longbourn after his departure lay open on the table next to the one that had propelled him to London.
“Evans admitted he was employed by Theophilus Darcy?” Bennet asked.
Darcy nodded. “It did not take long to wrest that bit of information from him.” He sniffed. “Hardiman said it took longer to convince the men he arrested in St. Giles to tell him where Evans was living.”
“The carriage, the cognac, Mr. Grimstone, the first express? Was that all Mr. Evans?” Elizabeth asked.
Darcy nodded.
“I would appreciate knowing why you did not wakemelast night,” Bennet inquired, irritated. “I should have liked to have a moment alone with the man.”
“For precisely that reason,” Fitzwilliam said, lifting a cup of coffee to his lips. “Evans has committed a great many crimes in the past decade, not only those commissioned by Theophilus Darcy. No, there are others who wish to see him hang. Hardiman took him to Newgate. Let them handle the mess.”
“Fitzwilliam,” Darcy warned, inclining his head slightly towards Elizabeth.
“My apologies, Miss Elizabeth,” Fitzwilliam said contritely.
She glanced up from spreading a bit of jam on her toast and glanced at Mrs. Gray, who was watching them all silently over the rim of her teacup. “Mr. Darcy, at the risk of shocking poor Mrs. Gray, Mr. Evans drew you to London where he had prepared an ambush. He is precisely where he ought to be, and my sensibilities are not likely to be wounded by hearing of it.”
Mrs. Gray sipped her tea before saying, “I have been a companion for many years. Were I not well paid for my discretion,” she nodded at Bennet, “there are stories I could tell you that . . . Well, it should suffice to say I am not easily shocked,” she said, before returning her attention to her meal.
Fitzwilliam grinned at Darcy. “I believe you have the right of it, Miss Elizabeth.”
“Did Mr. Evans write the express?” Miss Elizabeth asked. “I know he did not deliver the cognac himself, for I was there. It was a boy.”
Darcy answered her. “Evans told us he hired Mr. Todd to replace the lynchpin and paid Mr. Wickham to deliver the cognac.”
“Wickham.” Bennet spat the name like a curse.
“Mr. Wickham is not a boy,” Elizabeth reminded them all. “I suppose Mr. Evans hoped to pin the blame for any . . . untoward consequences on Mr. Wickham. He did, after all, have public altercations with both Papa and Mr. Darcy.”
“A man like Wickham would have seen through that sort of plot,” Darcy said. “Even if he did not, he is an opportunist. I suspect he kept the money Evans gave him and hired the lad to deliver the package for a great deal less.”
“Do you think he knew?” Miss Elizabeth asked. “Mr. Wickham, I mean. Did he know the drink was poisoned?”
“As much as I would like to say he did,” Fitzwilliam said thoughtfully, “I imagine not. He may have believed that it would do Bennet no good, but not that it would kill him. He strikes me as self-interested above all. He would not wish to wind up in Newgate, as Evans has.”
Darcy reached for his toast. “Hardiman plans to question him on the subject. Even if it does not result in an arrest, it ought to finish Wickham’s credibility even amongst the other officers and stain the reputation of Colonel Forster’s regiment. The good colonel will not like that.”
They were quiet for a time as they ate.
Eventually, Elizabeth nodded at the letters. “That first express made the matter appear quite urgent.”