The Portrait of a Scarred Duke by Patricia Haverton

Chapter 2

It was dark outside and the moon was bright overhead when Elijah stepped out of the tavern and onto the street. He was so caught up in thoughts of work that he wasn’t watching where he was going, and it wasn’t until he had actually stepped on the hard object in the road that he noticed it was there.

He bent down to pick it up. Moonlight glinted off of its surface as he held it aloft, turning it in his hands to examine it from all sides.

It was a pocket watch on a golden chain. But the watch’s face was broken, and the hands no longer told the time. Elijah frowned. He hadn’t stepped on the watch with that much force.

I must not have been the first person to step on it.

Someone must have dropped it here. He felt sorry for them, whoever they were. This was a nice watch, and it would be a shame to lose it.

Elijah looked around. The street was empty. If somebody had dropped the watch here, they were long gone by now.

He pocketed it. He was a barrister, after all, and if someone had misplaced a watch, surely word of that fact would make its way around town in the next couple of days. He could see that the item was returned to its rightful owner.

And if nobody claims it, I’ll have it fixed. It’s certainly nicer than any piece of jewelry I own at present.

Pleased with his decision, he turned down the alley that served as a shortcut to the part of town where he lived. It was darker than the main roads, but that had never bothered Elijah. He whistled as he made his way down the alley.

He had made it about halfway down the alley when a voice called after him. “Hey! Stop right there!”

Startled, Elijah turned. A man was running toward him, and for a moment Elijah was sure that this must be the man who had dropped his pocket watch. His hand moved toward his own pocket, ready to fish the watch out and hand it over.

Then the moonlight caught the man’s face, and Elijah recognized him. It was Featherstone, the town’s head constable.

“Constable Featherstone?” Elijah said. “Is there something I can assist with?” As barrister, he often worked hand in hand with the constables, but he was unaccustomed to being approached outside of his working hours. Still, if there was something he could do to be helpful, he would happily do it.

“Put your hands up,” the constable barked.

Elijah frowned. “I beg your pardon?”

Featherstone’s hand went to the butt of his pistol, which was still in its holster. “Hands up, Mr. Keating. Don’t test me, now.”

Slowly, Elijah raised his hands, palms out in front of him. “There must be some mistake,” he said.

“No, I don’t believe there has been,” Featherstone said. “I saw what you had in your hands in the street back there, and if it’s what I think it is, you have quite a bit of explaining to do.”

“Do you mean the pocket watch?” Elijah asked. “I can explain that.”

“I’m sure you can,” Featherstone said. “You can explain to me when we reach the constable’s station how you came by that particular artifact, and where you were while its owner was being murdered.”

Elijah sucked in a breath. “Murdered?”

“Come with me, Mr. Keating,” Featherstone said. “You and I have a great deal to discuss.”

* * *

He was led to a cell and locked inside immediately, before he had even been questioned. “This is outrageous, Constable Featherstone,” Elijah said. “I’m entitled to speak in my own defense, surely? I don’t even know quite what I’ve been accused of.”

“We’re about to find out,” Featherstone said. “Hand over the pocket watch, please.”

Elijah fished it out of his pocket and passed it through the bars of the cell. “It was on the ground outside the pub,” he explained. “I saw it there and picked it up. I thought I might return it to its owner.”

“That’s a convenient story,” Featherstone said.

“It’s the truth,” Elijah said.

“Can anyone confirm it? Was anyone with you at the time?”

“Well, no,” Elijah admitted. “I had left my companions in the pub. I’d decided to go home early. I was tired, and I have meetings tomorrow morning that I really can’t miss.”

“At this point, you should count on missing those meetings,” Featherstone said. “You’re going to be staying here in this cell for the next little while, at least.”

“But I haven’t done anything,” Elijah protested.

Featherstone held the pocket watch up to the bars of the cell and pointed to the back side of it. “Do you see that engraving?”

Elijah hadn’t noticed an engraving before. He stepped closer now, squinting at it, and could just make out the letters G.M.

“G.M.?” he asked.

“Gordon Morris,” Featherstone explained.

“I don’t know anyone by that name.”

“Then perhaps you know him by his title,” Featherstone suggested. “The Marquess of Haertley?”

“We’re acquainted,” Elijah admitted. “He was a client of mine last year.”

Then he remembered what Featherstone had said when the two of them had met in the alley. “Wait a moment. Has the Marquess been murdered?”

“I think you know the answer to that question, Mr. Keating,” Featherstone said darkly. “I think that’s how you really came to be in possession of this pocket watch. You took it from your old enemy after you murdered him.”

“I didn’t murder him!” Elijah protested. “And I wouldn’t call him my enemy, either.”

“Really?” Featherstone asked.

“I didn’t even remember who he was at first.”

“Or you pretended not to remember,” Featherstone said. “What I remember is that you were very troubled by the Marquess of Haertley. It took everything you had to represent him fairly.”

“He was trying to accuse one of his maids of theft,” Elijah recalled. “He had accused her of pocketing pieces of silver when she was supposed to be cleaning.”

“And what did you do?” Featherstone asked.

“Well, I questioned the maid and she insisted she’d had nothing to do with it,” Elijah said. “So then I examined the silver. As it turned out, nothing was missing at all. The Marquess had simply been trying to destroy his maid’s reputation and to ensure that she would be unable to get another job after he dismissed her. It was cruel and heartless behavior, and it would have ruined the poor woman’s life.”

“So you didn’t like him,” Featherstone said.

“No, I didn’t like him.” Elijah saw where this was going, and he was beginning to feel very indignant indeed. “That doesn’t mean I killed him. I don’t believe there are any laws against disliking somebody, are there?”

“There aren’t,” Featherstone agreed. “But the gentleman is dead. And now I just happen to find you with his pocket watch on your person, and you insist that it’s a coincidence?”

“Listen, my father was falsely accused of theft,” Elijah said. “He was convicted without trial and sentenced to death for his crime. That’s the reason I became a barrister in the first place. I wanted to provide justice for those who might not otherwise receive it.”

“Your father’s story is well known,” Featherstone said. “But what has it to do with this matter?”

“It’s the reason I couldn’t tolerate what the Marquess of Haertley had done,” Elijah said. “Setting someone up to take blame for a crime they didn’t commit. I became a barrister because I wanted to help people achieve true justice. I wanted to see that the guilty were punished, and that the innocent were not. It’s the most important thing to me.”

“Is this a confession?” Featherstone said. “You wanted to murder the Marquess because of his guilt in the matter of his maid?”

“I didn’t murder him,” Elijah said. “I would never do such a thing, because that isn’t justice at all! Don’t you see? Even though I despised him for what he did, it didn’t mean he ought to be killed.”

Featherstone shook his head. “The evidence is all against you,” he said.

“I don’t understand,” Elijah said. “You couldn’t have known about the engraving on the pocket watch when you saw me in the street. Did you simply see a pocket watch and decide to bring me in on that evidence alone? For all you knew, it might have been my own pocket watch!”

“The Marquess’s watch had a very distinctive gold chain,” Featherstone said, holding it up so that Elijah could see. “Longer than the chain found on a typical pocket watch. When I saw this chain dangling from your hand, I knew there was a very good chance you were holding the watch I was looking for.

“And it didn’t occur to you that I might have simply purchased a long chain for my own watch?” Elijah said, feeling slightly helpless. He knew this wasn’t a productive line of questioning—the engraving proved that the watch wasn’t his. But if he could poke a few holes in Featherstone’s logic, perhaps he could make the man question his deductions.

“No man looks at his own watch the way you were looking at that one,” Featherstone said. “Turning it over and over in your hands, as if you had never seen it before.”

“But if I had taken it off of the Marquess after killing him, I would have seen it,” Elijah protested.

Featherstone shook his head. “You never had time to examine it,” he said. “He was killed only just last night.” He narrowed his eyes at Elijah. “Can you account for your whereabouts last night, by the way?”

“I was working late, as I often do.”

“Did anyone see you?”

“No,” Elijah said. “I’m the only one in my office, as you’re well aware. But that’s hardly a crime.”

“If that’s really where you were,” Featherstone said. “But who can say?”

“This isn’t enough evidence to convict a man of anything at all,” Elijah said hotly.

Featherstone shook his head. “You don’t realize the seriousness of the situation,” he said. “Or perhaps you just didn’t believe that we would take it as seriously as we are. The fact of the matter is that murder can’t be overlooked. We can’t take any chances. Right now, you’re the only suspect we have for this crime.”

“That reflects as a failure on your part to do your job,” Elijah said. “I’m innocent.”

“That’s exactly what a guilty man would say, I’m afraid,” Featherstone said. “You and I have worked together on more than one occasion, Mr. Keating, and I’ve always considered you a friend and ally, but now I’m forced to acknowledge that perhaps I never knew you as well as I thought I did. If you’re someone who could commit such a heinous crime, it’s my duty to keep you behind bars.”

“You can’t do this!” Elijah protested.

But Featherstone was already making his way out the door and into the front part of the office. He pulled the door closed behind him.

The room was cast into darkness.

Elijah exhaled slowly, feeling his way toward the bench at the back of the cell, against the wall. He sank down onto it, feeling dizzy and overwhelmed.

How could this have happened?

An hour ago, he had been in the pub, drinking with John and his friends. They were probably still there. If he hadn’t decided to leave when he had, he’d have been perfectly safe.

Instead, he was rotting away in a cell without trial.

This was no justice.

The Marquess of Haertley had been a terrible man, in Elijah’s estimation. But he hadn’t deserved to die.

And the fact that Elijah was the one who had been imprisoned meant that the true killer was still out there.

As long as Constable Featherstone believes I’m to blame, the streets aren’t safe.

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