Page 6 of Corpse in the Canal

Constance said, “I often find that women—especially married women—understand character better than men. Through intuition, perhaps. Or maybe we just look at different things in a person. Do you like Percy?”

Mrs. Waltham began to make tiny pleats in the fabric of her elegant gown. “Not particularly,” she admitted. “I don’t really know why, but he is not my favorite among Bobby’s friends. He is never rude, but…”

“But what?” Constance pressed, with great interest.

The younger woman gave a self-deprecating little shrug. “Oh, I don’t quite know. It just seems…he tends either to ignore me totally, as if I were of no account in the conversation between him and Bobby and their other friends, or to give me fulsome, extravagant compliments.”

Constance leaned a little closer. “Did these compliments make you uncomfortable?”

Mrs. Waltham gave an apologetic smile. “A little. Foolish, is it not?”

“And was it just words? Or did he look where he ought not to? Stand too close so that he touched where he ought not to?”

The girl’s lips parted. She stared at Constance in wonder, as though she were some kind of mind reader. “Actually, yes, he did, and I felt such a little idiot for making so much of it. Bobby did not seem to notice, so…”

“Stand on his toe by accident,” Constance advised. “Ask loudly if your dress is torn that he stares so. Never offer him your hand just because you welcome other friends in that way. You have the right to your own space. You do not need to laugh at his inappropriate jokes, either. Either look straight through him, like this…or curl your lip with the contempt he deserves, thus.”

Mrs. Waltham giggled nervously. “Oh my! How did you know about the supposed jests?”

“I have encountered men like him before. There are not so many of them, but they do exist and we are not obliged to put up with them.”

“I never wanted to tell Bobby in case it comes between them, ruins his friendship…”

Or between her and her husband, Constance imagined, though she thought it prudent not to say so. Instead, she asked, “Tell me, then, about the real Percy Harvey. How devoted is he, do you think, to his betrothed?”

Mrs. Waltham’s eyebrows flew up. “Is he betrothed?”

“Unofficially, his father led us to believe. To Lady Phoebe Styles.”

“Really? He dances with her at parties, and he does seem to admire her, but she has said nothing about an engagement between them.”

“You know her, then?”

“Oh yes.”

“Does she like him?”

“She’s never mentioned him to me, and of course I don’t talk about him either because I don’t like to think about him. Is Mr. Harvey truly worried about him?”

“Yes, he is.”

*

“Well?” Constance murmured as they left the Walthams’ pleasant house. “What do you think?”

“That he’s a wild young man with too much money and too little self-control. He could be anywhere, but most probably with a woman of the least respectable variety, or a gaming hell. What do you think?”

“That someone could easily have taken exception to him and thumped him.”

“Not everyone’s favorite, then?”

“No. I think he’s entitled and possibly dangerous to women. Mrs. Waltham, who’s a friend of Lady Phoebe’s, knows nothing about their engagement, and she is not acquainted with this Adelaide Jenkins.”

“Neither is Waltham, though he at least knows the name. He seems to think Percy might have some ambitions where Lady Phoebe is concerned but has never heard of an engagement either. I don’t think Percy is discreet by nature. He seems to bandy ladies’ names about in a way that might be considered ungentlemanly.”

Constance frowned. “Do you think Harvey senior lied to us?”

“No, but I suspect he doesn’t know all the facts.”