Read A Flaw in the Blood for Free Online Page A

Fitz?”
    Gibbon had little in common with the usual breed of superior servant. He had never learned the art of concealing all independent thought behind a correct façade. He was twenty-eight, with a curly mop of hair and a snub nose; he'd been in Fitzgerald's service nearly seven years. They had met before a magistrate—Gibbon, a footman at the time, having been dismissed by his previous employer with an accusation of thievery. A valuable necklace had disappeared from the noble household. In the usual way, a servant would never merit representation; he would have little recourse but to protest his innocence, suffer the unequal course of justice, and be transported to Botany Bay. But Gibbon's mother knew Septimus Taylor, Fitzgerald's partner—and Sep thought the lad was owed a defence.
    Fitzgerald was too little accustomed to the ways of gentlemen himself to mind the footman's outbursts, his unbridled curiosity, his inadequate respect for station. He had taken an immediate liking to Gibbon. The footman's despair at the ruin of his prospects had been little allayed by the discovery of the true culprit, the noble household's fifteen-year-old son. Exposed as a thief, the young gentleman hanged himself in the gardener's shed. When Fitzgerald told him the news, Gibbon had wept.
    He'd proved a loyal man: coping with Fitzgerald's temper, his sudden plunges into despair, his bouts of stunned drunkenness. Gibbon had fought off armies of duns when Fitzgerald was short of cash, and silently tightened his belt when Fitzgerald forgot to pay him. He never gossiped. He kept the lodgings tidy and food on the table.
    “Gibbon, I have no anecdotes to share, no glimpses of Royalty to offer you. Have any messages come while I was gone?”
    “No, sir. Excepting Mr. Taylor—his compliments, and would you step round to chambers when it's convenient; but I reckon he didn't intend for you to do it of a Sunday, and not when the whole world's in mourning for Prince Albert.”
    Fitzgerald stopped at the foot of the stairs. “Did Septimus call? Or send round a messenger?”
    “Came himself, after you'd gone to King's Cross last night. I told him you'd been summoned to Windsor. You'd have thought I'd said you'd gone to your hanging. But then, we all know Mr. Sep's politics.”
    Taylor liked to call himself a Radical, and publicly urged the end of the monarchy; he'd joined the Reform Club on the strength of his views, though Fitzgerald suspected the barrister's allegiance was really to Alexis Soyer, the Reform's celebrated chef.
    He glanced at his watch as he mounted the stairs: half-past eight. “Thank you, Gibbon. I'll be wanting a cab in an hour.”
    “But you haven't slept! Nor eaten!”
    “Send up some coffee. I'll breakfast with Mr. Taylor.”
    He closed the bathroom door on his man's protests, and slid into the water. With all the conversation, it was already cooling.
    He did not find Taylor at the Reform Club, and a brief cab ride to his partner's home in Great Ormond Street failed equally to produce him. Perplexed, Fitzgerald debated whether Taylor was likely to be at church, in respect of the universal mourning that had swept the City—or to have visited chambers on this dark and stormy Sunday, when any sane man would be established before the fire. He decided against church, and directed his cabbie to Temple Bar.
    The Outer Temple was deserted; his footsteps resounded in the desertion of Middle Temple Lane; and when he reached the entry of his chambers at the Inner Temple, Fitzgerald felt a sharp upsurge of unease: No light shone through the mullioned windows, but the outer door was unlatched, and swinging gently in the gusty rain.
    He entered as quietly as he knew, even his breathing suspended, and paused on the inner threshold.
    The clerks' room, empty of life, was a chaos of paper, strewn over floors and desks; smashed bottles of ink trailed black smears on the floorboards; an entire ledger had been tossed in the cold grate.