Death by Silver by Melissa Scott

enjoy holding some secret vice over Victor Nevett’s head if he discovered one.
    “I am, yes,” Julian said, not particularly happily. “I wouldn’t get any clients if I weren’t. Still, it would be satisfying anyway, wouldn’t it?”
    Ned shook his head, unable to truthfully deny it but also not really wanting to encourage that line of thought. “And solving a case like this would do us both good in building our reputations, you have to admit.”
    “I expect it would,” Julian said, although he sounded as dubious about that line of reasoning as Ned was about his.
    “And I’ve already said I’d do it,” Ned said practically. “I could very much use your help, but if you really can’t see your way fit to work for Victor Nevett…”
    “If you’ll refrain from putting it that way, I’ll do it,” Julian said after a long enough pause that Ned expected him to refuse. “I’ll grant you that we should investigate the Nevett murder, especially since I’m not at all confident that anyone else is going to sort it out.”
    “Just try not to notice whose signature is on the cheque,” Ned said. He hesitated, and then added, “It’s been a long time.”
    “Your point being?”
    Ned considered several possible responses, discarded them as unlikely to make the next few hours more harmonious, and settled on, “All that’s behind us.”
    “Where are we going, then?” Julian asked, without giving any indication that he’d heard him.
    “The Nevett house. And before you ask what we’re doing, that’s one thing I came to ask you. Detection is really your business. I’d like to look over the room where it happened for any other enchantments that might bear, but beyond that, I’ll follow your lead.”
    Julian grasped for his hat and tugged sharply at his bell-pull. “Where is that woman?”
    “You’ve only just rang,” Ned pointed out, but under his breath.
    Mrs Digby opened the door after a long minute, frowning. “I suppose you want tea, at this time of day?”
    “A cab, if you please, Mrs Digby,” Ned said, before Julian could demand the same in a far more peremptory tone. The last thing he wanted was to be stuck listening to the two of them quarrel, if Julian took the opportunity to give vent to his nerves about facing Victor Nevett.
    She sighed but stomped off to summon the cab in question, and Ned turned back to Julian, who was rifling through a pile of what appeared to be identical memorandum-books in search of the one he wanted. “We’ll be done by teatime.”
    “Only for the afternoon,” Julian said grimly, thrusting the memorandum-book he’d finally settled in into his pocket. “I expect we’ll see a great deal of the Nevetts, unless one of them cares to make it easy for us all by confessing on the spot.”
    “You never know,” Ned said, but he didn’t have much hope of that.

    They climbed into the waiting cab, Ned pausing long enough to give the address – a nice one, Julian noted, with a certain disdain that had nothing to do with envy. But then, he had known since school that the Nevett family was well-to-do. Something in the city, he thought, but before he could ask, Ned leaned forward.
    “So where should we start? I meant it when I said this wasn’t my usual line.”
    “I think your idea of checking the room – study, was it? – for any other enchantments is a good one,” Julian said. He was grateful for the distraction. “And then there’s, what, a two-day window in which someone could have tampered with the candlestick. So the first step will be to find out where everyone was and what they were doing in those two days.”
    “I’m sure everyone will appreciate that,” Ned muttered.
    “That’s what they’re hiring you for,” Julian answered, not without sympathy. “If they can’t stand it, well, they can pay us for our time and be done with it.” He paused, knowing how unlikely an outcome that really was. “We’ll need to ask the servants the same questions,