Murder by Candlelight

by Michael Knox Beran

  Courvoisier was new both to Norfolk Street and to valethood. A twenty-three-year-old Swiss, born at Monte-la-Ville, he had entered Lord William’s service five weeks before, bringing with him a good “character” from his previous employer, the banking heir John Minet Fector. Upon his lordship’s going out that day, Courvoisier went down to the kitchen for the servants’ midday meal. He told the housemaid, Sarah Mancer, that he was apprehensive lest he forget one or another of his lordship’s instructions. And what, he wondered, was Brooks’s? Miss Mancer said that it was a club. Indeed it was; it was a club in roughly the same way that Buckingham Palace was a house, or St. Peter a fisherman; it was a great citadel of opulent Whiggism.

  After servants’ dinner, Courvoisier set out upon his errands, returning to 14 Norfolk Street a little before five o’clock, where he encountered Miss Mancer cleaning one of the passages. He told her he must get his lordship’s things out, for his lordship would soon be home and wish to dress for dinner. Miss Mancer gestured toward a stepladder which lay in the passage. Courvoisier had left it there after hanging some pictures.

  “Will you take this away?” she asked.

  Courvoisier carried the ladder into the small yard at the back of the house and propped it against the wall; it reached almost, though not quite, to the top.

  The bell rang at the servants’ gate.† It was the upholsterer’s man, come to adjust the bell-pull in Lord William’s bedroom. While the upholsterer’s man was at his task, there was another ring of the bell at the gate; it was Carr, a great friend of Courvoisier’s. He sat down to tea with Courvoisier in the kitchen.

  At ten past five, York (the coachman) came in. Courvoisier started. “You should have been at Brooks’s at five o’clock,” he said, “but I forgot to order you; you had better go directly.”

  York went away at once, in what would prove an unsuccessful attempt to retrieve his lordship from Brooks’s.

  Courvoisier shrugged off the blunder; he would simply say that his lordship had ordered the carriage for half-past five rather than five.

  Miss Mancer said he had “better tell his lordship the truth, and his lordship would forgive him.”

  “No,” Courvoisier said. He “should tell his lordship half-past five o’clock; his lordship was very forgetful, and must pay for his forgetfulness.”

  Courvoisier took his friend Carr into the pantry, where they were closeted together for some time. It was called the butler’s pantry; but as Lord William did not employ a butler, it was de facto Courvoisier’s own peculiar domain.

  * Lord William was not a peer of the realm, entitled to sit in the House of Lords; but where the nobility are concerned, the English courteously extend certain of the father’s honors to the sons. Lord William’s father, Francis, being the eldest son of a peer (the fourth Duke of Bedford), was in courtesy styled Marquess of Tavistock, one of his father’s inferior titles. As Francis was in courtesy styled as though he were a peer, so William, his youngest son, was in courtesy styled as though he were the younger son of a peer.

  † This was a gate at the front of the house which gave access, from the street, to the “area,” a flight of outdoor stairs that led down to a sunken pavement and the basement door. In those days servants and tradesmen were admitted to the houses of the well-to-do through the basement door: as a rule only rich or gentle people entered through the front—the main or “hall”—door.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Castles

  What is the reason that in all ages the noble’s château has been an object of terror? Is it because of the horrors that were committed there in the old days? I suppose so.

  —Eugénie de Guérin

  Like many another Whig grandee, Lord William cherished a solicitude for the common people. Languid valetudinarian though he was, he had, on one or two occasions, exerted himself in the cause of Progress and Humanity with something that might almost have been mistaken for passion; and he had once gone so far as to propose, at a reform dinner in Covent Garden, a toast to the “Sovereignty of the People.”

  But however egalitarian Lord William was in theory, he was practically a patrician, and it was only natural that, after an afternoon spent lounging in Brooks’s, he should have been vexed that, on coming down to St. James’s Street, he was not met by the familiar sight of York, in wig and powder, seated on the hammer-cloth of his carriage. Clearly he must have a word with his valet. The young man, perhaps on account of his Swiss birth, seemed not to understand that in the England of 1840 democracy was a sentiment, but aristocracy was real.

  Miss Mancer was looking out the window into Norfolk Street when, about twenty minutes to six, she saw Lord William descend from a hackney cab. She went at once to the pantry.

  “Courvoisier, his lordship has been obliged to come home in a cab.”

  A short time later, Lord William summoned Courvoisier to his library and handed him two letters. “You are to take them to the mews for York to deliver by hand,” he said, “and you will bring back the dog with you.”

  Courvoisier took the letters to the kitchen, and he and his friend Carr left the house by the basement door. When, a few minutes later, Courvoisier returned with the dog, he told Miss Mancer that “his lordship seemed angry when he first came in,” but “got quite good-tempered after.”

  Lord William took the dog for a walk in Hyde Park; came back at half past six; and dined alone, “on plate,” in the dining room. (To have “no service of plate” was in those days thought a great meanness.) After dinner, Lord William retired to his library.

  Mary Hannell, the cook, washed his lordship’s dirty plate and afterwards went to the back yard to fetch cold meat for the servants’ supper, bolting the door behind her on her return. She then left the house on a private errand of her own.

  It was now near nine o’clock. York came in to take his lordship’s dog back to its kennel; Courvoisier and Miss Mancer supped together in the kitchen. They talked of Mary Hannell’s having handed in her notice; Courvoisier distinctly sympathized with her desire to get away. He regretted, he said, his own decision to enter Lord William’s service, and he complained that he had suffered much ill usage in consequence of his master’s senile daftness. He told Miss Mancer how, on a visit to Richmond in April, his lordship had been “very cross and peevish” and had changed his room three times at the inn. Miss Mancer said that there must have been a reason for his lordship’s being out of sorts. Courvoisier replied that he had been put out of joint by the loss of a gold locket, one that contained a lock of his late wife’s hair.

  That Lord William was not a hero to his valet was hardly a revelation to Miss Mancer; Courvoisier had often been heard to mock and disparage his master. “Old Billy,” he once said, “was a rum old chap, and if he had his money, he would not remain long in England.” Miss Mancer told him that his lordship was not so rich as many people supposed—which was true. Lord William was a younger son, and, like many another younger son, he had been sacrificed to the exigencies of primogeniture, with the result that he was frequently embarrassed in his finances.

  But Courvoisier was not persuaded. “Ah,” he said, “old Billy has money.”

  Night had fallen when, about ten o’clock, Mary Hannell returned from her errand. Courvoisier let her in by the front door, which he afterwards locked, bolted, and chained. He then went out by the basement door to fetch some ale from a nearby public house. The servants drank of it together; Mary Hannell and Sarah Mancer would later say that they felt drowsy after having imbibed it.

  Miss Mancer went upstairs and, passing the open door of the library, saw Lord William sitting in his chair, reading a book. The flickering light of the candle illuminated the person of her master, but as for his inward personality, and the curious influences that had molded it, these could be read only by the light of the imagination. Lord William was an aristocrat, the recipient of a training that brands the soul as distinctly as the tonsured head distinguishes the devoted monk or the jeweled button the promoted mandarin.
The Russell grandeurs, the palaces and pedigrees, were a part of him, lived in him; nor were the Russell horrors—for there were horrors—less closely interwoven with the fibers of his being. The founder of the family’s fortune, old Sir John Russell, was one of those bold, bad men who under the Tudors engorged themselves through the plunder of the monasteries. He and his heirs erected a great house on the ruins of the Cistercian abbey of Woburn, close by the oak where the last abbot was hanged. Inferior, indeed, in splendor of descent to such houses as De Vere and Talbot, the Russells nevertheless went rapidly up the steps of the peerage, and by the eighteenth century they were invariably ranked among the “Brahmins of the ton.” But aristocracy, though it is a brilliant flower, yields a bitter fruit. The progress of the Russell magnificos in all the modes of silken selfishness, of gorgeous hauteur, may even now be traced in the canvases of Van Dyke and Kneller, Lely and Gainsborough. But the splendor, though real, was tainted; the blood and bowels of the old abbot were upon it.*

  While his lordship read in the library, Sarah Mancer drew the curtains in his bedroom and lighted a fire in the hearth; she also lighted the rushlight on the night-table. Afterwards, she went up to her own bedroom. Mary Hannell also retired, having left the kitchen fire burning: Courvoisier would need the coals to warm Lord William’s bed. His lordship himself went into his bedroom around midnight, and after undressing got into his bed—a four-poster, with the curtains drawn on the side nearest the door. At some point, he began to snore.

  * Robert Hobbes, the last abbot of Woburn Abbey, was adjudged a traitor, and suffered the penalties of high treason, being hanged, drawn, and quartered.

  CHAPTER THREE

  A Devilish Pretty Mess

  Chaos is come again.

  —Shakespeare

  The next morning, Sarah Mancer woke, as she usually did, at half past six. Mary Hannell was still in bed when she left the room they shared and knocked on Courvoisier’s door: the valet had a habit of oversleeping. Upon coming down the attic stairs, she saw the warming pan lying on the floor near the door to Lord William’s bedroom. Courvoisier ought to have taken it down to the kitchen. He had once before left the pan on the landing, and Miss Mancer had pointed out to him that this “was not the proper place to leave it.”

  On reaching the first floor, Miss Mancer looked into the library. His lordship’s writing desk, she saw, was turned around. Four of the drawers were open, and various papers lay scattered about. A screwdriver rested on his lordship’s writing chair, and his keys were on the floor. Miss Mancer was not, however, alarmed, for Lord William had on previous occasions left the library in disarray. She passed into the drawing room, opened the shutters, and afterwards descended to the ground floor. There she was startled to find the door to the street fastened only by the latch—it was neither bolted nor chained, as it ought properly to have been. His lordship’s blue cloak lay on the floor not far from the door, as did an opera glass, a gold pencil case, a tortoiseshell toothpick case, and a pair of his lordship’s spectacles, tipped with silver, together with an assortment of utensils—a silver sugar-dredger, a silver caddy-spoon, the silver top of a salt-dredger, a little cayenne spoon, a silver dish-cover, and the cook’s silver thimble.

  It was only when Miss Mancer reached the dining room that she allowed mere consternation to give way to horrible imaginings. The drawers and cupboards had been opened and gone through; the candlesticks had been cast on the floor. She ran upstairs and, after telling Mary Hannell what she had seen, went to Courvoisier’s door.

  “Courvoisier,” she said, “do you know of any thing being the matter last night?”

  “No,” he said, and opened the door. He was dressed in his usual attire, only he was not wearing his coat.

  “Do you know what has been the matter last night?”

  “No.”

  “All your silver and things are about.”

  Miss Mancer thought he looked pale and agitated as he came out of the room clutching his coat. She followed him downstairs. He took up the warming pan and carried it to the dining room, where he set it down. He then went to his pantry; here, too, the cupboard and drawers had been opened and gone through.

  “My God,” he said, “some one has been robbing us.”

  “For God’s sake, let us go and see where his lordship is,” Miss Mancer said.

  They went up to Lord William’s bedroom. Courvoisier opened the shutters of a window that overlooked Norfolk Street; Miss Mancer went to the bed, which was obscured, on one side, by the curtains that hung from the canopy. When she came to the open side, she found his lordship in the bed, lying on his back; a towel covered his face.

  “My lord, my lord,” Miss Mancer cried, and ran screaming out of the room. She went part way up the attic stairs, turned on her heel, and ran down the stairs and out into Norfolk Street. She rang the doorbell at Mr. Latham’s house across the way, then crossed the street to Mr. Lloyd’s. No sooner did she ring Mr. Lloyd’s doorbell than Mr. Latham’s butler (his name was Young) came into the street. His lordship, she told him, was murdered, and he should go for the police.

  She went back into the house and into the dining room, where she found Courvoisier seated in a chair, writing something on a piece of paper.

  “What the devil do you sit here for?” she asked. “Why don’t you go out and send for a doctor?”

  “I must write to Mr. Russell,” he said. William Russell, Lord William’s youngest and only surviving son, lived in Belgravia.

  York came into the house, followed by Young, Mr. Latham’s butler, and together they went up to his lordship’s bedroom. There was blood on the bolster, blood on the bedsheet, blood on the towel that covered his lordship’s face. Dr. Elsgood, the surgeon, soon appeared; he removed the towel and drew down the bedclothes.

  “It was very horrifying,” Young remembered. The dead man lay weltering in his own blood; his head was nearly severed from his body.

  Two constables, Baldwin and Rose, were soon upon the doorstep. Sarah Mancer led them to Courvoisier, whom they found seated behind the door of the dining room with his elbows on his knees and his hands covering his face. Baldwin asked him why he did not get up and tender assistance.

  Courvoisier made no answer.

  The question was repeated, with the same result.

  “Rose,” Baldwin said to his colleague, “he must know something about this.”

  The policemen went down to the basement, where they found marks of violence on the door to the back yard. Yet on going up the ladder and inspecting the tops of the walls, they found them covered with a layer of dust apparently undisturbed.

  Inspector Tedman had in the meanwhile arrived. Together with Courvoisier and Miss Mancer, he went down to the basement. Courvoisier pointed to the marks on the back door. “Here is where they came in,” he said.

  They went next to the pantry, where Baldwin and Rose joined them.

  Baldwin looked hard at Courvoisier. “You have made a devilish pretty mess of it. You must know all about it.”

  Courvoisier said nothing.

  Miss Mancer said, “Oh dear, my lord is murdered!”

  Inspector Tedman asked to be taken to the body.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The Queen Conveys Her Sympathy

  Thus those celestial fires,

  Though seeming mute,

  The fallacy of our desires

  And all the pride of life confute. . . .

  —Habington

  The news of the murder excited, in places of the highest importance, an interest greater than the habitués of those rarefied realms were accustomed to take in London throat-slashings. In the Palace of Westminster, in Downing Street, in Buckingham Palace itself, there was curiosity, and perhaps even a faint alarm. The Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, was informed of the crime by Lord William’s nephew, Lord John Russell, who, having given up the Home Office, held the portfolio of Colonial Secretary in the Cabinet. Lord Melbourne was not a man to be unduly moved by passing events, however
momentous; when he was told that he had been summoned to kiss hands as Prime Minister, he said he thought it “a damned bore.” But the murder in Mayfair roused him from his blasé indifference, and he wrote at once to Queen Victoria to deplore what he called a “most shocking event.” He went on to inform Her Majesty that the earliest reports suggested that the “persons who did it came for the purpose of robbing the house; they entered by the back of the house and went out at the front door.”

  Meanwhile, in 14 Norfolk Street, Courvoisier was conducted to the scene of the crime. He went to the foot of Lord William’s bed and, raising his hand, seemed to swoon. It was, he said, a “shocking job.” He then fell back into an armchair and lamented the effect the death of his master was likely to have on his prospects in domestic service. “O my God . . . I shall lose my place and ‘character’ . . . they will think it is me, and I shall never get another place.” Romantic Gothicism was quite evidently on the way out; the criminals themselves seemed to sense it. Courvoisier behaved precisely as though he were the Suspected Servant in one of the ironical, drawing-room-comedy murders which Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers were later to compose.

  In the meanwhile, Inspector Tedman had been looking about. A pompous, self-complacent man, much taken, like Inspector Lestrade in the Holmes stories, with his own sagacity, he was struck both by what he saw and by what he did not see. Conspicuously absent was any instrument capable of causing the injury Lord William had sustained; suicide, therefore, could be ruled out. As conspicuously present were such articles as a silver candlestick, a gold pin, and a Russia leather box, which proved to contain a gold ring. On the dressing table, crested, silver-mounted dressing articles were arranged before the looking glass, while the cupboard near the chimney-piece contained four silver-mounted tobacco pipes and an opera glass.