“It grows cold outside.” Like a delicate bird, she flitted about the small room. “This season is of them all my least favorite, with its accursed fogs so thick that one must see one’s way to breakfast with a taper and light candles in the middle of the day. But soon, in consequence of the opening of Parliament, Society will begin to be livelier again. I believe that I must plan a small party.”
Sir John might have resented this interruption, and this irrelevance, had he not possessed a fair understanding of the working of Dulcie’s mind. As he watched, she alit at last on the old wooden chair. “Do you recall the great frost this February last that turned the Thames to solid ice between London Bridge and Blackfriars? Freezeland Street, they called it, and on either side were booths of every variety—butchers and barbers and purveyors of gin and beer, brandy balls and gingerbread. There were bookstalls and printing presses, skittle alleys and toyshops, and even gambling establishments.”
Whatever the Baroness had on her mind, she was approaching it in a singularly roundabout manner. The Chief Magistrate put down his pen. “What’s the point, Dulcie?”
She pressed the muff against her cheek. “Merely that we are no longer young,” she said wistfully. “I remember the balls when you would dance with me, and then while the other young ladies were very correctly strolling on their partners’ arms, you and I would slip away. Just think how long ago that was! So long that we never even shared a waltz, for it was unheard of.”
Sir John thought of that dance, with its vulgar intimacy that had made an Oriental ambassador almost faint, and rubbed his forehead. “You have a husband now. I’m sure that if you wish to waltz, Maximilian will be happy to oblige.”
“I might, and have, called Bat many things,” retorted Lady Bligh, “but ‘obliging’ isn’t one of them. You have missed the point, John! Times are changing, rather drastically. I daresay the day will come when the horse is replaced by Trewithick’s wretched steam engine that runs on tracks.” She sighed. “Even Brummell’s star is on the wane. What a career the Beau has had! From Eton and a coronetcy in Prinny’s own regiment to an exalted position as the absolute arbiter elegantiarum of fashionable Society.”
“Dulcie.” The Chief Magistrate was growing annoyed. “I didn’t ask you here to discuss Brummell.”
“Of course you didn’t.” Lady Bligh stroked her chinchilla muff, obviously preoccupied. “The Beau, I fear, will not reign much longer. He is on the outs with Prinny, largely due to his championship of Maria Fitzherbert—though no one can deny our Regent has treated his morganatic wife abominably!—and he is running deeply into debt. He claims his bad luck stems from the loss of a lucky coin.”
Sir John rose, impatiently. The Baroness ignored him. “I wonder,” she mused, “to what I might attribute my ill luck.”
“What’s this?” growled the Chief Magistrate, unwillingly concerned. “What ill luck?”
Dulcie looked unhappy. “There can be little point in telling you, since you will refuse altogether to share in my suspicions. So I will allow only that I am exceedingly worried about my niece.”
It grew apparent to Sir John that, in the midst of a spate of the most brilliant robberies of all time, requiring him to conduct frequent acrimonious conferences with the Home Secretary, he was to be called upon to intervene in Lady Bligh’s domestic affairs. He moved to the window, looked down at the ancient tavern across the street. “Why?” he asked reluctantly.
“Poor Mignon has got herself in quite a tangle, and though I hope she may make a recovery, I wouldn’t wager on it.” The Baroness studied the Chief Magistrate so intently that he turned to face her. “I think I must be growing old, for I am inordinately concerned for the girl.”
Ah, but she was a Circe, and he was far from deaf to her siren song. Sir John crossed the room and tilted up her face. She looked little older than when they’d shared those long-ago dances and those forbidden interludes. Only the tiny laughter lines around her fine eyes betrayed the fact that she was no longer in her youth. “If you are so worried, why don’t you simply take a hand?”
“I cannot.” Tears glistened in her dark eyes. “There is nothing I can do that would not make matters even worse. Poor Mignon must muddle along as best she can, and I only pray that she will not be coerced into some action that will prove disastrous.”
Sir John offered his handkerchief. Things must be in a very bad case to reduce the indomitable Baroness to tears. “What can I do?” he asked, resigned.
“You can immediately inform me,” Dulcie replied promptly, with a look that melted his bones, “if my niece is hauled before you, probably by Crump.” Briskly she blew her nose. “I give you my word that her involvement is purely circumstantial. Mignon hasn’t a cruel or avaricious bone in her body, which is a great deal more than I can say for various of her associates.”
“Involvement? Are you telling me your niece is mixed up in murder and robbery?” Lady Bligh said nothing and Sir John strode toward his desk. He glanced over his shoulder to find the Baroness hard on his heels. Before he could step away she had snatched the piece of paper he held in his hand. As she read it, her arched brows sank into a frown. Well might Dulcie scowl! thought Sir John. That note put an end to her theory of Leda’s innocence.
“What an extraordinary thing!” announced the Baroness at length, her dark eyes glittering again but this time not with tears. “This is a positive masterpiece of vague and incriminating remarks that give much credence to the notion that Leda is a criminal mastermind. Brilliant, in fact! We are dealing with no ordinary felons, John. May I, ask how you came by this?”
The Chief Magistrate sat down heavily in his chair, hoping an official manner might inspire Lady Bligh to behave. He was tired to death of this case and of her ladyship’s shenanigans. “Crump intercepted it,” he said.
Dulcie was not one to be cowed by a pompous attitude. With a rustle of satin, she perched on the edge of his desk. Her heavy perfume filled Sir John’s nostrils, making him think of deep and mysterious forests, amber and jasmine and musk, the stately chime of crystal and silver bells.
It was with some relief that the Chief Magistrate greeted the advent of two more people in the small room. “Well!” murmured Lady Bligh. “Speak of the devil and here is Crump.” The Runner’s companion received a gimlet stare. “And, if I am not mistaken, Lord Warwick’s valet.”
Crump was a more-than-discreet individual, well-suited to his duties at Tattersall’s Subscription Rooms on summer Mondays when debts were settled, at the Bank of England on days when dividends were paid, at Drury Lane and Covent Garden where he stood in the saloons and watched for pickpockets; and thus he displayed no surprise at seeing Lady Bligh perched so insouciantly on the Chief Magistrate’s desk. He did note, however, that Sir John looked unusually flustered, and that the Baroness seemed pleased with herself.
Simpkin was less broad-minded and furthermore labored under considerable distress. He stared open-mouthed. “I perceive you have solved one of our little mysteries,” said Lady Blight. “How clever of you, Crump!”
The Runner was inclined to agree. With an ungentle hand, he propelled Simpkin farther into the room. As if his knees had grown too weak to support him, the valet sank down on the wooden chair. Crump hooked his thumbs into his waistcoat, canary yellow embroidered with blue. “I fancy that this rascal can make a number of things clear.”
“I didn’t know they were forged!” cried Simpkin. “I swear I did not!”
“As you’ll also swear that the murderer of your master was Leda Langtry?” Lady Bligh arranged herself more comfortably on the hard desktop, thus presenting Sir John with an excellent view of her enchanting profile. “I think we’d benefit greatly from hearing how you arrived at that notion, Simpkin.”
The valet was more than eager to comply, not looking forward to a discussion of forged banknotes. “So,” mused the Baroness, when he had done, “you only assume that Leda remained hidden on the premises because you did not conduct her to the doo
r. Why not, I wonder?” Simpkin swallowed hard. “And when you later saw the woman in your master’s room, you saw only a figure clad in black—not, in fact, her face.”
“That’s true,” Simpkin conceded, while the Chief Magistrate fiddled with his pocket watch, relic of the great Henry Fielding, and Crump fumed.
“Then,” continued Lady Bligh, “you cannot in point of fact swear that the woman who interrupted Warwick was Leda Langtry.”
Simpkin would have agreed to anything at that point. “No,” he said.
The Baroness beamed. “An interesting point, is it not? I suspected as much. Now you may have your turn, Crump.”
And high time, thought the Runner, though he could hardly chastise Lady Bligh for interference in the due processes of the law when the Chief Magistrate remained so pointedly silent. This wasn’t the first time Crump had thought that, in regard to Lady Bligh, Sir John was soft in the head. “It’s a very curious thing,” he said, “about this scamp. One day he’s all to pieces, and the next he’s so plump in the pocket that he’s spreading the rhino all about town.”
“Rhino?” inquired Lady Bligh.
“Rolls of soft,” explained Crump, irked at the interruption. “Blunt. Banknotes.”
“Ah,” murmured Dulcie. “Tb be precise, forged banknotes. Fascinating!”
“It would be even more fascinating,” interrupted Sir John, “if you would let Crump get on with it.”
“I didn’t know they were forged!” wailed Simpkin. “I swear I didn’t!”
Crump found relief for his feelings in a very loud snort. “ Have you any notion of the penalty for passing forged banknotes?”
“I believe it is extremely severe,” mused the Baroness, while Simpkin looked ready to swoon. “Every bit as harsh, in fact, as the penalty for outright theft. It might be in your best interests, Simpkin, to tell us all.”
Simpkin had no intention of being so cooperative, not fancying his head in the hangman’s noose, but he found he could not remain silent. Like metal to a magnet, Lady Bligh’s stern eyes pulled the truth from him. “I stole them,” he said faintly, “from Lord Warwick’s desk.” And then it all came out, from the pilfering of the first few notes to the subsequent removal, practically under Lord Barrymore’s nose, of the remainder of the stack.
“I wonder,” mused Dulcie, “how Warwick came into possession of those notes, and why he left them sitting out in plain sight.”
“I can answer that,” said Sir John, awakening as if from a trance. “He had meant to show them to Lord Barrymore, who is something of an expert on forgeries.”
“Ah!” Lady Bligh smiled. “I was correct in assuming that there was more to Tolly than meets the eye. It is frequently true of young men who appear in no way remarkable.”
Crump wasn’t interested in this sidelight on human character. “Those notes are forgeries,” he said. “There can’t be two opinions of the matter. We’ve managed to round up most of them” He shot the Baroness an unfriendly glance. “It’s my opinion that they were printed on Leda Langtry’s press, and furthermore that such forgeries were the source of her income.” This brilliant deduction earned him no praise. Sir John raised a skeptical brow, while Lady Bligh remained remarkably silent.
Simpkin could no longer stand the suspense. “What is going to happen to me?”
“I daresay it won’t be pleasant,” observed the Baroness, “but it will be a great deal less unpleasant than what would be your fate if you went free.” She turned her head to regard the Chief Magistrate. “Has it occurred to you, dear John, that in this case there was no actual robbery? It does not follow the pattern of the other crimes. I conjecture that there were two purposes to be achieved in the matter of Warwick: the retrieval of those notes, which Simpkin unwittingly foiled, and Warwick’s death. I think we may safely conclude that he came too close to the truth.”
“Nor did Mary Elphinstone’s murder follow that pattern.” Sir John gestured that Crump was to escort Simpkin from the room. “It would appear that she, also, knew too much, which brings us back to Leda Langtry.”
“I think you will find that Mary Elphinstone died because she didn’t know enough.” Dulcie slid down from his desk. “Have you considered, John, that high rank is no indication of a moral character? Look at John MacMahon, Prinny’s Keeper of the Privy Purse and Secretary Extraordinary. The natural son of a butler and a chambermaid, he started life as an actor, gained an ensigncy for his efforts as a pimp, and the rank of lieutenant colonel by loaning his wife to a royal duke. Now he serves Prinny in a similar capacity and has demanded an Irish peerage and the Order of the Bath as the price for his silence.”
Sir John gazed upon her, thinking not of corruption in high places but of his first sight, countless years past, of that beguiling countenance and those golden curls.
“Dear, dear John,” murmured the Baroness. “How you would like to keep me well wrapped in lamb’s wool! What were we discussing before Crump appeared?” She pondered, lovely head tilted to one side. “Ah, yes, my victory fête. I cannot say precisely when it will be, but I have already written to inform Bat that his presence is required. One trusts he will choose to absent himself sufficiently long from Mme. de Stäel’s salon. She is a woman who is masculine in build as well as mind, though in conversation she has no equal and in her home has entertained kings. I hope very much, John, that you too will be able to attend.”
“A victory fete?” The Chief Magistrate would rather not encounter the unpredictable fifth Baron, who was as likely to salute him in the French manner on both cheeks as he was to call him out for impinging on the Baroness’s virtue.
Lady Bligh adjusted her velvet hat. “I trust there will be a victory to celebrate, but if matters continue as they have begun, it is more likely to be a wake.”
Sir John registered her anxiety. “You can’t seriously believe your niece is in actual danger?”
“Can’t I?” retorted the Baroness. “It’s easy to see, John, that you do not know Mignon.”
Chapter 20
“So Warwick’s valet stole the banknotes,” mused Lord Jeffries. “I wish it might work to our advantage, but I do not see how it may.”
Our advantage? thought Mignon, but refrained from comment. “Have you seen the Apocalypse today?” she asked. “It is full of the most startling speculations, such as that Simpkin may have murdered his master and made up the tale of seeing a woman in Warwick’s rooms simply to save his neck.”
“Which would let Leda off the hook,” reflected Ivor. “At least in that case. I suppose this is your aunt’s doing? If nothing else, it may buy us some time.”
Again that plural pronoun. With every passing moment Mignon was caught more firmly in the spider’s web. “Time in which to do what? Every new discovery we make only implicates your mother further.”
“I fancy,” retorted the Viscount, with a speculative glance, “that Leda’s implication is precisely what’s intended. Nor is she herself offering us any great assistance, being quite damnably closemouthed. She refuses to explain her association with Mary Elphinstone. I trust the evidence I left with you is safely tucked away?”
“Yes.” Mignon did not elaborate. It seemed to her that Lord Jeffries’ position was more than a little precarious, and she had prevailed on him to let her take the jewels and the deed to Mary Elphinstone’s cottage to Bligh House. She had meant to entrust them to her aunt, but the Baroness had been in one of her unapproachable moods, sitting in the Hymeneal and staring ferociously at the portrait of her rakish spouse, so Mignon had secreted the items in her own room.
“I wish you might trust me!” said Lord Jeffries, rather testily. “I cannot rid myself of the conviction that you are playing a lone hand, and for disastrously high stakes.”
If it was a game she played, Mignon thought wearily, it was with a deck stacked against her.
“Or can it be,” Ivor added, “that you do not believe in Leda’s innocence? Perhaps you believe like Crump—who has most recently in
vaded my home to look at, of all things, my pocket handkerchiefs!— that I am her accomplice?”
Mignon wished she might honestly assure him that she questioned neither Leda’s innocence nor his own honesty. “What I may think has little to do with anything.”
Ivor frowned. “I could hardly blame you if you did entertain doubts,” he said, to Mignon’s surprise.” I’ve wondered myself if Leda might be involved in all this, for it’s obvious that she has something to hide. Still, despite her mania for news mongering and stepping on people’s toes, I can’t believe my mother is capable of murder. What a wretched imbroglio this is! I expect to be momentarily arrested myself.”
“Mr. Crump can hardly do that,” Mignon replied, with more confidence than she felt, “without a particle of evidence against you.”
“Evidence! I’ve come to detest that word. Even now Crump is doubtless following us, hoping to witness at least another robbery.” Suddenly, the Viscount smiled. “What do you say, Miss Montague? Shall we treat our shadow to a slight diversion?”
Mignon was torn between vexation and relief by the formality of his address. “I rather suspect that my aunt had something of that nature in mind.” They were presently in The Strand, the thoroughfare that linked the mercantile City with the fashionable West End.
With a grin that betokened devilment, Lord Jeffries guided his companion—more than elegant in white muslin and a golden-brown cloth redingote with satin collar—toward Exeter ‘Change, by Burleigh Street, the main thoroughfare for foot traffic.
“How is your uncle?” asked Mignon. “I believe you said he was going to visit Leda in Newgate.”
“He did,” Ivor replied promptly, with a repetition of his smile. “I don’t know what passed between them, but Percy returned home and took straight to his bed.”
Mignon gazed bemused upon a fat lady of at least fifty-five who was dressed in black velvet with white trimmings and a turban with floating ostrich feathers, and who had two homely daughters in tow. “I hope he’s not seriously ill.”
Maggie MacKeever Page 15
