Petty Treason

by Madeleine E. Robins

  “I was of the impression that you enjoyed being the one who knew everything about everyone. I do not ask you about your clients, and God knows you might always say to me, No, I cannot tell you anything. Would you prefer that I not come to you at all?”

  “I would prefer that you stop punishing me!” Mrs. Brereton said angrily. “Every time you call on me you are everything polite and disapproving. You don’t trust me.”

  Miss Tolerance was startled by the hurt in her aunt’s voice. “I thought we had agreed—”

  “You agreed you would talk of nothing substantial, whatever help I gave you.” Mrs. Brereton blew her nose again. “Sarah, I made a mistake. Are you, of all people, going to hold that mistake against me forever?”

  Miss Tolerance drew a sharp breath. “Aunt, you must understand—”

  “I do understand. I was careless, and told something which put you at risk—”

  “Careless?” Miss Tolerance struggled to master her anger. “In order to keep a client happy, you told him when I had gone on an errand. Only it was not me, but Matt Etan who went, and was followed and beaten to death. Perhaps you do not recall his body laid out in your parlor, but I do. I remember that it might easily have been me who was killed and not Matt.”

  “I could not have known—”

  “Nor could I! Would I have let Matt take my place had I had any idea what waited him? Do you think I don’t imagine what might have happened had it been me instead? At least I can use a sword …”

  “So you blame me, that you need not blame yourself! I put the maintenance of my relationship with a client above the claims of kinship. I was not to know what would come of it. Matt’s death—he should not have been out on your errand—” Mrs. Brereton went into a fit of coughing.

  Miss Tolerance, who suspected her aunt of theatricality, was unmoved.

  “I have learned my lesson, Sarah, and I am frankly tired of feeling every time we meet that you are scolding me!”

  “It certainly is not scolding to watch what I say in your company. And I beg you to believe it is as difficult for me to do so as it is for you to accept that your mistake cost Matt his life. I must live with my guilt in the matter, Aunt, but so must you.”

  The two women glared at each other.

  In the silence Frost’s voice came from the dressing room. “Are you all right, madam? Miss Sarah, you’ll remember that she is ill—don’t you worry her!”

  Miss Tolerance and Mrs. Brereton, with one look, came together to assure the maid that all was very well.

  “Don’t let her fuss at me,” Mrs. Brereton murmured. She leaned back into her pillows as if exhausted. Miss Tolerance nodded.

  “She is right, though. You’re not well, and I have upset you. I’m sorry, Aunt Thea.” She rose and kissed her aunt’s cheek. Mrs. Brereton turned away slightly, but permitted the gesture. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

  “Pour a little more tea, please.” Mrs. Brereton watched as the tea was poured, and thanked her niece. Then she turned her face to the heavily draped window, as if trying to divine what weather lurked behind the curtains.

  Miss Tolerance left her aunt to her conscience and her tisane.

  In the morning Miss Tolerance dressed for riding in masculine garb and sent round to the stables to hire a horse. She set out for the Strand, noting as she rode that the citizens of London were taking on their winter conformations. Those with money maintained a slender silhouette, sealing the chill out with rich materials and furs, moving from houses where fires warmed every grate to carriages fitted out with warmed rugs and hot bricks. Those who could not afford such luxuries took on the appearance of bustling balls of wool, dressed in as many layers as they could contrive and barreling through the streets in scarves, shawls, and thrice-sold coats. Miss Tolerance sank her chin into the scarf wrapped loosely around her neck; the tip of her nose was likely red, but in that she was no different from every other Londoner out of doors on this day.

  The neighborhood known as the Liberty of Savoy was, by ancient custom, a safe haven for debtors of all classes; a stink of desperation and compromise hung about its streets no less than the quotidian stench of sewage. Miss Tolerance guided her horse among the carriages, carts, street-sellers and pedestrians until she reached the Wheat Sheaf, a public house where the gleanings, she hoped, would include information.

  Miss Tolerance was known here. The tapster greeted her with a look, a second look, and a nod of recognition. She ordered coffee and bread and suggested that Mr. Boddick draw something stronger for himself. He nodded acknowledgment, brought Miss Tolerance’s refreshment, then liberally doctored a tankard of coffee with rum and nursed at it until he felt more communicative. It was then established between the two of them that it was indeed a raw day, that winter looked to be settling in for good and earnest, and that the poor soldiers off in foreign parts would be brutally cold that winter—if they didn’t drown first in the torrential rains that were reported to have struck Portugal this fall. These preliminaries over, Miss Tolerance was able to inquire after Mr. Joshua Glebb

  The position Mr. Glebb occupied in the Liberty, and within the larger canvas of London generally, is difficult to describe. Gossip is too simple a word; informer both harsh and inaccurate; broker was perhaps the most apt term. It was Mr. Glebb’s vocation to acquaint those who required financial assistance with all those ready to offer such assistance. That many of these lenders operated outside the bounds of the usury statutes did not trouble Mr. Glebb, a fervent believer in the virtue of an unfettered marketplace. Glebb had the ear of bankers licit and otherwise. There was very little he did not know about who borrowed from whom, and unlike Miss Tolerance, he did not scruple to share this information for a price.

  Boddick drank the last of his coffee-and-rum, looked wistfully into the tankard, and allowed that Mr. Glebb was likely to take up his usual place in the back of the room within the hour. As the fire was warm and the coffee drinkable, Miss Tolerance greeted this news without dismay, ordered more coffee for herself, and directed the tapster to refresh his own. Mr. Boddick carried on a one-sided conversation regarding politics; Miss Tolerance drank her coffee.

  Mr. Glebb appeared some five and forty minutes later, trailing three petitioners of varying class and desperation. He recognized Miss Tolerance and conveyed with a nod that he would be happy to speak with her after his immediate business had been dispatched. He then spread his coattails and settled himself with a sigh at the table nearest the fire. He was a short, elderly man built upon pyramidal lines: a long, narrow head and negligible chin, a pair of shoulders only a little broader, and a spreading paunch ill concealed by a neat dark coat. The fashion for high shirt-points and elaborately tied neckcloths did not reduce this triangular illusion. Age made Glebb’s movements stiff and painful, and no amount of attention with his handkerchief could expunge the bit of milky white spittle in the corner of his mouth, or the clear drop that seemed always poised to fall from his nose. Miss Tolerance watched as Glebb dealt with one, then another, then the last of the waiting supplicants. He then waved Miss Tolerance over; she thanked Mr. Boddick for his company and went to join Glebb.

  “Haven’t seen you here in a while, miss. Not come to borrow, I take it?” Glebb’s voice was dry and hoarse.

  “No, sir. I find myself quite beforehand with the world,” Miss Tolerance said pleasantly. “I should like the favor of a few minutes’ conversation, however.”

  “Oh, aye, talk is cheap—in course, information comes dearer. But you know that.” Glebb raised a hand to beckon to the tapster. “Hi, you, Boddick! Coffee and a pie here, if you please.”

  Miss Tolerance took a seat across the table. “Do you pay rent, that they let you inhabit this corner of the room, sir?”

  Glebb shook his head. “I’m good for business. Particularly later in the day, when people drink a little courage before they talk with me. But that’s not your question. What is it you need to know?”

  “Is the name Etienne d’Aubigny
—the Chevalier d’Aubigny—known to you, sir?”

  Glebb drew his brows together and pursed his lips in a caricature of thought. “Frenchman name of Dobinny—” He did not bother to essay Miss Tolerance’s pronunciation. “I’ve heard nothing of a Frenchman by that name going to the cents-per-cent. And if I don’t know it—”

  “He has not been on the lookout for funds,” Miss Tolerance finished. “Not among the reputable moneylenders, in any case,” she added.

  “Oh, I’d ’a heard about it if he’d gone to the sharks, as well,” Glebb said firmly. He slid his hand across the table, palm up, but Miss Tolerance was not done with him.

  “No such Frenchman has been pawning or selling off his goods?”

  Glebb considered. “Such a Frenchman might ’a done in the past—but I take it you want something more recent? Nothing worth noting. I could ask about, but it will cost you.”

  Miss Tolerance smiled politely. “Of course. ’Tis only fair.”

  Glebb looked up to nod as Boddick brought his pie and coffee. “I know the name, though. Outside of the financial area. Can’t recall why.”

  “It might be because the man was murdered. His widow believes the murderer could have been an unhappy creditor.”

  Glebb engaged himself in the demolition of the pie before him. When he looked up at Miss Tolerance at last he said indistinctly, “That don’t make sense.”

  “Why not?”

  Glebb swallowed his mouthful and explained patiently. “It’s what you call recourse, miss. When a gentleman defaults of a debt, even the lowest Jew may call the bailiffs in and seize ‘is property. Or take the matter to court and send the fellow to a spunging house—all it takes is shillin’ for the warrant. But once the man’s dead, may be harder to collect. If you do see any of your money, it’s like to take far longer. Ideal-like, you want your debtor in the top of health and of a disposing mind. P’raps a gullgroper might send someone to roast your toes if you was late chronic-like, or break a bone or two. But killing—that’s not about debt.”

  “Debts of honor—” Miss Tolerance began, half to herself.

  “Oh, well, yes.” Glebb was disapproving. “Gentlemen and them, they’re all for blowing each other’s head off for a farthing. It’s not the way of good business.”

  “It wasn’t a duel, in any case. The man was beaten to death in his own bed.”

  Mr. Glebb nodded and tapped the side of his nose with one short finger. “In ’is own bed? Beat to death? That’s why the name’s familiar, then. That West End business. Look to the household, I say. A wife, a child, a servant. Who else’d have so easy a chance?”

  Miss Tolerance opened her pocketbook, took out several coins and slid them across the table.

  “I’m grateful for your help, Mr. Glebb.”

  “Well, aye. Come find me any time. I’m always here.” Glebb pushed the coins off the edge of the table and into his hand. “And I’ll ask about for word the gent was deep in to the sharks,” he promised.

  Miss Tolerance had gained the street when a thought occurred to her and she returned to the Wheat Sheaf’s tap-room again. Glebb, brushing crumbs from his coat, eyed her without comment.

  “When you make your inquiries regarding the chevalier, Mr. Glebb, would you ask as well about the size of his debt to tradesmen and the like? Thank you!” She left with Glebb staring after her, clearly weighing the scope of the task she had set against the money he would be able to charge for it.

  Shrugging her way out of the door into the sour fog which was, even at this hour, beginning to drift in the street, Miss Tolerance considered. The d’Aubigny household had shown all the signs of life lived chronically beyond means: the missing objects which had most likely been pawned or sold, the patchy condition of the servants’ livery, the house in a good neighborhood but with paint cracking and shutters askew. Miss Tolerance made a silent wager with herself that the Widow d’Aubigny was missing jewels which had come with her into the marriage and were now reposing in pawnshops. But if Glebb could find no indication that d’Aubigny had borrowed money from professionals accustomed to lend it, whence would the money to support that household come? It seemed impossible that the man hadn’t borrowed money from someone.

  Miss Tolerance’s horse was still in the custody of the grubby child she had paid to watch it. She dodged a cart barreling by at a speed certain to throw the unspeakable contents of the gutter up in an odorous spray, then crossed the street to where horse and boy waited. She flipped the boy a coin, mounted the hack, and started west.

  Perhaps the chevalier had borrowed money from a private source, a friend or business associate. Anne d’Aubigny had suggested that only a moneylender would have advanced her improvident husband money, but it was clear to Miss Tolerance that the widow had not been in her husband’s confidence. Perhaps d’Aubigny’s superior in the Home Office would know, although Miss Tolerance had little confidence that such a person would share the information with a Fallen Woman who appeared on his doorstep asking questions. Regretting that she would have to return home and change from the relatively warm breeches, coat and greatcoat that she wore into more feminine garb, Miss Tolerance turned the hack toward Manchester Square again, to render her costume and her self unexceptionable to the clerks of the Home Office.

  An hour later Miss Tolerance had achieved a highly reappearance calculated to suggest impoverished female virtue and bereavement without directly claiming either. Her dress was of dark gray wool, her dark blue coat was untrimmed, and she had removed the crimson ribbons and feather cockade which had formerly given her bonnet a rather dashing appearance. This costume, together with a posture and attitude which suggested anxiety at war with necessity, she hoped would gain the confidence of the Home Office. She hired a carriage to Parliament Street and began her impersonation there on the street, staring anxiously into her reticule and paying the driver with a collection of small coins, parting with each one with a slight frown of distress. Firmly in character, she entered the building and asked the porter for the office of Mr. Etienne d’Aubigny.

  The porter looked distressed. He bade her sit and scurried off down the low-ceilinged hall. Perhaps the man was afraid she did not know of the chevalier’s demise and feared feminine hysterics; certainly he had gone to place the problem in more senior hands. A few minutes later the porter returned with a tall square-headed gentleman who asked her business with the chevalier. Miss Tolerance gave rein to her considerable sense of mischief.

  “My poor dear cousin sent me,” she began. “The widow, poor thing. Quite distraught. I—” She stopped and applied a handkerchief to her eye as if to stop a show of grief. “Poor Cousin Anne! So much business to resolve! So many callers, so many letters to write! I only hope my small assistance may be useful to her. Indeed, when I left, she told me—”

  This was apparently credential enough for the gentleman, who dismissed the clerk and invited Miss Tolerance into his office. Miss Tolerance took a seat opposite the desk, which made her the full recipient of drafts from which her host’s chairback protected him.

  “Now, then,” the gentleman said. He settled himself at his desk. “I am Sir Andrew Parham. How may I assist you, Miss—”

  Miss Tolerance disregarded the implicit invitation to give her name. “Sir Andrew, so very kind of you to see me. My poor cousin Anne asked me—’tis very hard to speak of it, such a horrid, untimely death, and of course everything left every which way. But her husband’s affairs, perhaps you might know, I’m sure the poor chevalier reposed the greatest confidence in you—”

  From the expression on Sir Andrew’s face he had not much liked the poor chevalier. “That is very gratifying,” he began.

  “You see, there it is,” Miss Tolerance rattled on. “Men always know so much more than they tell their wives. My poor dear cousin—so distraught!—is trying to discover who—that is to say, if you could help us learn—I imagine that—”

  “Madam, if you would tell me how I may help you,” Sir Andrew said enc
ouragingly.

  “Ah, men are always so businesslike! You see, the chevalier told Cousin Anne that he had borrowed money from someone in his office, but she can discover nothing, and no one has come forward, and she does consider it a debt of—of honor, and asked me to particularly inquire—”

  Sir Andrew raised an eyebrow. “D’Aubigny borrowed money from someone in this office?”

  Miss Tolerance pursed her lips and nodded. “That is what we believe, sir, and if you—”

  “I hardly like to say this, Miss—” again the pause for a name, which Miss Tolerance again ignored. “The men at d’Aubigny’s level in this department are men with their ways to make. If the chevalier borrowed money here it was more likely to be a sixpence than a guinea. He certainly knew better than to approach me,” he said sternly.

  “Oh, of course, sir. But we thought—and with the poor chevalier such a promising man, and certain to rise in the service—”

  Irritation, Miss Tolerance was pleased to see, was now plainly written on Sir Andrew’s face. She continued, “—Quite certain to make his fortune, for he was such a clever man—”

  “Yes, well—”

  “—And only recently he came into money—my cousin was certain at first that it was a prize of some sort for his superior work, but then she thought that it must have been a tiny loan against his expectations. Expectations that have been so horridly dashed—and how is she to manage now? That money is all gone, of course. Such a—”

  “I hope Mrs. d’Aubigny’s jointure was protected against any depredations—” Sir Andrew began. He had begun to regard Miss Tolerance with a kind of horror.

  “Of course it was, the soul of honor the chevalier was, as I’m sure you know, and my uncle, Cousin Anne’s father, you know, quite properly saw her jointure tied up sound as can be! I don’t mean to take up your time, dear Sir Andrew, but perhaps you know who the dear chevalier’s particular friends in the office were? Poor dear Anne says he was so popular that he frequently stayed out of an evening—I am only just come to London, and the pace of life is quite unsettling to a country mouse such as I am. But with Cousin Anne so very overset, and so many details to be seen to—and the poor dear chevalier such a paragon in every—”