“Your left, is it not? And you lead with your left, don’t you, sir? Did Mr. Beauville ask that you beat me, or did you decide to do it on your own?”
“What?” Mr. Heddison rose from his seat, leaning forward over his desk as though he could not tell at whom to aim his outrage.
“WHAT?”
Miss Tolerance could see Boyse’s chest heaving under the red waistcoat he wore in imitation of the Bow Street constables. His large, square hands flexed at his side, nearer to her neck than she liked. She spoke to Heddison, but did not take her eyes away from Boyse.
“Was I the task to which you assigned Mr. Boyse that evening, sir? As you can still see, I was accosted and beaten that evening, and when I consider it, my assailant had a remarkably similar fist to that of the man who beat Mrs. Strokum. He was a very big man, and one who led exclusively with his left—as I am bruised on the right. Did you assign Mr. Boyse to follow me, sir? I cannot believe that you would have authorized a beating.”
Boyse was almost glowing with rage. His hands flexed as he glared back and forth between his employer and his accuser. Miss Tolerance continued.
“I was followed from—from an interview in Balcombe Street. I was frankly tired and not so careful as I might have been. My assailant was well muffled against the cold and rain, so I could not make out his face. I am not sure if his object was my death, but it certainly seemed that way at the time.”
“You’re here, ain’t you?” Boyse snarled.
“Allow me some skill at what I do, Mr. Boyse. Had I not been likewise bundled against the cold I would have had my smallsword out, and the ending would have been very different. You had a lump on the back of your head that was bothering you the next evening when you came for Anne d’Aubigny, didn’t you, sir?” Miss Tolerance’s smile was calculated to enrage the constable. If Boyse attacked her, would Heddison make any effort to stop him?
“Did Mr. Beauville ask you to kill me? Was he afraid I would come too close to him?”
“He ‘ad nothing to do with it!” Boyse bellowed. “I thought you’d caught a bloody eyeful. Thought you knew who was followin’. How was I to know you couldn’t see my face?”
“You were about the law’s business!” Heddison barked. “What could the woman have done but come and complain to me, and I’d have sent her away with a flea in her ear!”
“I just—she didn‘t—Christ, sir! Look at her! Whore. And wearing men’s clothes. Her so full of herself, needed takin’ down a peg. I—” Boyse choked.
“You don’t like me,” Miss Tolerance finished for him. “So you beat me—then went off to a public house where you were known, to establish the best alibi you could. But what did Beauville have to say to you that night?”
Boyse looked again at Heddison. Miss Tolerance thought he saw no help there.
“He just wanted to know what progress on the case—’e was paying me to tip ’im the gen because he was a friend of the dead. I tol’ ’im I couldn’t say just then. That’s all, sir!” He turned to Heddison again.
“But you did tell him later?” Heddison asked.
“Aye.”
“Told him what?”
“Only that we’d been to the widow’s that afternoon and found this one with ‘er. That she—Miss Tolerance—said summat about the doors bein’ locked or unlocked. I don’t recall precisely. That I’d followed her to some whore’s place in Balcombe Street—”
Miss Tolerance drew in a sharp breath.
Heddison looked back at Miss Tolerance. “What?”
“The woman who was found dead in Cleveland Row yesterday morning, sir. With evidence incriminating a man of some importance. Until a month or so ago, she was also Etienne d’Aubigny’s mistress.”
Heddison sank back into his chair.
“I do not know what to make of this,” he said at last. “There is too much—I must think about what it all means.”
“Yes, sir,” Miss Tolerance agreed. “But while you are thinking, I hope you will arrange to have my client freed from Cold Bath Fields Prison? I have exploded one piece of evidence against her, and provided you with a few new suspects.”
Heddison shook his head. “I must hear from the witnesses of which you spoke, Miss Tolerance. I cannot release a prisoner on the say-so of—”
“Of, sir?”
“Of an interested party. As for you—” Heddison turned to Boyse. “If Miss Tolerance does not prefer charges against you for assault—wholly outside of your authority as an officer of the law—perhaps this Mrs.—” he turned to Miss Tolerance to supply the name.
“Betty Strokum.”
“Perhaps this Mrs. Strokum will.”
Mr. Boyse, who had stood mute and defeated since the revelation of Mrs. Vose’s identity, leaned over the magistrate’s desk to protest. Heddison, his cane still in hand, rapped sharply on the desk, which brought Boyse to attention.
“You have no one but yourself to blame for this, Boyse. Beating women—of whatever condition—who by the nature of their frailty should be most liable to your protection.”
“What, her?” Boyse did not look at Miss Tolerance. “I should have bloody killed ‘er when I ’ad the chance.”
“But you did not,” Miss Tolerance said.
The thought of what might have been was apparently too much for Boyse, who rounded on Miss Tolerance with a roar and would have taken her throat in his grasping hands had she not rolled away from him and come up, awkwardly, behind her chair. Miss Tolerance dimly noted Heddison roaring at his constable to stop, but she was more engaged in evading Boyse’s attack. She picked up the chair she had vacated and used it to keep Boyse away, but Boyse grabbed the seat and began to wrestle the chair from her. Miss Tolerance was weighing her next action when Boyse suddenly dropped and curled up on the floor, keening. Behind him, Mr. Heddison stood, red-faced, with the knob-headed walking stick in his hand.
“Thank you, sir,” Miss Tolerance said breathlessly.
Heddison gave no reply, but banged the stick against the door again. Mr. Cotler appeared at once, and was instructed to send in Mr. Greenwillow and any other of his colleagues who should be in the house. Cotler took one look at the scene before him: magistrate with cane in hand, Miss Tolerance still holding the chair before her, and Boyse curled on the floor; whistled, and closed the door.
Mr. Heddison shook his head. “If assaulting the very people whose protection we have undertaken was not bad enough, it seems you have been taking money to relay the course of the investigation! I am saddened beyond my ability to say it.”
Mr. Greenwillow and another man appeared in the doorway.
“Detain him. Assault and abuse of privilege,” Mr. Heddison said curtly, indicating Boyse with a nod of his head.
Awkwardly, the two constables stepped forward and took Boyse by the arms. Boyse looked wildly a the two men. “Teddy,” he implored his former partner. Greenwillow looked everywhere but at Boyse’s face. As the three men started out the door Boyse glared at Miss Tolerance.
“You whore. You bitch. I should have kilt you.”
“But you did not,” Miss Tolerance said again.
Miss Tolerance left the Great Marlborough Street Public Office with a sour taste in her mouth. She had promised Heddison to provide Mrs. Strokum at her earliest opportunity, and to send the barman at the Duke of Kent to him as well, to corroborate her story. To her own mind Boyse had convicted himself, but if was not her mind which must be satisfied upon the score if Anne d’Aubigny was to be released.
Mrs. Strokum had to be persuaded with gold and assurances to leave the safety of Mrs. Lasher’s house and call in the Great Marlborough Street Public Office. When Miss Tolerance explained how matters stood with Boyse, that he was in custody and unlikely to be released, Mrs. Strokum appeared very pleased, particularly when Miss Tolerance made it clear to her that the beating she had suffered was one of the crimes for which he was being held.
“Prefer charges? I should damned well think I shall!” Dressed in the d
ark stuff gown which she had worn at Mrs. Lasher’s, the whore looked surprisingly respectable except for her bruises, and that lascivious toothless grin.
With only a little concern for what the magistrate would make of Mrs. Strokum, Miss Tolerance escorted the whore into his offices and left to walk to the Duke of Kent and inquire after the barman there. She was in luck: the man himself was behind the makeshift bar, indifferently polishing a stack of tankards. The afternoon custom was not heavy; a serving boy was engaged in swatting the flies that buzzed around the stew pot on the hearth. The barman did not at first recognize her. Once she had persuaded him that she was the same “young gentleman” who had come sniffing around for information about John Boyse, her luck stalled. The barman—his name was Joseph Dake—had no interest in making even a brief appearance before the magistrate.
“I’ll lose my custom if they think I’d hare off to the authorities at every chance I get, to tattle on who’s been drinking here the night before,” he said flatly. “Not that I have any love for Boyse—good riddance to ’im, if they can keep hold of ’im, which I doubt.”
“They can keep hold of him if you can attest that he did not arrive here on that evening until after eight. He has as near given himself up as—”
“Then why do you need me?”
Miss Tolerance shook with impatience. “There is a woman—young, quite blameless—in prison on false evidence that Boyse provided. The magistrate won’t release her unless I can prove that Boyse could not have been at an unknown drinking house talking to an imaginary informant, because he was here, drinking with Betty Strokum.”
Mr. Dake regarded her stonily.
“I can ask Mr. Heddison to keep your name from the public record—I cannot assure that he will do, but I can try. And—” she put a hand to her reticule suggestively. “You will be rewarded for your time, and for telling the truth.”
At last Mr. Dake untied his apron and tossed it onto the bar.
“You, Jackie!” he called to the boy who had been swatting flies. “Take the bar. And mind you get good coin while I’m gone, or I’ll tan your hide for you!”
Near dusk Miss Tolerance arrived at Cold Bath Fields Prison with a warrant for Anne d’Aubigny’s release. She had sent a note to Mr. Colcannon and had expected to find him waiting there, but he had not arrived yet, and Miss Tolerance was too impatient to see her client released to wait. She was taken into the warden’s office; he was delighted to arrange for Madame d’Aubigny’s freedom—when Miss Tolerance recalled that her client had paid a week’s extortionate garnish for the amenities of bed and board she enjoyed, but was being released after only four days, she understood his enthusiasm. And there were the exit fees to be collected as well. The warden held the warrant up to the lamp and squinted at it for several minutes, assuring himself of its validity. At last he bowed to Miss Tolerance and called for someone to take her down to Madame d’Aubigny’s cell.
A warder, a fat, wheezing fellow, had been called away from his dinner and did not share the warden’s enthusiasm for Mrs. d’Aubigny’s release. He led Miss Tolerance through the odorous hallways, breathing heavily and muttering under his breath. When they reached the cell Miss Tolerance slipped some coins into the man’s hand, which somewhat improved his mood. With a flourish of keys he opened the door and let it swing wide. He grinned, bowed, and stepped back to let Miss Tolerance enter first.
The widow, sitting in near-dark, looked up anxiously as the door opened. It appeared to take her a moment to recognize her visitor. Then she rose to her feet and extended a hand in supplication.
“Miss Tolerance, have you any new word for me?”
“The best in the world, ma’am,” Miss Tolerance said. She smiled broadly. “You are released.”
“Now, missus, if you’ll just let me unlock your fetters?” The gaoler got laboriously to his knees. “That’s right, ankles first. Good. Now them bracelets? Fine.“Wheezing a little more, he got back to his feet.”Shall I send a boy in to carry out your trunk? Thank you, ma’am.“He left at a brisk waddle, jiggling the coins Miss Tolerance had given him with one hand and his set of keys with the other.
Anne d’Aubigny looked around her uncomprehendingly.
“We should pack your things,” Miss Tolerance suggested gently. “I would not trust anyone here to do it.”
“Oh. No. Of course.” Madame d’Aubigny did not move. “Free? Where are they taking me?”
“I am taking you home. Back to Half Moon Street. The evidence against you is exploded, ma’am. Even Mr. Heddison’s suspicious nature could not stand against our witnesses.”
“Then they have found someone else? Someone who killed Etienne?”
“Not yet. I don’t think his investigation has gone that far.” Miss Tolerance had begun to gather up the widow’s personal items from around the room and pack them into the trunk. “I suspect Mr. Beauville, and have made Mr. Heddison a present of some suspicious information regarding that gentleman. But my first aim has been to secure your release. Now I shall have time to dig more deeply into the fellow’s life.”
“But—Josette can surely tell you—Mrs. Vose, that is—”
Miss Tolerance shook her head. The widow, of course, would not have heard this news. “I am very sorry. I know you had some regard for her. Mrs. Vose is dead.”
Madam d’Aubigny sank back on the chair by the window.
“I am sorry,” Miss Tolerance said again. “But—here is the boy for your box.” Miss Tolerance cast a quick eye around the cell for any stray belonging, but nothing remained. She paid the boy to take the box to the prison gate and guard it until she could find a hackney carriage to take them back to Half Moon Street. Then, her sympathy mingled with impatience, she drew Anne d’Aubigny to her feet and helped her into her coat, arranging the fur collar around her chin. The widow allowed herself to be led like a child through the halls and down to the prison gate, where they found William Colcannon and the warden himself, who had come out to shake her hand and congratulate her on her release. The warden’s cheer had doubtless been increased by the fact that Colcannon had paid the exit fees while waiting for his sister.
“I shan’t ask you to come and visit us again,” he said cheerfully. “There’s many that do, but I don’t suppose one like you will! Well, Godspeed, madam!”
Eighteen
The ride back to Half Moon Street was a mixed triumph. Miss Tolerance, full of pardonable pleasure at her victory, had imagined her companions would join in her enjoyment. Mr. Colcannon did; he was almost puppyishly delighted by his sister’s release. But Anne d’Aubigny was as subdued as one who has sustained a final, finishing blow. Perhaps, Miss Tolerance thought, her look of sad bewilderment was owing to the shock of sudden release following hard upon the stress of incarceration and, before that, of her husband’s ugly death. The cramped quarters of the carriage prevented Miss Tolerance from taking Mr. Colcannon aside to suggest he temper his joy until his sister had more stomach for it. He, finding his expressions of pleasure met with silence, gradually slipped into sullen quiet.
The carriage had reached Picadilly when the widow spoke. “Do you think it was Josette?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Did Josette kill my husband?”
“I do not think so,” Miss Tolerance said. “You did not use to think so either. Has something changed?”
The widow shrugged. “She is dead. That would be an end to it. I should so much like there to be an end to all of this.”
“I understand.” Miss Tolerance reached out to pat Mrs. d’Aubigny’s slight hand. “But a false solution is really no solution at all. I think I must look a little closer at Mr. Beauville—”
“But he was Etienne’s friend! And Josette, she endured all of Etienne’s—” her glance flicked to her brother, who was looking out the window sulkily. “His habits. Perhaps she could not tolerate any more. She called upon him only a day or so before he died, you know. Perhaps—”
“Mrs. Vose was paid to endur
e, as you put it. When your husband no longer could pay her, she ceased to visit. But that is a curious thing …”
“What is?” In her widow’s black Mrs. d’Aubigny, slumped into the seat opposite Miss Tolerance, was almost invisible.
“Mrs. Vose admitted calling in Half Moon Street the night of the murder, but denied making a visit on the day before.”
“But she would deny it if she had murdered him, would she not?”
“A visit at a time unconnected to the death? I can think of no reason for it. This visitor: are you certain it was Mrs. Vose, ma’am?”
Madame d’Aubigny shook her head. “I heard someone below, and Sophia told me Mrs. Vose had called for my husband.”
“So you did not see her yourself?”
“No.” Her face lit with inspiration for a brief moment. “I know it was her, for she was wearing a cloak of mine I’d given her, brown wool banded with black sable.”
“I see.” Miss Tolerance felt a moment of annoyance; each time she thought she had the end of the question in sight, some new obstacle loomed up. Mrs. Vose’s call upon the chevalier might have nothing to do with anything—except that the woman had denied it.
“I am so tired, I cannot bear much more of this,” Anne d’Aubigny said tearfully.
Mr. Colcannon, called out of his sulks by his sister’s obvious distress, turned to comfort her, clucking as comfortingly as a nursery maid. Miss Tolerance turned away to look out the window.
Miss Tolerance only stayed a few minutes in Half Moon Street. Mrs. d’Aubigny, greeted with subdued acclaim by her staff, was bustled off to her salon with Mr. Colcannon following after. Miss Tolerance stopped Sophia Thissen for a brief word; the maid confirmed that she had told her mistress that Mrs. Vose had called upon the master—because she had recognized Madam’s cloak, and because Jacks had said so. When she had given this information Sophia bustled off to minister to her mistress; Miss Tolerance suspected there would be a struggle for dominance between Sophia and Mr. Colcannon, and would have laid her money on Sophia.
Petty Treason Page 29
