Uneasy Lies the Crown

by Tasha Alexander

  “An inspector from Scotland Yard—Gale was his name—was here yesterday and went through all Mr. Crofton’s papers but said there was nothing pertinent to his … to his … to anything.”

  That the wretched Inspector Gale would reach an unsatisfactory conclusion came as no surprise. The man was probably interested in nothing that did not mention Bertie by name. “Did you notice anything unusual in the past few weeks? Was your husband behaving differently? Did he seem troubled by anything?”

  “I told him Mr. Crofton had been at his club most of the day that he died, but apparently he never actually went there. Other than that, I know nothing. We’ve only been in London for a bit over a week, having planned to stop briefly en route to Egypt, where we had arranged to spend the rest of the winter. I’m fascinated by Cleopatra and want to see her tomb. We were to sail from Southampton tomorrow.”

  I didn’t have the heart to tell her that no one has been able to determine the location of Cleopatra’s tomb. The famous queen was exactly who I would have guessed inspired the Mrs. Crofton I met yesterday, but the widow sitting in front of me now struck me as someone who would prefer copying the elegant paintings found on the sepulcher walls in the Valley of the Kings. Realizing I was letting my imagination run away with me—I had not, after all, confirmed that she had done the watercolors in her charming sewing room—I shook myself back to the present. “How many people knew of your plans?”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea. Our staff, of course, and our friends.”

  “Would you object to me taking a look at your husband’s papers, just as Inspector Gale did? I find I often notice things that men overlook.”

  She reacted to my pointed tone exactly as I’d hoped she would, with a flash in her hazel eyes and a quick grin. “Come, I’ll take you now.”

  Mr. Crofton’s wood-paneled study was more in keeping with the gold sitting room than his wife’s sewing room. It was evocative of the stereotype of a gentleman’s club, with leather chairs and a marble fireplace, but a hulking suit of armor—far too large for any man to ever have worn; it was at least seven and a half feet tall—rather spoiled the effect. A large desk stood in the center of the room, and it was there that I focused my efforts. I went through every sheet of paper on its surface and everything in each of its drawers, but found nothing that even my fertile imagination could connect to his death.

  “I don’t see anything related to the disaster at the mine,” I said. “Did he have an office as well, not in the house?”

  “Oh, no, Mr. Crofton wasn’t much interested in business,” his widow said. “The mine was an investment, that’s all. All part of how he kept me in the manner to which he wanted me to be accustomed. That and a host of other things he mentioned from time to time—something about the ’change, I believe—were how he made his money, but he was not involved in the day-to-day operation of the mine or anything else. He was a gentleman, Lady Emily.”

  I appreciated the nuance of her choice of word, but at the same time understood that Mr. Crofton could not, in the most technical sense of the word, have been a gentleman. He earned his money. For although I saw no documents referring to the accident, I did see numerous letters, memos, and reports about the mine that made it clear he was at the center of decision-making for the business. This added support to my theory that someone from the mine was involved with his murder.

  But who? The connection between Ned Traddles, Lizzie Hopman, and Violet Grummidge could not be anything less than critically important. I thought of the fourth and final costume Mr. Carson had made for the elusive Mr. Smith. Who, posed as Harold Godwinson slain in battle, would fall victim to our vigilante next?

  After making note of a few details concerning the running of the mine, I thanked Mrs. Crofton and asked her to reach out to me if she thought of anything further that might shed light on her husband’s death.

  “Of course,” she replied. “May I ask your advice on a point that has been troubling me? Would it be too bad of me to go to Egypt as I’d planned? There’s nothing more I can do here for poor Mr. Crofton, and I do hate to let the steamer tickets and all our arrangements go to waste.”

  I need hardly say that I managed to hide my absolute astonishment at her words. Not that I judged her for her unusual behavior; I understood all too well that we all mourn in our own ways. Furthermore, I believe the restrictions forced on new widows by Society are excessive. Yet I could not help being shocked that she wanted to rush off to Egypt so quickly. It was impossible Mr. Crofton could be buried before the boat left Southampton.

  “My only advice would be to stay in London until Scotland Yard have released your husband’s remains for burial. After that, if they need nothing further from you, I don’t see that anyone can keep you from your trip.”

  She nodded, her eyes narrowing. “I shall ring Inspector Gale at once and ask him to hurry things along. Thank you, Lady Emily.”

  My carriage was waiting outside the house, but I sent it home without me in it, preferring to walk back to Park Lane. I’ve always found a brisk constitutional clears the mind and allows for more efficient ratiocination. On this occasion, however, I had not managed to reconcile my thoughts about Mrs. Crofton by the time I reached my house. I made two superfluous circuits of the block without being able to come to a satisfactory conclusion about her contradictory nature. As I approached my stoop and prepared to continue around the block yet again, I saw Colin standing in the library window. He waved and motioned for me to come inside, holding up an envelope as an added incentive.

  1415

  32

  For two days after Father Simon confronted her in the chapel, Cecily moved like a ghost through Lord Esterby’s castle, hardly speaking to anyone. Her conscience was so troubled she nearly turned to the baron’s terrifying priest, but she was not so far out of her wits that she could believe him capable of giving sound advice to a young lady. Even as she thought this, she said a silent prayer and crossed herself. Who was she to judge a man of God?

  She turned to Christine de Pizan for consolation, but found nothing that made her feel better.

  … the women of the court ought likewise never to rebuke or defame one another … as for the fact that whoever would slyly defame another is herself defamed. For assuredly the person who knows that someone is defaming her will also slander that person, and she may even make up stories. Nor is any man or woman so upright that he or she ought to say, “I am not afraid of anyone. What could anyone say about me? I know I am blameless, therefore I can talk fearlessly about other people.” But it is foolish for those men and women who say that sort of thing to believe it, for there is always something, somewhere, for which one may be reproached.

  The words stung, and Cecily cowered at the cutting knowledge that she was far from blameless. Had she not prayed for clarity? Had she not sought release from the burden of her sins? For her role in her mother’s death? And had she not known, without doubt, that to atone she was meant to guide Adeline? Her efforts to do so had been too scattered and too feeble. She would not let any distraction keep her from doing what she knew she must.

  That afternoon, she asked Adeline if she might ride with her, but her friend refused. “Work on your embroidery,” Adeline said, a sly smile on her face. “I’ve other plans for today.”

  * * *

  The carnage of the day was evident in a glance to anyone on the field at Agincourt, but only when the roll call came did William realize how significant a victory the English had won. Not only had they lost very few men—so few, he could hardly reconcile it with the blood soaking the ground—but thousands upon thousands of the French, the mighty French, in their burnished armor and seeming endless numbers, lay dead. Not just their ordinary soldiers, but their nobles. It was said the flowers of French chivalry were destroyed that day. The English, gathering up the armor, weapons, and valuables from the corpses of their defeated enemy, were soon overburdened, and King Henry ordered no man to take anything more than he needed to rearm an
d resupply himself.

  It took days to bury the dead. Only the bones of the most noble among them—boiled and boxed for transport—would be returned to England. Families of some of the Frenchmen came to search through the corpses, but aside from a very few, English and French alike were buried in the field in common graves, the land hastily consecrated by the local bishop.

  The aftermath of battle was never pleasant, and even the king wept over the fallen. Yet no one could deny the enormous significance of the fighting. God had stood with the English, and whispers of miracles ran through the ranks of soldiers. William gave little credence to one of his comrade’s insisting that St. George had appeared next to him on the field and vanquished the Frenchman who was about to run him through with a sword. The king himself gave all credit for the victory to God, our Lady, and St. George, but no one doubted that he knew how tirelessly and with what courage his men had fought.

  As the sun hung low in the sky that evening, rain began to fall again, but it would not be enough to cleanse the field of its blood and gore. While the army rested, King Henry would receive the noble French prisoners captured that day. William knew he would treat them with the humility and grace chivalry demanded, and he knew that he should try now to sleep. On the morrow, the march to Calais would resume.

  1901

  33

  “It looked as if you planned to circle the block all day,” Colin said, after I’d returned to the house and rushed into the library, not even pausing to hand Davis my coat and gloves. “So far as I could tell, the enticing prospect of a new envelope was my only hope of bringing you back inside.”

  I was disappointed to find that it was nothing more than a ruse. He had not located the chalice, and hence, no other message. After admonishing him for playing this little trick on me, I gave him a detailed account of my strange meeting with Mrs. Crofton, being careful not to let my shock at some of her behavior—that is, her desire to go to Egypt as planned and the wholesale shift in her personality—color my narrative. He agreed that the change in her was odd, but did not suspect her of nefarious motives regarding her husband.

  “Admittedly, if we were looking only at this one murder, things might seem different,” he said. “But I cannot believe that Crofton’s death is unrelated to Grummidge’s and Casby’s.”

  “I concur.” I had flung my coat over a nearby chair. He was sitting behind his desk and I now perched on the top of it, my legs dangling. “We know of Ned Traddles’s connection to Lizzie and Mrs. Grummidge, but is it possible that he also had ties to Mrs. Crofton? I detected something in her accent—”

  “She may be an eccentric woman, but I doubt very much that she has ties to either Wales or the East End.”

  “Why?” I asked. “We know almost nothing about her. Mr. Crofton did not grow up a gentleman, did he? If so, he would be unlikely to be so involved in the details of running a coal mine, as the papers I read in his study confirmed. She, too, might have a humble background. In fact, he could have seen her somewhere—perhaps in Mr. Grummidge’s greengrocery—and, captivated by her beauty, vowed to remove her from a life of poverty to a life of ease.”

  My husband leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “Pray, continue, my dear. It’s been weeks since I’ve had time to lose myself in a work of fiction.”

  “What if Mrs. Crofton was best of friends with Lizzie and Violet?”

  “Have you even a shred of evidence to connect them?”

  “No.” I had, before leaving Mrs. Crofton, asked her if she knew either of them; she had denied it.

  “And have you any hint—beyond a momentary fluctuation of accent—that suggests Mrs. Crofton grew up poor?”

  “Well…”

  “You raise interesting possibilities, my dear, but without anything to back them up—”

  “I know, I know,” I said. “Truth be told, much though I like the theory, it doesn’t hold together too well. Lizzie died at Casby’s hand, and Mr. Grummidge beat his wife. Although her behavior is somewhat eccentric, I detected no hint that Mr. Crofton was anything but kind to his wife. If revenge is our murderer’s motive, which I firmly believe it is, the mine disaster must be the catalyst, in which case, I stand by my earlier conclusion that we are searching for a vigilante, particularly given that a friend of Lizzie’s and Mrs. Grummidge’s died in the accident.”

  “It is less ridiculous than many of your earlier speculations,” Colin said. “However, I would prefer to discuss actual facts, and I have some new ones for you. The coroner’s report has come in. Mr. Crofton died from eating death cap toadstools.”

  “Good heavens!” I said. “Death cap toadstools? That sounds like something straight out of the Brothers Grimm.”

  “Apparently, they are easily disguised in food, as they don’t look all that different from mushrooms, once chopped and cooked. Furthermore, they take approximately ten days to cause death. The coroner admitted that if it weren’t for the manner in which the body was found, he would probably have thought Mr. Crofton died of natural causes.”

  “What an intriguing choice,” I said. “Our murderer could not have spared the time to starve Mr. Crofton to death, in the mode of Richard II, but by choosing a slow-acting poison, he stays true to the spirit of the king’s murder. He cares very much about ensuring that he keeps his scenes as accurate as possible.”

  “Which strengthens the importance of the message he is sending with each crime,” Colin said. “Kings can be murdered.”

  “Would you care to speculate as to what he has planned next?” I asked. So far as we knew, he had one costume remaining: that of Harold Godwinson. “Harold died in battle. Perhaps he means to assassinate Bertie with an arrow through the eye. Only imagine the impact he could have if he could do it during the coronation procession—”

  “The coronation has not even been scheduled and is unlikely to occur for another year,” Colin said.

  “I am well aware of that, but you cannot deny it would be quite spectacular. Not for poor Bertie, of course. I may not be one of his devoted supporters, but I wouldn’t wish him such an ignominious end.”

  “You’re generosity itself, my dear.” I could see it took a not inconsiderable effort for him to keep from rolling his eyes and gave him a little whack on his arm before he continued. “It would be useful for us to consider poor Harold. What location in London could stand in for the Battle of Hastings?”

  Never before had I felt so handicapped by having the bulk of my knowledge of history restricted to the ancient. Beyond the bare basics of that fateful day in 1066, I knew very little. “What if he doesn’t plan to stage his next victim in London? He could set the scene at the site of the battle.”

  Colin shook his head. “I don’t think so. It would not have the immediate impact he has achieved with his other victims. Battle is a small, out-of-the-way town.”

  “And the people who live there are probably rather accustomed to seeing tourists re-create the battle.”

  “I myself charged up the hill as a small boy and am confident that most tourists do not leave bodies in their wake. Particularly bodies with an arrow in the eye.”

  “I was being facetious,” I said. “There’s not a Hastings Square in London, is there?”

  “There’s a Hastings Street near St. Pancras in Bloomsbury,” he replied. “I’ve got men watching it around the clock. It ends in Cartwright Gardens, which has a pretty little green space, but it would not bear the obvious connection to Harold that Berkeley Square did for our Edward II. Thus far, our murderer has been shrewd about choosing his locations, even when doing so must have proved a challenge.”

  “Yes,” I said, remembering how the Savoy Chapel connected to John of Gaunt, and, hence, Henry Bolingbroke, King Henry IV after the murder of Richard II. At first glance, one might not realize the significance of the site, but when it was explained, one could not deny not only the appropriateness of it, but also the cleverness of it. “Surely he would want his last murder—assuming, of course, he only h
as one further planned … a dangerous assumption, I might add—to be the most spectacular of them all.”

  “Assumptions are always dodgy,” Colin said, “but in this case, we aren’t assuming. I’ve had constables calling in at costume shops and they have uncovered no other suspicious orders for outfits meant to mimic kings.”

  Considering the scenes our dramatic miscreant had already staged, I found it difficult to believe that he could top what he had already achieved. A full-scale reenactment of the Battle of Hastings in Hyde Park? Unlikely in the extreme. “Harold’s death is different from the rest. Being killed in battle is a far cry from being murdered.”

  “Quite right, my dear. So what could that mean? Does it tell us something about the intended victim?” He blew out a long breath. “William the Conqueror felt he had a legitimate claim to the throne of England after Edward the Confessor died. I believe they were cousins.”

  “I’d say that’s not a particularly good claim.”

  “You’re not alone in your thinking,” he continued, “and it illustrates one of the myriad reasons that it is preferable for a king not to die without an heir. If Harold’s death symbolizes a succession crisis—”

  “We must look again at the FitzClarences!”

  “No, Emily, that is nothing but a blind alley. I am, however, more concerned than ever.” He pulled out from his top desk drawer the messages. “I feel like I am missing something of grave significance. It’s all well and good for me to have men watching Cartwright Gardens, but that is not an attempt to stop the murder, just to catch the perpetrator after the fact. I’d prefer to prevent another killing.”

  “Then you’re not convinced Bertie is the intended victim?” I asked. “If so, keeping him protected wouldn’t be impossible, would it?”