by T. F. Banks
“No, sir. She was kindness itself.”
“And she had no paramours that you know of? Do not be shocked-it is the most likely scenario. I have seen it before.”
“None, sir. I swear.”
Morton felt at a complete loss. No door or window had been forced. Whoever had done Angelique Desmarches to death had gained access to her house without the use of force.
“Are windows habitually left open on the lower floors?”
“Oh no, sir. Not with Madame here alone.”
Morton did not even know what to ask next. Had the harm done to Angelique Desmarches been inflicted here, in this house? Wouldn't someone have heard?
Morton went around to the courtyard and found Jimmy hard at work, his coat laid over a shrub.
“Anything there at all, Jimmy?”
“Just this.” The young man reached down and re trieved a small clump of matted hair.
Certainly it was of the same color as he had seen on the corpse in Skelton's surgery. Morton showed it to the housekeeper.
“That is Madame's,” she confirmed.
Morton looked up at the windows again.
“I think she fell here, Morton.”
“There is little to prove you right, but I agree,” Morton said.
He sent Jimmy Presley up again to the bedchamber, with instructions to close the window and shutters. He was then to recite the oath he had learned when he was sworn as an officer of the king's peace, first in a normal voice, then somewhat louder, then louder still, till he reached as great a bellow as he could manage. Morton himself crossed the lawn and reentered the kitchen, then bent down to wedge himself into Florrie's little sleeping space. Only when Jimmy was shouting his loudest-and Morton knew the power of that voice from experience- could he be heard from behind the coal scuttle.
“And one is to consider that Florrie was asleep, and it was a woman's voice, not yours.”
Presley, downstairs again, nodded. “Maybe they muffled her, too, to keep her quiet.”
“Aye, perhaps. Go round to the neighbouring houses, Jimmy, and ask the folk there if they heard or remarked anything out of the ordinary. I shall have some words with the footman and the cook.”
Morton asked Mrs. Johnson for a private room, that he might speak to her, and then to each of the servants, alone. He could see well enough that the housekeeper's understanding of the establishment she had charge of was imperfect. He didn't want her influencing the others as she attempted to protect the good name of her mistress and by extension her own.
In the dining room, with the doors closed, he and the housekeeper sat down across the polished satinwood table.
“You said your mistress looked troubled the day she died, Mrs. Johnson. Is there nothing at all that might have caused this? Did she receive a letter?”
“I only know, sir, that she seemed quite herself in the morning, but that her spirits seemed to fall later in the day. In fact, I went out about midmorning to do some errands, some marketing for the house, and when I came back, she had retired to her room, and she seemed poorly when she came out finally for dinner. She ate but little.”
“Then I shall speak with the footman, if you please, Mrs. Johnson.”
The footman was sent in and took a seat as Morton indicated.
“What is your true name, John?” he asked.
The other man raised his head in surprise. Like most servants, he had been given-and accepted-a traditional appellation. Half the footmen in London were “John,” and most of the rest were “Thomas.” Doubtless the case with “Florrie” was the same. “Oh well, sir,” he replied with a modest smile, “I be Archibald Gedge, since ye ask me. I am a Lambeth man originally, but 'ave been in St. Marylebone Parish and hereabouts some seventeen years now.”
They talked awhile of his life and of the occupation he had entered as a boy.
“I had a turn in the glassworks, sir, afore I went into service. I knowed then as what my chances would be if I stayed there. I'd be in my grave now, sure, like others I could tell you of. To catch on in private service was the luckiest chance as ever befell me. You'll not hear a hard word for my masters and mistresses of me, sir.”
“Nor would I ask one. Your housekeeper feels the same way, I'd warrant.”
“Oh aye, Mrs. Johnson's a good woman. She sees no evil, nor hears it, nor speaks of it.” Morton could sense a certain, slightly unusual loyalty here. If most servants were unwilling to criticise their employers, they usually had less reticence about their overseers or superiors of the servant class.
“But I think you're not quite so blind, Archibald, be your heart ever so much in the right place. Madame had a gentleman visitor of a night, didn't she? And this cove had a key to the back entrance, didn't he?”
Now the footman fell silent, lowering his eyes and frowning in discomfort.
“Now, Archibald,” Morton went on, turning his voice slightly harder, “this is a matter of a capital crime. Your mistress was murdered, I'm quite sure.”
“Truly?” asked the man in surprise.
“Aye, there was foul play, and you are obliged to help me find it out. You owe it to your king. And perhaps you owe it to your poor mistress, too.”
The other man swallowed and said, “ 'Tis true that Madame, at the beginning, asked me to have another key made up for the garden door, and give it her.”
“And you did?”
The footman nodded unhappily.
“You've been here going on four years. Did you ever see the gent as used this key?”
After another long pause, Archibald Gedge cleared his throat and began to speak, low. “Once or twice, of a morning, I catched a view of 'im going out just as I was coming in. He even bade me a good morning once, very politelike, as if it were no great matter. He were a gentlemanlike toff, sure, well dressed, and old enough to be young Madame's father. But he were a likely looking cove, for all that.”
“What was his name?”
“Oh, I knowed nothing of that.”
“What do you remember of him?”
Archibald thought a moment. “Oh, well, when he saluted me that one time, his voice were Frenchy-like, same as the young mistress. He's one of them Frenchies, sure.”
“Did he come the day she died?”
“Not as I saw, sir.”
“Did anyone else?”
Archibald Gedge rubbed his jaw.
“One cove did, I think. That day, unless t'were the day before. Another of those Frenchies, I should guess.”
“Who was this man? What was his name?”
“Oh, he gave me his card, and I took it up to her, I think. He stayed p'raps half an hour, is all. If it were the same day. Short, dapper cove. Ask Francoise, constable. She took them in some tay, as Mrs. Johnson were out just then.”
He knew nothing more, and Morton let him go, asking for the cook. He drew out a chair for her, before seating himself.
“How long have you been in this house, madame?” he began politely.
“A year, monsieur, a little longer. I am recommend by my employer who went back to France when Bonaparte first fell and went to Elba.”
“And you did not wish to go with your former employer?” Morton asked, curious.
“Ah, monsieur le constable, you see,” she nervously explained, “we 'ave been living here so long, many of us. We 'ave, how do you say, les connexions. Our friends, our homes. Many of us, we joost decide to stay. Me, I 'ave been in Angleterre since twenty-five year. The English milords, they treat me vary well, they like ma cuisine.” She again revealed her excruciating teeth, in the slightly apologetic smile that seemed her most natural expression.
Morton nodded. And besides, one might want to wait, just to see who really ended on top of the heap in France. Bonaparte had come back once. Who could say that he wouldn't come back again?
“Now, madame, I know you wish to protect the honour of your mistress. But it is very clear to me that she had un ami, a gentleman, who visited her. I expect also he provid
ed this house for her. Now, were it for any other reason, I would not think of asking about such things. An affaire de coeur is no concern of mine. But Madame Desmarches did not do herself to death. Someone came here and did her harm. I must have the name of her… protector.”
“Vous dites-you say… she was murdered? It was not some accident?” Francoise gazed at him in distress.
“It was no accident, madame. She was murdered, so young and so beautiful.”
“Ah oui, elle etait belle,” murmured the cook. “C'est tragique.”
“I am sure you knew the name of her gentleman,” said Morton flatly.
She looked up at him, brushing at a tear with the heel of her palm, and sighed. “Ah, oui-yes, I did. It was le comte d'Auvraye. He live… not too far, near Square Manchester. But, monsieur. He did love her, I think, yes, he did. I do not understand why he would have cast her off! I do not understand that, pas de tout. But non, non, he would not 'ave killed her. This I cannot believe.”
“He cast her off, you say? When?”
“Oh, the very day, monsieur. That very day. A man came, from him, in the morning. None of the other servants ever knew, because she said nothing to us, but I heard her and him talking, in her parlour, behind the door. She is crying pourquoi, pourquoi, very angry. And he speaking back, low. And when I went in with the tea, he is saying that she might stay tonight, but no longer. Then she must be gone. And we domestiques, too. He asked her about us, how many of us there were, and for how long had we been paid, and such things. She was angry, furieuse, but he said it was so, and le comte d'Auvraye had decided it, and it could not be changed.”
Morton's face must have shown his surprise.
“Alors, oui, monsieur, so it was,” she said with a shrug. “She was going to have to leave this 'ouse. And us, too. I did not want to tell the others, because… alors, because that was for her to do. I thought she would announce it the next morning. But of course… poor lady!”
“What was the name of this man?”
“I do not know, but he came from le comte.”
“Do you know why the count was dismissing her? Did she have… some other lover?”
Francoise shrugged and sighed. “Ah, monsieur. Mais you must understand, I could not know that. But I never saw 'im, if there would be.”
“And yet you think that the count could not have killed her, or had her killed?”
“Non, non, I do not think ever he could do this!”
“But how do you know?” She wrung her hands a little in discomfort. “From time to time, because we spoke together the language, Madame say things to me, little things, things a woman says to a woman, about how he treat her, about how he love her…. She say… adore … that he… adore her.”
Morton frowned.
“Then who do you think could have killed her?”
The cook looked anguished and shrugged in eloquent helplessness.
CHAPTER 7
They could not get in the door of the London home of Count Gerrard d'Auvraye. It was a white stuccoed town house in the new Nash style, just around the corner from the austere bulk of Manchester House on as eminently respectable a little street as the West End could offer. The liveried footman who answered insisted-in exquisitely accented En-glish-that the count was not home, and nor was his secretary. Morton left a calling card and instructions to inform the count that he would return in the morning at ten o'clock and would expect to speak with him regarding a matter of the most serious nature.
The Count d'Auvraye was clearly a man of some fashion-his address and his home announced this clearly-but Morton could bring the force of the law against him if required and was fully prepared to do so. He made a great effort to impress this fact upon the servant.
The two Runners retreated into the street, but Morton brought them up there.
Jimmy Presley had an ingrained distrust of the French of any stripe. “If he's guilty, as I dem well guess he is,” he said, “then he'll likely light out for France as soon as he hears that Bow Street has come calling.”
The young Runner stared back defiantly at the imposing home. A clatter of traffic passed-tradesmen's carts, delivery wagons, and elegant private carriages. The street life of London varied starkly from neighbourhood to neighbourhood but never ceased. The greatest city in the world, Morton was certain, alive with flash men and princes, foreigners and kings. And two Bow Street Runners, staring with some envy and even greater puzzlement at this grand home off Manchester Square.
“I'm not quite so ready to convict him,” Morton said, “but I think it wise that we keep this house under our eye. Can you stay until I find Farke or some other to come take your place?”
Presley nodded grimly, looking around for a spot where he might loiter inconspicuously. “I can and I will. But why would a man with so much to lose do something so foolish as murder his mistress?”
“It is a good question, Jimmy, and one worth asking. But even more important, why would such a man use thumbscrews on his mistress? Now that does make one wonder.”
Morton left Presley to his vigil and was about to set out for Bow Street when he had another thought. It was late afternoon, but there was a chance that Arthur Darley might be home, and he lived only a short walk away, barely the other side of Baker Street.
Morton was standing on the step of Portman House in a few moments and was immediately let in to speak with the amiable master of the house.
“Morton,” Darley said, rising from a chair and setting aside a newspaper. “What an unlooked-for pleasure. I am having a late tea-would you join me?”
“I would, and gladly, though I must say that I am on police business and have come only to beg a little information.”
“Begging shall not be necessary.” He gestured to the servant. “Mr. Morton will sit down to tea.”
They were immediately alone, seated by a large window that looked out over the green park in the centre of Portman Square.
“I was wondering if you had seen this,” Darley said. He held up his folded newspaper.
“What is it?”
“The Times, of a few days past.” Darley opened the paper. “A letter addressed to the Prince Regent from Bonaparte himself. ‘Your Royal Highness; A victim of the factions which distract my country, ’ et cetera, et cetera, ‘I come, like Themistocles-’ ”
“Ah,” Morton interjected, “I like that.”
“ ‘-to throw myself upon the hospitality of the British people…to put myself under the protection of their laws, which I claim from your Royal Highness, as the most powerful, the most constant, and the most generous of my enemies. ’ ”
“Well, he has given us the acknowledgement we are due, and recognised us for what we are,” Morton said.
“He has recognised man's susceptibility to flattery and rhetoric. I don't think it will work here as it once did in France, but he has no army at his back now, so he must resort to other tricks.” Darley looked up from the paper and recognised something in Morton's manner. “But you have not come here to listen to fallen emperors rant.”
“I do apologise…,” Morton began, but Darley swept this aside with a wave and a smile.
“Do you know anything of your near neighbour, the Count d'Auvraye?”
“Gerrard d'Auvraye over in Spanish Place off Manchester Square? Well, I have met him a few times. He is a… favourite would be too strong a word. Let us say that d'Auvraye is a supporter, well known to the present French king. Do I dare ask why you are interested?”
“The count's mistress has been murdered.”
Darley sat back in his chair, wincing a little. Tea arrived.
“But that is not the strangest thing,” Morton continued as the servant left. “This young woman had upon her person the marks of a thumbscrew.”
Darley's cup stopped on its path to his mouth.
“My reaction was much the same,” Morton said. “Thumbscrews! The poor woman was subjected to an unspeakable agony before she died.”
Darley's c
up rattled down into its saucer, contents untested. “You can't think d'Auvraye would do such a thing?”
“I have accused no one, Lord Arthur. Nor have I yet had the chance to speak with the count.”
“Well, I know where he is-or was, earlier this day. He was at Whitehall, as I was myself.”
Morton's interest was piqued. “And what business would take him there, I wonder?”
“I'm told he is acting as the unofficial ambassador of the French court, of our good friend Louis the Gouty, whose throne has been restored to him by the Duke of Wellington's prowess on the field of battle. I don't know specifically why d'Auvraye was at Whitehall, but it was assumed to have had something to do with our dilemma over Bonaparte-though of course, it could have been anything, really. Louis has great need of our continuing support. There is still an army wandering round in the south of France, ostensibly loyal to the deposed emperor.” Darley raised his cup again, suddenly very thoughtful. “What else might I tell you?”
“Anything would help. I know nothing of d'Au-vraye.”
Darley turned and looked out the window in the direction of Spanish Place and Manchester Square. “D'Auvraye is a few years older than I, though a great deal stouter. He is of a good family, though his wife's, I think, was even better. I can't claim to know him well. He is a bit progressive for a French aristocrat: I suspect all his years living in exile in London have led to that- he's been here since the Revolution itself, some twentyfive years now. Oh, certainly he is a monarchist, but he once privately professed great admiration for our form of government and even suggested that France might benefit from such a system. He is no fool, I would say, though his manner belies this a little.” Darley paused as he considered this last remark, as though wondering himself what he meant. “He is a ponderous thinker. That is my opinion. Not quick of mind-say, like Fox- but that does not mean he will not arrive at the correct answer if given enough time. He needs to contemplate matters before committing himself.
“I will tell you one peculiar story. I had dinner with the count at his house in Barnes Terrace, really the only prolonged social contact we have had. The conversation was not contemptible, not at all. I have never been in his town house, but I'm told he has good marbles and, of course, a superior cellar.”
