A Crimson Warning

by Tasha Alexander

  “It’s clear you don’t have even a bare understanding of the Married Women’s Property Act,” I said. “And at any rate, you’d despise being married to me, Jeremy. I’d make you read Latin.”

  “I’d divorce you,” he said.

  We stayed another quarter of an hour, during which time I twice tried to bring the conversation back to the red paint, but Lady Glover would discuss it no further, changing the subject before I could gain any traction with it. I left the house wishing she’d said more.

  “Lady Glover certainly bears a grudge against society,” Jeremy said once we’d stepped back into Park Lane and turned towards my house. “Do you think she could be our villain?”

  “I like her for it,” I said. “She’s got the right sort of spirit, though I can’t imagine her murdering Mr. Dillman.”

  “If it is her, I’ll be even more angry if I don’t get some red of my own,” he said. “I’d never forgive her.”

  “It’s not funny, Jeremy,” I said. “My heart breaks for Polly, and Lady Merton—I’ve heard her husband has refused to speak to her ever again—but aren’t these situations to be expected in our kind of society?”

  “Indeed they are. We value discretion above all else and—” He stopped. Cordelia Dalton, her hair flowing wildly down her back, was running up my front steps and banging on the door.

  I started toward her.

  She could hardly catch her breath. Davis opened the door, his countenance not altering in the slightest at the sight he beheld. Tears soaked Cordelia’s face and the sleeve of her dress was torn. He looked straight past her to me.

  “Welcome home, madam,” he said, not missing a beat. “Port in the library?”

  “Dear Davis, what would I do without you?” I said, putting my arm around Cordelia and ushering her inside.

  Jeremy hung back on the front steps. “I’d best leave you to it, Em,” he said. “I don’t do well with crying ladies.” He tipped his hat, gave me an uncomfortable half smile, and took his leave.

  “Tell me what’s happened,” I said, once I’d installed Cordelia in the library’s most comfortable chair.

  “They think I have something, and I don’t—I swear I don’t … I don’t even know where to look. But I can’t convince them. They’ll never believe me. I don’t know a thing about Michael’s work. How could they think I would?”

  “Slow now, Cordelia. I need to know more,” I said. “Who are ‘they’?”

  “The ones who sent the letter.” With a shaking hand, she pulled a crumpled envelope from her reticule.

  My dear Miss Dalton,

  We are well aware of the sensitive nature of the information passed to you by your late fiancé. Be a good girl and hand it over to us so that nothing more need happen. Bring it wrapped in a plain paper parcel to the statue of Achilles in Hyde Park tomorrow at half eleven in the evening. You will receive further instructions there.

  Or, if you prefer, do nothing and suffer a fate worse than that of Mr. Dillman.

  A friend.

  I read the missive twice, then inspected the envelope, but found no features on either that might identify the sender. “Have you any idea to what this letter refers?” I asked.

  “None at all,” Cordelia said.

  Davis entered with port and two glasses. “Is my husband home?” I asked.

  “He is, madam. Working chess problems in his study.”

  “Bring him to us, Davis. And his whisky as well.”

  6

  “Do your parents know you’ve come to us?” I asked. Cordelia, still too upset to speak coherently, shook her head. I rose and went to my desk, pulled out a sheet of paper, and started to write a note to the girl’s parents. “You can’t hide this from them,” I said, scribbling words across the page before shoving it in an envelope and ringing for Davis to have it delivered. Cordelia sunk lower in her chair and sobbed.

  “What’s all this?” Colin asked, entering the room. I handed him the letter. He read it and then, his face grave, he sat next to Cordelia.

  “You’re quite certain you’ve no idea what these people want, Miss Dalton?” he asked.

  “None at all,” she said, her voice thin and choking.

  “Emily, take her upstairs and get her cleaned up. Have you summoned her parents?”

  “I’ve asked her father to come,” I said.

  “Well done,” Colin said.

  “Am I in danger, Mr. Hargreaves?” Cordelia asked.

  “I’m afraid so,” he said. “But I’ll do everything I can to make sure no harm comes your way.”

  * * *

  Mr. Dalton listened, his countenance growing darker as Colin briefed him on Cordelia’s situation. He balked at my husband’s suggestion that they go abroad until the situation was sorted, confident there was nowhere in the world safer than England. Because his daughter was in mourning, he said, it would be easy enough to keep her under close watch at home. I understood the desire to stay on familiar ground, and hoped it was the best choice.

  Cordelia insisted again she had received nothing from Mr. Dillman that could be significant to the case, but I persuaded her to let me accompany her home and to examine everything he’d given her. In the meantime, Colin would arrange for the Daltons’ house to be kept under watch by Scotland Yard. Mr. Dalton, ready to be as careful as necessary, stationed a footman outside Cordelia’s bedroom as she and I made our way to the polished wooden case where she stored her most-treasured possessions.

  “I swear, Lady Emily, he always looked after me with the most tender care. He never gave me anything these people would want,” she said, her voice choked with tears. “He wouldn’t have done that to me. Not if he thought it could have endangered me.”

  I squeezed her hand. “Of course not. But he may not have realized there would be this sort of danger.”

  Cordelia clutched the case to her chest and sat on the edge of her bed, tears streaming down her face. “I miss him so very much.”

  I longed to be able to erase her pain.

  She set down the box, ran her hand over its smooth top, the surface of which was inlaid with an elaborate pattern of mother-of-pearl, and then unlocked it with a slim key. It opened with a click and she pushed up the lid. Inside were several small boxes and a bundle of letters. The boxes contained items she’d collected while on walks with her fiancé: brittle pressed flowers, a dried leaf that hadn’t lost its bright autumnal red, and a soft, white feather. She didn’t meet my eyes when she reached for the letters.

  “Do you need to read them?” Her cheeks flushed red.

  “I don’t want to,” I said, frowning. “It doesn’t feel right. But it would be worse if we missed something.”

  With a sigh, she passed them to me.

  “I promise you I shall keep these absolutely private,” I said.

  “Unless you discover something that matters.”

  “If we discover something of significance, I shall copy out only the pertinent information. It can’t be anything obvious, or you would have already noticed it. No one should have to see the actual letters.”

  “Just the decoding of a code?” she asked.

  “If we’re lucky enough to find one.”

  We were not so lucky. Mr. Dillman’s letters revealed him to have a kind heart, an occasional ear for poetry, and a touching affection for his fiancée, but nothing suggested he had embedded mysterious messages in them. One of them I read repeatedly, as its postscript implored his fiancée to keep it always, but I could pull nothing useful from it. I asked Cordelia if anything about it stood out to her, but she only sighed and shook her head. The other item left in the box was a slim guide to objects in the British Museum.

  “Did you go there together?” I asked, holding up the volume. The museum was one of my favorite places on earth. As a little girl, wandering through the galleries with my father, I used to wish I could run away and live there. As an adult, I’d become a patron of the institution and spent countless hours studying objects in its colle
ctions.

  “Innumerable times,” she said. “When the weather was not good enough to sit in the park, we’d go there instead. Michael preferred it, in fact. We used to play a game, a scavenger hunt of sorts. He’d give me two clues. One was the beginning of an artifact’s museum number, and the other revealed something about it, like what it was made of, or a quote that was pertinent in some way. I’d comb through the galleries until I found the answer.”

  “That must have been difficult.”

  “Not always,” she said. “Many of the catalog numbers start with the initials of the department. And once I was in the right gallery, I could generally home in on what he’d selected, but that wasn’t the end of it. Once I’d found the proper artifact, I’d have to figure out how it was connected to a book in my father’s library. So when we’d come home, I’d search until I found the book, and either in it or behind it, there would be a little treat.”

  “Is there any chance, Cordelia, that Mr. Dillman left a last set of clues for you?” I asked. “Perhaps in a manner more oblique than usual?”

  “I honestly don’t think he did,” she said. “I would have recognized clues at once, no matter how oblique he tried to be.”

  “Do you think it’s possible he might have hidden something in the books without leaving a clue? Would he have thought you’d know to look if something happened to him?”

  “He might have done,” she said. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  We went downstairs and spoke to her father. Mr. Dalton immediately ordered his staff to pull down the books from his library shelves.

  “We can’t risk missing something,” he said, joining the servants in their work, as did Cordelia and I. We removed every volume and leafed through each in case something was inside. Once they were empty, we inspected the shelves for anything that might have been hidden on them.

  But we turned up nothing. Defeated, I started for home, taking a detour to Mr. Dillman’s house in St. James near Green Park. I knocked on the door and was greeted by a tall butler dressed in impeccable mourning livery.

  “Madam?” he asked.

  “I’m Lady Emily Hargreaves, a friend of Miss Dalton’s,” I said. “And, as you can imagine, I am deeply concerned about all that’s happened. I wonder if you can help me? Miss Dalton is in danger—from the same people who killed Mr. Dillman. They believe, erroneously, that she’s in possession of some information he had. If you could assist me in finding it, we could give it to Scotland Yard and Miss Dalton would be safe to grieve in peace.”

  “What sort of information?”

  He seemed an honest, forthright man, and met my eyes with an even stare. “I’ve not the slightest idea,” I said. “But I’d like to think, between the two of us, we’d recognize the sort of thing that could inspire a man to murder.”

  He nodded. “Mr. Dillman was a good man and an excellent master. I can’t do anything much for him now. But if you think this would help bring his killer to justice…”

  “I can’t promise you anything, but we can certainly try.”

  “Why are you here instead of your husband?” he asked.

  This surprised me. “My husband?”

  “I’ve read of his many accomplishments and am honored to meet his wife,” he said. “I know you were wounded in the line of duty, and that your investigative skills are to be admired as well.”

  I blushed. Several of the papers had covered the story of our various exploits, but I’d not before encountered someone who’d read them and considered my role praiseworthy.

  “You couldn’t possibly have thought I would even consider your request if I didn’t know of the reputation of the Hargreaveses,” he said.

  I was rather pleased to learn I had a reputation. This sort of a reputation, at any rate. But I was also embarrassed. I’d expected to be able to talk my way into the house, because I had assumed a servant could be easily persuaded by a person of my rank. Yet here I stood, speaking to a man who judged me by my accomplishments rather than by my father’s title or my husband’s fortune.

  “Thank you,” I said. “It honors me more than you can imagine to have earned your respect.”

  “Please, come inside.” I followed him through a wide marble corridor and then into a dark room. This was another house whose curtains remained closed in deference to mourning. “This was Mr. Dillman’s study.” He lit a lamp and stepped back.

  The room was smaller than I would have expected. Red silk covered the walls in a wide, geometric pattern. Walnut bookshelves rose a third of the way to the ceiling along one side. Across the room from them row after row of portraits hung from brass chains attached to long, matching rails, which stretched the length and height of the wall. Three sets of French doors would have provided a spectacular view of the park if their curtains were pulled back, and an elegant, neoclassical desk filled one corner. I motioned to it.

  “Shall we start here?” I crossed the room and pulled open the desk’s center drawer.

  “You’ll want these, too.” The butler reached down a neat stack of leather-bound notebooks from the top of a bookshelf. “All his business and personal records.”

  “Thank you.” I sat down and started to pore over the notebooks. Most of them were ledgers, filled with financial transactions, and some Mr. Dillman had filled with sketches of flowers, birds, and other wildlife. Remembering Cordelia’s treasures, I wondered if he’d had the habit of sketching while they were sitting in the park. The last in the pile was harder to decipher. The first pages contained lists of bills that had gone before Parliament, with numbers and symbols scrawled next to each of them. Following that were page after page of what appeared to be personal notations—reminders of things Mr. Dillman needed to do. All of them had been crossed out save the final seven. The remainder of the book was blank.

  “Did the police examine these?” I asked.

  “They did, madam.”

  “Did they take anything from the house?”

  “No. From what I heard them saying, it appears they believe anything pertinent to the crime would have been at the warehouse with Mr. Dillman. That’s not to suggest, madam, they were not thorough when they were here.”

  Colin had told me as much earlier. “Would it be all right for me to take these?” I asked, holding up the notebooks. “I’d very much like to share them with Mr. Hargreaves.”

  “I don’t see why not, madam,” he said. “Mr. Dillman’s brother is abroad and won’t be able to reach London for at least another fortnight. I can’t imagine he’d object.”

  “Thank you. Would it be too much to see your master’s dressing room?”

  Three quarters of an hour later I’d left the house, satisfied I’d missed nothing. With me, I carried the notebooks and a scrap of paper I’d located in one of Mr. Dillman’s jacket pockets. A scrap of paper I hoped would prove to be our first significant clue.

  7

  I was convinced the sequence, M E E A M & M E O A O A M E, written on the paper I’d found in Mr. Dillman’s coat pocket were references to departments in the British Museum. I told Colin about the game Cordelia had played, and he agreed with my deduction, but was quick to point out these letters could have been used by Mr. Dillman ages ago. Regardless, without more than just them, we had no way of using the information for any further purpose. Colin set himself to search through the notebooks and continue his investigation of the dead man’s business dealings while, at his urging, I applied myself in another direction. I had learned when it was time to leave matters to him, at least temporarily. Marriage is a delicate balance, particularly when spouses work together. Colin and I had, after a certain amount of unsuccessful push and pull, found our way to contentment in this department. I was not about to disrupt it. Lady Carlisle had left a stack of pamphlets for me, and I was happy to head to Westminster to deliver them to the unsuspecting Conservative MPs.

  Tall plane trees brought welcome shade from the heat of the day as I made my way through Green Park, then crossed the wide Ma
ll and stepped into St. James’s Park, where bright blossoms lined the paths and ducks and swans zoomed through the lake. The two parks, with Buckingham Palace between them, made for one of the prettiest parts of London, but today everywhere I walked the mood was tense. No scandal had yet been revealed to explain the red paint left on the Musgrave and Riddington houses, but this had not provided relief for the families. If anything, it had ratcheted up tension even further. Society was rife with speculation as to what secrets would come out, but even as gossip spread, people began to worry they, too, would be subject to similar unwelcome attentions.

  The Beau Monde were watching each other in ways they hadn’t previously. They were more on guard, more skittish. A couple walking a few paces in front of me broke apart with an almost violent force. “Why would you tell me such a thing?” the young woman cried as she pulled away from her companion. There could be no question of the gentleman’s motivation. He thought it preferable to tell her himself before he found himself exposed in an indecorous manner. I wondered how many people were making unwelcome, and possibly unnecessary, confessions and destroying lives.

  Or were these confessions unnecessary? If someone had told a lie or deceived their partner, in life or business, did that partner not deserve to make an informed decision about continuing the relationship? Would ignorance be preferable? I frowned, crossed Horse Guards Road, and continued on to Westminster, where I asked for Mr. Reginald Foster. Mr. Foster, a schoolmate of Colin’s, was touted as having the brightest political future of any man in the history of the British Empire. He’d been universally adored at Eton—elected to Pop and Library in his first year, the darling of every hostess in Windsor, best oarsman in memory—and had finished Cambridge with double firsts in history and classics.

  There seemed to be no limit to what this man could accomplish. He spoke seven languages fluently (although he himself counted only six, as he insisted Latin could not really be spoken in modern Europe), dedicated a great deal of his not insignificant fortune to charitable causes, and had proved himself a more than adequate painter during the two years he spent traveling on the continent after finishing at university. Most significant to me, at the moment, however, was the fact he had promised he could gain me admission to the offices of the Conservative MPs.