A Body in Berkeley Square

by Jennifer Ashley

  His eyes flickered in surprise, then slight distaste, as though speaking with a lady should never come between a man and his business. I had never bothered to wonder why there was no Mrs. Denis. James Denis was cold all the way through.

  "Very well, then," he said, his expression still neutral. "We will fix an appointment for breakfast tomorrow. Nine o'clock. I will tell Colonel Naveau that he is welcome to spend the night with me."

  I was certain that Colonel Naveau would not like that arrangement one bit. I was equally certain that Denis would give him no choice.

  I took a casual sip of ale, as though his turning up at one of my haunts did not unnerve me. "You could not tell me, while you are here, who murdered Henry Turner?"

  The corners of his mouth moved in what might be an expression of amusement in a more feeling man. "I am afraid not, Captain. I had not anticipated that your colonel would get himself into trouble at a society ball, or I should have had a man in place to prevent it."

  I was not sure whether he jested or not. Denis's countenance was as blank as ever as he rose to his feet. He did not shake my hand, but he bowed and took up his hat. "Until morning, then, Captain."

  I nodded stiffly in return. Denis made for the door and exited, placing his hat on his head in the precise moment before he stepped outside. His lackeys fell in behind him like trained dogs.

  Bartholomew drifted back to the table. "Well, that was what I call interesting," he said.

  "Yes." I watched the dark doorway that Denis had exited. "I will know more what he wants tomorrow. Tonight, we will take a hackney coach to Cavendish Square and pay a call." I drank the last of my ale and thumped the tankard to the table. "No doubt Denis's man will follow and tell him exactly who we visited and why."

  Bartholomew grinned, a little shakily, and then we left the tavern. The married Anne Tolliver smiled at us both as we went.

  *** *** ***

  The house in Cavendish Square was no different from its fellows, being tall and narrow with tall, narrow windows and a tall, narrow front door with a polished knocker.

  I arrived at half-past three precisely, and the maid, Grady, answered the door. She seemed used to dealing with visitors at all hours, because she calmly took my hat and ushered me upstairs to a sitting room.

  The room was rather anonymous, with fashionable upholstered Sheraton chairs in a salmon-colored stripe and studded wood, salmon-colored swags on the windows, and cream silk on the walls. Nothing personal marred the room, as though the house's inhabitants had ordered the furnishing to be as elegant yet innocuous as possible.

  I expected Mr. Bennington to pop up at any moment, drawling sarcasm about his wife receiving male visitors in the small hours of the morning. Grady must have noticed me looking for him, because she said, "Mr. Bennington is staying at his hotel tonight," and departed to fetch her mistress.

  Again, I wondered at the strangeness of the Benningtons' relationship. They'd married for convenience, that was certain, but what convenience? Would a husband truly vacate the house so that his wife could receive a gentleman caller?

  I paced the room while I mulled this over. The room was cool despite the fire on the hearth, its anonymity shutting me out.

  I turned when the door opened behind me. Claire Bennington paused on the threshold just as she'd paused on the stage earlier tonight, waiting for the adulation to die down before she spoke her lines. She was dressed in a peignoir, similar to the one Lady Breckenridge had worn when she'd received me two days ago.

  The difference was that Lady Breckenridge wore her peignoir with an awareness of how it enhanced her body. I, as a man, had not been unmoved by the garment. Mrs. Bennington looked like a child in clothes too old for her.

  Mrs. Bennington glided to the center of the room. She had no rehearsed lines, and she obviously found it difficult to begin. She wet her lips, but said nothing.

  I was struck anew with how young she was. I'd read in newspaper articles that she was in her twenties, but she could not be far into them. She might be comely, and she might have lived in the harsh world of theatre, but she seemed far less conscious of her enticements than had the game girls to whom I'd given shillings earlier tonight.

  "Mrs. Bennington," I said after the silence had stretched. "Why did you ask to see me?"

  She wet her lips again and touched the lapel of my coat, her fingers light as a ghost's. "Captain Lacey," she said. "I am so very much afraid."

  She let the words roll dramatically from her tongue. But I realized that as much as she embellished her delivery, her eyes held real fear.

  "Of what?" I gentled my voice. "It is all right. You may tell me."

  She studied me with round eyes, then drew a breath and said, "I am afraid of Mr. Grenville."

  * * * * *

  Chapter Twelve

  The statement was so unexpected that I started. "Of Grenville? Good Lord, why?"

  Mrs. Bennington shuddered, her fingers trembling on my chest. "Please tell him to stay away."

  "You needn't worry about Mr. Grenville," I said, trying to sound reassuring. "He might not show it at times, but he has a good and kind heart. There is no need to be afraid of him."

  I felt as though I were stilling the fears of a child. Mrs. Bennington swung away from me. "Yes, there is need. He comes here, and to my rooms at the theatre, and remonstrates with me. He scolds me, grows angry when I speak to young men. Why should I not speak to young men? There is no harm in it. Mr. Bennington sees nothing wrong in my speaking with gentlemen. But Mr. Grenville will have none of it. He shouts at me." Her hazel eyes filled with tears. "He is so jealous that he frightens me."

  "Jealous?" I had never seen Grenville behave like a jealous lover. With the exception of his obsession with Marianne, he'd always conducted his affairs coolly, never voicing any disapprobation of the lady, no matter how she behaved. When he ended the liaison, he departed from the lady just as coolly.

  Only Marianne had ever angered him, and that was not jealousy, but frustration. Marianne could drive anyone distracted.

  The idea that Grenville drove off Mrs. Bennington's suitors and took her to task for speaking to them was beyond belief.

  "It is true," Mrs. Bennington said fiercely. "Ask Grady if you do not believe me. The last time he came to see me, he was in a horrible temper. He saw Mr. Carew try to kiss my hand. Mr. Grenville threw his walking stick across the room and threatened to give the poor Mr. Carew a thrashing if he ever came near me again."

  Grenville had? These actions sounded more like me in a temper, not those of the man whose sangfroid London gentlemen tried to imitate.

  "Forgive me, Mrs. Bennington, but I find this difficult to credit. Was this Carew behaving badly to you?"

  "Indeed, no. Mr. Carew was quite the gentleman. But Mr. Grenville did not like it." Mrs. Bennington clasped her hands in a pleading gesture. "You must believe me, Captain. I am not lying. I do not know how to invent things. Mr. Bennington says it is because I have no imagination."

  "Mr. Bennington should not be so rude to you."

  She shrugged, as though her husband's jibes slid easily from her. "Mr. Grenville said so too. He also said that I should try to obtain a divorce from Mr. Bennington. Or an annulment. I have grounds, he says, because Mr. Bennington cannot father children." She mentioned this impotency without a blush. "But I did not marry him for children. I do not want children. I could not go on the stage if I were increasing. Mr. Bennington said he would allow me to continue acting, which is the only thing I like to do. I was very popular in Italy and Milan, but I had run into a bit of difficulty with debts, you see."

  "And he offered to pay them if you married him?"

  "Mr. Bennington has ever so much money, from a legacy, from the Scottish branch of his family, he says. He paid my notes as though they were nothing." She toyed with the frills on her bosom. "His name is not really Bennington, you know. That's my name. He said I ought to keep it because I'm already well known by it, but I'm not supposed to tell anyone that
."

  I wondered how many other people she'd babbled this to, and if Bennington knew she was the kind of woman who could not keep a thing quiet.

  "What is his real name?" I asked.

  "Do you know, I no longer remember. It has been five years since we married. I will be called Mr. Bennington, he said to me. And you are Mrs. Bennington. And none need to know any other." She did a fair imitation of Bennington's drawling voice, which might have amused me any other time.

  I wondered. Perhaps the reason Bennington had lived in Italy was that he dared not return to England under his own name. Trouble with creditors? Or over a woman? Or some more sinister crime?

  Perhaps those long-fingered hands had held a knife before, knew how to thrust it with uncanny accuracy into a heart to stop it beating.

  Bennington, or whatever his true name had been, had promised to take care of Claire's debts and let her stay on the stage that she loved. So that he might return to England under a new name? His wife so eclipsed him that most people thought of him, when they bothered to, as "Mrs. Bennington's husband." A good hiding place. But hiding from what?

  This young woman seemed to find the arrangement perfectly acceptable, at any rate. She had what she wanted--freedom to remain on the stage and security from creditors. And she provided a blind for a husband for whom she cared nothing. Her seeming vacant-headedness when she said she no longer remembered his true name sounded sincere, but then, she was an actress.

  "I am beginning to agree with Grenville," I said, half to myself.

  Her eyes widened. "Please do not say that you will take his side. He has me very frightened. His jealousy will be the death of me, I think." Her voice rose to a fevered pitch.

  "I will speak to him," I promised.

  She sighed, putting every ounce of her stage presence into the throaty little moan. "Thank you, Captain Lacey. I knew you would not fail me."

  She flung herself away from me, the skirts of her peignoir swirling. Then, rather anticlimactically, she stopped and rang for her maid.

  "You attended the ball at the Gillises' the night Henry Turner died," I said, trying to bend to my true purpose for visiting.

  Mrs. Bennington's dramatic expression faded, and she made a face, much like a girl who has been given porridge when she expected thick ham. "Yes, that was quite horrible."

  "It was. Did you know Henry Turner?"

  "No. I'd never heard of him until he got himself killed." She sounded sublimely uninterested.

  I asked a few more questions about Turner and whether Mrs. Bennington had seen him or Colonel Brandon enter the anteroom, but it soon became clear that she had noticed nothing. Mrs. Bennington noticed only the people who noticed her.

  Grady entered the room in answer to the summons and frowned at me.

  "Grady," Mrs. Bennington said. "Tell Captain Lacey how Mr. Grenville behaved the other night."

  Grady looked me up and down, like a guard dog eyeing an intruder. "He did rail at her, sir, that is a fact. I was afraid I'd have to call for the watch."

  "And he threw his walking stick?" I asked, still surprised.

  "Yes, sir. Look." Grady marched to the wall and put her hand on the cream silk. "Just there. It's left a mark."

  Below her work-worn hand was a faint black mark and a tear in the fabric. "The footman couldn't quite get it to come clean. Have to do the whole wall over, like as not."

  I straightened up, very much wondering. "I will speak to him," I said.

  Grady gave me a severe look. So had my father's housekeeper looked at me when I was a small boy and came home plastered from head to foot with mud. "See that you do," she said.

  I would have smiled at the memory if the situation had not been so bizarre. I thanked Mrs. Bennington for her time, promised again that I would look into the matter of Grenville's strange tempers, and departed.

  *** *** ***

  Grenville and Marianne had gone from my rooms by the time Bartholomew and I returned to Grimpen Lane.

  I felt I could hardly look up Grenville that night to make him explain what he meant by terrorizing the feeble-witted Mrs. Bennington, so I went to bed, conscious that not much later, I would be breakfasting with James Denis and my Frenchman.

  In the morning, I dressed with cold fingers and rode across London in a gentle rain to number 45, Curzon Street. The façade of this house was unadorned, and the interior was elegant and understated, in a chill way. Mrs. Bennington's sitting room had reminded me a bit of this house--cool and distant.

  Denis's butler let me in and took me to the dining room. I'd been in this room before, but not for a meal. Two people now sat at the table, Denis and the Frenchman who'd attacked me in my rooms. A third setting had been placed at one end of the table, for me, I assumed.

  James Denis sat in an armchair at the head of the table, elegant in dress as usual, betraying no sign that he'd stayed up very late last night and had risen relatively early this morning.

  As I sat, I reflected that I had never seen James Denis do anything so human as eat. I'd always imagined that he must exist on water alone. However, he had a plate of real food before him--eggs and beef, a half-loaf of bread, and a crock of butter.

  The Frenchman's plate held thick slices of ham, which he was shoveling into his mouth. He shot me a look of defiance over his fork.

  "Captain Lacey," Denis said in his cool voice. "May I introduce Colonel Naveau."

  Colonel Naveau nodded once, his eyes filled with dislike. His close-cropped hair was a mix of gray and brown, and his eyes were dark. He wore a suit tailored to his lean body, a fact that spoke of expense. His emperor might have lost the war, but this colonel still had his fortune.

  "Colonel Naveau is quite the pugilist," I remarked, as a footman slid a plate of steaming sausages in front of me. "Gentleman Jackson might be interested in some of his moves. Were you cavalry?"

  Naveau watched me a moment, then inclined his head. "A hussar."

  I had guessed he was light cavalry because of his lean muscles, which spoke of hours in a saddle. French hussars had been known for their not-always-prudent courage. They'd been fond of throwing away their lives in some act of bravery that usually cost the English dearly.

  "They fought hard at Talavera," I said. "I was there. In the Thirty-Fifth Light Dragoons."

  Naveau grunted. "The Thirty-Fifth Light did well at Waterloo." He barely moved his lips when he spoke.

  "So I hear." I lifted my fork and cut a bite of sausage. "I had retired before then. I'd been injured."

  Denis broke in. "Captain Lacey's commander was Colonel Aloysius Brandon. The one who now awaits trial for the murder of Henry Turner."

  "I read of Monsieur Turner's death in the London newspapers." Naveau's tone was clipped.

  "You knew I had searched Turner's rooms," I said. "And you thought I'd found the letter with which Turner had been blackmailing Colonel Brandon and Mrs. Harper. You followed me home and waylaid me in my own lodgings in an attempt to find it."

  "I did." He seemed in no way ashamed.

  "I have puzzled and puzzled why on earth you would want a letter between Brandon and Mrs. Harper," I said. "Was Mrs. Harper your mistress? Your wife, perhaps?"

  Naveau's brows drew together. "I have no wife. And what is this letter you speak of? I was not looking for a letter; I was seeking a document. A very important document. Mr. Denis says you will know where to find it."

  I looked from him to Denis. "What is this about?"

  "Mr. Turner stayed for a time in Paris, as a guest of Colonel Naveau," Denis said. "After Mr. Turner had departed for London, Colonel Naveau discovered a document missing from his house. He searched and concluded that Turner had absconded with it. Naveau came to London as soon as he could and learned of Turner's death after he arrived."

  So Henry Turner had stolen a document from Naveau. "What has this to do with Colonel Brandon?" I asked.

  "Because your colonel knows where it is," Denis said. "Or at least, where it last was."

 
; The footman came forward to pour more hot coffee into my cup. "Why should Colonel Brandon know anything about a French document?" I asked.

  Naveau made a noise of exasperation. "Because Monsieur Turner was blackmailing your colonel for the document. I know this."

  "Turner was blackmailing Brandon over a love letter to or from Imogene Harper." A letter that would make their affair embarrassingly public. But as I sat there I realized I'd been thinking about this all wrong.

  "No, no, Captain," Naveau said. "Not a love letter. A letter he and Mrs. Harper wrote while we were in Spain. A letter to me."

  "To you?"

  "Yes." Naveau seemed annoyed at my disbelief.

  "What is this document?"

  "Nothing of concern to you," Naveau snapped back. "It is in French."

  "I read French."

  "Still you would not understand it."

  "And Colonel Brandon would?" I asked.

  "Mrs. Harper would."

  "Why Mrs. Harper?"

  Naveau looked at Denis. "You told me he would help without question."

  "No," Denis replied. "I said that he would find the document, but Captain Lacey must always ask questions. It is his nature."

  "It is an inconvenient nature."

  I ignored Naveau. "Why did you promise him that I would find it?" I asked Denis.

  Denis laid his knife and three-tined fork carefully across his plate. "The matter is simple. Colonel Naveau needs this document. He has entered a bargain with me to restore it to him. You are close to your colonel and can persuade him to tell you where it is. If it has not turned up among Turner's things, that means Henry Turner either destroyed it or passed it to someone. Most likely, to Colonel Brandon."

  "Colonel Naveau has paid you," I said, my eyes narrowing.

  "Yes," Denis said.

  "In that case, you should have told him that one of your own men would find the document for him."

  Denis looked at me. Nothing existed behind his cold expression but more coldness. "I did."