The Counterfeit Heiress: A Lady Emily Mystery (Lady Emily Mysteries)

by Tasha Alexander

  The police led us into a sorry little room, empty except for a grubby table and some chairs—they had brought more in so that all of us could sit down. Mr. Jones was already seated, his wrists still bound.

  “Mademoiselle Lamar—is she all right?”

  “Are you concerned she will die and you will be facing two murder charges?” Colin asked.

  “You do not understand, sir, not at all—”

  I believed I did understand. “If you will allow me to speak…” No one objected, so I continued. “I presume you used chloroform when you took Mademoiselle Lamar?”

  He hung his head. “I did. I am so ashamed—”

  “Now is not the time for assuaging your conscience, Mr. Jones,” I said. “You were after money? Do not answer, that much was evident the moment I found the records from your ill-fated business venture. Mademoiselle Lamar was, perhaps, not quite so wise as she thought when she refused to invest in Dr. Maynard’s Formula. Ordinarily one does not expect businessmen to be twisted kidnappers.”

  “I never, ever intended for things to get so out of hand. It was only to be for a few days—just long enough for the cheque to clear—but then there were delays and when at last I was ready to free her, she was no longer willing to go.”

  “You cannot be foolish enough to think we would believe that,” Cécile said.

  “Does it matter?” Mr. Jones shifted in his chair, still unable to meet our eyes. “I thought it was a flawless plan. She had no family to speak of—her half siblings paid little enough attention to her—and it was so easy to take her. I owed a great deal of money, you see, to very unpleasant and violent men, and they were going to kill me. The scheme came to me when I was attending the funeral of a friend. Père-Lachaise does rather get one’s imagination going, and when I saw how easy it was to enter long-abandoned tombs…”

  “What you did is reprehensible,” Jeremy said. I hushed him, for although I agreed with his sentiment, I wanted to hear the rest of Mr. Jones’s story.

  “How did you settle on the Godeau tomb in particular?” I asked.

  “When I learned that tombs that have fallen into a state of disrepair could be more or less repossessed, I began to search the cemetery. The Godeaus’ fit my every need. It was large enough to have a spacious crypt, so that Mademoiselle Lamar’s stay would not be too unpleasant, I hoped. It was showing signs of dereliction, but not so much that it was in danger of being repurposed. No family members seemed to have visited in years, and I was able to discover that the only remaining son had long since moved to America. Confident that it was a safe place, I brought Mademoiselle Lamar there.

  “All went well enough at first,” he continued. “She was upset, as was to be expected, but she agreed to give me the money I required. There were two delays at the bank, though, and I did my best to make her more comfortable during them. I had already brought her books and carpets and fresh clothing—I can’t remember what came precisely when—but with the second delay, she started asking for more specific things. Macarons from Ladurée. More books. A doll. When I had the money and my debt was paid, she had made herself so comfortable that she refused to leave. I tried to cajole her, but to no avail. She had been reading a number of books about Egypt, and expressed a great interest in the place.”

  “So you decided to pretend she was traveling?”

  “No, Lady Emily, that was entirely Mademoiselle Lamar’s idea. I expect your disbelief, but I was not made for this. I felt terrible from the moment I purchased the chloroform, and despaired when I could not persuade her to leave.”

  “Surely you were not going to remove her from the tomb yourself?” Colin asked. “She would have had you arrested on the spot.”

  “I had written a letter, detailing how she might be found, that I planned to deliver to her house immediately before I boarded a ship that would take me far away from France.”

  “So why didn’t you deliver it, man?” Rage colored my husband’s face. “Had you not done enough damage by taking her in the first place?”

  Mr. Jones dropped his head onto the table. “Yes, that is what I should have done. But you saw, did you not, her reaction to being removed? At first, she asked me for just a few more days, saying she was unprepared and not ready to return home. She said I owed her at least that much, after what I had done. How could I argue? Then a few days became a few weeks. She had decided she wanted to go to Egypt—or so I believed—and convinced me that she did not want to make the plans from her house, as her solicitor would surely interfere. She demanded more books and travel information, all of which I brought her. I eventually persuaded her to let me put an advertisement for a companion in the paper—a lady could not travel alone—and I thought this would lure her out, as she would need to interview the candidates.”

  “Instead she chose a character from Our Mutual Friend,” I said.

  “Yes. I had encouraged her to read Dickens—he has always been a favorite of mine—but when she told me that she and Miss Hexam had exchanged letters and that she could hire her without conducting an interview, I began to realize that something was very seriously wrong. Before then, I had let myself believe that she really would go to Egypt. Now it was clear she had no intention of leaving the crypt into which I had placed her.”

  “So why didn’t you remove her?” Colin asked. “You obviously knew how.”

  “Guilt consumed me, Mr. Hargreaves. I had put her in this unspeakable place, and now she thanked me for it, telling me she had never been happier in her life. She had grown rather fond of me, and bossed me around like I was a favorite servant. I thought I might be able to use this fondness as leverage, telling her that I was likely to be sent to jail if she refused to come out—reminding her that her prolonged absence would not go unnoticed. That was when she took total control of the situation. She wrote to her solicitor, to her staff, to her siblings, telling them all she was leaving France. She ordered clothes from her dressmaker, and had me take trunks to the woman’s establishment on the pretext that I was bringing them directly to the station.”

  “You should never have allowed any of this,” Colin said.

  “That is easy to say now, all these years later,” Mr. Jones replied. “But at the time I felt that I had no choice but to do what she asked. I mailed her letters, sent telegrams as directed.”

  “But the telegrams came from far-flung places,” I said. “How did you manage that?”

  “That, too, was Mademoiselle Lamar’s idea. I tried, again and again, to make her see that she could not remain out of sight forever—that if no one ever saw her, her friends would surely raise an alarm. To counter that, she ordered me to hire women to pose as her at locations throughout the world. It was much less difficult than you would think. For a few pounds, I could hire a would-be actress or a woman down on her luck to stand in front of the pyramids and be photographed for the newspaper. She would then send, from her location, the photograph and a letter Mademoiselle Lamar had written, to the papers. It became almost a sort of game for her. She delighted in seeing the pictures. It was almost as if she believed she was the one in them.

  “She planned an entire trip to Egypt—did you know that?” he asked. “It was when I arrived one day, with supplies for her, and she greeted me, saying that Cairo far exceeded her expectations and inquiring whether I had fallen victim to sunburn, that I began to see how unraveled her mind had become.”

  “Yet you did not release her.” I leaned forward across the table. “How could you let this continue, Mr. Jones?”

  “She begged me to! Can you not understand? What I did for all of these years was exactly what she asked of me. I obeyed her every whim. I soothed her moods and met her demands. She wanted the life she had, and I was the only one who could help her to have it.”

  “This is sick,” I said.

  “I do not argue the point.”

  “It does seem, Mr. Jones, that your scheme—do not interrupt me, I know you will say it was her scheme—could have gone on indefinitely
. But you hired Mary Darby to play her in London. Why did you take such a risk? Why have her appear in a location where someone might actually recognize her as a fraud?”

  “I did not think it could happen. After so many years of our game, we had never once come close to being unmasked. I brought Mademoiselle Lamar the paper nearly every day, and she had read about the grand masquerade ball planned by the Duchess of Devonshire. She told me in no uncertain terms that she wanted to go.”

  “And you took this to mean she wanted a double to attend?” Colin asked.

  “Sir, that is what she meant. I hired Mrs. Darby through my usual methods—I placed an ad. The details are unimportant.”

  “Why did you go to London?” I asked.

  “It was a grave error on my part. I had thought that, as it is easy enough to slip over to London for a few days—”

  “Leaving Mademoiselle Lamar alone and without fresh food or water—”

  Mr. Jones interrupted my husband. “It was not like that. Mademoiselle Lamar periodically asked me to leave her alone, sometimes for almost a week. I have grown as attached to her as she has to me, and I found it increasingly difficult to stop myself from visiting her. I do worry, you know. On two separate occasions, I came back before the time she had requested, and it sent her into a spiral of panic and despair similar to what you witnessed tonight. When she asked me to give her five days, at just the time of the ball, I decided a little trip would do me good, and I wanted to meet Mary Darby. As you know, it proved disastrous.”

  “You thought I was Mary Darby,” I said.

  “Yes, and I reacted badly. Your costume was so like hers, and you completed the line of Homer as I had instructed her to do so that I might confirm her identity … and then when I did spot her, it was just when you, Madame du Lac, had exposed her as a fraud. The instructions Estella had written for her—the same ones she sent to all her ladies—said in no uncertain terms that she was to leave immediately if this happened. Instead of handling herself with dignity and grace, Mrs. Darby fled like a thief, and I went after her, terrified that she had laid us open to serious danger. Furthermore, she said she had been in Egypt, when I had told her in no uncertain terms that—”

  “So you killed her.” Colin stated it plainly, folding his arms, and glaring at Mr. Jones, down whose face tears now streamed. “You will gain no sympathy from me by false shows of regret.”

  “I regret more than you can ever know,” he said. “I do not know what came over me. I was seized with terror, not only for myself, but for Mademoiselle Lamar. I knew what the exposure of our scheme would do to her already frayed nerves. I went after Mary Darby, and she must have seen my anger. She ran and ran. I could hardly keep up. When I reached her, I pulled the dagger from my costume, almost without knowing what I was doing, and stabbed her until she stopped screaming. I will never forgive myself.”

  “As well you shouldn’t,” Jeremy said.

  “I returned to Paris and Mademoiselle Lamar, worried that I had attracted unwanted attention. When the lot of you began snooping around—”

  “You did whatever you could to try to scare us off.” I felt not a bit sorry for Mr. Jones. “And failed miserably. The handkerchief—”

  “I soaked it in chicken’s blood,” he interrupted, his shoulders slumping. “I have betrayed Mademoiselle Lamar so terribly. She will never be able to forgive me. I promised she could live out all her days in her little home, and that I would take care of her until the end. If you only knew how happy she has been—”

  “That is quite enough,” Cécile said. “If she were happy, it was only as a means of coping with the hideous situation caused solely by you.”

  “You speak the truth, but she would not agree. And now, I am the one who shall be happy, happy in my punishment. Do you know what it has been to live with this? To get away with it? For all of these years, I have collected money from Mademoiselle Lamar, posing as a florist—but you figured out that much. I did not want it. I used it to get her whatever she desired and to restore the tombs of the forgot in Père-Lachaise. Some of it had to go for flowers, so that no one would doubt the bills, but the rest, every dime has plagued me. All I wanted was to pay my debt, and in doing so, I succeeded only in taking on a far greater one. And now, now I will have the punishment I have so long craved, but at the expense of Mademoiselle Lamar, who has been forced from her home, and thrust into a world she wanted only to reject—”

  “You, Monsieur Jones, did nothing but take advantage of her vulnerability and then used it as an excuse to take the easiest route. You listened to the ravings of an unhinged mind and obeyed them instead of getting my friend the help she needed. Yes, you did betray her, but not by failing to further extend her captivity. I can no longer tolerate your presence.” Cécile rose from her chair and turned to leave the room. Jeremy took her arm and led her away. I followed, but paused and looked back just as I reached the door.

  “When we first met, you greeted me with a line from Homer, Mr. Jones. I shall leave you with another. ‘Of all creatures that breathe and move upon the earth, nothing is bred that is weaker than man.’”

  24

  In the weeks that followed Mr. Jones’s incarceration, Estella recovered enough to be released from the hospital. She refused, despite Cécile’s admonitions, to stay with her friend. Instead, she called at the prison to see the man she called her dearest boy. She would not let us go in with her, but when she came out, she told us she had much admired his cell.

  “It was so very charming,” she said, as the carriage took us toward her house. “It reminded me of my first days in my little house and that put me onto an excellent plan.”

  Her so-called excellent plan was realized, some months later. Cécile’s letter describing the end result gave me the most unpleasant chills. Estella had lined one of the rooms in her house with stone blocks, creating a perfect copy of the crypt in which she had been imprisoned. She had moved everything from the tomb—carpets, books, tapestries, et cetera—to her house, and once it was all in place, she went into it, and refused to come out. Her servants, who had no choice but to obey her orders, brought her food and water and tended to all her needs, but were instructed not to disturb her more than once a day. Even Monsieur Pinard, whom I had once suspected of evil intentions, tried to persuade her to come out, but she would not submit.

  I passed Cécile’s letter to my husband. “I cannot imagine she will live much longer.” His prediction was off the mark—Estella would remain, entombed in her house, for nearly another seventeen years before she died—but we did not know that at the time. It was nearly Christmas now, and we had retreated to Anglemore Park, our estate in Derbyshire.

  “This business has put me off the idea of a tomb altogether.” Colin and I were sitting in front of a roaring fire in the library. I put down the volume of Greek lyric poetry which I had been reading. “I think, Emily, a funeral pyre, in the style of the ancients, would be much preferable.”

  “I don’t think spectacles of that sort are permitted in England,” I said.

  “I shall have to die in Greece, then. I imagine the laws about such things are more lax there.”

  “Don’t suggest I should fling myself on your flaming body. I do adore you, but not that much.”

  “You are far too sensible to consider such a thing.”

  “Quite, but I admit that Estella’s plight has not put me off a nice tomb. We should leave something interesting for archaeologists to dig up after a thousand years.”

  “How did we ever get on such a morbid topic?” Colin asked. “Abandon it at once, my dear, as I have other, more immediate, plans that require you to be very much alive.” I was about to insist that we retire upstairs so that I might abandon myself to his attentions when Davis opened the door.

  “Sorry to disturb, madam. A telegram for you.” He presented it to me on a silver tray, bowed, and left the room. I opened it and read it three times before looking up at my husband.

  “Jeremy is engaged to
be married.”

  “Bainbridge? Heaven help the girl. Who is she?”

  “Amity Wells, a friend from Christabel Peabody’s Cairo days. He invites us for New Year so that we might make her acquaintance.”

  “Must we?”

  “We must.” I smiled, glad that my friend had at last met his match. “I should reply without delay. He will be waiting—he’s obviously agitated, or he would have sent a letter instead of a telegram.” There may have been the slightest of pangs in my heart to have lost his affections, but if so, they were replaced almost at once by great joy. My husband removed the telegram from my hand, dropped it onto the floor, and scooped me up in his arms.

  “I have grown tired of Estella Lamar, tombs, Bainbridge, telegrams, anything, in fact, that might distract me from giving you the very thorough seeing-to I have had in mind since I saw you this morning.” He shifted me so that he could open the door. The sight of us startled the footman on duty in the Great Hall, but he managed to more or less maintain his composure. Colin nodded as we passed him and then carried me up the stairs.

  Who could think of telegrams at a time like that?

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  This novel was inspired by two pieces of research that I had done years ago. The first came when I was writing my second book, A Poisoned Season. While searching for information about the London season, I came across a magnificent cache of photographs, taken at a fancy dress ball given by the Duchess of Devonshire in 1897—six years too late for me at the time. I took copious notes, tracked down a copy of an out-of-print book written on the subject, and filed it all away. Seven years later, as I was mulling over the plot of The Counterfeit Heiress, I decided that the book had to open at a masquerade. I remembered the photographs, and, figuring they would now be useful, pulled out my book, only to realize that the ball, given on 2 July 1897, coincided perfectly with the time my novel was set. Kismet!