by M C Beaton
Then she heard Tamworthy’s voice outside her door. “Are you safe, my lady?”
She unlocked the door. “There was a man on the stairs, Tamworthy,” she cried. “Search the house.”
Tamworthy turned away and soon could be heard shouting out orders. Emma waited, her large eyes dilated with fear.
At long last Tamworthy returned. There was no sign of anyone, he said reassuringly. My lady must have had a bad dream.
In vain did Emma protest. The main door had been locked and bolted on the inside, just as the butler had left it after he had done his rounds.
She returned to her bedchamber and began to pace the floor. If only the comte were not going on that silly curricle race. He would believe her.
Chapter Four
As Emma drew on her gloves preparatory to going out to call on Mrs. Trumpington the following day, she said to Tamworthy, “Do you know where the Comte Saint-Juste resides?”
“It will be easy to find his direction,” the butler replied.
Emma pulled a letter from her reticule and handed it to him. “See that this is delivered to the comte. I cannot have been imagining things. There was a man standing on the stairs last night.”
“But, my lady,” protested Tamworthy, “we have searched every corner of the house. The front door was bolted and locked. Nothing has been taken—”
“Nonetheless,” Emma interrupted, “take my letter to him just the same.”
Followed by Austin, she left the house and climbed into her carriage. My carriage now, thought Emma. Oh, how much I would enjoy all this wealth and freedom if I did not have this shadow of suspicion hanging over me.
Mrs. Trumpington was sitting in an armchair in the gloomy recesses of her drawing room when Emma was announced. She was a very old lady, distressingly smelly, but with quick, intelligent eyes in her wrinkled face.
“Forgive me for not rising to greet you, Lady Wright,” she said. “My legs are weak. Now you must sit by me and tell me all your adventures.”
“I have not really had any adventures,” said Emma.
“Tush! Your husband murdered in cold blood and you thought to have done it! Now, that is an adventure. I do so envy you. Nothing so exciting as that ever happens to me.”
“And I pray it never does,” sighed Emma. “I hate living in this atmosphere of suspicion—” She broke off as she heard sounds from the hall of other arrivals.
The door opened and Matilda, Duchess of Hadshire, and Annabelle, Mrs. Carruthers, tripped in.
Emma ran to meet them, hands outstretched. “I never thought to see either of you again,” she cried.
“And that is what we told Mrs. Trumpington,” said Matilda with a laugh. “And the dear lady arranged this meeting.”
“And how do you both go on?” demanded Emma when they were all seated around the tea table.
Matilda shrugged. “As usual,” she said bitterly. “But you are our prime concern. Tell us everything that has happened.”
And so Emma told them about the comte’s help, about the mysterious visitor during the night, about the cryptic messages in her husband’s diary.
“I know the Comte Saint-Juste,” Matilda said, with a sly look at Emma. “Vastly handsome, my dear, and a fribbler.”
Although fribbler was usually shortened to fribble, Hugh Walpole had invented the word. A fribbler was, he explained, a man who could take serious things lightly, but who at the same time delighted in taking frivolous things seriously.
The fribble, or fribbler, was very much part of the Regency world; it was an age when the dilettante enthusiastically sought out rare pictures with the same vigor as the country squire and his parson pursued the fox.
“I think every woman in London has given up hope of ensnaring him,” commented Annabelle. “A hardened flirt, Emma.”
“I am grateful to the comte for his help,” said Emma primly.
There was a slight snore from the corner. Mrs. Trumpington had apparently fallen asleep.
“What is it like,” asked Matilda, lowering her voice, “to be free? You are now a rich and independent widow.”
“I feel guilty,” said Emma in a small, tired voice. “I did not murder Sir Benjamin, but I wished him dead so many times that I almost feel I had killed him. People look at me so. I have thought and thought, until I am weary, of who could have possibly wanted to kill him. He was a brutish man in private but in public he was all that was respectable… apart from one thing.” She told them about the marked cards and the loaded dice.
“Then, that is that!” cried Annabelle. “Matilda and I will ask around discreetly and find out the names of those he fleeced the worst. My husband,” she added bitterly, “must know the name of every hardened gambler and cardsharp in town.”
“But be careful what you put about,” admonished Matilda. “For if society knows Sir Benjamin was a cheat, then you will have all sorts who never even sat down with him at the card table claiming to have a lost fortunes and expecting you, Emma, to make reparation.”
“Which reminds me,” said Emma, turning to Annabelle, “I am very rich, extremely rich, and I know, dear Annabelle, you are often… er… embarrassed. Please let me be your banker.”
Annabelle shook her head. “It would be throwing good money after bad. My husband would take the money, but he would never pay off any of the duns or even his tailor. Any money goes straight on the gaming table. He borrows and borrows, from friends and relatives, but he is never at home when they come calling for their money, and I… I am so weary of it all.”
There was a sympathetic silence. Then Annabelle gave a brittle laugh. “When we find your murderer, Emma, pay him to kill my husband. T’would be worth every penny.”
“Shame!” said old Mrs. Trumpington, startling the three. “The Lord above can hear you.”
Annabelle was unabashed. “I have prayed and prayed, Mrs. Trumpington, for relief from my plight, but He does not concern Himself with such as I.”
“His eye is on the sparrow,” said Mrs. Trumpington.
“And a lot of good that does us,” snapped Matilda, and then flushed as Emma and Annabelle gave her shocked looks. Such outright blasphemy was going too far.
Emma told them again about the message about H., who was to meet Sir Benjamin in the Yellow Saloon at the Harveys’ ball, but Matilda said that no doubt H. was merely someone who wanted to settle a gambling debt in private. This seemed such an eminently sensible idea that Emma began to rapidly lose hope of ever being able to clear her name.
The Comte Saint-Juste won the curricle race and accepted the prize of a Limoges snuffbox and a dozen bottles of champagne. He opened the champagne on the spot and passed it around and then sat back in his carriage with his friend, Mr. Peter “Jolly” Simpson. Jolly had earned his nickname by being perpetually good-humored. He was an odd friend for the elegant and clever comte to have. He was as English as roast beef with a round red face like a country squire and a thick stocky body and slovenly clothes.
“Prime race,” he said after drinking a bumper of champagne down to the dregs and wiping his mouth on his cuff.
The comte sipped his own glass, his eyes wandering absentmindedly over the English countryside. He suddenly felt alien, a foreigner in a foreign land, and longed for the fields and poplars of his native France and to hear his own language. The company about him conversed in a cant so broad as to be almost incomprehensible. His mind slid back to the murder of Sir Benjamin.
“You have heard of the murder in society, Jolly?”
“Oh, you mean Sir Benjamin,” said Jolly easily. “Good riddance.”
“Now, why do you say, ‘good riddance’? Everyone else seems to think he was a sterling fellow married to a wicked wife who murdered him.”
“I notice things,” said Jolly simply. “The ladies don’t really like dancing with me and I don’t like to gamble—well, not cards or dice—and so I’ve got time to watch people at balls. Lady Wright always looked miserable to me, and once I heard him sayi
ng several very nasty things to her. If she did it, then good luck to her.”
“But she could not have done it, mon ami, for she was locked in her bedchamber all night. And whatever devil did it managed to get through two locked doors. How do you explain that?”
Jolly yawned, put a plump hand under his waistcoat, and scratched his chest.
“Must have had a key,” he said lazily.
The comte looked at him in surprise. “Of course,” he began, and then his face fell. “But the main door was bolted on the inside.”
“Then,” said Jolly reasonably, “he probably had a key to the back door. I’ve noticed that people put locks and bolts and chains on their front doors and leave the back one with only a flimsy lock. I say, look at Lord Harvey over there. He’s trying to balance a bottle on his nose.”
“You are a very intelligent fellow,” said the comte slowly.
Jolly looked pleased but puzzled. “Well, I notice things,” he said. “Don’t suppose you’d have noticed Harvey balancing that bottle on his nose if I hadn’t pointed it out.”
The comte eased himself down from his carriage and strolled over to Lord Harvey’s curricle. Lord Harvey had stopped his balancing act and was opening a fresh bottle. “Splendid race, Saint-Juste,” he said when he saw the comte. The comte leaned against the side of the curricle and looked up at him. “You haven’t managed to remember who it was visited your Yellow Saloon at midnight last year?”
Lord Harvey gave a tipsy laugh. “Me wife does, but I ain’t telling you. If a fellow wants a bit of fun with a lady, there’s no call to go spreading the gossip around.”
The comte’s eyes sharpened. “Aha! Give me one name, Harvey, or I shall begin to think the mysterious H. was yourself.”
“Not I, Saint-Juste. But my lips are sealed. Promised m’wife not to breathe a word.”
In vain did the comte protest that he was perhaps shielding a murderer. Lord Harvey only laughed drunkenly and said he was merely shielding a philanderer.
The comte returned to his carriage, climbed in, and picked up the reins. “Hey, where are we going?” cried Jolly, hanging on to his hat as the comte urged his team forward.
“I am going to pay an amorous call on Lady Harvey,” said the comte.
“Bit long in the tooth, what?” commented Jolly, trying to pour champagne into his glass despite the lurching of the carriage.
A smile curled the comte’s lips, but he did not reply and concentrated on the road ahead. He set Jolly down in Piccadilly and made his way to the Harveys’.
He was in luck. Lady Harvey was at home. She was a plump matron in her forties with a face like a pug. When she had ordered wine and cakes for her unexpected visitor, she asked him if there was any particular reason for his call.
“The only reason,” said the comte, smiling into her eyes, “is because I know your husband is not here.”
“La!” Lady Harvey fanned herself vigorously. “You are funning, Monsieur le Comte.”
“Not I,” he said lightly. “I have long admired your charm of manner and the wittiness of your speech.”
Lady Harvey regarded the handsome comte with a look of dazed gratitude. Unlike many society matrons, she would never consider being unfaithful to her husband, but it was glorious to be so flattered, and by such a personable bachelor.
“You must not tease me,” she said. “I am a faithful wife. It is your French blood. The French are ever fickle.”
“Come, my lady, tell me the name of just one of my compatriots whom you would describe as flighty.”
“I was not thinking of any man.”
“Odso! A lady, then. Come… tell.”
“No, Monsieur le Comte.” Lady Harvey closed her fan and rapped him painfully on the knuckles with the ivory sticks. “I abhor gossip.”
This the comte knew to be untrue, but then, London’s chief gossips were always the ones who claimed to loathe tittle-tattle.
He wondered briefly if some fickle Frenchwoman could have anything to do with the Yellow Saloon. He chatted easily of other things, subtly flattering her until she was nearly purring.
“I am surprised you should pay such attention to me when my husband is convinced you are enamored of Lady Wright.”
“Not I. She is too cold; she lacks animation. But she did not murder her husband, and I would dearly like to find out who did.”
“Why?”
“It amuses me.”
“As I amuse you?”
“Lady of my heart, do not be so cruel. I called on your husband with Lady Wright because I wanted to know if he remembered who had been in your Yellow Saloon at midnight on the night of your ball last year. You see, Sir Benjamin was to meet someone there, and that is all I have to go on.”
Lady Harvey laughed. “Oh, I know who was there at midnight, but I am not going to tell you. It could ruin a reputation.”
“But it might save Lady Wright’s reputation.”
Lady Harvey pouted. “I have no interest in that little bourgeoise.”
“Nor I,” he said, his hand on his heart. “Dear lady, smile on me once more. Has anyone ever told you that your eyes are like deep pools of water lit by glints of sunlight?”
He talked on in this fashion until he heard the sound of a carriage stopping outside the house.
“Harvey!” he cried. “I must take my leave.” He bent over her hand and placed a burning kiss on the back of it. “Who was in the Yellow Saloon,” he whispered.
She blushed and hesitated and then gave a little shrug. “You will not tell anyone?”
“Light of my life, give me one name.”
“It was Madame Beauregard and—”
She broke off in confusion as her husband reeled into the room.
“What ho, Comte!” shouted Lord Harvey. “Just leaving? Stay and we will continue to celebrate your victory.”
The comte managed to turn a laughing face to Lord Harvey and then a guilty one to his wife—a deliciously guilty look, she thought.
“Unfortunately I have an appointment with two bottles of burgundy elsewhere,” he said lightly.
He made them both an elaborate bow and left.
“What a character,” said Lord Harvey with a grin. His wife was glad he did not ask why the comte had chosen to call when the master of the house was not at home and then was piqued that he obviously assumed the call to be innocent.
The comte made his way to his home, turning over in his mind what he knew of Madame Beauregard. She had appeared on the London scene two years earlier. She said she and her husband had escaped the perils of Napoleon’s France and had been staying for some time in the English countryside. She was from Normandy and a genuine blonde with large pale blue eyes and a voluptuous figure. There was no scandal attached to her name. Her husband, Jacques Beauregard, was a small, sallow man who said little and did not often appear in society. The couple appeared to be rich. That was the sum total of his knowledge of them.
His servant handed him Emma’s letter and he read it carefully. He bathed and changed and then made his way to Emma’s house.
As usual, she was wearing black, and he had a sudden longing to see her out of mourning. He listened carefully as she described the events of the night and then surprised her by asking to see any back entrance to the house.
She led him down the stairs and through the servants’ hall and kitchen, scullery, and stillroom to a door that led into a weedy garden. It had two thin glass panels and a sturdy lock. The door showed no signs of having been forced.
He opened the door and went into the garden, scanning the ground carefully and then going over to the wall at the end of the garden. “What is on the other side of the garden wall?” he asked.
“The Bear and Ragged Staff Mews,” said Emma. “The carriage is kept there.”
“There is no door from the garden to the mews, I see.”
“No, when I need the carriage, the servants walk round by Chapel Street and then along the mews to order it.”
“Stay here,” said the comte. “I will let you know if there is a way up to the wall on the other side.”
He made his way out of the house and went around to the mews, counting the carriage houses as he went. Then he stopped. The grooms and coachmen lived above and the carriages and horses were kept underneath. But just behind where he judged Emma’s house to be, a narrow, thin alley ran between the mews cottages up to a garden wall. He made his way along it and called loudly, “Lady Wright?” and heard her voice answering, “Yes!”
For his evening call on Emma, he had donned his best corbeau-colored coat, knee breeches, and white silk stockings with gold clocks. He looked down at his dress ruefully and then shrugged and began to scale the wall. Emma looked up, startled, as the comte’s head appeared over the top of the high wall.
He hauled himself up astride the top of the wall and looked down at her. She was standing by a mossy sundial, and a shaft of pale evening sunlight lit up the beauty of her glossy black hair and the slim pliancy of her figure. She looked young and lost and alone, and he felt an unfamiliar tug at his heart. He scrambled down the wall into the garden, produced an enormous lace-edged handkerchief, and began to fastidiously brush down his clothes with all the self-absorption of a sleek cat at its toilet. “Faugh!” he said. “You have a dirty wall.”
Emma began to laugh. “Milord, I am not responsible for the state of my garden wall,” she said. Her eyes were very deep blue, almost black, and he studied her as curiously as he studied his own reactions to her. Emma suddenly blushed and looked away, and he collected himself with an effort.
“Do you have the address of Mr. Tocknell, Sir Benjamin’s secretary?”
“No, but Tamworthy knows his direction.”
“Bien. I will call on him and then return here and sit in this uncomfortable garden for the night and see if our caller chooses to return.”
“You are very good, but… but what if something should happen to you?”
He took her hand in his and said softly, “And that would distress you?”
“Of course.” Emma tugged her hand away.
