Midnight Masquerade

by Joan Smith

  “Get some servants out shoveling a path to the road,” he ordered, to be rid of him.

  “A mile and a half?” Snippe asked, blinking in disbelief at such slavish labor.

  “Speak to my groom. He’s rigging up some contraption to make it easier. Some sort of plow, drawn by the horses.”

  “I do not go to the stables, milord,” Snippe answered, on his high ropes.

  “Then request the stables to come to you, Snippe. Use your wits, man. What am I paying you for? Send for Réal.”

  “I’ll have him come here, to my room,” Snippe answered.

  “No, Snippe, you will meet him in the kitchen. Go!” As this command was accompanied by a shove, Snippe went, but with a glare over his shoulder that would freeze fire. He also left the door standing open.

  Deirdre closed it and slid onto the hard sofa. “The sheet used last night was yours. Greta recognized it,” she said, to divert him from suggesting she leave. “Did you learn anything from Lenore?”

  “She confirmed that Bidwell was with her and Chamfreys—in the next room, I mean.”

  “He said the same thing to me—that is, he said he had gone abovestairs, but did not give the reason,” Deirdre corroborated.

  “There were cards on the table by the grate in the drawing room that adjoins Lennie’s room, and the broken glass on the hearth,” Belami mentioned. “Lennie confirmed hearing him smash the glass at midnight, or thereabouts. I shouldn’t think she looked at her watch to confirm the precise moment.”

  “I’ll bet a pony he don’t smash glasses at his own house,” Pronto mentioned. “Though I must say, it is enjoyable. Makes me feel like an unruly boy.”

  “He not only broke it; he ground it to bits,” Belami added.

  “A bit unusual, ain’t it?” Pronto asked suspiciously. “Mean to say, anything unusual, however small . . .”

  “I found it unusual enough that I collected the ground glass and particles of the glass into envelopes for checking in my laboratory,” Belami told him.

  “Why?” Deirdre asked, frowning. “What do you hope to learn from examining glass splinters?”

  “Whether one glass was smashed, or two. The quantity of debris suggests two, and that suggests Bidwell was not alone.”

  There was a stir of interest at this notion. Belami went for the blue envelopes holding the remains of the glasses, Pronto got two footed glasses from the sideboard, and the three met in Belami’s bedchamber, which had been chosen as a private site for their experiment.

  Deirdre looked around his chamber with keen interest. She was not surprised that it should be elegant, with massive furnishings in the old style of Kent, and silk brocade draperies. What did surprise her was the tumble of books at his bedside table, and the brace of candles arranged for comfortable reading. The desk too was littered with books, some of them open, some closed with a paper marking his spot. A quick perusal of the titles showed her Belami’s tastes ranged from poetry to science, history, philosophy, novels, and gardening. Others bore titles in foreign languages, indicating the catholicity of his education. She was also happily surprised to see nothing that could shock a lady—no lewd writings, at least not in English. Her host noticed what she was about, and cocked a questioning brow at her.

  “You approve?” he asked.

  “You have catholic tastes,” she commented.

  Pronto scowled at her. “Ain’t Popish, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Deirdre means broad tastes, catholic in the nonreligious sense.”

  “Oh, aye. Very catholic tastes, for a Protestant,” he agreed.

  Meanwhile Belami paced toward the fireplace, with the glasses in his hands. “The card table was about here,” he said, stepping back. “He might have stood up. So he drinks”—he took an imaginary sip from the glass— “and then he throws the empty goblet.” He threw the glass against the hearth. It shattered in a dozen pieces, bits of glass flying for a few feet. Deirdre and Pronto watched, the former lamenting the waste of a fine crystal goblet, and the latter scratching his ear.

  The procedure was repeated from a seated position, with much the same result. Thrown with less force, only one piece was broken from the glass. Both pieces remained on the hearth. Belami arose and ground them into the stone apron with his heel. “That’s demmed odd,” he said, frowning at the powdered glass.

  “Don’t see why. What did you think was going to happen, heaving good glasses at a stone fireplace?” Pronto asked in a huff. “Bound to break. Even I know that.”

  Deirdre, suspecting some deeper meaning, went to stare at the mess. “What is it? What are you thinking?” she asked him.

  “The quantity isn’t right. He didn’t break two glasses and grind up one.”

  “Demmed unnecessary to break even one,” Pronto told him.

  “Maybe he ground a part of the one broken glass into powder,” Deirdre suggested. “The stem, perhaps.”

  “Could be he broke a smaller glass than that you just smashed,” Pronto contributed.

  “That’s a possibility. I must get to my laboratory now and do some weighing and testing—see what residue, if any, remains with the powdered glass. There were wine dregs on the other; some pieces were large enough to hold droplets,” Belami said. He stood gazing at the two separate piles of glass remains, rubbing his chin.

  “I’ll sweep it up, shall I?” Deirdre offered, reaching for the broom on the hearth.

  “No! No, it must be done carefully. I want to keep the two glasses entirely separate, as I did in Lenore’s room.”

  “If there were two people in that room at midnight, then who do you think the other was?” Deirdre asked. There was no doubt in her own mind. She wanted so much for Lady Lenore to be guilty that she easily convinced herself it was so.

  “Whoever was on the roof when I arrived,” Belami said. “I believe Bidwell was upstairs, as he claims, and he let his henchman down via the attic stairs, to execute the robbery, while he stood guard above, opening and closing windows and so on. That window in the upper hall—it would have remained open had Bidwell himself gone out it and returned through the downstairs parlor. No one, none of the servants, has mentioned finding it open. Bidwell arranged to gather up the necessary disguise and gun, and left them in the parlor for his friend.”

  “For that matter, Lady Lenore could have arranged the whole,” Deirdre pointed out. She could hardly tell him the person on the roof was innocent. “She could have left the attic door open in advance,” she added, to give an air of accepting that fiction. “And the parlor window below as well.”

  “Basing all this on a bit of broken glass. Foolishness,” Pronto said, kicking at the glass powder with his foot, while Belami howled his dismay. “Still don’t tell us why the deuce he did it in such a public way, either. Hardest place to rob anyone. Demmed near impossible when you come down to it.”

  Such statements always caused Deirdre to narrow her eyes at Belami. Had he done it himself? With a cohort to slide the golden chain into the syllabub, he could have done it. Lady Lenore popped into her mind as the likeliest cohort.

  “I’m taking these glass remains to my laboratory now,” Belami said. “Deirdre, why don’t you question the servants to learn if the upper hall window was found open by any of them?”

  “Very well.”

  “How about me? What can I do?” Pronto asked.

  “You can help me in the laboratory,” Belami said, to keep his friend from mischief. He was curious why this should cause Deirdre to sulk, as he had no idea she would have preferred to be with him.

  He found no residue of wine on the glass that had been ground to powder. As it was not the weight of a glass and had not been used to hold wine, who was to say it had been a glass at all? It might have been some other smallish object made of lead crystal, like a chandelier pendant, except that none were missing from Beaulac.

  Chapter 6

  The kitchen seemed the likeliest place to find a collection of servants. It was Meg, the same girl who
had been with Deirdre when she found the necklace chain in the syllabub, who had closed the window.

  “It was about fifteen after midnight when I took a run upstairs to give Lady Belami her vinaigrette. I saw the curtains blowing like a pair of sails, and locked the window. I thought one of the guests had had too much wine and took a breath of air to sober hisself up,” she said. “I should’ve told His Lordship, shouldn’t I? ‘Every little thing, however small and unimportant it may seem.’ That’s what he asked us, and I, nodcock that I am, didn’t think a drunken guest could matter one way or t’other.”

  “Has anyone else anything to add?” Deirdre asked.

  Meg was still twitching nervously. “Oh, mum, don’t tell him. I locked the attic door as well. It was hanging open a inch too. But you and Her Ladyship was upstairs that same afternoon getting the tin pot for making the ice, and I was sure it was you what left it ajar.”

  “As a matter of fact, I did, Meg, so that is all right. You need not mention that to Lord Belami,” Deirdre said nervously.

  “Thank God,” Meg sighed.

  Such trivial details—yet they were important after all, and Deirdre had a nauseating sensation that before the case was solved, her secret would come out. Belami would pry and question, deduce and measure and weigh and analyze, till he learned she had gone up to the roof in the howling storm to search for him. How utterly degrading.

  Belami’s skills were being employed in a different direction when he was finished in his laboratory. He happened to encounter Bessler on his way into the billiards room, and decided it was time to give the old boy a quizzing. He was a tall, burly man, wearing an antiquated blue jacket, shiny at the elbows, with not a suggestion of nap anywhere on it. The footmen at Beaulac were better outfitted. But with all his inelegance, there was some distinction about the man. He held his head proudly. The monocle stuck in his eye lent him a faintly menacing air, but his booming voice was friendly enough.

  “A bad business,” Bessler said, shaking his grizzled head. “The duchess is done up with it. She’s lying down now, trying to get a bit of rest, pour soul.”

  “You were with her when it happened. Can you tell me anything about the thief? Other than that he was the size and shape of me,” he added as Bessler ran his eyes over his host in an assessing manner.

  “As to that, my attention was on Her Grace. It was a ruthless business, all done more harshly than was necessary. He might have asked her to unclasp it, instead of wrenching it from her neck. You are looking for a brutal man, sir.”

  “Yes, I realize I am not looking for a timid woman,” Belami said haughtily. “Can you be more specific? We all possess five senses. Did no one employ any of them except sight? Was there anything in the way of sound, scent. . . . You are a medical man, I hear. You must be accustomed to minute observation. Was there nothing?”

  “No scent. I did not touch him, or taste him. He made no sound; didn’t say a word. One assumes he was reluctant to speak, and that is why he pulled the thing off her neck.”

  “Yes, a man’s voice can betray him,” Belami agreed, thinking that Bessler’s own accent, for instance, would be a dead giveaway. “An accent, for example.”

  “There were no other foreign guests besides me. Your groom has a French accent, has he not?” Bessler inquired. “Not that I mean to imply . . .”

  “Réal was with me at the time and therefore cannot have had anything to do with it. He is also quite small, not more than five and a half feet.”

  “Milord, you protest too much for a man whose bona fides were never in doubt! I have assured Her Grace on that point,” Bessler said, removing his monocle and polishing it on a bedraggled wisp of handkerchief.

  “How very kind of you,” Belami said, sneering. He was not accustomed to being patronized by foreigners of unknown pedigree.

  Bessler hunched his shoulders and picked up a cue. “Will you give me a game, sir?”

  “I would prefer a few moments of your undivided attention, if you will be so kind,” Belami replied. “You are the duchess’s closest friend, were with her when she got her jewel from the vault, accompanied her here, and were with her when it was stolen. Do you have any idea who could have learned she was bringing it, and stolen it from her?”

  “I have been asking myself that question,” Bessler replied in a meditative way, his eye behind his monocle looking troubled. Strange how that affectation drew attention to itself, robbing the onlooker of other facial expressions. “Her Grace has no enemies, and yet has no really close friends either. It must be a case of someone’s requiring money and not being particular about how he gets it.”

  “I think not,” Belami said bluntly. “A man in desperate need of money steals money. He does not steal a jewel that must be disposed of with some difficulty, for a small fraction of its worth. Neither does he do it in the most public way possible, at a ball. You knew, of course, that the jewel was insured.”

  “For thirty thousand pounds. Yes, I knew it. Alas, if our thief hoped to sell it back to Lloyd’s, he is out in his luck. The policy was allowed to lapse. I should have urged Her Grace to renew it when she told me her plan.”

  “You knew it, Herr Bessler, but I don’t believe this was generally known. I confess nothing else makes sense to me. Why else was it stolen at my ball?”

  “I cannot answer that. You are the clever one who indulges in crime solving. The Everton case—very well done indeed. We wait for you to explain these obscure matters to us.” Bessler leaned over the table and began arranging the balls. Then he looked over his shoulder and added, “About the lapsed policy, Bidwell knew it also. His uncle is—or was—the duchess’s agent.”

  “He made a point of telling you that, did he?” Belami asked.

  “No, the duchess told me. Sure I can’t tempt you to a game?”

  “Another time, Herr Bessler,” he answered, and strode from the room, chewing on that last-minute decision to tell him Bidwell was aware the policy had lapsed. A pity the snow prevented him from checking on all these details. Detail was the crux of the matter, but at least he could check that Bessler had known of the lapsed policy.

  He darted upstairs to inquire into this matter. “Well, well, still malingering, are we?” he asked Her Grace in a joking way.

  As she had no large vocabulary, she ignored the question. “That mutton that was sent up for lunch has given me indigestion, Belami. When you reach my age, you like softer foods. I’ll have ragout for dinner, if you please.”

  “Thy will will be done,” he said with a mock-humble bow.

  “What brings you to call, sir? Things must be dull below if you prefer my company to your own entertainments.”

  “The entertainment today is solving the crime,” he said.

  “No work for a gentleman, but I’ll help, as it is my jewel that is gone missing. What can I tell you?”

  After some preliminary questions to throw her off the track, he broached the subject of the insurance policy. “Good gracious, I’ve no idea whether I mentioned it to Herr Bessler or not. We are together three hours a day. I speak quite freely to him of all my little problems. Very likely I told him, if he said so. Yes, I remember very well lamenting it last night, and he showed no shock, so obviously he knew.”

  “But you did mention it last night? At what time?”

  “When he accompanied me upstairs to give me a session after the robbery. He is magic, you know. Any ache or pain is removed after a session with him. In fact, you can send him up now, to relieve me of this bellyache. Demmed tough mutton. Ragout, mind!”

  It was a good excuse to escape. Belami sent Snippe to request Bessler to step upstairs, while he went looking for his helpers. He found Deirdre waiting for him in the saloon, which gave a view of the hall.

  “Meg closed the upper hallway window,” she told him, as though it was nothing but crime business that interested her. “Shortly after midnight.”

  “Really? That doesn’t lie well with my theory of two men working in tandem. I mad
e sure one of ‘em hung about upstairs to close windows and cover any other traces.”

  “Have you learned anything?”

  “I’ve just been quizzing Bessler. He’s gone up to see your aunt now.”

  “He’s so very good with her. I don’t know what she would do without him,” she said.

  “What sort of treatment is it he gives? A powder, laudanum . . .” There drifted into his head a picture of Bessler quacking the old dame with laudanum, lifting the diamond from her neck while she dozed, but he knew this didn’t coincide with the actual method.

  “Oh, no, not medicine! Auntie won’t take anything of that sort. She claims it is all poison. Even coffee is slow poison in her view. He soothes her, talks, uses his fingers to manipulate the nerves in her temples. He is wonderfully effective in that way. He studied animal magnetism with Mesmer on the continent years ago.”

  “Ah, yes, that old quack Mesmer,” Belami replied, his suspicions fading. Mesmer, he knew, had been revealed as a fool, been investigated by a government commission of physicians and scientists, and fallen into disrepute. It was small wonder Bessler did not widely bruit about his training. “It actually seems to help, does it?”

  “Very much. Aunt Charney is always calmed and relaxed after Herr Bessler treats her.”

  This sounded like a means of a lonely old lady getting attention from a dependent. It was exactly how one would expect Charney to go on, using her friends and associates. “I’m afraid this is a visit that will require many treatments by Herr Bessler. Perhaps I should sic him on Bertie. She’s not feeling too chipper either.”

  “I would be happy to visit her and cheer her up, if you think it would help,” she offered.

  Looking at the stiff-necked, proper young lady, Dick did not think she would do anything but add to Bertie’s troubles. He also thought she only offered from a sense of duty. Say that for the girl, she had been very properly reared. “It might be best for me to go to her myself,” he said.

  He knew Bertie’s favorite hiding place when she had company she wished to avoid. It was a small study with a large grate and a soft sofa pulled close to it. She was there, eating away her worries. A box of her favorite bonbons was on the table beside her.