The Adventuress

by Tasha Alexander

  After Margaret had returned the earpiece to its cradle, she pushed back from the desk on which it stood and let out a long, low whistle.

  “Sometimes, you know, I nearly forget that you are American,” I said. “And then you whistle like a cowgirl.”

  Margaret grinned. “What makes you think only cowgirls know how to whistle? Amity Wells has a rather colorful history that her parents have gone to great lengths to hide.”

  “Do tell.”

  “Evidently, two seasons ago, she was deeply infatuated with the son of one of the lesser railroad barons. My mother would not tell me who, and I suppose it does not much matter. Mrs. Wells and her husband never gave the situation any serious regard, as they considered the gentleman far below their daughter’s status.” Margaret rolled her eyes. “When he approached Mr. Wells to ask for Amity’s hand and was rebuffed, the matter would have been closed, except that Amity did not take the news lying down. She arranged to run off with him, in the dark of night, and they planned to elope somewhere upstate. She was thwarted, however, by a servant who heard her coming down the stairs with a valise she could barely carry, and the whole affair was hushed up as much as possible.”

  “Hence the need to take her abroad to find a suitable husband,” I said.

  “According to my mother, that was always Mrs. Wells’s plan,” Margaret said. “She has had it in her head for ages that Amity ought to marry someone with a title. The failed elopement only spurred her to act sooner than she had originally planned.”

  “Poor Amity,” I said, feeling more sympathy for the girl than I had before. “I have been so very hard on her because I thought she was only pretending to be what she thinks Jeremy wants, but now I wonder if she is only doing what she can to help her forget the man she truly loves.”

  “The worst part is that the man she loved has recently announced his engagement. I have no doubt Mrs. Wells is aware of the fact, but it is possible that Amity doesn’t know.”

  “I suppose it is hardly of consequence, is it? She has accepted that she must do as her parents wish. It is rather sad.”

  “Do you think she truly cares for Jeremy?” Margaret asked.

  “I do believe she does, in her way,” I said. “She has already been thwarted once in love and it would not surprise me to find that she is holding back a small piece of her heart. Could you blame her?”

  “No,” Margaret said, “although I do very much blame her for going along with her parents’ scheme.”

  “She must think she has no choice,” I said. “Given the … er … force of her personality, she would not otherwise have agreed to their plans. I am going to endeavor to be kinder to her.”

  “Take care that she doesn’t mistake it for pity,” Margaret said. “She would resent that.”

  “Ring your mother back, Margaret,” I said. “I should like to know the name of the rejected suitor. Could it be that he is bent on disrupting her wedding and disposing of her groom? Perhaps he is trying to escape an engagement forced on him by his own parents.”

  “Capital idea,” Margaret said, and returned to the phone. It took a considerable amount of begging for her to convince her mother to reveal the name. Mrs. Seward insisted she would not stoop to the level of forwarding gossip, but at last relinquished the information. Margaret then placed another call, this time to an old friend of hers in Manhattan, who, she insisted, knew everything about everything and everyone. After a chat of nearly a quarter of an hour—I shuddered at the thought of what these calls would cost—she could not control her excitement.

  “Yes?” I prodded, knowing how she loved to prolong the anticipation of her audience when she was in possession of particularly desirable information.

  “Mr. Marshall Cabot sailed for France the day following the announcement of his engagement,” Margaret said. “The Herald Tribune reported his arrival in Paris two days before Mr. Neville’s death. Should we go there directly, do you think?”

  “We can make discreet inquiries,” I said. “Do we know if he is still there?”

  “I have the name of the hotel. Shall we ring them?”

  “Not quite yet,” I said. “Let us consult with Colin and Cécile. You have not yet told me what you learned this afternoon.”

  * * *

  Margaret and I extricated Colin and Cécile from a game of poker Amity had started at a table in the lobby; while Amity looked less than pleased, Cécile made no attempt to hide her relief.

  “Mon dieu,” she said. “Such a dreadful game. So coarse. It makes me hope to never again see a deck of cards.” She had insisted that we go to her rooms, where there were two bottles of chilled champagne waiting for us. “I would rather have absinthe with dancing girls, and you know I do not drink absinthe.”

  “What did Marie and the others have to say to you today?” I asked.

  “Unfortunately, nothing of note,” Margaret said as I refused her offer of the champagne she was pouring for the others. “I do not believe they have any more information that can help us. We asked about people who were less fond of Hélène, and spoke to two waiters and a baccarat dealer. The dealer was jealous of the second waiter, whom he correctly suspected of being in love with Hélène, and his ire at the girl resulted from his incorrect belief that she returned the sentiment.”

  “But you made it sound as if the second waiter was also less than fond of Hélène,” I said.

  “Well he was,” Margaret continued, “once he began to think the baccarat dealer was a serious rival. Hélène objected to his possessiveness, and quite threw him over.”

  “And the first waiter?” Colin asked.

  “He believes that she put on airs by speaking too much about the ballet in Paris, where she felt she belonged,” Margaret said. “As for neighbors, none of them spoke a word against her. They all described her as sweet.”

  “Sweet, oui,” Cécile said, “but it was clear that they wished she would abandon her occupation. They feared it was too closely connected to, shall we say, undesirable outcomes. What is interesting is that they did not entirely judge her for dancing. They felt, it seems, that she could still be saved. The son of the cheesemonger, who lives two streets over from the Soucy house, had hoped to pay her court, but she refused to let him, telling him she was not worthy.”

  “Was he angry at the rejection?” Colin asked.

  “Not in the least,” Cécile said. “He viewed her response to him as nothing more than an opening gambit.”

  “And what about your day, Colin?” I asked. “What can you tell us about Jack?”

  “Genuinely loves army life. Bainbridge has arranged things for him financially so that he never need worry, even should he leave his chosen profession. I do not believe he has any designs on his brother’s title.”

  “I could have told you that,” I said. “I did practically grow up with the two of them.”

  “And, as such, are a terribly biased and unreliable—although extremely charming—witness,” Colin said.

  “There is one more thing that we have been desperate to show you,” Margaret said. “I am confident you will admire our restraint in not pulling them out with the others present. Or during the fireworks. We searched both the dressing room in the casino and Hélène’s room at the Soucys’ and found these hidden amongst her things.” She handed me a small leather box that contained a pair of gold cuff links engraved with the arms of the Bainbridge family.

  Amity

  “There was no need for Emily to disrupt your game,” Birdie said.

  “Mother, you are causing a scene,” Amity said through clenched teeth. “Do sit down or go upstairs. People are beginning to stare.” She flung her cards down onto the table.

  “It is fortunate my own mother is not here,” Jeremy said. “I am quite certain, Mrs. Wells, she would never stand for ladies playing poker. You two might have come to blows.” His attempt to lighten the mood fell flat as his soon-to-be mother-in-law scowled at him.

  “Are you defending Lady Emily?” Birdie
asked. “Suggesting, perhaps, that your mother would have found her to have been a more suitable bride?”

  “Please excuse me,” Jack said, rising from the table, discomfort writ all over his face. “I quite forgot a letter I must write. Mother will never forgive me.”

  “Would you be so kind as to help me find a good spot for writing, Jack?” Amity asked, standing as well. “I am certain I, too, have correspondence waiting to be written.” Christabel gave her a look that pleaded for rescue, but Amity was not about to risk being further censured by Birdie, and did not wait for even an instant before leaving with Jack.

  “Your mother seems bent on finding controversy everywhere,” he said.

  “You cannot begin to understand the pathology of the woman,” Amity said, rushing him along the corridor. “She is driven by dark forces.”

  Jack laughed. “I do so admire your flair for the dramatic.”

  “I feel dreadful leaving Christabel and Jeremy with her, but could not bear to stay a moment longer,” she said. “I do hope they can find it in their hearts to forgive me.”

  “Of course they will.”

  “Do you really have letters to write, Jack?” Amity asked.

  “No,” he admitted. “I just wanted to escape. You?”

  “The same.”

  “I am glad that we have wound up together in more or less private circumstances,” Jack said, opening the door to the games room and leading Amity to the same table he had earlier occupied with Christabel. There was a group of Italians playing cards in one corner, but other than that, the room was empty. “May I broach a subject of some delicacy with you?”

  “So long as it would not horrify your brother.” Amity’s eyes sparkled.

  “I had thought that I was close to having an understanding with Christabel, but recently it seems that she…”

  Amity did not finish the sentence for him as his voice wavered. She began returning the pieces on the chessboard between them to their starting positions, but remained silent. Finished now, she folded her hands and rested them on her lap, not removing her eyes from his.

  “You are going to force me to say it?” Jack asked.

  “You know, Jack, that I consider you to be one of my closest friends,” she said, “but you cannot expect that I would betray the confidence of another so dear to my heart.”

  “Is Christabel in love with me?” His eyes brightened as he spoke and color rose in his cheeks. “I begin to worry that Fairchild—”

  “You must take this up with Christabel. I cannot—”

  “Please, Amity. I am very nearly your brother, and I only want to know if there is any hope that I can make Christabel happy. If her affections are no longer what they used to be, I shall trouble her no further.”

  “Your love must not run very deep if you are so quick to abandon it,” Amity said, moving the chess pieces to random positions on the board. “Would you like me to tell that to Christabel?”

  “I would not be quick to abandon it, but I would always respect her feelings, and if she is not—”

  “You want me to give you private and extremely sensitive information so that you can best decide how to act without risking embarrassment.” She plopped the white queen down in the center of the board.

  “Is that so wrong?”

  “Love, Jack, is full of risk and embarrassment. If you do not have the stomach for it…”

  “So you are telling me she does not love me?”

  “I never said any such thing. It sounds to me as if you need to search your heart and decide what it is you want. We are to remain here in Cannes for several more days. I would hope that by the time we depart, you will know yourself well enough to speak to Christabel without confusing her.”

  “Can you offer me no words of encouragement?” Jack’s eyes bulged and he looked rather desperate.

  “Do you love her only if she loves you?” Amity asked. “If so, that is a very poor sort of love. I will not betray your confidence by telling Christabel anything about it, and for that you should thank me. It would bring her nothing but disappointment.”

  20

  Cécile, noticing that I had refused her champagne, took the much-appreciated liberty of ordering for me a pot of tea. I had never quite warmed up after my time in the rain. I took the cuff links from Margaret and removed them from their box so that I might better study them. “Jeremy does not wear these with evening kit,” I said. “He always insists on his ruby and diamond quatrefoil cluster set—he goes on about them at such length it is impossible not to notice. She must have taken these from his room.”

  “Which would mean that she poisoned the whisky,” Margaret said.

  “Not necessarily,” Colin said, “but it does mean she was almost certainly in his room. We have nothing firm beyond that.”

  “And what does that mean, Monsieur Hargreaves?” Cécile asked. “Are we to believe she was there without his knowledge?”

  “I think we must,” I said. “Jeremy would have confessed if he had brought her there.” Cécile raised her hands to object, but Colin silenced her.

  “Emily is correct concerning this matter. I do not believe Bainbridge brought the girl to his room.”

  “So how did she get in to take the cuff links?” Margaret asked.

  “I have not the slightest idea,” Colin said. “I shall see what I can find out about Marshall Cabot, however. The Sûreté in Paris may be able to help us on that count. Was there anything else of note in Hélène’s room? Letters? Papers?”

  “Nothing at all,” Cécile said. “Their very absence struck me as odd.”

  “I quite agree,” I said. “Her mother, at least, would have written to her. The person who murdered her must have taken or destroyed all of her correspondence, which suggests that that individual may have used letters to communicate with Hélène.”

  “Which, in turn, suggests that individual is the person who wanted Jeremy dead!” Margaret slammed her hand onto the table in front of her. It would have made for a more effective punctuation to her statement if the table had not been so much lower than the divan on which she was sitting, causing her to nearly topple over.

  Colin and I looked at each other. “It is as viable a theory as any we have at present,” I said.

  * * *

  My husband’s colleagues at the Sûreté, with whom he had worked on our case in France the year before, agreed to make inquiries about Marshall Cabot, and before noon the next day, Colin rang them to hear the results. Cabot was still in Paris, traveling with two of his friends. They had not left the city since, even to go so far as Versailles, and none of them had received any mail at the hotel, nor had they sent any telegrams.

  “He could have sent a telegram from somewhere else in the city,” I said as Meg was fighting with my hair to make it respectable looking before I went downstairs for lunch. We had taken breakfast—an extremely long breakfast—in our rooms.

  “Of course,” Colin said, leaning against the wall in the dressing room, his long legs crossed at the ankles. “They are going to continue to watch him, but I think it will be difficult for us to uncover any connection to Hélène. The best thing now will be for us to give them a few days to trail him.”

  “Is there anything more we can do here in the meantime?” I asked. “Inquire as to whether he is known at the casino here, perhaps?”

  “I will do that this afternoon,” he said.

  “Will you require my assistance?”

  “No, it will be easier for me to do what I need to alone.”

  “Then perhaps I will organize that trip to Cimiez I have been promising Amity. I still feel a bit guilty for having lied to her about Margaret and me going to the ruins.”

  It was too late to go to Nice that day, but I spoke to Amity, and we agreed that two days hence would be perfect. The gentlemen were planning a sailing excursion for tomorrow, and we did not want to conflict with that. “I only wish I had thought to write to the director of the excavations there,” I said. “He m
ight have been able to give us a tour himself. I suppose I could send him a telegram.”

  “We don’t need that,” Amity said. “I’m sure he would be a fine man, but you must admit that the odds of him being anything other than, well, boring, are unlikely. I want to explore the ruins on my own, running through them and imagining what it would have been like for a Roman girl. Should we wear togas, do you think?”

  “Ladies did not wear togas,” Margaret said, disgust straining the features of her face. “They wore tunics, a peplos or a chiton if they wanted sleeves. A married woman might wear a stola over another tunic, but I have always thought they look a bit frumpy. You might instead focus on a Roman hairstyle, Amity. They were quite elaborate and spectacular. The manner favored by the Flavian empresses would suit you.”

  I covered my mouth with my hand and shot Margaret what I hoped she would interpret as an evil look. The Flavian ladies’ coiffure consisted of a tall mass of curls heaped up on the front of the head, almost like a crown, with the rest of the hair pinned into place smoothly in the back, so that the difference of height, if viewed in profile, was astonishing. It could be described in any number of ways, but attractive was not one of them, and it was very bad of Margaret to mention it to Amity. Her motive was perfectly clear to me, and although I did, secretly, applaud it, I knew Amity wearing Flavian coiffure could be nothing but a bad idea.

  “I don’t suppose, Margaret, you have a book that includes an illustration of the style,” Amity said. “I have quite an idea forming.”

  “Indeed, I do,” Margaret said. “I shall run upstairs and fetch it for you, but only if you first tell me your idea.”