Deadly Affair: A Georgian Historical Mystery (Alec Halsey Crimance)

by Lucinda Brant

  Alec slid into the Chinese drawing room of Barr’s of Trim Street and into a conflagration of argument. The room was so designated because of the crane and lotus blossom wallpaper, elaborate Chinoserie black-lacquered sideboard and the toile du jouy covered sofas depicting the French ideal of a Chinese landscape with pagodas, lanterns and bamboo bridges. The effect would have been charming in a room four times the size, but in its present space occupied by half a dozen fractious individuals Alec wasn’t at all surprised by their irritability. He immediately wanted to push up the window sash for fresh air, to clear his head and to gather his thoughts for he was about to reveal a murderer, but being a cold night and a fire in the grate, he curbed the desire and went straight to the sideboard, poured himself a brandy and surveyed the occupants.

  Lady Rutherglen and Sir Charles Weir sat side by side on a sofa, both straight-backed and each nursing a half-glass of spirits. Talgarth Vesey was sprawled out in a wingchair, thin long legs crossed at the ankles, head leaning on his fist and eyes closed. Selina held his other hand, propped on the chair’s rounded arm, and was fanning herself with an ivory and blonde lace fan while deep in low conversation with his uncle. No need to guess their topic of discussion: both were united by mutual incredulity and affront at the Duke of Cleveley’s clandestine marriage. The final occupant, bar one, Alec was relieved had accepted his invitation, was also sprawled out in a wingchair by the fireplace. Lord George Stanton had his chin in his stock and a hand deep in the pocket of his silver threaded velvet waistcoat and was swilling brandy in a glass, brooding gaze on the little leaping flames amongst the burning logs in the grate.

  It was at Lord George that Hadrian Jeffries, the only other occupant of the room, directed a significant sidelong glance when Alec came up to the sideboard. He continued to pour drinks for the guests and deliver them on a silver salver with a suitably blank face but, Alec suspected, very much with ears wide open. Alec savored his brandy and casually directed his attention to Lord George, wondering what there was about the brooding corpulent nobleman that warranted his valet’s particular look of alarm, and then he noticed his lordship was still wearing his sword.

  “Halsey! Attend! Why are we here?”

  It was Lady Rutherglen and to add emphasis to her pronouncement she rapped the side of her glass with the closed ivory sticks of her fan.

  “Did you not come to see a ghost, my lady?”

  “Ghost? Fanciful rot!” Lady Rutherglen sniffed. “I do not believe in specters.”

  “And yet, when Sir Charles told you there was a ghost here at Barr’s you could not get here soon enough. In fact you demanded of Barr to be shown the ghost.”

  “In actuality I did not tell her ladyship that there was a ghost,” Sir Charles corrected, “but that I had seen the dead.”

  “Caught your reflection in a looking-glass, more belike, Charlie,” Lord George grumbled, not taking his eyes off the crackling fire.

  “Seeing the dead or seeing a ghost. Surely an exercise in semantics?” Selina teased. “Though I think her ladyship and Sir Charles saw neither.”

  Lady Rutherglen and Sir Charles opened their mouths to refute this when Lord George suddenly sat up and rounded on Selina with a sneer.

  “Don’t pretend you know what’s bloody-well going on here, Mrs. J-L, because you don’t!”

  “Oi! Watch your language, Stanton!” Plantagenet Halsey growled, Malacca headed cane up and pointing menacingly.

  “Ghosts and specters and the dead! Ha! You and your opiate-soaked brother are so bloody smug! You don’t know the half of it,” Stanton ranted as if the old man had not spoken. “And you can take out that earring! Only the Duchess of Cleveley has the right, the right to wear the Beaumaris diamonds.” He sat back in his chair and waved a lace-covered wrist at Alec. “Just get on with it, Halsey. The militia are waiting and you look fit to burst with smugness at wanting to show us all up as frauds, fiends and fopdoodles. Go on, get on with being so damned bloody clever!”

  There was an embarrassed silence and no one dared speak. All eyes were on Alec who drained his glass and set it aside.

  Lady Rutherglen sat forward and put out a hand to her nephew.

  “George. No more spirits—”

  “No! Don’t! I’m beyond saving now; it’s all beyond saving, now.”

  “But, George—”

  “My lady, may I counsel that we hear what Lord Halsey has to say,” Sir Charles advised. “We may all know then why we are being held captive against our will.”

  Lord George let out a series of animal sorts. “Act it out, Charlie! Don’t think the pretence will save your neck any better than it will mine! Halsey? Get on with it!”

  Alec inclined his head to Lord George, and with a brief glance at Selina and his uncle, said flatly, “I have gathered you here because you are all connected in some way to the death of the Reverend Kenneth Blackwell.”

  “Hoo-bloody-ra!” Lord George exclaimed with a pig-like snort. “That’s to the point right enough!”

  “What? All of us?”

  The second outburst came from Selina.

  “Yes.”

  “M’dear, he said connected not guilty,” the old man pointed out quietly, adding with a look about the room, “But I dare say the murderer is here in this room or the militia wouldn’t be kickin’ their heels in the corridor.”

  “First I wish to revisit the mutilation of Talgarth’s portrait of a young woman and her daughter.”

  “For God’s sake, Halsey, must we?” Lord George whined and was unsuccessful in stifling a belch. “I didn’t care for that exhibition at the time, why would I want to now? Certainly the painter don’t want to. He’s got his eyes shut tight doped to the eyelids!”

  “You know who did it, my lord,” Sir Charles said to Alec. “I told you. George did. He did it in a drunken rage.”

  “Yes you told me, Charles, but that is not what happened,” Alec countered. “And before you say so, you may well have believed Lord George to have done so, but my guess is Lady Rutherglen told you that was the case when in fact it was you, my lady, who defaced the portrait, and in a rage, though you do not have the excuse of being drunk.”

  “I have never been drunk a day in my life!” her ladyship announced, though she did not deny the accusation.

  “You received a letter of demand for payment for a portrait of yourself and your husband, which you had commissioned Talgarth Vesey to paint. You had not paid him because you did not approve of the portrait. To point out fact it was to the life and thus unflattering. You ordered he repaint the portrait to your satisfaction and when you went to his studio to see how the work was progressing you were met by Mr. Vesey’s Italian major domo Nico, the author for the demand for payment.”

  Alec paused to see if Talgarth was listening and had the satisfaction that the painter had opened one eye. He continued.

  “What you got was a momentous shock for amongst the canvases and charcoal sketches there was one in particular that caught your attention. It was a portrait of Miriam, or so you thought. Yet, how could that be? She had died in childbirth five years before. You had it from Nico that the woman in the portrait was his master’s lover. He knew differently, but it never hurts to give a painter a reputation with women, and Nico assumed such a reputation would help with commissions. It usually does. Your ladyship quickly presumed that you had been lied to about Miriam’s death and that the girl had spent the past five years living on her wits and was most definitely the painter’s whore—”

  “Painter’s whore! Ha! Auntie said as much; but his whore?” Lord George spat out, half out his chair, glaring at Talgarth “I’d sooner believe that for a lie!” and only sank back down when Alec agreed with him.

  “Yes, it is a lie. But we will get to that in a moment. To continue with Lady Rutherglen’s visit to Mr. Vesey’s studio. You, my lady, believing the lie and believing Miriam had escaped just punishment for her libidinous past, went into a rage. Nico told me you brandished a knife at him. You
were intent on doing harm, if only to extinguish your immediate fury, and so you vented your spleen on the portrait in oils of Miriam that was intended for the exhibition.”

  “No!” It was Selina and she had gasped the word. She looked swiftly at Alec and then at Talgarth, who had not moved, before staring at Lady Rutherglen who made no attempt to deny the accusation. “How could you destroy something so beautifully wrought?”

  “Was it Miriam—” Lord George asked and was interrupted.

  “Of course it’s her!” Lady Rutherglen countered. “Who else could it be? Don’t be an ass, George! She duped you—us—and ran away.”

  “No, Auntie, I don’t believe she would—”

  “Let his lordship get on with it,” Plantagenet Halsey growled, “and you two can scrap about it on the carpet later!”

  “As Lady Rutherglen does not deny taking a knife to Mr. Vesey’s portrait, let us move on to its further destruction and complete obliteration of the person in the portrait with the application of red paint. Having vented her spleen, her ladyship left the studio. Nico would have been beside himself as to what to do. If he told his master he risked having to tell him about the threatening letters he had written in his name as well as trying to explain Lady Rutherglen’s particular anger at the pronouncement that the woman in the portrait was the painter’s mistress. And as it was his letter which had brought Lady Rutherglen to the studio in the first place, he blamed himself for the portrait’s destruction.

  “He panicked and did the only thing he could think of. He had the portrait uploaded onto the cart and covered in black cloth, telling his master to leave the cloth in place until the portrait’s unveiling at the gallery. I dare say Nico hoped that a mishap might befall the portrait between Bath and London that would negate him ever having to confess. It arrived safely in London, and the rest you know.”

  “So it was Nico’s idea to drape the portrait in black cloth?” Selina asked her brother.

  Talgarth shrugged. “It is of no consequence, Lina. None of it.” He opened an eye to stare at Lady Rutherglen who was fanning herself languidly. “It’s not as if he had a hope in Hades of defending the painting against a dog-ugly dowager brandishing a dagger.”

  “The red paint..?” Plantagenet Halsey prompted.

  “When Tam and I left the Milsom Street studio after talking with Nico I noticed the property next door was under renovation. Scaffolding still covered the façade. The door was newly painted: A vibrant red. I can only assume that Molyneux found a pot of paint by the freshly painted door. He splashed the paint over the portrait, using his hands to smear the paint in well and truly. Leaving the canvas ripped would still have allowed anyone viewing the destruction to identify the sitter.”

  “Molyneux? Robert Molyneux? His Grace of Cleveley’s valet?”

  Alec inclined his head to Sir Charles who had voiced the rest of the room’s incredulity.

  “Yes. Nico told me that a man with severe smallpox scaring had visited the studio upon several occasions and offered to buy up all the likenesses of the woman in the destroyed portrait. And that he spotted Molyneux across the road from the studio on the day of Lady Rutherglen’s visit. He might not have witnessed her take a knife to the portrait but he would have seen the men put the destroyed canvas on the cart under Nico’s direction, and Nico cover it with black cloth. Molyneux would have known at once that Lady Rutherglen had stabbed the woman in the portrait, and he would have known why. He did the only thing possible to protect not only his master, but the woman and the little girl in the portrait. He made certain no one would recognize them, and then he reported everything he saw and knew to the Duke. Molyneux is very astute. He is also fiercely loyal and, beneath the cold exterior,” Alec added with a small smile, “at his heart, he is a romantic.”

  “What? Molyneux a-a romantic?” Lord George blustered. “What tripe! The man’s a valet for God’s sake. He does what he’s told. He’s not in service to have feelings. You’re not making sense, Halsey. And if you would all just listen to me—”

  “Shut up, George!” Lady Rutherglen snapped, fan waving in agitation. “Of course you cannot prove any of this,” she said to Alec with a haughty sniff. “No one will believe the word of a little foreign monkey and his drug addicted organ grinder over mine.”

  “Oh, I would not treat the intelligence of others so shabbily, my lady. I am confident everyone in this room believes you capable of taking a knife to a canvas in a fit of parental fury.” When no one disagreed, Alec said, “Once you had spent your anger on the portrait you decided to exact your revenge. To do so you needed to discover Miriam’s whereabouts and so you struck upon the idea of blackmail. Nico’s letter of demand gave you that idea. You told your nephew George and Sir Charles about the portrait and that you had made the startling discovery that Miriam was alive. You had proof. Miriam’s current lover, the painter Talgarth Vesey was demanding money or Lord George would be exposed to the world as a rapist. Naturally, Sir Charles offered his help. Being the consummate politician he did so not for altruistic reasons—

  Plantagenet Halsey huffed. “How surprisin’!”

  “—but to ensure Lord George, the future Duke of Cleveley was in his debt. The rumor circulating Westminster halls and drawing rooms is that the present Duke of Cleveley is to resign from office and relinquish his posts. No one knows why but everyone assumes it was because the death of his Duchess the year before has taken its toll on his health. As the great man has made no comment either way, the rumor has strengthened into belief.” Alec looked at Sir Charles; his smile was grim. “You knew for a fact Cleveley was on the brink of resignation; you had this information from the Duke’s political rival Lord Russell, whose friendship and patronage you had been cultivating for some time and who you hoped would make you his son-in-law by allowing you to marry his daughter Lady Henrietta—”

  Lord George burst into incredulous laughter.

  “What? Hatty Russell and you, Charlie? Come now! You can’t be serious! Hatty’s prospects of a great match are slim to none at best but even Russell wouldn’t stoop so low as to marry off his daughter to a lowly secretary turned MP, however damaged her goods!”

  Sir Charles was up off the sofa, fists and teeth clenched.

  “Retract those remarks, my lord! Retract or I’ll—or I’ll—”

  “Retract what? That you’re a lowly secretary or that Hatty is damaged goods?” Lord George asked with a shrug. He drained his glass of brandy and held the tumbler up for Hadrian Jeffries to replenish. “No, Charlie, I won’t, cause they’re both true.”

  Lady Rutherglen caught at the skirts of Sir Charles’s frockcoat and pulled him backwards before he had taken two steps forward. “Sit and be quiet!”

  “My lady, I cannot allow Lord George to besmirch the name of the woman I—”

  “Shut up!” Lady Rutherglen hissed. “Shut up if you know what is good for you!”

  Lord George laughed at the antics of his aunt and the secretary while Selina, the old man and her brother were baffled by them. Alec understood and thus was not surprised when Lord George said matter-of-factly,

  “For God’s sake, secretary, you must be the only man in London who has not a jot of inkling that it was me who tupped Hatty behind the firescreen at the Cavendish Fireworks. Nice plump thighs, has Hatty, and a bit of a giggler,” he added with a smile of recollection, taking the tumbler of brandy from the silver tray offered him by Hadrian Jeffries, who almost overset the lot at his lordship’s self-satisfied pronouncement. “Likes her men big thighed as well. Suppose that’s why she came back for seconds at the Devonshire turn out…” He grinned at Sir Charles. “Bet you’re slim in every department, hey Charlie? Wouldn’t satisfy Hatty one bit; not one bit.”

  Sir Charles made a lunge for a smugly laughing Lord George and Hadrian Jeffries stuck out his foot. It was an instinctive movement and once done could not be undone. So when Sir Charles tripped and fell flat on his face, not only did Selina gasp but so did Hadrian Jeffries. Lord
George laughed louder and pointed a fat finger of accusation at the valet, who stood as stone. With a hard jerk of his head, Alec sent Jeffries scurrying to the sideboard, face aglow. Alec helped his old school friend to his feet, marched him across the carpet to the sofa and pushed him onto the seat.

  “Stay there. Say nothing,” Alec ordered and rounded on Lord George. “You will also hold your tongue until I’m done. No one is interested in your crude conduct except Lord Russell and your father, the meaning behind their very public meeting at the Opera now patently obvious!”

  It was not so obvious to the others in the drawing room who were still fathoming it out when Plantagenet Halsey said quietly,

  “You were sayin’ ’bout the secretary’s part in helpin’ Lady Rutherglen with the blackmail of Stanton…”

  “Yes. Thank you, Uncle. Lady Rutherglen was determined to discover where Miriam was hiding and needed a way of flushing her out into the open,” Alec continued. “Blackmail was the device and I the means. Charles enlisted my help, his old school friend, thinking me gullible enough to swallow their story of blackmail and knowing I would always help an old friend.” He met Selina’s unblinking gaze and when she smiled, he smiled back. “My connection to the Vesey family, in particular my attachment to Mrs. Jamison-Lewis, and her love for her brother, was used to persuade me to cooperate, Sir Charles confident that Talgarth Vesey was the blackmailer. This plan went ahead in spite of the death of the Reverend Blackwell. I say in spite of because everything changed when I happened to sit beside the Reverend Blackwell at dinner and the good vicar died at my feet.”

  “Huzzah! ’bout time we got to the shabby vicar!” Lord George announced with a smack of his lips as he drained another glass free of brandy. He immediately shut his mouth at a glare from Alec and pouted like a naughty schoolboy.

  “Why do you say happened?” Selina asked, exchanging a frown with Plantagenet Halsey. “As if the vicar died without warning when you suspected he was murdered? Was he murdered?”