Lord John and the Private Matter lj-1

by Diana Gabaldon

  “Well, then. When he left the house this time, did he go out in the morning? Or later in the day?”

  The girls frowned and conferred with each other in murmurs, before deciding that, well, in fact, they had neither of them actually seen Herr Reinhardt leave the house, and no, they had not heard the carriage draw up, but—

  “He must have done, though, Annie,” Tab said, sufficiently engrossed in the argument as to lose some of her timidity. “’Coz he wasn’t in his bedroom in the afternoon, was he? Herr Reinhardt likes to have a bit of a sleep in the afternoon,” she explained, turning to Grey. “I turns down the bed right after lunch, and I did it that day—but it wasn’t mussed when I went up after teatime. So he must have gone in the morning, then, mustn’t he?”

  The questioning proceeded in this tedious fashion for some time, but Grey succeeded in eliciting only a few helpful pieces of information, most of these negative in nature.

  No, they did not think their mistress owned a green velvet gown, though of course she might have ordered one made; her personal maid would know. No, the mistress really wasn’t at home today, or at least they didn’t think so. No, they did not know for sure when she had left the house—but yes, she was here yesterday, and last night, yes. Had she been in the house on Tuesday last? They thought so, but could not really remember.

  “Has a gentleman by the name of Joseph Trevelyan ever visited the house?” he asked. The girls exchanged shrugs and looked at him, baffled. How would they know? Their work was all abovestairs; they would seldom see any visitors to the house, save those who stayed overnight.

  “Your mistress—you say that she was at home last night. When is the last time you saw her?”

  The girls frowned, as one. Annie glanced at Tab; Tab made a small moue of puzzlement at Annie. Both shrugged.

  “Well . . . I don’t rightly know, my lord,” Annie said. “She’s been poorly, the mistress. She’s been a-staying in her room all day, with trays brought up. I go in to change the linens regular, to be sure, but she’d be in her boudoir, or the privy closet. I suppose I haven’t seen her proper since—well, maybe since . . . Monday?” She raised her brows at Tab, who shrugged.

  “Poorly,” Grey repeated. “She was ill?”

  “Yes, sir,” Tab said, taking heart from having an actual piece of information to impart. “The doctor came, and all.”

  He inquired further, but to no avail. Neither, it seemed, had actually seen the doctor, nor heard anything regarding their mistress’s ailment; they had only heard of it from Cook . . . or was it from Ilse, the mistress’s lady’s maid?

  Abandoning this line of questioning, Grey was inspired by the mention of gossip to inquire further about their master.

  “You would not know this from personal experience, of course,” he said, altering his smile to one of courteous apology, “but perhaps Herr Mayrhofer’s valet might have let something drop. . . . I am wondering whether your master has any particular marks or oddities? Upon his body, I mean.”

  Both girls’ faces went completely blank, and then suffused with blood, so rapidly that they were transformed within seconds into a pair of tomatoes, ripe to bursting point. They exchanged brief glances, and Annie let out a high-pitched squeak that might have been a strangled giggle.

  He hardly needed further confirmation at this point, but the girls—with many stifled half-shrieks and muffling of their mouths with their hands—did eventually confess that, well, yes, the valet, Herr Waldemar, hadexplained to Hilde the parlor maid exactly why he required so much shaving soap. . . .

  He dismissed the girls, who went out giggling, and sank down for a moment’s respite on the brocaded chair by the desk, resting his head on his folded arms as he waited for his heart to cease pounding quite so hard.

  So, the identity of the corpse was established, at least. And a connexion of some sort between Reinhardt Mayrhofer, the brothel in Meacham Street—and Joseph Trevelyan. But that connexion rested solely on a whore’s word, and on his own identification of the green velvet gown, he reminded himself.

  What if Nessie was wrong, and the man who left the brothel dressed in green was not Trevelyan? But it was, he reminded himself. Richard Caswell had admitted it. And now a rich Austrian had turned up dead, dressed in what certainly appeared to be the same green gown worn by Magda, the madam of Meacham Street—which was in turn presumably the same gown worn by Trevelyan. And Mayrhofer was an Austrian who left his home on frequent mysterious journeys.

  Grey was reasonably sure that he had discovered Mr. Bowles’s unknown shark. And if Reinhardt Mayrhofer was indeed a spymaster . . . then the solution to the death of Tim O’Connell most likely lay in the black realm of statecraft and treachery, rather than the blood-red one of lust and revenge.

  But the Scanlons were gone, he reminded himself. And what part, in the name of God, did Joseph Trevelyan play in all this?

  His heart was slowing again; he swallowed the metallic taste in his mouth and raised his head, to find himself looking at what he had half-seen but not consciously registered before: a large painting that hung above the desk, erotic in nature, mediocre in craftsmanship—and with the initials “RM” worked cunningly into a bunch of flowers in the corner.

  He rose, wiping sweaty palms on the skirt of his coat, and glanced quickly round the room. There were two more of the same nature, indisputably by the same hand as the paintings that decorated Magda’s boudoir. All signed “RM.”

  It was additional evidence of Mayrhofer’s connexions, were any needed. But it caused him also to wonder afresh about Trevelyan. He had only Caswell’s word for it that Trevelyan’s inamoratawas a woman—otherwise, he would be sure that the Cornishman’s rendezvous were kept with Mayrhofer . . . for whatever purpose.

  “And the day you trust Dickie Caswell’s word about anything, you foolish sod . . .” he muttered, pushing himself up from the chair. On his way out the door, he spotted the dish of congealing egg whites, and took a moment to thrust it hastily into the drawer of the desk.

  Von Namtzen had herded the rest of the servants into the library for further inquisition. Hearing Grey come in, he turned to greet him.

  “They are both gone, certainly. He, some days ago, she, sometime in the night—no one saw. Or so these servants say.” Here he turned to bend a hard eye on the butler, who flinched.

  “Ask them about the doctor, if you please,” Grey said, glancing from face to face.

  “Doctor? You are unwell again?” Von Namtzen snapped his fingers and pointed at a stout woman in an apron, who must be the cook. “You—more eggs!”

  “No, no! I am quite well, I thank you. The chambermaids said that Mrs. Mayrhofer was ill this week, and that a doctor had come. I wish to know if any of them saw him.”

  “Ah?” Von Namtzen looked interested at this, and at once began peppering the ranks before him with questions. Grey leaned inconspicuously on a bookshelf, affecting an air of keen attention, while the next bout of dizziness spent itself.

  The butler and the lady’s maid had seen the doctor, von Namtzen reported, turning to interpret his results to Grey. He had come several times to attend Frau Mayrhofer.

  Grey swallowed. Perhaps he should have drunk the last batch of egg whites; they could not taste half so foul as the copper tang in his mouth.

  “Did the doctor give his name?” he asked.

  No, he had not. He did not dress quite like a doctor, the butler offered, but had seemed confident in his manner.

  “Did not dress like a doctor? What does he mean by that?” Grey asked, straightening up.

  More interrogation, answered by helpless shrugs from the butler. He did not wear a black suit, was the essential answer, but rather a rough blue coat and homespun breeches. The butler knit his brow, trying to recall further details.

  “He did not smell of blood!” von Namtzen reported. “He smelled instead of . . . plants? Can that be correct?”

  Grey closed his eyes briefly, and saw bunches of dried herbs hanging from darke
ned rafters, the fragrant gold dust drifting down from their leaves in answer to footsteps on the floor above.

  “Was the doctor Irish?” he asked, opening his eyes.

  Now even von Namtzen looked slightly puzzled.

  “How would they tell the difference between an Irishman and an Englishman?” he said. “It is the same language.”

  Grey drew a deep breath, but rather than attempt to explain the obvious, changed tack and gave a brief description of Finbar Scanlon. This, translated, resulted in immediate nods of recognition from butler and maid.

  “This is important?” von Namtzen asked, watching Grey’s face.

  “Very.” Grey folded his hands into fists, trying to think. “It is of the greatest importance that we discover where Frau Mayrhofer is. This ‘doctor’ is very likely a spy, in the Mayrhofers’ employ, and I very much suspect that the lady is in possession of something that His Majesty would strongly prefer to have back.”

  He glanced over the ranks of the servants, who had started whispering among themselves, casting looks of awe, annoyance, or puzzlement at the two officers.

  “Are you convinced that they are ignorant of the lady’s whereabouts?”

  Von Namtzen narrowed his eyes, considering, but before he could reply, Grey became aware of a slight stir among the servants, several of whom were looking toward the door behind him.

  He turned to see Tom Byrd standing there, freckles dark on his round face, and fairly quivering with excitement. In his hands were a pair of worn shoes.

  “Me lord!” he said, holding them out. “Look! They’re Jack’s!”

  Grey seized the shoes, which were large and very worn, the leather across the toes scuffed and cracked. Sure enough, the initials “JB” had been burnt into the soles. One of the heels was loose, hanging from its parent shoe by a single nail. Leather, and round at the back, as Tom had said.

  “Who is Jack?” von Namtzen inquired, looking from Tom Byrd to the shoes, with obvious puzzlement.

  “Mr. Byrd’s brother,” Grey explained, still turning the shoes over in his hands. “We have been in search of him for some time. Could you please inquire of the servants as to the whereabouts of the man who owns these shoes?”

  Von Namtzen was in many ways an admirable associate, Grey thought; he asked no further questions of his own, but merely nodded and returned to the fray, pointing at the shoes and firing questions in a sharp but businesslike manner, as though he fully expected prompt answers.

  Such was his air of command, he got them. The household, originally alarmed and then demoralized, had now fallen under von Namtzen’s sway, and appeared to have quite accepted him as temporary master of both the house and the situation.

  “The shoes belong to a young man, an Englishman,” he reported to Grey, following a brief colloquy with butler and cook. “He was brought into the house more than a week ago, by a friend of Frau Mayrhofer; the Frau told Herr Burkhardt”—he inclined his head toward the butler, who bowed in acknowledgment—“that the young man was to be treated as a servant of the house, fed and accommodated. She did not explain why he was here, saying only that the situation would be temporary.”

  The butler at this point interjected something; von Namtzen nodded, waving a hand to quell further remarks.

  “Herr Burkhardt says that the young man was not given specific duties, but that he was helpful to the maids. He would not leave the house, nor would he go far away from Frau Mayrhofer’s rooms, insisting upon sleeping in the closet at the end of the hall near her suite. Herr Burkhardt had the feeling that the young man was guarding Frau Mayrhofer—but from what, he does not know.”

  Tom Byrd had been listening to all of this with visible impatience, and could contain himself no longer.

  “The devil with what he was doing here—where’s Jack gone?” he demanded.

  Grey had his own pressing question, as well.

  “This friend of Frau Mayrhofer—do they know his name? Can they describe him?”

  With strict attention to social precedence, von Namtzen obtained the answer to Grey’s question first.

  “The gentleman gave his name as Mr. Josephs. However, the butler says that he does not think this is his true name—the gentleman hesitated when asked for his name. He was very . . .” Von Namtzen hesitated himself, groping for translation. “ Fein herausgeputzt. Very . . . polished.”

  “Well dressed,” Grey amended. The room seemed very warm, and sweat was trickling down the seam of his back.

  Von Namtzen nodded. “A bottle-green silk coat, with gilt buttons. A good wig.”

  “Trevelyan,” Grey said, with a sense of inevitability that was composed in equal parts of relief and dismay. He took a deep breath; his heart was racing again. “And Jack Byrd?”

  Von Namtzen shrugged.

  “Gone. They suppose that he went with Frau Mayrhofer, for no one has seen him since last night.”

  “Why’d he leave his shoes behind? Ask ’em that!” Tom Byrd was so upset that he neglected to add a “sir,” but von Namtzen, seeing the boy’s distress, graciously overlooked it.

  “He exchanged these shoes for the working pair belonging to this footman.” The Hanoverian nodded at a tall young man who was following the conversation intently, brows knitted in the effort of comprehension. “He did not say why he wished it—perhaps because of the damaged heel; the other pair were also very worn, but serviceable.”

  “Why did this young man agree to the exchange?” Grey asked, nodding at the footman. The nod was a mistake; the dizziness rolled suddenly out of its hiding place and revolved slowly round the inside of his skull like a tilting quintain.

  A question, an answer. “Because these are leather, with metal buckles,” von Namtzen reported. “The shoes he exchanged were simple clogs, with wooden soles and heels.”

  At this point, Grey’s knees gave up the struggle, and he lowered himself into a chair, covering his eyes with the heels of his hands. He breathed shallowly, his thoughts spinning round in slow circles like the orbs of his father’s orrery, light flashing from memory to memory, hearing Harry Quarry say, Sailors all wear wooden heels; leather’s slippery on deck,and then, Trevelyan? Father a baronet, brother in Parliament, a fortune in Cornish tin, up to his eyeballs in the East India Company?

  “Oh, Christ,” he said, and dropped his hands. “They’re sailing.”

  Chapter 16

  Lust Is Perjur’d

  It took no little effort to persuade both von Namtzen and Tom Byrd that he was capable of independent movement and would not fall facedown in the street—the more so as he was not entirely sure of it himself. In the end, though, Tom Byrd went reluctantly to Jermyn Street to pack a bag, and von Namtzen—even more reluctantly—was convinced that his own path of duty lay in perusing the contents of Mayrhofer’s desk.

  “No one else is capable of reading whatever papers may be there,” Grey pointed out. “The man is dead, and was very likely a spy. I will send someone from the regiment at once to take charge of the premises—but if there is anything urgent in those papers . . .”

  Von Namtzen compressed his lips, but nodded.

  “You will take care?” he asked earnestly, putting a large, warm hand on the nape of Grey’s neck, and bending down to look searchingly into his face. The Hanoverian’s eyes were a troubled gray, with small lines of worry round them.

  “I will,” Grey said, and did his best to smile in reassurance. He handed Tom a scribbled note, desiring Harry Quarry to send a German speaker at once to Mecklenberg Square, and took his leave.

  Three choices, he thought, breathing deeply to control the dizziness as he stepped into a commercial coach. The offices of the East India Company, in Lamb’s Conduit Street. Trevelyan’s chief man of business, a fellow named Royce, who kept offices in the Temple. Or Neil the Cunt.

  The sun was nearly down, an evening fog dulling its glow like the steam off a fresh-fired cannonball. That made the choice simple; he could not hope to reach Westminster or the Temple before e
veryone had gone home for the night. But he knew where Stapleton lived; he had made it his business to find out, after the unsettling interview with Bowles.

  “You want what?” Stapleton had been asleep when Grey pounded on his door; he was in his shirt and barefoot. He knuckled one bleary eye, regarding Grey incredulously with the other.

  “The names and sailing dates for any ships licensed to the East India Company leaving England this month. Now.”

  Stapleton had both eyes open now. He blinked slowly, scratching his ribs.

  “How would I know such a thing?”

  “I don’t suppose you would. Someone in Bowles’s employ does, though, and I expect you can find out where the information is, without undue loss of time. The matter is urgent.”

  “Oh, is it?” Neil’s mouth twisted, and the lower lip protruded a little. His weight shifted subtly, so that he stood suddenly nearer. “How . . . urgent?”

  “Much too urgent for games, Mr. Stapleton. Put on your clothes, please; I have a coach waiting.”

  Neil did not reply, but smiled and lifted a hand. He touched Grey’s face, cupping his cheek, a thumb drawing languidly beneath the edge of his mouth. He was very warm, and smelt of bed.

  “Not all that much of a rush, surely, Mary?”

  Grey gripped the hand and pulled it away from his face, squeezing hard, so that the knucklebones cracked in his grasp.

  “You will come with me at once,” he said, very clearly, “or I will inform Mr. Bowles officially of the circumstances under which we first met. Do you understand me, sir?”

  He stared at Stapleton, eye to eye. The man was awake now, blue eyes snapping-bright and furious. He freed himself from Grey’s grasp with a wrench and took a half-step backward, trembling with rage.

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “Try me.”

  Stapleton’s tongue flicked across his upper lip—not in attempted flirtation, but in desperation. The light was dying, but not yet so far gone that Grey could not see Stapleton’s face clearly, and discern the bone-deep fright that underlay the fury.