Jane and the Wandering Eye: Being the Third Jane Austen Mystery

by Stephanie Barron

“None. Although I assumed it was the result of some insult, in word or action. Lord Kinsfell referred to Portal as a blackguard, I believe.”

  “That might cover all manner of offence—from cheating at cards to coarseness towards a lady. I shall have to force the admission from Simon myself—though it will prove a piece of work.”

  “Cannot Lady Desdemona enlighten you?”

  “Alas, it is impossible. She merely attempted to part the two, when their behaviour grew too reckless, and was served with some very rough treatment herself, I understand.”

  “Mr. Portal’s behaviour did seem to offend her. She quitted the room in tears. But I cannot believe her distress the cause of a murderous attack on the part of Lord Kinsfell, as Mr. Elliot fain would do.”

  “But consider the oddity of the attack!” Lord Harold countered. “If any desired the end of Richard Portal, why not draw the knife in the darkness of a random alley? There are an hundred places where such a deed might be done—the foetid rooms of a public house, or the shadow of Westgate Buildings, or the banks of the Avon itself.6 Why choose a duchess’s drawingroom? —Unless the knife was drawn in a moment, on the spur of anger and drink. I begin to see it as Mr. Wilberforce Elliot might; and should have taken up my nephew without a second thought.”

  “But if Portal was murdered with deliberation—and with deliberation in the Duchess’s household—then the killer must find a purpose in publicity,” I observed. “He may mean your nephew to take the blame. Or he may hope, Lord Harold, that your niece will suffer in the knowledge of her favourite’s end.”

  There was a silence. “Lord Swithin,” Trowbridge said.

  “The thought has occurred to me.”

  “You think him so consumed by jealousy and pique, Miss Austen, as to plan his rival’s murder? And under Mona’s very nose?”

  “Is the notion so incredible?”

  “He was far from Bath.”

  “And he is the sort of man who might summon a legion to do his bidding—from any distance this side of the sea!”

  “But would he resort to murder?” Lord Harold rejoined. “I cannot believe it. It is far more in Swithin’s style to call a rival out—and cripple him for life. A masked stabbing would not be at all the thing.”

  “And yet,” I persisted, “I observed him today at the Pump Room, barely a quarter-hour after his arrival, already in conference with Hugh Conyngham.”

  “The actor? I comprehend, now, Swithin’s early intelligence of the murder. I did not know his lordship claimed acquaintance among the company of the Theatre Royal.”

  “The Earl was most intent upon his conversation with Conyngham—and I overheard a little of it. It seems that the actor was charged with a duty towards Lord Swithin, concerning the retrieval of some letters. The Earl was quite put out at Conyngham’s failure to fulfil his commission—and declared he was within a handsbreadth to the gallows! Singular words, are they not?”

  Lord Harold sat very still. Firelight flickered off his sharp features. “And what would you say, Miss Austen—was Lady Desdemona in love with Mr. Portal? Enough to occasion Swithin’s alarm?”

  “In love? I confess I cannot tell! She consented to dance with him gladly enough—but I did not remark any particular sign of affection. Had you enquired of Maria Conyngham …” I hesitated.

  “Yes?”

  “She appeared as destroyed by Portal’s death as any woman might possibly be.”

  “I see. That is, perhaps, no more than I should have expected. I had understood her to be attached to the man. A motive for murder, perhaps, did he turn his affections elsewhere.”

  To Lady Desdemona, for example. “Does Her Grace know nothing of your niece’s regard for Mr. Portal?”

  Lord Harold shook his head. “My mother considered the manager an acquaintance of long standing. She had no idea of a presumption to Desdemona’s hand. Of far greater import, in Her Grace’s estimation, was the friendship Portal so recently formed with my nephew”

  “But I thought Lord Kinsfell held Portal in contempt!”

  “Thus ends many an unequal friendship.”

  “So this public display of poor feeling was quite out of the ordinary way.”

  Lord Harold rose and began to pace before the fire. “As was the manager’s violent end. I propose we consider of events in a rational manner. It is possible to divine a jealous motive for both Swithin and Miss Conyngham to commit this murder—a motive that depends upon my niece’s affections. Others may exist, for parties unknown. But how was the deed effected?”

  “At least two possibilities are open to us, my lord. Firstly, that Richard Portal was stabbed by a person who fled through the anteroom window.”

  Lord Harold shook his head. “It is a precipitous fall.”

  “Agreed. But I have been turning over the matter in my mind. Were there a conveyance beneath the window—a common waggon, and filled with hay—might not an intruder leap from house to street, and suffer nothing in the fall?”

  “If the waggon were allowed to stand but a little, and to look unremarkable in its delay.”

  “An altercation with the chairmen, perhaps, who rendered Laura Place all but impassable that night, in attendance upon the Duchess’s guests. The constable did not enquire whether a carter had come to the point of fisticuffs. He merely asked if any had observed a cloaked figure leap from the window.”

  “That is true. I will enquire among the various stands of chairmen in the city. But you mentioned two possibilities, Miss Austen—pray continue.”

  “Portal’s murderer may have vanished through the anteroom passage, and left the window ajar as a ruse. He had only to return, then, to the drawingroom, and discover the body in company with the rest of us.”

  “Then the murderer might be anyone. There were an hundred guests last night, I believe.”

  “But some dozens fled before the constables’ arrival, and of those who remained, but a few are worthy of consideration. I would posit, my lord, that the murderer might be found among the company of the Theatre Royal—or among the intimates of the Conynghams.”

  “How is such an assertion possible?”

  “Have you considered the nature of the killing? A stabbing, and in the midst of Hugh Conyngham’s declamation from Macbeth, describing the same? It bears a sinister aspect. ’If it were done when ‘tis done, then ‘twere well/It were done quickly …’”

  “So my mother is willing to believe,” Lord Harold admitted, with the ghost of amusement. “She found in the scene a grisly example of life in the imitation of art; and such things must always impress her, who has confused them these seventy years.”

  “The speech may have served as signal, to a henchman among the guests; and thus we have only to study the players for the penetration of the affair.”

  “But is Mr. Elliot, the magistrate, likely to agree?” Lord Harold mused. “What think you of Mr. Elliot, by the by?”

  “I found Mr. Elliot a disturbing blend of parts. He is burdened with an unfortunate want of tact, and a superfluity of wit; he is disgusting in his manners and person—but his mind is shrewd enough. I would judge him to be lazy, and amoral, and devoid of even the faintest degree of respect for the peerage; and I would watch him within an inch of his life. Your nephew’s may depend upon it.”

  Lord Harold’s brows lifted satirically. “Harsh counsel, my dear Miss Austen—but not, I think, formed of the thin air of conjecture, nor motivated by untoward malice. I know your penetration of old. No charlatan may deceive, nor sycophant charm, your wits from out your head. Little of a human nature eludes your admirable penetration. Indeed, to solicit your opinion of the man has been almost my first object in calling at Green Park Buildings. I shall approach Mr. Elliot with the utmost circumspection, and thank you for your pains to set me on my guard.”

  I considered of the Gentleman Rogue and the bearish magistrate, and concluded that despite their apparent differences, Lord Harold and Mr. Elliot might well deal famously with one another. They shou
ld each delight in the game of confusing and astounding the other. “You are as yet unacquainted with the magistrate, I perceive?”

  Lord Harold inclined his head. “I regret that I have not yet had the pleasure—though I might have forced myself upon his attention this morning. Mr. Elliot was within the household upon my arrival, engaged in an examination of Lord Kinsfell’s private papers. He thinks to find some sign of guilt, I suppose, amidst a drawer of unpaid bills.”

  “And your opinion of his intentions towards the Marquis?”

  Lord Harold shrugged. “I have formed none to disagree with yours in any respect; but I pay no very great attention to magistrates in general. Mr. Elliot’s task is simple: He does not need to discover Portal’s murderer, but only to make a case against my nephew. If the truth is to be found, it is unlikely to be at Mr. Elliot’s undertaking.”7

  “Have you seen Lord Kinsfell, my lord?” I might almost have looked upon the Marquis himself, I thought, in gazing at his uncle; but for the differences of age, the two were remarkably alike in form and countenance. When last I saw Lord Kinsfell, however—borne away to gaol in all the inelegant discomfort of his Knight’s apparel—the outrage of his sensibilities was writ full upon his face. Lord Harold, I surmised, should never betray a like emotion, even were he kneeling before the block in London Tower. His lordship wore inscrutability as other men might their court dress, assuming it when occasion demanded.

  “I went directly to the gaol upon my arrival in Bath,” he replied. “Simon will not remain there long—the inquest is to be held on Friday, the conclusion of which must be beyond question; and he will then be conveyed to Ilchester, to await the Assizes.”

  An inquest. But of course. I knew too much of the painful rectitude of coroners’ juries to believe them capable of imagination regarding events. Once such simple men as the coroner should summon were told that Lord Kinsfell was found standing over Mr. Portal’s body with a knife in his hand, they must return a verdict of wilful murder against him.

  “And how are the Marquis’s spirits?”

  “Too low, I fear. He was much sunk in melancholy and despair, and was arrayed, as yet, in the garb of a knight. My first object upon returning to Laura Place, was to charge a servant with an exchange of clothes.” Lord Harold turned abruptly to his greatcoat, and fished among its pockets. “And now we come to the chief of this murder’s oddities, Miss Austen. Pray attend to what I am about to show you.”

  He drew forth a small object wrapped in brown paper, and laid it in my lap. “Open it, if you please.”

  I undid the parcel with eager hands. And there, winking dully in the candle-flame, was the portrait of an eye—dark grey, heavily-lashed, and fully as arresting as the roguish ornament my dear Eliza had borne about her neck. It was an oblong pendant the size of a guinea, strung on a fine gold chain, and quite surrounded by seed pearls—beautiful, and undoubtedly costly. I lifted the thing and dangled it before the candle, at a loss for explanation. The eye returned my regard, as stormy in its expression as paint and art could make it.

  “My nephew tells me he found this resting on Portal’s breast, quite near his wound, as though left by his murderer in silent witness. Simon hung it undetected about his own neck, and succeeded thus in bearing it away to the gaol.”

  “But why did he not leave it for Mr. Elliot to discover?” I exclaimed. “For surely this miniature can have nothing to do with Lord Kinsfell! Indeed, its existence might divert suspicion from his head!”

  “I cannot offer an explanation.” Lord Harold’s voice was heavy. “But I surmise that Kinsfell has not told us all. No more intelligence of the portrait or its meaning could I wring from his lips, than the plea that it be prevented from falling into the magistrate’s hands—and from this, I must assume he would shield another, to whom the portrait points. He consented to place it in my keeping solely out of fear of its discovery while he remains in gaol.”

  “And does he expect you to shield that person also? Or are you at liberty to solicit the magistrate, where Lord Kinsfell would not?”

  “Having failed to entrust the eye to Mr. Elliot then, we cannot with impunity reveal it now,” Lord Harold said thoughtfully. “Mr. Elliot would be forgiven for believing it a foolish fabrication, and accord it no more significance than the anteroom’s open window. No, Miss Austen—if we are to fathom the portrait’s significance, we must do so ourselves.”

  “Only consider, my lord, the wonder that its disappearance must have caused,” I murmured. “Our murderer expected the portrait to be revealed—to point, perhaps, to the incrimination of another. But not a sign of the bauble has the magistrate seen!”

  “Then we may hope the villain’s anxiety will force his hand,” Lord Harold replied with quiet satisfaction.

  I turned the portrait again before the candle-flame, and felt the movement of the eye’s gaze as though it were alive. “It is a lovely thing, and must be dearly bought. I should think it far beyond the means of most.”

  “The setting is very fine, the pearls are good; and the portrait itself is excellent. I have known Mr. George Engleheart to charge upwards of twenty-five guineas for a similar likeness—and that would never encompass the jeweller’s bill. Such a bauble would indeed be well beyond the reach of the common run. It is to Engleheart in London I must go, Miss Austen—for I believe he keeps a log-book of his commissions; and if this pendant fell from his brush, he will have recorded the identity of its subject. Such knowledge should be as gold, in revealing the meaning of Portal’s death.”

  “Stay!” I cried, and sprang to my feet. “Of what use is London, when the foremost painter of such miniatures is already come to Bath?”

  Lord Harold surveyed me narrowly. “Of whom would you speak?”

  “Mr. Richard Cosway! I made his acquaintance this very morning, while promenading in the Pump Room. He intends a visit of some duration—three months, I believe. I have only to enquire of my sister Eliza, and his direction is known!”

  “Capital. We shall call upon him tomorrow—let us say, at two o’clock. Have you leisure enough to pay the call?”

  “My time is at your disposal, my lord.”

  “That is very well, Miss Austen, for I would beg another favour of you. There is an additional visit I feel compelled to make.”

  Lord Harold sat down beside me and reached for my hand. The intimacy of the gesture quite took my breath, and I fear my fingers trembled in his grip. He said, “We must go to the Theatre Royal, as soon as ever may be. I expect the magistrate to search Mr. Portal’s lodgings, but I do not think he will soon consider the manager’s offices at the theatre itself. A perusal of Portal’s private papers might tell us much.”

  “His papers?” I said with a frown. “Surely there can be no occasion for such an abuse of privacy.”

  “I have known a good deal of blackmail, my dear Miss Austen,” Lord Harold said drily, “and I cannot help but observe the marks of its effect throughout this unfortunate history.”

  “Blackmail!” I cried, freeing my fingers from his grasp.

  “I sense it everywhere in Richard Portal’s sad end. Lord Swithin’s anxiety regarding some letters, overheard by yourself in the Pump Room; Lord Kinsfell’s argument with Portal, and his assertion that the man was a blackguard; his own reluctance to speak fully of events that evening; and now, the curious portrait, returned like a bad penny to Portal’s breast. Blackmail, Miss Austen—as plainly as such dark arts may be seen!”

  “I confess I had not an idea of it,” I said.

  “You must understand that the practice is familiar to me through long association. I have employed it myself,” Lord Harold said equably, “when no other tool would serve; and have been in turn the object of necessitous importuning—a mad decision on the blackmailer’s part, for never was there a fellow with so little regard for public opinion, or so great a contempt for its deserts, as Harold Trowbridge.”

  “A more hardened object I cannot conceive.” I was amused despite the gravit
y of his words.

  “But tempting, regardless.” He jumped up and began to turn restlessly before the fire. “I have, in the past, acted in ways that may be judged reprehensible. I have sacrificed the reputations of my confederates, my mistresses, my dearest friends, in pursuit of those ends that have, to my mind alone, required such sacrifice. I have cared nothing, in short, for how my character is judged—except as regards one particular: That I am held in trust and esteem by certain men in high Government circles. It is as lifeblood to me, in ensuring the continuance of that activity which—alone among the pursuits of my life—is capable of stirring my interest, and of relieving the unutterable tedium of my existence.” At this, something of animation enlivened Lord Harold’s tone; but it was the animation of coldest anger. “Should any man attempt to queer my relations with the Crown, or with the very small number of men who direct its concerns, I should be entirely at his mercy. That, to date, has never occurred; and I pray God it never shall. I could not answer for myself in the eventuality.”

  One glimpse of his set features was enough, and I averted my gaze. Lord Harold overset—Lord Harold denied his life’s blood of peril and intrigue—was Lord Harold divided from his very soul. I should not like to be within twenty paces of any man who attempted it.

  “But my familiarity with the blackmailer’s art has at least taught me this,” he continued. “Among those who can profess no stern disregard for public views or public morals, it is the aptest means of persuasion. More lives have been ruined—more spirits broken—from a fear of idle gossip and report, than are numbered on Napoleon’s battlefields, Miss Austen. Portal’s death may be the result of a similar campaign.”

  And if it were, I thought, the tide of scandal should reach even so far as a ducal household. “I comprehend your meaning, my lord. I shall be happy to assist you by whatever means are within my power.”

  He reached for his hat, and smoothed its fine wool brim. “Will you do me the very great honour of attending the theatre tomorrow evening, Miss Austen, in the Wilborough box?”

  “With pleasure,” I replied.