I do not acquit her of murder because she is my client—you of all people must know better than that! I acquit her because—” Miss Tolerance considered. “I acquit her because it makes no sense to believe her the murderer. It is against reason.”
“One might as well say it goes against reason to believe the Earl of Versellion was a murderer,” Sir Walter said quietly.
Miss Tolerance felt suddenly breathless. Sir Walter looked apprehensive, as if he had crossed a line with her and was not sure what she would do. She was not certain either. Nor could she determine the nature of the strong emotion which flooded her: one moment it felt like rage, the next, deep hurt, the moment after, frustration. She clenched her hands.
“I beg your pardon,” Sir Walter said. “Please—I only meant that in my experience anyone is capable of murder under the right circumstances.”
Miss Tolerance un-fisted her hands and strove to keep her voice even. “Capable of murderous thoughts, indeed. But you have only to look at the woman to know she is not the murderess. She could not overpower her husband, indeed, she was terrified of him, with good reason. You have not met her, and perhaps cannot take my word in the matter—” she waved away Sir Walter’s attempt
to reassure her upon this point. “But Mr. Heddison has spoken with her often, yet appears unable to see no farther than his mechanical notion that she must be guilty because she was in the house—”
“Heddison may not be a man of great imagination, but he is thorough, and according to his lights, fair. Are you accusing him of bias? And to whose advantage?”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” Miss Tolerance put her cup on the table, carefully. “I am accusing him only of prejudice and lazy thinking. I believe he made up his mind that my client was guilty on the day he was first called to the house.”
“If the evidence—”
“The only evidence I have heard of that points to the widow alone is that which Boyse provided, and I have thrown a grave shadow upon that. And all of a sudden Mr. Heddison seems to be moving at great haste: Anne d’Aubigny has been in custody for only a day and already they are threatening to press her to bring her to trial—”
Sir Walter frowned. “It is very likely a threat only—I cannot believe Heddison would use the press until he had exhausted all other options. I do not see how it can be helped.”
Miss Tolerance glared at her friend. “You are mighty easy about it, Sir Walter! A gently reared woman of three and twenty years, shut up in prison and threatened with the press if she does not confess to what she has not done—is that what you would wish for a daughter of yours? For a wife?”
Sir Walter’s eyebrow crooked. “If the wife were also my murderer, I’m sure my scruples would be less fixed upon the point.”
If he had thought the jest would distract her, Sir Walter was mistaken. “You are pleased to joke,” Miss Tolerance said coldly. “I tell you that your colleague has judged the case without regard to the character of his suspect. How probable is it that a woman who comes barely to my shoulder should be able to dash out the brains of a man of whom she was terrified? It makes me wonder if there is a bias in the law, or at least among the magistracy against women. You were quite eager to believe that I was guilty of murder, when first we met.”
Even as she said it, Miss Tolerance knew it was a comment that
would bring pain. Sir Walter frowned and took up his teacup between his fingers.
“Eager I was not,” he said gravely. “But my feelings were the last evidence I could trust. I had no other suspects, and there were several things which suggested your involvement. You will recall that I was very happy to find you were innocent.”
“Shall I thank you for your faith in me?” Miss Tolerance inclined her head. “But the evidence of your own judgment was not sufficient to speak for my character.”
She became aware that her voice had risen. Across the room three elaborately pretty women—actresses—had turned from their conversation to stare at Miss Tolerance and her guest. She lowered her voice and sat back. “I beg your pardon,” she said.
“And I yours,” Sir Walter said. “I do not deny your experience, but my own tells me that the simplest solution is most often the correct one. That evidence is the surest aid to a true verdict.”
“But the evidence in this case is tainted! And you are saying, it seems to me, I cannot rely upon my judgment but must accept evidence I know to be false.”
“I am telling you to consult the same faculties which told you the Earl of Versellion was capable of murder, despite your feelings for him.”
Miss Tolerance shivered. “I should think that as I was able to set aside my feelings for Versellion, to bring him to Bow Street and to testify against him, you would have a higher regard for my judgment.”
Sir Walter studied his cup. “I have the highest regard for your judgment. But is it not possible—” He hesitated. “Is it possible that it is you whose mind is made up?”
“You are accusing me of bias? But I have no reason to care more for Anne d’Aubigny any more than any other client. I have a professional interest, but that is all. I cannot help, of course, feeling sorry for her situation—” Miss Tolerance broke off to take a note which a liveried boy offered to her on a salver. Somewhat relieved to have an excuse to break off a conversation which was becoming more and more painful, Miss Tolerance took the note and read it quickly. Her anger was forgotten.
“Josette Vose is dead,” she said. “You will doubtless hear of it
when you return to Bow Street. Beaten, and her throat cut. Mrs. Lasher sent a note to Mrs. Brereton’s, and they forwarded it here. I must go.”
“You believe it connected to d’Aubigny’s death?”
“She was one of the last persons to see the chevalier alive, and I always thought she knew more than she would tell me. Perhaps someone else thought so, too.”
“Is there anything I can do to—”
“You offered to inquire after Boyse and his ‘Millward’ testimony. I would be very grateful if you would do so.” Miss Tolerance put Mrs. Lasher’s note into her reticule.
“Of course,” Sir Walter rose. “But is there any way I can help you?”
“I require nothing, Sir Walter. Happily, no one can suspect Anne d’Aubigny of this crime: she is safe in gaol.” Miss Tolerance rose, bid Mandif good afternoon, and had left the Ladies’ Salon before he could return the courtesy.
Miss Tolerance went at once to Mrs. Lasher’s house. She found the house little disturbed by what had happened, although the man who admitted her confided that the madam was in a right fuss about something. It was a sign of the household’s disarray that the man merely told her in which chamber Mrs. Lasher was to be found, and let Miss Tolerance direct herself. She found Mrs. Lasher in the room on the first floor in which they had first spoken. The madam was bent over a writing desk, scribbling something with fierce attention; her face, when she looked up to greet Miss Tolerance, was bare of paint and looked its full complement of years.
“How did you learn of Mrs. Vose’s death?” Miss Tolerance asked, once they had greeted each other and exchanged pieties.
“The constable come and asked me questions. Not that I had much I could tell ‘im. Wanted to know where Josie’d spent last night, and in course I couldn’t tell ‘im. Not for certain.”
“But you said last night she was with the Duke of Cumberia—” Mrs. Lasher put her finger across Miss Tolerance’s lips to seal the name inside. “You want to get yourself killed? Or me? Beside,”
she added. “I don’t know, not for certain. Josie called him ‘the duke,’ and ‘my royal,’ and”Is Grace of C.’ Could as easy have been the Duke of Clarence or Cambridge, or Cartwheels, come to that.”
Miss Tolerance was not in a mood to be patient. “You told the constable you had no idea where she had been?”
Under stress, Mrs. Lasher’s aitches fled. “They don’t need me to tell ‘em where she was. Found ’er dead in Cleveland Row, just a jump from the palace. With evidence, if you please. A note from ‘Is Royal Such-and-Such, crested stationery and all, clutched in ’er ‘and. Constable said Josie was dressed for a party, but cut up and beat.” Mrs. Lasher shook her head wisely. “Lost control of ’isself, I’d say. They do, sometimes; ‘tis why we generally ’ave someone near by, just in case. But ‘ow would you stop a royal person …” She put her finger to her own mouth this time and looked at Miss Tolerance archly.
“Lost control and cut her throat? And then left her with a note that implicated him? I don’t think much of the duke’s aides, if that’s the case. Did your constable give you any idea of what the note said?”
“Oh, lovey-dovey stuff, promising undyin’ devotion and that sort of thing. P’raps ’e took a partiality to ’er, and when ‘e couldn’t ’ave ’er, cut ’er throat?”
“Couldn’t have her? Even if their association had to this point been blameless, I was under the impression that money carried all for Mrs. Vose; surely a royal duke would be able to come to an arrangement.”
“‘E lost ’is ’ead and cut ’er throat, like some of ‘em do,” Mrs. Lasher suggested again. “Cut ’er throat and ’ad ’er thrown out into the street. At least it was a prince, and not some bully-boy she met on a street corner.”
“Being killed by a prince makes one no less dead,” Miss Tolerance said practically. “In any case, a body clutching an incriminating note seems far too convenient for Bow Street, and far too inconvenient for the duke. Whatever his faults may be, I have never heard that His Royal Highness was a fool. Rather the opposite, in fact.”
“A man in ’eat—”
“I agree. A man in heat might do anything. Cumberland is said to have the Devil’s own temper; I could believe him capable of crime passionelle. But that man’s advisors would not let the servants toss the body of his mistress into the street with a love note in her hand! Cumberland has already survived one scandal this year.”
“Killed ‘is valet,” Mrs. Lasher agreed. She gave the final word a hard t. “Proves ’e’s of a killin’ disposition.”
Miss Tolerance wondered if Mrs. Lasher had been bribed to support this theory so rigorously. She shook her head. “The Coroner’s jury cleared him of involvement. A jury with several notable Whigs on it, they’d not have cleared him had there been evidence against him. Mrs. Vose’s death points too conveniently to Cumberland, at a time when all the royal dukes are under scrutiny. I don’t believe it.”
“Who’d kill ’er? You think it’s to do with the chevalyer?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps. Perhaps she was killed to put Cumberland under suspicion.”
“What, kill someone to make someone else look guilty of killin’ the first party?” Mrs. Lasher shook her head. “That’s too clever for me, and too cold-blooded.”
Miss Tolerance rose. “Cold-blooded it is. I am sorry—” she had remembered that Mrs. Lasher was in mourning, after a fashion. “I am sorry Mrs. Vose was killed.”
“Well, it does you out a witness, don’t it?” Mrs. Lasher said practically. “And we shall ‘ave to wear black gloves ’ere. We was as close to family as I s‘pose Josie ’ad.”
Miss Tolerance curtsied. “Then permit me to condole with you, ma’am. If you hear anything more, you will let me know?”
“I suppose I will, though it seems to be a dangerous business, givin’ information to you. Your Mrs. Smith’s settled right in,” she added, not at all off the topic. “Alice is teachin’ ’er to mend linens.”
At the door Miss Tolerance remembered a last question for the madam. “Was Mr. Beauville here on the night the chevalier was murdered?”
“You don’t think he had aught to do with it? They was friends, and Beauville is such a well set-up gent.”
“He and the chevalier were as thick as thieves, you said.”
“Well, he wa’n’t here,” Mrs. Lasher said firmly.
“That is very helpful, ma’am. I need only to ascertain that he was not in any other of London’s five thousand houses of joy. As I have my work cut out for me, I hope you will excuse me.” Miss Tolerance curtsied; already Mrs. Lasher had returned to peering at her papers.
Miss Tolerance went down the stairs, enough absorbed in her thoughts that she did not, at first, realize that someone was calling her name softly. She looked for the source of the summons. It came from a little woman in a wrennish brown dress, who might have been the apprentice of the severely dressed woman Miss Tolerance had met in the house a few times. Only her bruises, and her toothless smile, made her recognizable as Betty Strokum.
“A word, miss?” Mrs. Strokum gestured down the hall with her chin, winced, and led the way until they stood just under the stair.
“You have something new to tell me?” Miss Tolerance asked.
“Only I want to know how long I got to stay here.” The bathing Mrs. Strokum had been subjected to had scrubbed away a quantity of dirt and the worst of her unpleasant odor; her bruises were livid, but less spectacular than they had been the day before.
“They are not mistreating you?”
“I suppose not, if you don’t count making me ‘em their sheets. But it’s dull as ditch water; can you believe when the girls ain’t occupied one of ’em reads to the others? I can’t chat up the gentlemen” —she wrinkled her nose—“because I don’t come up to the standards of the establishment! How long do I have to stay here? You ain’t turned Boyse in to no one yet?”
“Not yet. I need to make my case as convincing as possible. You have nothing else to tell me?”
“I told you all I have to tell.” Mrs. Strokum shrugged and winced, looking sideways at Miss Tolerance in a manner ill calculated to inspire trust.
“If I go back to the Duke of Kent and speak with the barman there, will his story agree with yours?”
“Oh, ‘im. ’E’s got no reason to love me. God knows what he’ll say.”
Miss Tolerance felt her patience teetering precariously on the brink of outrage. “Mrs. Stro—Smith. If there is any detail, anything else you can tell me about Boyse’s contacts on that night, I require the absolute truth from you. You’ve already been beaten—it might mean your life if you hold back from me.”
Mrs. Strokum recoiled. “You’d not hurt me?”
“I?” Miss Tolerance said blankly. “Of course not. But another woman in this case is dead because of what she knew. I should dislike to find you had joined her. Tell me simply, without varnish: did you see Mr. Boyse speak with a Mr. Millward on the evening of the seventeenth?”
Startled by the force of Miss Tolerance’s tone, Mrs. Strokum shook her head.
“I thank you. Did Mr. Boyse speak to anyone that evening?”
“The barman.” Mrs. Strokum frowned. “You ain’t asking about ‘Keep it down over there, you’ or ‘Outta my way, damn your eyes,’ are you?”
Miss Tolerance shook her head.
Mrs. Strokum closed her eyes; her tongue crept into the corner of her mouth.
“‘E asked Jerry Conway about ’is boots,” she said at last. “What polish ‘e used to get ’em so shiny. And said a word or two to that bitch Molly Purse. A Frenchman come and said something to ‘im, quick-like, but I never ’eard what it was. But those was all quick bits, not a long jaw.”
Miss Tolerance felt a flush of excitement. Her voice trembled when she asked, “Can you describe the Frenchman?”
Mrs. Strokum shrugged. “Middlin’ height. Light hair. Fancied ’imself a bit, I think: that nice in his dress, and his hair cut just so. Nothing so special about ‘im but what he thought of ’isself.”
Henri Beauville to the life. “And you heard nothing of what he said to Boyse?”
“Nothing. Frenchy pulled Boyse aside and muttered a few words in his ear, then off he goes, and Boyse come back to me like nothing ever happened. You don’t think that was Millward, do you?”
“It would be very interesting indeed if he were, but I don’t think so. If you saw the Frenchman again, would you recognize him?” Miss Tolerance asked.
“Aye, I would. But I won’t risk my neck—”
“Then stay in your room while you’re here,” Miss Tolerance counseled. “The man I’m thinking of has been a customer here in the past. If he comes and you see him, get word to me at once. Your life may depend upon it, do you hear?” She was conscious of the melodrama of her words, but feared that anything less than fear for her life would not spur Mrs. Strokum to cooperate. The whore took Miss Tolerance’s assurances at full value; when she left the room she looked both ways as she crossed the hall, as if to ensure that neither Beauville nor his agents could have crept in to the building while she was occupied.
Miss Tolerance took a chair to Manchester Square, deep in thought. Beauville knew Boyse? From what Mrs. Strokum said, the two men had not talked long enough for Beauville to have told the long story that Boyse said he’d heard from “Millward.” And Mrs. Strokum had spoken as though the men knew each other, but the Duke of Kent did not seem like Beauville’s venue, nor John Boyse one of Beauville’s regular companions. Which suggested—in the wake of her conversation with Sir Walter, Miss Tolerance was careful not to leap to conclusions—that their association was an irregular one.
And there was the question of Beauville and the fire in her cottage. The image of Beauville, watching the blaze from one of Mrs. Brereton’s windows, came to her unbidden. Fire was no trivial threat in London; the Great Fire was still spoken of, stories passed from mother to child as a warning to be careful with the coals. If Beauville had something to do with burning her cottage, it suggested that he believed that she knew something which would endanger him.
Could the exchange of words at the Duke of Kent have been Beauville hiring Boyse to set the fire? When she thought the matter out, she discarded the notion: Beauville had spoken to Boyse on the seventeenth—the same evening she had been attacked. The fire had been two nights later, on the nineteenth. Why hire such a thing done on an evening when he himself was at Mrs. Brereton’s? Had he wanted her dead? Was the fire meant as a warning?
The action of a Village Simple who loved the sight of a blaze? Miss Tolerance closed her eyes and envisioned the pile of table, chairs, ledger, her writing box—
An idea came to her with such force that she nearly upset the chair in which she was riding. Miss Tolerance apologized to the chairmen and sat back again. What if Mrs. Brereton had been, in some fashion, right, and the fire was meant to destroy something? Not a record of a past case, but evidence in this current one. But if that were so, it was evidence Miss Tolerance herself did not know she had.
The only things which had been burnt beyond recovery were her ledgers, two chairs, and her writing box, of which only the bottom panel survived.
Her writing box, in size and shape, closely resembled the box taken from the privy house in Half Moon Street, in which the chevalier kept implements for inflicting pain upon his sexual partners.
If I were a blackmailer, what a splendid hiding place that would be for my evidence! If I were the blackmailer’s victim, might I know of the box but not recognize it and mistake it for the one in my cottage?
Miss Tolerance gave orders for the chairmen to turn back to Half Moon Street.
The d‘Aubigny household, already in mourning, seemed haunted. The crowd which Miss Tolerance had formerly seen there was gone now; perhaps Anne d’Aubigny’s arrest had satisfied their vulgar gawking; perhaps they had relocated to Farrington Street outside Cold Bath Fields Prison, to keep their morbid vigil there. The door was opened by Peter Jacks, the footman, who greeted her as a familiar of the household, and asked at once if there were any news.
“Nothing definite, but I am in hopes to have your mistress back with you in a day or so,” Miss Tolerance was pleased to tell him.
“We’re grateful, miss.” Jacks looked down at her from the doorway with an expression of bewilderment.
“May I come in, Jacks?”
“Oh. Well, yes, miss. Only—” Jacks stepped back to permit
Miss Tolerance to enter. “There’s no one to call upon. With Madam away, and the chevalier dead—”
Miss Tolerance apprehended Jacks’ dilemma. “Oh, I have not come to call. I came to look for something which may help to bring Madame d’Aubigny home.”
“What is it, miss?”
“Evidence, Jacks. Will you trust me to look about where I will?”
“I’ll fetch Mr. Beak.” In default of his mistress, Beak was clearly the one who would make weighty decisions. Miss Tolerance waited for a few minutes. The hall was chilly, and there was neither the noise nor the scent of a fire in either of the near rooms. What she could see was clean and in order, but Miss Tolerance suspected that the servants were spending most of their time in the servants’ hall by their own fire, waiting word of the household’s fate.
Beak, roused from belowstairs, had apparently struggled into his livery coat and attempted to tweak his collar into place; the top button was not fastened, and his hair was rumpled. Jacks followed him down the hall, watching his superior with concern.
“Good evening, miss. Jacks says you need to make further inquiries?”
Miss Tolerance nodded. “I need a word with Sophia if I may.”
Beak signaled Jacks to find the maid.
“Perhaps I may use in the chevalier’s office?”
From the expression which passed over Beak’s long face, Miss Tolerance could see that intrusion into his late master’s privacy troubled him, but concern for his present mistress’s welfare won out. He nodded and led Miss Tolerance into the chevalier’s office.
“Shall you have the door closed, miss?” The drip at the end of the old man’s nose trembled. Miss Tolerance could not judge whether it was with indignation or excitement, and in any case she did not intend to indulge the manservant’s curiosity or territoriality.
“I think so, Beak,” she said firmly. “You needn’t fear; we shan’t disturb anything.”
At that moment Sophia Thissen arrived, and there was a brief confused flurry of motion as Beak stepped aside to permit her to enter; Sophia curtsied to Miss Tolerance; Miss Tolerance inclined
her head as she attempted to reach around the maid and ease the door shut. Beak coughed and stepped back into the hall, and Miss Tolerance pulled the door to.
“Pardon, miss, but how does Madam?” The maid looked anxiously at Miss Tolerance, as though she had been summoned to receive bad news.
“I saw her this morning, and I believe she goes on comfortably, although of course she wishes to be home with you all. You have not been to visit?”
Sophia shook her head. “Not since that night I brought her there, miss. It’s an awful place; breaks my heart to think of Madam there.” Sophia’s affection for her mistress appeared to be quite genuine, but not quite strong enough to outweigh her fear of the prison. Miss Tolerance could hardly fault her for that.
“Sophia, the day that the constables came for Mrs. d’Aubigny, there had been some ado in the kitchen, do you recall? Someone had left a box—”
“In the privy house. Yes, miss, I recall.”
“I need to examine that box. When last I saw it, it was in your keeping.”
Sophie nodded. “Master’s box,” she said slowly. “When them men come to take Madam, it clean drove every other thought out of my head. But when I come home that night and smelt something—everyone’ d forgot it. I cleaned it up and put it away.” Miss Tolerance, remembering what condition the box had been in when last she saw it, nodded appreciatively.
“Please fetch it,” she said firmly.
Sophie still appeared unwilling. “Madam said—”
“Sophie, I would not ask if I were not hopeful of finding evidence to secure your mistress’s release. Please.” Miss Tolerance sought the maid’s gaze and held it. “I know the use to which it was put, and I shall not speak of that to anyone.”
A moment’s thought appeared to decide the matter. Sophie nodded and left Miss Tolerance alone to examine Etienne d’Aubigny’s office.
Aside from the painting of the late chevalier above the fireplace, there was little about the room to distinguish it from similar rooms in the homes of any number of well-off gentlemen in London,
or indeed, anywhere else. A desk stood before the heavily draped window, its pen-box, sanding jar and inkwell lined up with military precision along the right edge of the desktop. There was one handsome cabinet containing three shelves of books which, by their look, must have been bought for the handsomeness of their bindings. Two armchairs faced each other in front of the fireplace, under the chevalier’s painted gaze. Two smaller paintings of oddly proportioned horses at graze hung on the wall by the window. The effect was one of masculinity unleavened by any degree of imagination, a room seldom used.
As a matter of form, Miss Tolerance ran her fingers around the edges of each picture frame, but found nothing jammed there. She examined the books and found only one whose pages had been cut. Miss Tolerance had some experience of peculiar hiding places; it seemed to her that a cut book in a showcase library must have some significance, but a few minutes’ inspection convinced her that the man who never read his books had not imagined hiding anything within them, either. She opened the desk drawers and found nothing more interesting than writing paper and a Bible. The last seemed so unlikely an object for the Chevalier d’Aubigny to possess that it immediately begged closer inspection. She pored over the book, going so far as to pry up the endpapers in case something had been hidden under them, but she found nothing. She ran her hands along walls and examined the floor, but found nothing resembling a safe or locked box in which the chevalier might have hidden blackmail evidence.
At last Sophia Thissen returned, apologizing for the delay caused by having to explain her errand to Beak, with the chevalier’s box held in front of her as if it might explode. She placed the box on the chevalier’s desk and turned to close the door behind her.
The reluctance with which Miss Tolerance examined the box had nothing to do with its smell, for it had been thoroughly cleaned, and now smelled only of turpentine and beeswax. It was the contents and their associations which repelled her. She found herself lingering over her examination of the exterior, running careful fingers around the edges of the box, checking for the catch of a secret drawer. Likewise she examined the carving on the
sides. She found nothing more than a splinter in her finger, caught on a rough edge.
Miss Tolerance took a breath, stiffened her resolve, and opened the box.
She removed the scarves and the cat-o’-nine-tails and the six tiny pearl-handled knives in their case one at a time, arranging them carefully on the desk. There was another whip at the bottom, a few cords, and a fold of black cloth which, when unfolded, proved to be a domino—an old-fashioned masquerade mask. When the box was empty Miss Tolerance picked it up and shook it, but nothing rattled, nor did anything drop out when she turned the box upside down.
She examined the handles of the scourge and the whip, looking for sign of an endpiece she could unscrew or flip back to reveal a hiding place. There was nothing. Gingerly she replaced the whip on the desk and looked up. Sophia was watching with a solemn expression.
“Sophia, when the chevalier—” Miss Tolerance faltered, less from squeamishness than from lack of the proper vocabulary. “When the chevalier used these objects with Madam, was it you who cared for her afterward?”
The abigail nodded. Her mouth was pinched.
“How often—”
For a moment it seemed Sophie would not answer. Miss Tolerance was about to explain how vital frankness was to Madame d’Aubigny’s case, but it appeared Sophie had arrived at that conclusion on her own.
“Not so much in the last while. When that—Mrs. Vose was with him, he didn’t much bother Madam. And sometimes, if Madam was sleeping, he’d give up after a time if he couldn’t wake her. That was one reason she took the sleeping draught. As for how often he and Mrs. Vose—you might ask her.”
Miss Tolerance shook her head. “I cannot. She had her throat cut in an alley last night.”
Sophia shrugged. “Not a surprisin’ end for summat like her.”
“You did not like Mrs. Vose.”
“I didn’t not like her. ‘Tis as I said: when she was with him, Master didn’t hurt Madam. But she did like to make out like she
was summat more than a whore. Talkin’ like she was better than us as keeps our knees together and goes about our business!”
The abigail put her finger to her lips as if she had just recollected to whom she spoke. After a moment, “Don’t mean I’d wish her dead. Do they know who killed her, miss?”
Miss Tolerance shook hear head. “Someone went to a good deal of trouble to make it look as if a very great man had killed her in a passion, but I don’t believe it.”
“Don’t you, miss? Then who?”
“I don’t know. But as you say, such an end was not entirely surprising for such a woman as Mrs. Vose.” Miss Tolerance turned her attention to the box. “Have you any idea how this came to be in the privy, Sophia?”
Sophia’s round face flushed. She examined her knuckles as if an answer might have been written upon them. “I put it there, miss.”
“It was your idea to do so?” Miss Tolerance’s tone was carefully sympathetic.
“No, miss. Madam asked me to do it, that morning, after the constables left. Couldn’t bear the sight of the thing, she said, and with Master dead there was no reason to keep it.”
Looking at the objects arrayed before her on the desk, Miss Tolerance could not but sympathize with Anne d’-Aubigny’s impulsive act, however much she might deplore it as a stratagem. This also explained the widow’s shock when the box reappeared in her kitchen in the hands of the goldfinder. But was not Mr. Heddison, apprised of any of this, likely to attach some sinister significance? Decisively, Miss Tolerance swept up the scarves, bonds, and implements and dropped them into the box.
“I must examine the box at my leisure,” she said. “I will take it with me and keep it safe. I think Madam would probably like to have it out of the house.”
For half an hour more Miss Tolerance took advantage of the peculiar freedom which Anne d‘Aubigny’s absence permitted her in the house. She visited the widow’s bedchamber, in which a neatly arranged fire was laid, unlit, awaiting Madam’s return.
There was nothing of note to the room: bed, clothespress, writing table and a chair, a shelf which bore a few novels of an improving rather than a sensational nature. Miss Tolerance wandered from there up the stairs to the servants’ quarters, which were in no way remarkable. Finally, with Beak hovering in the doorway, distressed by her lack of respect for the deceased, she went over Etienne d’Aubigny’s bedchamber as she had five days earlier. Beak fairly quivered as he promised that no one had disturbed the chamber since her last visit.
“We’ve had more important things to think of, miss,” he said dourly. Miss Tolerance restrained herself from pointing out that she was thinking of freeing Anne d’Aubigny from prison.
“Will you ask Jacks to call a hackney coach for me, Beak?” she asked instead. “My work is almost done here.”
Beak left. When he was out of sight Miss Tolerance knelt by the fireplace. The bit of white stuff she had found wedged in the grate on her last visit was still there. As she took out her pocketknife and began to prize at it, she worried that perhaps this was all that remained of the blackmail proofs she believed d’Aubigny to have had hidden. What then?
With a slip, the thing came loose from the grate. Miss Tolerance, hearing Beak returning down the hall, pocketed the white object and her knife and was respectfully closing the door when Beak came to tell her that her coach was waiting in the street.
Miss Tolerance took up her Gunnard coat and the chevalier’s carved box and rode back to Manchester Square with the box upon her lap. She had the coach leave her on Spanish Place at the side entrance to the garden, and entered Mrs. Brereton’s house through the kitchen door. She proceeded to her temporary lodgings in the yellow room unnoted by any but Cook. If someone had set fire to her cottage in order to destroy a box he thought was this one, she did not want to tempt a similar assault upon Mrs. Brereton’s house. With the box hidden and a good deal to think about, she went downstairs to ask a question of Marianne Touchwell.
“You know I will not tell you that,” Marianne replied. “Mrs. B’s most cardinal rule—”
“If it were not a matter of importance you know I would not ask it,” Miss Tolerance answered earnestly. “But the man’s alibi
begs corroboration. If he was here, I’m sure he would prefer to have you say so and remove him from the list of suspects.”
“And if he was not?” Marianne shook her head. “I do not stand upon ceremony, Sarah, nor follow rules to their letter unless I see a reason for it. And the reason for this,” she continued, without giving Miss Tolerance a chance to counter her argument, “is that Mrs. Brereton has sworn that any of us who discuss the who, when, or how of her clients will be thrown out on the street. I’ve no ambition to find another house and a less pleasant situation for myself. If you say Mr. Beauville would like us to provide his alibi, I do not doubt it’s true. Let him come and ask us in Mrs. B’s hearing.”
Miss Tolerance sighed. “Perhaps Lisette—”
“No.” The voice came from the doorway of the small salon in which they were sitting. Hearing it, Miss Tolerance was distracted from her query by surprise and pleasure. It was Mrs. Brereton herself. She and Marianne were at once upon their feet, welcoming the older woman into the room and settling her by the fire. A shawl was arranged across her shoulders, another over her knees, and so much solicitousness expressed by both women that at last it appeared to oppress Mrs. Brereton.
“Enough,” she said. “You were inquiring about one of our clients, Sarah?”
Miss Tolerance recalled the circumstances of her last conversation with her aunt, and the heated suspicion that lady had voiced then. “’Tis nothing of importance, Aunt. In my desire to see my own client cleared, I stepped over the line and asked Marianne for information which she quite properly would not give me.”
Mrs. Brereton nodded. “Good girl.” She acknowledged Marianne with a regal nod. “Now, you surely have something else to do? Go and do it.”
With a look to Miss Tolerance which was eloquent of dismay, concern, and a little amusement, Marianne rose, curtsied, and was gone.
“That was surely a little abrupt, Aunt.”
“I have said before, Sarah: since you have no interest in learning to manage this business, you have no reason to worry how I treat my employees.” As if to take the sting from her words, Mrs. Brereton raised an eyebrow mockingly.
“As you wish, Aunt Thea. But are you certain you are well enough to be downstairs?”
“I am not only well enough, I should have gone mad with boredom if I stayed in my room one moment longer. I have no objection to giving Marianne a little responsibility—she did not do badly while I was indisposed, overall. But this is my house, Sarah. Never forget that. It requires my touch.”
“I do not forget it, Aunt. I am delighted to see you downstairs.” What pleased her more was that she saw none of the wildness which had characterized her aunt’s expression in their last meeting. Other than the continued weakness on her left side, expressed in a slight limp, Mrs. Brereton appeared very much her usual self.
“I am pleased myself. Now, Sarah, you were asking about one of our guests.”
Miss Tolerance nodded. “You need not tell me that I should not have asked. I will not—”
“What did you want to know?”
“If a Mr. Henri Beauville was a visitor here on the evening of the eighth of November, Aunt. But I—”
Mrs. Brereton shook her head. “Hush, girl, and let me speak. I have had some time for reflection in the last week, as you may imagine, and it seems to me that you … are right. I have been overly rigid in the past, and had I not placed more importance in my rules of confidentiality than in your discretion, poor Matt might yet be alive. Perhaps. In any case, I am prepared to amend my rule. You may not go to the girls or the servants for information, but you may come to me. If you can persuade me that it is in my interest to share what I know with you, trusting in your discretion, then I shall do so. Is this agreeable?”
Had King George suddenly appeared sitting opposite her, in full possession of his faculties and professing the infallibility of the Roman Pope, Miss Tolerance could not have been more surprised. And, after a moment, touched as well. She took her aunt’s hand.
“It is altogether agreeable, Aunt Thea. I shall do my best to honor your trust in me.”
For a moment Mrs. Brereton appeared moved. Then she drew
her hand from Miss Tolerance’s. “There is no need to become tragic about the matter, Sarah. Now what is it you need to know about Mr. Beauville?”
“He told me he was occupied in a brothel that night, which gives him an alibi for—a crime I am investigating.” In the face of her aunt’s new generosity Miss Tolerance felt uncomfortable in her own reserve.
“I see.” Mrs. Brereton thought. “If you will go upstairs to my room, in the bottom drawer of the wardrobe you will find several books, bound in black cloth, without stamping. If you will bring me the topmost?”
Miss Tolerance went at once to fetch the book. When she had returned and given it to her aunt, she resumed her seat.
“Sarah, you will promise me your most solemn oath on your honor—which I know you hold very dear—that you will never look into this or any other of my books without my expressed permission.” Mrs. Brereton regarded her niece with great seriousness. Miss Tolerance was as serious as she gave the promised “On my honor.” Mrs. Brereton opened the book and leafed through. Miss Tolerance had thought she was inventing a pretty fiction for Mrs. Lasher when she spoke of her aunt’s ledgers, but it seemed she had unwittingly spoken the truth. Mrs. Brereton peered at the pages, running one finger down the first column.
“November eighth. He was—yes, he was here. With Lisette. He arrived at half past ten and stayed until shortly after midnight. Which was as well, as Lisette had a regular caller who came soon after. Beauville came without appointment—well, he has not been such a regular as to know how we like to do things here.”
Miss Tolerance thanked her aunt seriously.
Mrs. Brereton closed the ledger with a snap. “I have one other request to make of you, my dear. In the event that something should happen to me—I am no longer a girl, and this stupid influenza seems to have frightened even Sir George Hammond into a state of rare concern!—will you promise me to destroy these books?
Miss Tolerance nodded.
“Well, then. I trust this gives you the help you needed?”
In fact, like so many things in this case, this new information
came as both a blessing and a curse. When Mrs. Brereton’s information was combined with Henri Beauville’s own statement, it was clear that he had no alibi for the time of Etienne d‘Aubigny’s murder. However, if she was to keep her aunt’s house out of the matter, Miss Tolerance could not use the information to free Anne d’Aubigny.