The surgeon was the first to arrive. He was a tall, gaunt man, several days unshaved, with a spill of snuff on the cuff of his black coat. He introduced himself, in a strong Welsh accent: “I am the surgeon, Jones. A man is dying here?” Miss Tolerance directed him to his patient; Jones cast one impatient look at the disarray of the room—candles guttering, the smears of blood on the wall and the floor, and the bloody cloak with which Miss Tolerance had covered Beauville—and went to work. He spoke bracingly to Beauville, but aside, with Miss Tolerance, he was grave.
“He will be lucky to last the night,” the surgeon said. “Was he lying thus when you found him?”
“When I—” Miss Tolerance would have corrected Mr. Jones, but an elderly man, wrapped in so many disreputable scarves that they nearly covered his caped coat of office as well as his face, wheezed into the room. The watch, Miss Tolerance surmised, and would have advanced to explain matters to him, but he was seized by a fit of coughing so profound that Mr. Jones went to offer assistance, and Miss Tolerance returned to Beauville’s side. Jones had apparently explained his mistaken idea of the situation to the watchman, for as soon as his coughing had stopped the man
reeled away out the door, muttering rather thickly that he was going to fetch “the authorities.”
“Gin,” Mr. Jones diagnosed tersely.
Miss Tolerance nodded. There was little to say. She and the surgeon sat quietly, watching the wounded man. Beauville had sunk into a kind of sleep; his breathing was wet and shallow.
Miss Tolerance was roused from her thoughts by the percussive sound of boots on stairs. Mr. Heddison, with Greenwillow at his heels, was at the door. The boy who had fetched them lingered in the doorway, gratified to play even a small part in so glamorous an event. The sudden commotion was too much for the surgeon, who began to scold, explaining that his patient was unlike to last the night unless he was untroubled. Heddison, identifying himself, in turn explained to Mr. Jones that as Mr. Beauville was like to die in any case, a declaration must be obtained. The two men glared at each other in a wordless battle between the flexed muscles of the legal and medical professions; Jones gave way first, with a muttered warning to Heddison that he would not be responsible for the outcome. Heddison nodded, paused long enough to direct Miss Tolerance to stay, and bent over Beauville.
Miss Tolerance took a seat and composed herself. She had told Beauville the truth; she did not fence for sport, but in defense of herself and her clients. She knew from experience that it would be several days before the physical memory of the fight faded: she would suddenly feel again her sword point penetrating her opponent’s resisting flesh, see the surprise in the other’s eyes and smell the warm, coppery blood. She knew as well that the emotions of the event would take far longer to dissipate. She had disliked and distrusted Beauville, but in dying he was showing a bravery that she could not but admire. She could not think of his imminent death with anything but regret.
The law would have its say in regard to Beauville’s death as well. Miss Tolerance was fairly certain that any honest verdict would be in her favor. The two swords which lay in proximity to Beauville’s body attested to the fact that she had not attacked the man unprovoked. For a moment she was distracted by the idea of the affair written up in the Gazette’s Dueling Notices: By the sword,
fatally, Mr. Henri Beauville, engaged with Miss Sarah Tolerance in a matter of treason. Beauville murmured unintelligibly to Heddison across the room.
At last Heddison left Beauville and joined Miss Tolerance.
“I had only just finished reading your note and the materials it contained when your second summons arrived,” he told her. His wide mouth turned down. “Beauville says you fought to keep him from escaping.”
Miss Tolerance nodded.
“He also says he has no idea whence Mrs. Touvois has fled. Before you go, please give Greenwillow a description of the woman. Perhaps she may be stopped at a port—she must try to leave the country. Dover or Southampton, most likely.”
“Indeed.” Miss Tolerance waited, feeling strongly that there must be something more to be said, either about the plot she had unearthed or her own participation in it.
“Well, it is late. I will not keep you, but be prepared to make yourself available.” Heddison bowed curtly and beckoned Greenwillow forward. He gave instructions to his constable, then went back to Beauville. Greenwillow, with a notebook and a stub of pencil, waited until Miss Tolerance had given Madame Touvois’ height and hair color, then followed his master’s lead in dismissing Miss Tolerance into the night.
She went home to Manchester Square, exhausted and depressed.
She was wakened by Jess, carrying a tray of coffee and rolls, with several of the London papers upon it. The hour was very advanced—the light had dropped to the western side of the house and Miss Tolerance judged it must be nearer to one than noon.
“Ma’am said she thought you’d want to see these, miss,” the maid explained. “She said I was to bring you your breakfast up, seeing as you might be wanting to celebrate.”
“Celebrate?” Miss Tolerance said blankly.
“That’s what she said, miss.” Jess settled the tray before Miss Tolerance and poured out her coffee. “Good morning, miss.” She curtsied and was gone.
The papers were filled with news, much of it characteristically muddled. The story in brief was that a vile plot against a royal person had been uncovered—unfortunately too late to save the lives of several persons who had been involved in the treasonous actions, including, Miss Tolerance was fascinated to read, “a beautiful innocent who was murdered solely to implicate the Royal Person in her death.” Josette Vose had given a fair impersonation of beauty, but innocent? She had been innocent of nothing except, most likely, conniving at her own death. She was similarly interested to learn that the Chevalier d’Aubigny featured in the reports as a patriot who had died because he had uncovered the vile plans of Madame Camille Touvois and her lackey, Mr. Henri Beauville. Mr. Beauville’s death was attributed to unknown persons, and an urgent entreaty was made to the public to be on the watch for Madame Touvois, a woman of middle height and full, fine figure, with hair a light red and curling, and eyes brown, not beautiful but handsome, thought to be traveling disguised.
There was no note in any of the papers of Miss Tolerance’s role in uncovering the plot.
She was happy to have it so; notoriety was not an asset in her profession, and she had received far too much publicity in testifying against Versellion. Still she was bemused at how totally Mr. Heddison (who, she suspected, had called in the press as soon as she had left Madame Touvois’ rooms) had taken credit for the resolution of the case. One thing pleased her: two reports mentioned that discovery of the treasonous conspiracy had completely removed any suspicion in her husband’s death from the poor Widow d’Aubigny, who had been taken up for questioning before the direction of the investigation had been changed and the true culprits discovered.
Miss Tolerance sipped her coffee and ate her bread and butter. When she had finished her meal she prepared to go out. She must give her reckoning to William Colcannon and return the chevalier’s box to Anne d’Aubigny. The box might well go into the privy house again, but that was none of her affair. Miss Tolerance washed leisurely, put her hair up, and laid out her blue twill walking
dress. She was putting on her stockings when Jess appeared at the door with a letter on a tray.
“Just delivered, miss. By a important footman, Cole says.” Important, coupled with the rolling of Jess’s eyes, suggested pompous.
Miss Tolerance thanked the maid and asked her to request Cole to bespeak a hackney carriage for her. She finished dressing before she took up the envelope. It was of heavy laid paper, un-crested, addressed to her in a uniform copperplate which suggested a secretary’s hand. Perhaps an offer of new employment, she thought. With the Widow d’Aubigny’s business all but finished new employment would be welcome.
But the envelope contained a brief note in language that was unexceptionable and noncommittal, expressing the gratitude of His Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland. From the number of banknotes which had been enclosed with the note it was clear that the note intended less to convey thanks than to insure silence. Miss Tolerance sat for some minutes looking at the banknotes spread across her lap, weighing practicality against scruples. The amount she was being offered would have kept her quite comfortably for a year. She folded the banknotes into her reticule, took up her coat, and descended to the waiting hackney.
When she applied at Cumberland’s apartments in St. James’s Palace she was put again in the blank, chilly room where she had last waited. Miss Tolerance had resolved to be, quite against her mood, as bland and pleasant-spoken as she could be with the duke. It was not the duke who joined her, however. This was a neatly dressed man of middle height and build, with close-cut brown hair of a medium shade, and features so unremarkable that one might forget what he looked like, almost while looking at him.
“Miss Tolerance?” The forgettable man bowed.
She curtsied. “Yes, sir? And you are?”
“You may call me Mr. Smith,” he drawled. Miss Tolerance had his measure by the end of the sentence: a man who believed that
her equivocal position licensed insolence. She would not rise to the bait.
“Smith is not your true name, I take it?”
“No more than yours, Miss Tolerance. It will do for our purposes. Will you tell me why you have come?”
Miss Tolerance opened her reticule and bought out the packet of banknotes. “I received this from His Highness this morning. I preferred to return it myself, to ensure no farthing went astray.”
Smith looked at the money. “Was it not enough?” he drawled.
Miss Tolerance spoke with a politeness which ought to have inspired anxiety in the forgettable Mr. Smith. “You mistake me, sir. It is far too much. I will be quite adequately paid for my efforts by my own client.” She extended the notes to Smith. He did not take them.
“The money is an expression of my master’s gratitude. You have no reason to return it.”
“Nothing I have done has been in your master’s service.”
“But what you have done has turned out very well for my master, and he wishes to thank you.”
“Turned out well? With his mistress murdered in the street?”
“Ah, but you found the persons responsible, did you not? And my master is now regarded by the public with some sympathy—a novel situation, you must admit—both as a bereaved lover and as the target of that wicked plot.”
“According to the newspapers I had nothing to do with the resolution of the case,” Miss Tolerance said drily.
“If the men who run this nation were made to rely upon the newspapers to know the truth, England would be in a sad case, Miss Tolerance. The papers are for manufacturing opinion, not telling the truth. My master is well aware that it was you who—” Smith paused. “It was you who removed the obstacles the French had thought to throw in his way.”
“Obstacles. To His Highness’s bid for the regency?”
“Of course. More immediately, obstacles to the passage of an important bill he supports.”
“The Support Bill.” Miss Tolerance’s distaste was obvious.
“Indeed. With the passage of the Support Bill the army will be given the money it requires to extinguish the French menace from the face of Europe—”
“At the cost of stirring up revolution here at home? If I have helped secure passage of that bill, I will take no pride in it, sir.”
“You disapprove, Miss Tolerance? Well, we are fortunate that policy is not made by women. Your soft hearts do not accord with the resolve necessary to statecraft.”
Miss Tolerance closed her eyes and drew a long, deep breath. When she had subdued her temper she smiled.
“Mr. Smith, I killed a man last night. Please do not condescend to speak of my resolve or the softness of my heart. You may give His Highness my condolences upon his loss when you return his money.” Miss Tolerance regarded Smith’s bland face and could not resist the impulse to disturb its smiling arrogance. “It is particularly convenient for His Highness that the branches of amour in which Mrs. Vose specialized did not become known to the public.”
The effect of her words was everything she could have wished. Smith’s bland smile vanished. He had all the appearance of a man on the brink of outrage. “Do you suggest that you would make known—if the money is not sufficient to guarantee your discretion—”
“Mr. Smith, I am not a blackmailer, nor am I given to plots and intrigues. My soft heart feels for the people who will suffer if your master succeeds in his object—and for the late Mrs. Vose. Your master has nothing to fear from me: I shall make nothing public. I shall continue to think, and feel, a great deal, however. As I remarked to him upon the last occasion when I called here, the mere fact that some of my services may be hired does not mean that I can be bought entire.”
Smith bridled. “You would have me believe you are insulted by the money?”
“You will believe what you like, sir. If there is nothing else to discuss, I will take my leave.”
“Not without assurance—”
“I have said I will make nothing public. I am not in the business of publishing scandal, Mr. Smith. Your master may congratulate himself for getting something for nothing.” Miss Tolerance pushed the folded banknotes across the table toward Mr. Smith. She was agreeably aware, as she left the room, that Smith had not moved to take up the money.
Miss Tolerance had walked several streets, pulling on her gloves, breathing the icy air and composing damning ripostes, before her common sense caught up with her. She had let her temper get the better of her, and only hoped she might not live to be sorry for it. She used the walk to Manchester Square to regain her composure, went in the house long enough to fetch the Chevalier d’Aubigny’s box and, in anticipation of a happier interview, turned her steps toward Half Moon Street.
William Colcannon, looking as much at ease in his sister’s house as she had formerly seen him uneasy, greeted Miss Tolerance effusively as the Savior of the Household, and offered to pay her twice, even thrice her agreed-upon fee. With the interview with Mr. Smith so recently past, Miss Tolerance found the idea of overpayment oppressive, and informed her client that the fee agreed upon, plus her remaining expenses, would be sufficient. “The amount of money I have expended in your behalf, on bribes and incentives, is likely to make you open your eyes,” she said. “You are soon to be married, and it is likely your sister will need your generosity as well; pay my fee, Mr. Colcannon, and we are quits.”
Colcannon thanked her again, three or four times, before noting that Miss Tolerance carried a good-sized wooden box under her arm.
“Your late brother-in-law’s property, which I am returning to your sister,” Miss Tolerance explained to him. “Is Mrs. d’Aubigny in seclusion, or may I speak to her for a moment and congratulate her upon her freedom?”
“She will be delighted, honored—” Mr. Colcannon’s vocabulary failed him before his enthusiasm did. He took Miss Tolerance up the stairs to the little room in which she had spoken to Anne d’Aubigny before. What a difference there was today: the dark drapes had been pulled and the afternoon light and a good fire made the room a very pleasant place.
“Anne, see who is here to see how you do! Your savior, Miss Tolerance!”
Anne d’Aubigny shook her head at her brother with amusement
and affection. Her former pallor was much relieved. Even in her unflattering blacks there was a warm color in her cheeks, and the sunlight danced in her pale blue eyes. She had several books in her hands, but put them down to come forward and take Miss Tolerance’s hands warmly.
“My brother is right, Miss Tolerance. I have so much to thank you for. Please, will you take a glass of wine with me?”
Miss Tolerance thanked the widow and said she would be delighted. Colcannon took his leave of the women, and Miss Tolerance, before she took the chair Anne d’Aubigny had directed her to, put d’Aubigny’s carved box on a table.
“Perhaps you will not want to keep this, but it is yours,” she began.
Mrs. d’Aubigny was suddenly pale again. She put one hand up to her mouth in a gesture which should have been theatrical but was not. For a moment she appeared to be at a loss for words. At last she whispered, “What am I to do with it?”
Miss Tolerance felt a pang of impatience.
“I think we have seen that the privy is not a successful resting place for it,” she said drily. “It is fortunate, indeed, that the box turned up again, for the solution to your husband’s murder rested within it.”
“It did?” Mrs. d’Aubigny sat down. She had lost all of the animation of a few moments before; of course, Miss Tolerance thought. The widow still saw the box as the repository for the chevalier’s implements of pain. She knew nothing of its other secrets, which had assured her freedom.
“Your husband kept documents hidden in the lining of the box which will serve as the basis for the Crown’s case against Madame Touvois—if she is caught.”
“My husband was a spy?”
Miss Tolerance shook her head. “No, ma’am. Not a spy, although what he was doing was not much more savory. He was blackmailing the true traitors. It was a clever hiding place; even Mr. Beauville said he would not touch the box on the night of your husband’s death.”
“Did he?” Anne d’Aubigny took up a handbell and rang it twice. “Poor Mr. Beauville. The paper said he was killed trying to escape.”
“Yes.” Miss Tolerance found herself explaining the circumstances of Beauville’s death and her part in it.
“How brave you are, Miss Tolerance,” the widow said at the end of the tale. “It is a horrid thing, to kill someone, I imagine. For a woman. Men are more used to … to wars, and hunting and … I am sorry you were forced to it on my behalf.”
Miss Tolerance could not think what to reply, and was happy for the appearance of Jacks, with the tray, decanter, and glasses, and Sophia Thissen. For a few minutes there was a domestic bustle of clearing the table for the tray and pouring out the wine. Sophie took the box away with instructions to have it broken up and burnt in the kitchen fire.
“What shall you do now?” Miss Tolerance asked when both servants had departed.
With the box gone from the room its hold upon Mrs. d’Aubigny’s imagination seemed to be lifted, and she regained her earlier animation. She gestured at the books she had left upon the desk. Miss Tolerance saw a box nearby and realized she had interrupted the widow at packing. “I am going away. London has too many painful memories. My brother suggested I go to my cousins in India. Perhaps I can outstay the awful notoriety here.”
Miss Tolerance agreed that this was an excellent solution. Mrs. d’Aubigny began to enthuse upon the wonders she expected to see: she was evidently an avid reader of travel books. Miss Tolerance sipped her wine and listened.
Despite the warmth of the fire and the wine, and Anne d’Aubigny’s soft voice, Miss Tolerance could not relax and enjoy the completion of her work. Rather, she found herself becoming distracted, not listening to the widow but chasing a shadow of thought. At last she caught it. She felt a pang of pleasure and panic and raised her eyes to meet Anne d’Aubigny’s.
“The bloody box,” she said.
Mrs. d’Aubigny stopped short in her praise of Madras. “I beg your pardon—”
Miss Tolerance was seized with too much wonderment to apologize. “Beauville called it the bloody box, and I thought he meant it as a profanity. He was being purely descriptive. The bloody box. He was here the night of your husband’s murder, you see. There
was a woman with chevalier, so Beauville hid in the hallway and dozed off. When Beauville woke the woman was gone, and he went in to find the chevalier dead. And the box was there. Smeared with blood and brains, I don’t doubt. That is why you had Sophie drop it into the privy, isn’t it?”
Anne d’Aubigny looked at Miss Tolerance quizzically, as if she could not think of the proper way to respond. Did she hope to win her accuser’s sympathy? Was she marshaling defenses that, with Beauville’s death, she had put aside? But perhaps she did the widow an injustice. Anne d’Aubigny finally nodded, as regal as any doomed queen.
“Will you tell me what happened that night?”
The widow, entranced, stared at some picture only she could see, and began to speak. Her words were not rushed but irrepressible, as if she would not rest until the last of them was spoken.
“My husband had gone out and I had thought myself safe for the night. I went to bed—Sophie brought me my sleeping draught, and I slept. I do not know how much later it was—everyone in the house was abed—when Etienne came to my room and woke me. He pulled me down the hall to his room; I was very addled with the laudanum, and very tired. He said Josette was gone, that he might as well have me as her. And he … he did.” The widow looked up at Miss Tolerance seriously. “I knew to submit. He went a little easier with me, so. But I was so tired, and stupid with the laudanum. Sometimes the drug made it easier; either Etienne would go away when he found me asleep, or it would help me not to mind. But sometimes when I’m roused from a deep sleep it is worse. It was so, that night. When Etienne was done with me he pushed me off the bed and told me to go, to get out of his sight.” She laughed harshly. “He rolled over and was asleep at once. And I—I was bleeding, my nightshift was bloody and I felt near to swooning. I saw the box. Do you know the way in which one endows a place or a thing with some sentiment or history, Miss Tolerance? Look, my love gave me this ribbon, or see, that is where we danced … I saw the box and it was every cruel thing Etienne had ever done to me. I picked it up and thought, if I could destroy it he would not hurt me again. But then I thought: he will get another box. And he will punish me …”
The widow’s voice was high and thin at the memory. Miss Tolerance released a breath she had not known she held.
“Afterward I did not know what to do. I wanted to wash my hands but I could not bear to stay in the room with … him. I am not a person accustomed to action, as you are. I was not thinking very clearly. I ran back to my room to wash. I do not know what I was thinking; the rest of me was—there was—my nightshift was more befouled than before. Then I heard a noise in the hallway which scared me.”
“Beauville,” Miss Tolerance said.
“Did he know it was I who—”
Miss Tolerance shook her head. “He may have suspected it, but he did not say so to me.”
The widow nodded thoughtfully. “When I heard that noise I was certain that Etienne had risen up and was coming for me. Even with what I had done. His blood and his brains …” Mrs. d’Aubigny faltered for a moment over the memory. “It will sound foolish to you now, but I had to see if he was really dead. It hardly seemed possible to me that Etienne’s life could be so fragile. I waited until there was no further noise—no one had raised an alarm—and went back to his room. It was horrid, but he was dead. It sounds cold to say it, but you cannot imagine the comfort that was to me, Miss Tolerance.”
The widow sat in her chair like a child, hands in her lap, her eyes fixed upon Miss Tolerance.
“Do all your servants know—?” Miss Tolerance asked. She felt overwhelmed by what she had uncovered, and uncertain what her own feelings were. Was the murder justified? An act of passion? How was she to act now?
Anne d’Aubigny shook her head. “I don’t think so, not even Sophia. When I went back to my husband’s room the laudanum had begun to wear off and the meaning of what I had done came to me. I felt so free. And so frightened! When I was taken to prison I thought it was only my due. Only today, when I felt safe, did I begin to think I might have a chance at the sort of normal life I expected when I was a girl.”
Miss Tolerance kept her sympathy in check. She must hear it all first.
“When you returned to your husband’s room what did you do?”
Mrs. d’Aubigny regarded her steadily from watery eyes.
“I knew I must remove any sign that I had been there. I took off my shift and wiped—everything—off the box. That was dreadful. Then I threw the shift into the fire and let it burn.”
“Ah.” Miss Tolerance’s eyebrows went up. “Ah, yes, of course.” She took out her wallet and extracted from it the scrap of white fabric she had taken from the chevalier’s room. She laid the fabric on her knee, smoothing it carefully. “I found this in the grate. It is a bit that did not burn, I take it.”
Mrs. D’Aubigny agreed that it must be. “I thought I had destroyed it all. I took the box back to my room and put on a new shift and went to bed. In the morning I told Sophia to get rid of the box.”
“By throwing it in the privy?”
The widow nodded. “Sophia knew what Etienne did to me. It was she who salved my bruises and bound up the wounds. She understood what the box meant and why I would wish it destroyed.”
Miss Tolerance sat speechless. She could not tell if she were more outraged or saddened by the tale.
“You understood,” Anne d’Aubigny said with certainty. “From the first, you said—”
“I recall. I said I knew what it was to be mistaken in whom I loved. Did you imagine that meant that you should deceive me, or use me to make a mock of the law?”
“The law! The law permitted my husband to make a mock of our marriage vows!” Anne d’Aubigny’s gaze locked with Miss Tolerance’s. All meekness and submission had disappeared; the widow did not appear angry, only resolute. “What will you do?” she asked.
Miss Tolerance examined her own hands and considered. Had Anne d’Aubigny not murdered her husband, Henri Beauville would have done so, and for less cause. Beauville had not scrupled to direct suspicion to the widow; he had used Boyse to encourage that suspicion and remove it from himself. The law now appeared to be ready enough to fix the guilt in d’Aubigny’s murder upon Henri Beauville, who had, God knew, enough guilt for the death of Josette Vose; and with Camille Touvois, whom Miss
Tolerance was certain would never be returned to London to hang. The matter could be resolved very easily.
And yet Miss Tolerance felt uneasy with the idea. Anne d’Aubigny had done murder; should she be permitted to escape punishment? A reasonable jury might well decide that she had acted to defend herself against further violence. A reasonable jury might well feel that she had been punished in advance of any crime, and ought not suffer further. And the law—Miss Tolerance stopped. The law permitted my husband to make a mock of our marriage vows! Was the law likely to make concessions on a charge of petty treason?
What if Anne d’Aubigny went free? Miss Tolerance could not believe that she, with sullied honor and no standing in society, found herself in the position of judge and jury. But, as the widow had said, she did understand what it was to be mistaken in the man she loved.
“Miss Tolerance?”
“You would never do it again,” she said, half to herself.
Anne d’Aubigny appeared shocked by the notion. “I will give you my oath! I would never—”
Miss Tolerance held up her hand. “Yes, I know. I hope you will forgive me; I need to consider the matter. When do you plan to leave?”
Madame d’Aubigny’s lips trembled. There is a ship sailing in a few days. The Lucy Singer, for Madras.”
“Then I suppose I must make my mind to tell the law what I know before that time, or lose the opportunity to do so.”
In the silence of the room the fire popped and the chimney whistled faintly. Anne d’Aubigny regarded Miss Tolerance steadily. At last she said, “I understand. And I thank you for your consideration, Miss Tolerance.”
As well you might, Miss Tolerance thought. She took a sip of her wine in a silent toast to the Widow d’Aubigny and her future.