The Candlelit Coffin (Lady Fan Mystery Book 4)

by Elizabeth Bailey

  No voice answered immediately. George, pausing on the threshold of a parlour that mirrored the one below but with a pleasanter atmosphere, found himself confronted by a battery of eyes.

  Several persons, caught in the act of eating or drinking, were grouped around a large table near the window, which was set with dishes indicative of a substantial breakfast having been supplied, presumably by the landlady downstairs. By the mantel opposite, innocent of a fire in high summer, a good-looking young fellow stood, apparently checking his appearance in the mirror above. He had turned his head, however, his gaze riveted upon the military intruder. He was attired for the street, whereas an air of informality presided among the rest, most of whom seemed to be in a state of undress or casual half-dress.

  In one of the chairs adjacent to the fireplace sat an elderly dame with commanding features, swathed in a large shawl as colourful as the impresario’s banyan. She it was who first broke the silence of surprise, speaking in a pleasant cultured tone with none of the flourishes that characterised Ferdinand.

  “Dulcie has not been in to breakfast yet. But why Dulcie, Arthur? Who is this? What has happened?”

  Ferdinand swept forward. “My dear Jane, do not ask me! I am perfectly bewildered as yet as to his reason for being here, but my heart misgives me.” He flung a pointing finger towards the table. “Cecile! Speak! You must know where Dulcie is, if anyone does.”

  A riffle disturbed George’s pulse as he realised his little French émigré was at the table. He had not noticed her at first glance, seated as she was with her back to the window and thus a trifle shadowed by the streaming light of morning. Her troubled gaze was trained upon George and it struck him she knew something. But she was shaking her head as she spoke up, in accented English.

  “I do not know, monsieur.”

  “You don’t know? But you must know, curse it all!” Ferdinand’s agitation sounded in his voice, which was turning peevish. “How can you not know? You sleep in the same bed, girl! Is Dulcie still asleep?”

  “Arthur, don’t snap at the child!” The older woman rose, moving towards George. “What is the matter, sir? Why are you asking after Dulcie? Who are you?”

  “He’s the colonel of the local militia, Jane, and I thought he had come for young Jasper here,” said Ferdinand before George could answer. He bent a choleric eye upon the young man by the mantel. “Wretched boy! Just look at the state of you! I suppose you’ve been out carousing, have you?”

  The fellow Jasper, who did indeed look a trifle dishevelled now George’s attention was drawn to the matter, regarded his mentor with a curling lip.

  “Well, he ain’t come for me, old sobersides. P’raps Dulcie has been off carousing and you’ve to rescue her from the sponging house instead.” He ended on a spurt of mocking laughter which caused the impresario to throw up exasperated hands.

  “Impertinent boy! Jane, speak to him!”

  “Do be quiet for a moment, Arthur.” The woman Jane once more addressed George. “You have not answered me, sir.”

  “I’ve not been given the opportunity, ma’am,” he returned on a trenchant note. He gave a curt bow. “Colonel Tretower, ma’am. Give me leave to ask Mademoiselle Benoit one further question.”

  She frowned, glancing from him to the girl Cecile and back again. “You know her, Colonel?”

  George saw the instant consternation leap into the French girl’s eyes. “I — er — ran into mademoiselle a while ago.”

  Without further explanation, he crossed to the table, noting how the others seated there shifted stance at his approach. There was a second youngish fellow, a man of middle years and two other females: one also dark-haired and relatively youthful, the other, seated with her back to George, a round-faced dame with the thickened waistline of middle age.

  “Mademoiselle,” he said in French. “I regret to be obliged to press you, but this is important.” She nodded but did not speak, looking if anything more concerned than before. “If you are sharing a room with Miss Dulcie, you will know if she slept here last night.”

  The girl looked perfectly dismayed at this, and a series of gasps told George that most of the assembled members of the company understood French.

  “I do not know, monsieur,” came the low-voiced answer.

  George pursued her relentlessly, despite the attraction he’d felt at their previous meeting. “How is that? Come, mademoiselle. You sleep in the same bed. You cannot be ignorant of her presence or absence.”

  The girl’s eyes took on the resentment she had exhibited before, but George held her gaze. He could almost feel her rising belligerence, at one with the suspenseful atmosphere building in the room.

  At last the French girl’s eyes sank. “Dulcie had not come to bed when I went to sleep.”

  “Had she gone out? Was there an assignation perhaps?”

  The dark eyes rose again, apprehension in them. Had he hit the mark? If so, she did not buckle. “I do not know, monsieur.”

  “But you know she was still not in the bed when you woke this morning?”

  “That is so.” Spoken low and with a near vicious stab from the vivid eyes. Her lips tightened. She looked away, set rigid fingers to the cloth on the table. “I think perhaps she has slipped away early this morning. Perhaps to — to do the swim, or to walk upon the beach.”

  She was lying. George would swear she knew more than she was saying. But for this present, he had all he needed, which was sufficient to depress his spirits.

  “I thank you, mademoiselle.” He switched to English, turning back to the impresario. “May I have a word with you in private, Mr Ferdinand?”

  The effect of this was powerful. The Grand Ferdinando’s grey gaze showed both dismay and reluctance. Swift suspicion lit in George’s breast. Guilt? Could he have been acting all this time? Did he know only too well what he was about to hear?

  Before he could speak, the woman Jane broke in, her tone determined. “I will accompany you, Colonel. I am Mrs Ferdinand, you must know, and if there is anything to be said concerning one of our girls, I insist upon being present. Dulcie is more in my charge than my husband’s, you understand.”

  George gave a small bow of acquiescence. “As you please, ma’am. If we may retire to another room?”

  She crossed to the door, cast a glance about the company and spoke in a measured way to the rest. “Nobody move. If Wat or Aisling should come in, keep them here too. Come, Arthur.”

  The impresario, who appeared to be struck all of a heap, started and hastened to follow as his wife led the way out of the room. “Yes, yes I am with you, my dear. After you, Colonel.”

  Mrs Ferdinand spoke over her shoulder as she crossed the corridor, opening the way to a second parlour, set with sofas, chairs and occasional tables planted haphazardly or in groups. There was also a writing bureau in the window alcove, a full bookcase against one wall and a tall cabinet occupying most of another.

  “This is our workroom, where we may hold readings or rehearse. None will disturb us here at this time of day.”

  “They are all accounted for, Janey, save Wat and Aisling. I dare swear they may have already gone to the theatre. There is that chair to mend, remember, and the proscenium flat must be painted. I can’t think what Fitzgerald is about to allow it to become so disgracefully dilapidated.”

  “Yes, Arthur, but this is scarcely the moment to be thinking of such matters.”

  The impresario’s mobile features, which had momentarily been overlaid with a look of discontent to match his complaining tone, here sank back into apprehension. He turned again to George, rocking back on his heels.

  “Ah, yes, little Dulcie. I hope you mean to explain yourself, Colonel.”

  “Obviously I must do so, sir.”

  Mrs Ferdinand kept frowning brown eyes on him, question in her face. George drew a breath, casting a glance from one to the other and settling on the female.

  “I regret to be obliged to inform you, ma’am, I have reason to suspect Miss Dulc
ie may be the victim in a particularly distressing murder.”

  Horror flared in the woman’s eyes and her face drained of colour. The impresario, on the other hand, merely stared at George as if he had taken leave of his senses. Had he heard what was said? Or just not taken it in?

  George returned his attention to Mrs Ferdinand. “Perhaps you should sit down, ma’am. I’m sorry to be the bearer of such black tidings.”

  She waved a dismissive hand, but did indeed sink into the nearest chair, covering her face with her fingers.

  Ferdinand reached out to grasp George’s arm. “What did you say? Murdered?”

  “I’m afraid so, sir. I will require you to come with me, if you please, to make an identification.”

  He released his clutch on George’s arm, his face grey, his voice for once devoid of drama. “It can’t be Dulcibella. Not Dulcie. Murdered, you say? No, no, you must be mistaken!”

  “It is possible I am mistaken, Mr Ferdinand, and for all your sakes I must hope it may prove to be so. Unfortunately my sergeant was certain he recognised the girl from a performance at the theatre here, which is why I sought you out.”

  The man looked every inch of his advanced years all at once. He staggered a little, and fell into a chair, gazing before him in something of a stupor. His wife dropped her hands and looked up at George, a determined look in her face.

  “Tell me it all, if you please. Where and how did you find her?”

  “You must excuse me, Mrs Ferdinand. Until I have ascertained whether the victim is indeed Miss Dulcie, I prefer to keep my own counsel.”

  “But is the word of this sergeant of yours all you have?”

  “That, and the fact the girl is golden-haired and of great beauty. A description your husband at once attributed to this Dulcibella.” Brisk, he addressed the impresario once more. “I must bid you rouse yourself and dress at once, sir. The doctor’s house is not far and we may go there and settle the matter in short order.”

  The man remained where he was, apparently still stunned. His wife went up to him and shook his shoulder.

  “Arthur, bestir yourself!”

  He started. “What?”

  “Go and dress!”

  He rose, a trifle unsteadily, passing a hand across his brow. “Yes. Yes, I will do so at once. I will not keep you above a moment, sir.”

  But George had no notion of letting the fellow out of his sight. His demeanour, added to the undoubted theatricality of the murder, had put the most uncomfortable suspicions into the colonel’s head.

  “I will accompany you, sir.”

  The impresario gave him an odd glance, but made no objection. Mrs Ferdinand was more direct. She gave George a straight look.

  “Why, sir?”

  “Haste, ma’am, that is all.” He added, prevaricating, “Mr Ferdinand is clearly disordered by what I have said.” He forestalled any notion the woman might have of suggesting she did the chivvying instead. “I must request you to return to your company, ma’am, and see that no one leaves the house until my return. If the worst should prove true, I will need to question everyone concerned.”

  Without waiting for her response, he gave the still hovering impresario a push towards the door, ignoring the wife’s expression of acute dismay.

  Dread settled in Cecile’s bosom, which was not helped by the excited speculation that broke out on the closing of the door, led by Hildegard Larkin.

  “What in the world can the militia want with Dulcie? What has she been doing, I wonder?”

  “We all wonder, Hilde,” said Lewis Payne, so often her counterpart in parental roles when he was not playing the buffoon of the piece. He went on in his pinching way, turning to look at Cecile beside him, “Except for our Cecily here, who clearly knows more than she is saying.”

  All eyes turned on Cecile and she shrank for an instant, and then glared. “Only because we share the room?”

  Hilde leaned across the table, patting her fingers still resting on the tablecloth with a pudgy hand. “Don’t heed him, Cecily dear. Though I am bound to state it is an odd circumstance that you didn’t notice Dulcie leaving the bed.”

  “She didn’t leave the bed.” Jasper lounged across from the mantel, his eyes fixed on Cecile in one of the mocking stares she loathed. “I’ll wager she was never in it.”

  “Well, you were obviously not in yours, Jasper,” retorted Kate, speaking up for the first time. She mimicked his sneering tone. “Perhaps you know where Dulcie was, if she was out all night too?”

  A squabble immediately broke out between the two, rather to Cecile’s relief since the others became involved in berating them or trying to keep the peace. Except Rob, she noted. Not for the first time, she wondered if the saturnine Robert Collins was to blame for Dulcie’s distressing condition. He was darkly attractive, in a devilish kind of way, and Cecile had long suspected he cherished a secret passion for Dulcie, despite having a wife and two children tucked away in Dorchester. Although he had never been other than amiable, Cecile found it somehow fitting that Rob was often cast in villainous roles, if he was not playing a foil to Jasper’s hero.

  Anyone less heroic in life would be hard to find. Jasper was not in the least bit dashing, but Cecile knew that Dulcie liked him more than a little and had permitted him to take liberties with her on more than one occasion. Much to the scorn of Katharine Drummond who, Cecile suspected, was more fond of Jasper than anyone would suppose despite the way they carped at each other on every possible occasion.

  Charged with having allowed him too much licence, however, Dulcie had denied Jasper’s responsibility in her desperate problem. But Kate’s accusation rankled. Could it be Jasper whom Dulcie went to meet last night? Yet if it was, why not return with him?

  Despite Dulcie’s vehement denial, Cecile could not but suspect one of the males in the company was guilty of seduction. Brought up in the strict fashion of the French aristocracy, she had been both shocked and awed by the casual lifestyle and irregular conduct of most of the players. Time had eroded her astonishment and the camaraderie had done much to assuage the loneliness, but nothing would serve to dissolve her adherence to the rectitude of her youth. Dulcie’s fall from grace quite horrified her, but she was her friend and Cecile could neither revile her nor abandon her in a time of need.

  But the entrance into the matter of this colonel of militia, after a night of worrying over Dulcie’s absence, threw her into apprehensive suspense. She had good reason to know Colonel Tretower for a man of judgement. Also sympathy. Unwanted, but nevertheless kind in its intent. It had been a shock to see him enter the noisy parlour. For one horrible moment, Cecile thought he had come on her account, suspecting after all that the necklace was not hers to dispose of. But that he came instead for Dulcie was a terrible shock.

  At this moment, Jane Ferdinand re-entered the parlour, causing an instant suspension of the argument that had broken out. From her demeanour, she’d taken a severe knock. Hilde at once exclaimed, “Heavens, Janey, you look like death! What in the world did that man tell you?”

  Jane crossed to the table and sank into Kate’s vacated chair. Cecile noted the tremble of her fingers as she passed one hand across her mouth.

  “Rob, you are nearest the pot. Pour her a cup of coffee,” said Hilde.

  “I’ll do it.” Lewis, who had risen when he became embroiled in the argument with Jasper, returned to his end of the table and seized up the coffee pot. “Though from the looks of her, Janey needs a good dose of brandy.”

  Both Kate and Jasper converged upon the table at this, crowding to eye the company’s matriarch. Whatever opinion the players held of Arthur Ferdinand, Cecile was aware that, to a man, they liked and respected his wife. Jane’s eyes were filmy with moisture as her gaze passed along the anxious faces. Her voice held a distinct tremor.

  “There is no point in keeping it from you. If it proves to be Dulcie…”

  Cecile’s breath vanished as the woman faded out.

  “If what proves to b
e Dulcie?”

  The sharp demand came from Rob, of all people. A shudder wracked Jane’s frame. Her voice was hoarse as she resumed.

  “A golden-haired girl has been found murdered. Arthur has gone with the colonel to see if he may identify the body.”

  Numbness overcame Cecile. She felt peculiarly detached, her thoughts clear and bright while a thick cloud of feeling hovered somewhere out of reach. Observing the silent stupor of those around the table, it struck her how unrealistic was their acting upon the stage. Moments like this they portrayed as violent emotion with histrionic enthusiasm. Much staggering, weeping and wailing would have greeted such appalling tidings, whereas in life each exhibited all the true horror of disbelief.

  “It can’t be Dulcie,” came at last from Kate in a hushed tone. “He must be mistaken.”

  “Why can’t it be?” Thus Jasper on a vicious note. “No need to look daggers at me either. I didn’t kill her.”

  “Jasper!”

  “Nobody said you did. Be quiet, you fool!” Lewis turned back to Jane. “Why does that colonel think it’s Dulcie?”

  “Because she has golden hair, didn’t you hear?”

  “Jasper, will you hold your tongue?” snapped Hilde. “Though it does seem a trifle precipitate to be supposing any girl with golden hair must be Dulcie, I must say, Janey.”

  “It is more than that.”

  “What then?”

  A twist at Rob’s mouth as he spoke, one he used to good effect for his villains, caused Cecile to shrink a little away from him, wishing she’d taken a different seat.

  “The colonel said his sergeant recognised her from seeing her on stage with us.”

  “Dear Lord! That’s why he came here then?”

  “Obviously, dear Katharine. And just as obviously he’ll be supposing one of us to have done the deed.”

  Cecile could bear no more. “Dieu me sauve! Dulcie may be dead and this is all you think and say?” The cloud was beginning to descend. Her voice went out of control. “Play-actors! You, Jasper, so clever as you think you are, you know nothing of life and death. You, all of you —” On her feet now, she berated them, unable to help glaring from one to another — “making the play with your weeping and your woes as if this is how a person behaves. I have lost all, all! Do you see me making the hysterics?” She flung out accusing fingers. “You do not care if Dulcie is dead, no! You care only to make as much noise and quarrel as you can. This is not the play, vous savez? This is life! This is real! Where is your respect?”