A Sinister Establishment

by Lynn Messina

  Having accepted her suitor’s romantic duplicity with aplomb, the housekeeper seemed thoroughly unnerved by his financial deceit.

  “You may calm yourself, Mrs. Wallace,” Kesgrave said firmly, “for I have no worry on that head. I am sure you were ignorant of Monsieur Alphonse’s dealings, and even if you were not, you have done nothing wrong. We know nothing of the source of the money, and there is no reason to assume the explanation is sinister.”

  Pausing her count of soggy guineas at twenty-one, Bea glanced at the duke with amusement. “No reason?”

  Mrs. Wallace shook her head and sank down into her chair on the other side of the desk, as if suddenly too tired to stand. “I cannot imagine what he was about, hiding a small fortune in my office. It is a wonder, your grace, and I am grateful you were so clever as to figure it out now. I keep imagining how horrifying it would have been if in a few days I emptied the vase myself and discovered them.”

  She spoke with gushing admiration, not only for Kesgrave’s ingenuity in identifying where the treasure was hidden but also for his shrewdness in recognizing a threat to her and taking steps to remove it. Hearing it, Bea grinned in delight, for far from bringing him low, she had raised him in his housekeeper’s esteem.

  That she had managed to further establish her husband with his own staff was an irony not lost on her.

  Bea finished her count at thirty-seven while the duke poured the water from the glasses back into the small vase against Mrs. Wallace’s protest that she would be happy to do that.

  “Nonsense,” he said, returning the tidy bouquet to the vessel, “it is done.”

  Mrs. Wallace thanked him with a hint of worship in her tone, and Bea perceived again the great advantage of being a duke, for performing even the most insignificant task was seen as a tremendous accomplishment. She herself had arranged hundreds, if not thousands, of flowers in vases and had never once got so much as a grateful smile from her family.

  Bea gathered the guineas into a neat pile, and Mrs. Wallace, as if suddenly recalling her presence, insisted on getting a small bag so the duke may carry them easily. She refused to listen to his contention that he could simply slide the coins into his pockets.

  “And ruin the impeccable line of your coat, your grace?” she scoffed dismissively as she darted into the other room. A moment later she reappeared with an olive-green purse. “I am sure such an extreme sacrifice is not required.”

  She held the small bag open as Bea scooped the coins inside.

  “Ah, that is perfect,” Kesgrave said, nodding with approval.

  “Yes, thank you,” Bea said as she tugged the two pink ribbons to close the purse. “We are very grateful for your help.”

  Indeed, what Bea was truly grateful for was the housekeeper’s pragmaticism. With her sensible outlook, the only mortifying thing about the exchange was her adoration of her employer, a discovery Bea wasted no time in mentioning to Kesgrave.

  “I cannot imagine why that is a revelation to you,” he observed, following her into the drawing room to discuss the next phase of their investigation. He closed the door and joined her on the settee. “I have repeatedly explained how scrupulously I follow their rules. All you have to do to earn the esteem of the staff is allow them to go about their business with no interference. It’s really very simple, Bea, and hardly requires the effort of solving a murder.”

  As Bea already knew there were two sets of rules—one for him and one for everyone else—she saw no point in responding to his comment. Instead, she turned her attention to their puzzling discovery. Naturally, when she had realized that Monsieur Alphonse had secreted away a mysterious item in Mrs. Wallace’s office, she had not actually believed it was a slip of paper that revealed the name of his murderer.

  But she had not completely rejected it either.

  And now she had thirty-seven guineas.

  As Mrs. Wallace had said on multiple occasions, it was a small fortune, and the most logical and obvious conclusion was that it had originally belonged to someone else—someone who had perhaps tried to regain it and killed the chef in the process.

  Or maybe merely sought revenge for the theft.

  Kesgrave, however, took issue with her deduction and pointed out that the money might have belonged to Réjane. “Given that his head was ultimately removed from his body, it is not unreasonable to assume he felt some concern for his personal safety. Perhaps he was in the process of removing his possessions by degrees so as not to call attention to his plan to leave the establishment under the cover of darkness. He might have been planning to join his brother in Paris all along.”

  Although Bea appreciated any scheme that included a midnight escape, she felt the size of the fortune precluded such a benign explanation. “No, it must be in some way tied to his fate. If we discover the source of the funds, we might discover the identity of the killer.”

  But Kesgrave was not convinced, for the amount was not so great as to incite murder. “As you yourself said, the method of decapitation indicates a tremendous amount of anger toward the victim. Would the theft of such a paltry sum really provoke so much wrath?”

  Ah, but it was not a paltry sum, Bea thought, so astonished by the duke’s perspective that she stared at him as if he had just announced the Earth was flat. “Are you truly ignorant of how little money your servants make? Thirty-seven guineas is four years’ worth of wages for Joseph.”

  “It is actually three years’ worth for Joseph,” Kesgrave said smoothly. “It is four years’ worth for Helen in the scullery and fourteen years’ worth for Silas the kitchen boy, but he is only twelve and will see reasonable increases as he ages. It is twice what Mrs. Wallace makes per annum, one and a half times what Marlow earns and eight pounds more than what Jenkins receives. I give these figures to demonstrate that I know precisely how little money my servants make and would counter that the word little is inaccurate, as I provide salaries that are well above the average for a London household. I may jest about treading carefully among my staff to retain their goodwill, but the truth is, I compensate them well and they know it. That is why Mrs. Wallace adores me.”

  He spoke softly, mildly, his tone almost conversational, but Bea detected the thread of irritation just beneath the surface and realized she had given offense without intending to. It was a surprise, to be sure, for she considered her observation to be entirely innocuous, for only someone who was insulated from the vagaries of fate would consider thirty-seven guineas to be an insignificant sum. Men were murdered for far less in the noisome alleyways of St. Giles.

  As Bea had not intended to provoke a response from her husband, she was not quite sure how she did it. Was it the implication that he did not know something that pertained specifically to the management of his estate? He was, after all, a man who prided himself on knowing the particulars of a great many things, and the amount of money he paid his servants was not a minor detail. Even Aunt Vera could rattle off the list of salaries for 19 Portman Square, although she always did it in a peevishly helpless tone, as if at once baffled and annoyed by the fact that one had to pay one’s staff at all. Perhaps knowing the servants’ wages was a basic requirement of household management, and she had insulted him by implying he fell short of the minimum standard.

  That was certainly in keeping with the duke’s perception of himself.

  Or she was giving the matter too much thought and the problem was simply that he resented being accused of naiveté?

  Possibly, he was embarrassed by the charge.

  No doubt he considered himself hugely cynical, for he was endlessly sought after for the things he could provide—comfort, stature, consequence—and had learned to distrust the motives of the vast majority of the ton.

  If that was the case, she thought, calling attention to his response would only make the situation worse, would it not, for there was nothing more embarrassing than having one’s embarrassment remarked upon. Likely, he would grow even more defensive and list the salaries of every member
of Haverill Hall.

  They would remain in the drawing room for hours and grow no closer to identifying the person who chopped the head off the greatest chef in Europe.

  For Mr. Réjane’s sake, then, Bea decided to evade the issue entirely by changing the subject. Thoughtfully, she drew her eyebrows together and observed that the reason his housekeeper worshipped him—“Note, I never said anything as insipid as adore”—was he’d noticed the flowers. “It is your eye for minutia that makes you so popular with your staff and is one of the reasons why you are so well suited to be an investigative assistant.”

  Kesgrave regarded her silently for several long moments before saying with amusement, “Investigative assistant, brat? Previously, I was your partner. How did I merit the demotion?”

  “You did not get a demotion, your grace, so much as I earned a promotion,” she explained helpfully. “But you must not despair that you will remain in the subordinate position indefinitely, for you show great promise. Figuring out where Mr. Réjane had hidden his treasure was a particularly clever stroke. If you continue to display such ingenuity, you will be a senior investigative assistant in no time.”

  She expected him to laugh, for he usually took her nonsensical condescension in the ridiculous spirit it was intended, but instead he stood up, took several steps and said with ardent disapproval, “You are appeasing me.”

  Although she was taken aback by the accusation, she made no effort to deny it. Having been disconcerted by his umbrage and lacking a full understanding of it, she had indeed taken the easiest path. Nevertheless, she did not think his description was entirely accurate. “On the contrary, I am placating you. To appease you, I would have to accede to your demands, of which you have made none. Rather, I am trying to make you less severe by introducing a new topic. I would have thought the matter of your demotion would have been sufficiently insulting to your ego to distract you from your ill humor.”

  Even as his lips remained tightly pressed together, Bea thought she could detect a lightening of his expression. “And now you are trying to cajole me,” he said.

  Again, she was compelled to disagree. “I believe the term you want in this instance is tease, for I have made no effort to flatter you. Far be it for me to lecture you on the differences between words, for you are the pedant in the family, but you seem to be having trouble today grasping the subtle distinctions in meaning. But you must not worry. I am here and have ready access to a dictionary to ensure your diction is as precise as always. And now you might think I am coaxing you out of your bad temper, but I am in fact still teasing you.”

  Kesgrave laughed, and returning to the settee in three easy steps, took her hands into his own. “Calling thirty-seven guineas a paltry sum was ill-considered, which I knew the moment I said it, and yet I took a pet when you very reasonably pointed it out. Please forgive me.”

  Bea observed that obviously there was nothing to forgive, because people were allowed to have bouts of churlishness if they so desired—to which Kesgrave promptly responded that he had been surly. “Churlish implies a sort of mean-spiritedness and I was merely bad-tempered.”

  Delighted by his return to form, Bea provoked him further by defending her term (“I meant it in the sense of a lack of civility or graciousness”), and the exchange devolved in a display of affection that was directly at odds with the goal of attaining justice for the slain Frenchman.

  Aware of the disservice, Bea struggled to put some distance between her and the duke, an act made more difficult by the fact that she lay beneath him on the settee. In a matter-of-fact tone that belied the way her blood was pounding, she said, “Regarding the thirty-seven guineas.”

  Kesgrave, perceiving her intention, immediately altered his position so that she could rise into a sitting position with a modicum of dignity. Then he laughed softly and said, “I knew it was a demotion.”

  Bea took a steadying breath and marveled again that she could still feel so much for him. She would have thought that the consummation of their relationship would have in some way tempered her desire. Instead, it appeared to have intensified it. “Your inability to grasp the urgency of the investigation puts you at a disadvantage with the murderer, who did not consult the patronesses of Almack’s regarding the proper hour for decapitation.”

  “Surely, three a.m. is the proper hour for decapitation,” he murmured.

  Allowing for the accuracy of the remark, Bea replied, “Nevertheless, your refusal to invade Mrs. Wallace’s room until proper visiting hours is the one deficiency that stands against you. But your superiors are confident you can learn from your mistakes and quickly recover your position.”

  “Ah, so you admit it was an invasion,” Kesgrave said with air of vindication.

  “And your frivolousness,” she added, “so that’s actually two deficiencies. Nonetheless, we are partners, though not what you would call equal ones, and we must devote some attention to discovering the source of Mr. Réjane’s small fortune. It is possible, yes, that the money was his own savings, accumulated over a period of several years, but given the fact that he required a bank loan to help his brother, I think it’s far more likely that it belonged to someone else. I think the obvious person in this situation is Mr. Mayhew himself.”

  Kesgrave nodded firmly. “As you pointed out, few of the servants would be in the position to accumulate so much wealth and if they did it would have taken them several years. None of the younger members of the staff could ever hope to save that much money.”

  “You think the butler could have,” Bea said, following his line of thought.

  “His salary over several years would make it possible, and if Réjane stole his life savings after endangering his position, an enraged Parsons might have struck back. It would explain the violence of the assault.”

  Bea agreed with his assessment and added that the groom could have also amassed the tidy sum over the course of years. “Or Mrs. Blewitt. Any of the upper servants could have saved thirty-seven guineas if their salaries were commensurate with their position. But it seems likelier that the source of the money is the Mayhews, either master or mistress. I lean toward the former because of the timing of his call to Mrs. Wallace, which followed a trip to the Mayhew & Co. offices to inquire about his bank loan only to discover that he had been fobbed off with a lie. We knew he was irate and probably felt he was owed compensation by—”

  She broke off with a gasp as another idea occurred to her.

  Excitedly, she said, “Kesgrave, he was in the bank.”

  At first, he did not comprehend the meaning behind her emphasis and looked at her with confusion, but he quickly grasped her intention. “You think he took the money from the bank?”

  “Is it so implausible?” she asked, anticipating his rejection of her theory. “As I said, the timing hits the target in the center and explains why he felt compelled to leave the house in the middle of preparations for a large dinner party. Having stolen the money from Mayhew & Co., he had to remove it from the house at once. And if we are looking for a source of a sizable collection of coins, I hardly think we can do better than a bank.”

  “On the face of it, yes, a bank is an excellent place from which to steal a small fortune, for that is where fortunes of all sizes reside, but in actuality the money at a bank is well guarded and secure. If Réjane had a talent for picking locks, he might have made a go of it after several days of research to discover where the money was stored and learn the guards’ schedules. And then he would have to move at night, at a quiet hour when the bank was all but deserted and even then, at least one guard would remain on duty. Also, Mayhew intimated that some of his clerks remain in the building overnight. Possibly, he could arrange the thing for during open hours, but that, too, would require a fair amount of research. Furthermore, his best chance would be to assume a disguise and pretend to be a large depositor and fling around great amounts of money to disconcert and lull the clerk into providing you with the opportunity to act,” he said thoughtfully
. “But what you are suggesting—an impromptu theft conceived and executed on a whim—is impossible.”

  It might have indeed been beyond the chef’s capabilities, but Bea thought that Kesgrave, who possessed the required lock-picking skills and, apparently, a wily and devious mind, could accomplish the task with aplomb. She could not say why she found the prospect of the duke being capable of great feats of larceny so appealing and yet, for some reason, she did. Contemplating it, she was almost inclined to reinstate his position as full partner on the spot. “Very well, let’s say he did not get the money from the bank.”

  “He did not,” Kesgrave interrupted, objecting to her speculative tone.

  Bea eyed him balefully. “Didn’t I just say that, your grace?”

  “No, you did not.”

  Having owned herself deeply enamored with his pedantry, she could hardly quibble about it now. “Very well. As Mr. Réjane could not possibly have got the money from the bank—there, I trust that is unequivocal enough for even you—let us consider from where else he might have stolen it. From a reserve Mr. Mayhew keeps on hand to pay for minor expenses, one supposes. Tell me, Kesgrave, where do you keep your pin money?”

  Even before the duke could protest the description of his cache as something so delicate as “pin money,” she realized her error. “Good God, Beatrice, you are a dunderhead!” she cried in disgust as she leaped to her feet, suddenly too filled with energy to sit still. “Stebbings all but told you where Réjane got the money.”

  She did not have to elaborate, for Kesgrave was only a step behind. “Mr. Mayhew’s coat.”

  “The silk weave with the cerulean stripes,” she added as she strode toward the ornate fireplace, with its lavish bouquet of roses spilling out of a glass vase.

  “I do not doubt his dressing room is exactly where Mayhew keeps his coins and banknotes,” the duke said. “It is not an uncommon spot for such storage. Unless Mayhew is particularly careful with his things, the valet would know precisely where the cache is. If he did not discover the victim with the coins in his hand, then he must have suspected what he was about.”