Other Tales: Stories from The Ballad of Gregoire Darcy

by Marsha Altman

  “Lady Littlefield,” he bowed. “You may leave us now,” he said quite plainly to the headmaster.

  “I cannot allow – ”

  “If you are concerned about propriety, you are welcome to look in through the window. However, I must be allowed to speak to her ladyship in privacy, for the sake of this investigation.” He used his voice of authority again, and this seemed to scare Stafford off, so he closed the door to them. Audley immediately changed his attitude, smiling warmly at the woman – barely more than a girl – in front of him. “Please be seated, Lady Littlefield. I apologize for removing you from class.”

  “It is no trouble,” she said, taking a seat in the chair placed opposite him, with only the desk separating them. But it was clear it was not ‘no trouble’. She was nervous in her mannerisms, playing with the trim of lace in her gown, but he did not yet detect a level of nervousness beyond what he would expect of a young lady who had never been questioned about a murder before.

  “I will try to compensate by taking up as little of your time as possible, so we will come right to the point – did you know Simon Roux?”

  “No, I did not.”

  “Had you heard of him?”

  “Yes.”

  “How had you heard of him?”

  “Some of the other girls met him once on the road – I don’t know the story – and he spoke to them. They were quite frightened by the experience. Apparently he made some rude suggestions.”

  Now he was getting somewhere, perhaps. “The names of these young women?”

  “Miss Ashley and Miss Stevenson.”

  He wrote the names down. “Do you know anything else about it?”

  “No. I did not take an interest in it.”

  “All right. Now we must turn to the marquis.”

  “Oh! He is not implicated, is he?” She seemed genuinely concerned. For what or who, he could not determine.

  “I do not think he killed Monsieur Roux,” Audley said. It was an honest answer. “However, I do not think he is entirely unconnected to the incident, even if unintentionally. Someone may be trying to harm him by spreading false rumors. Do you know of anyone who would want to harm him?”

  She put her hand over her mouth and shook her head violently: No.

  That, of course, meant a very solid Yes.

  “I will repeat myself,” he said, more kindly than he was inclined to be, only because she did seem terrified. “Do you know of anyone who would want, even indirectly, to harm the marquis?”

  “No,” she whimpered.

  “You are aware that lying to an inspector is in and of itself a punishable crime?” Not that he could do anything to an English lady of her stature – her family would buy her way out of it. But she didn’t have to know that. Instead, he softened his tone. “My lady, I am only trying to help. Someone murdered Simon Roux and I think he did it to hurt the marquis. Surely you don’t want any harm to come to your fiancé?”

  “No, of course not.”

  There was more here. He had barely scratched the surface, but a very tender surface it was. His heart went out to her. “Very well. We will speak again, another time, perhaps. If I have other questions. Thank you for your time, Lady Littlefield.” He rose to indicate she was free to go, and she curtseyed and scurried out of the room. He was glad to have done it before she burst into tears.

  Answered no to all questions, implicating something is wrong with the marquis, he scribbled into his notebook. Meant to say yes every time.

  ~~~

  He did not have very long to wait for his second interview. Miss Bingley, similarly attired, curtseyed and politely kept her eyes down. In her hands was some kind of charm on a chain, maybe a locket, and she played with it incessantly as he began his interview, “First of all, a small matter. How did you come to join Lady Littlefield on her visits to the marquis?”

  “Oh,” she said with a soft, pleasing tone. “It is quite simple. We share a room in the dormitory, and we have been friends since our first day here. When she was first invited, she did not know the marquis or much about him, and she wanted someone to come with her, so I offered. And I have been every time since.”

  “So she is still uncomfortable in her visits to the marquis?”

  “Perhaps.”

  What kind of answer was that? “What do you know of the marquis?”

  “Oh, surely you know more than I.” She, at least, could speak to him in more than monosyllables, but then, she was not so personally connected to the marquis. “You’ve been investigating him.”

  “But you have known him longer. My acquaintance with him is not more than a day.”

  “But you have an acquaintance, where I have never spoken two words to him,” she said. “So I cannot presume to know more of him than you.”

  What? “Then, from afar – what is your judgment of him?”

  “The bible teaches us not to judge each other before we have sat in judgment ourselves,” she said demurely.

  So far, she had not answered a single question. She had quite an effective tactic of evading him. He switched topics. “Did you know Simon Roux?”

  “I met him once.”

  He raised his pen. “Can you describe that occasion?”

  “No.”

  He raised his eyes. “What?”

  “I cannot. Or, rather, I have been forbidden by the good headmaster, who is only interested in the best interests of his students and their good standing in society, from speaking of Mr. Roux or any encounters I might have had with him.” Her voice was still meek, but there was a more assertive undertone to it now. She continued boldly without giving him a chance to speak, “Your English accent is impeccable. Did you study in England?”

  “My father was an English soldier. He came over after the Revolution for a minor engagement and stayed,” he answered quickly, thrown off by the question. “Miss Bingley, I am far more interested in Monsieur Roux.”

  “He is dead and I believe he is going to stay so. Am I not allowed a simple question?”

  He had dropped his pen. Ink dribbled over his previous notes. He rushed to pick it back up as discreetly as possible. She was not being shy – she was being coy. “Tell me about Simon Roux.”

  “The headmaster – ”

  “I don’t care. Do you?”

  She smiled. He had not yet seen her smile, except for the tiny polite one she produced in company – he realized that now, now that she was smiling for real, because something amused her. “No, I do not. You have caught me.”

  “Then answer the question. What transpired between you and Mr. Roux?”

  He thought she rolled her eyes, though it was hard to see with her eyes lowered. She had stopped playing with the locket. “It is more what didn’t happen, Inspector. To be plain, I was walking down the road when I saw that two of my schoolmates were being accosted by Monsieur Roux.”

  “Accosted?”

  “He was on a horse, carrying a gun, and was making his intentions clear enough. He was not merely flirting. Must I supply the details?” she said. “So I shouted for him to leave them at once. He was, of course, more amused at the conquest of three women instead of two, and he was the man with the gun and the horse. What were we to do?”

  “What did you do, Miss Bingley?”

  She raised her eyes – green, almost like emeralds – and looked straight at him. “I told him to leave again and said if he didn’t, I would make him. He refused, and so I made him.”

  “Made him?”

  Nothing about her was coy now. “He charged. I hit his horse in the eye with a rock. It was spooked and ran.” She continued, “You can see how the headmaster would be interested in this story not being in general circulation. It would imply that he was allowing his students to wander the dangerous roads unattended, and that two of them were nearly violated by a rogue on a horse. That would not speak well for his skills as a headmaster and for the school as a whole.”

  “Of course,” he said, stupefied. “You th
rew a rock at the horse?”

  “You can’t hit a horse straight on. To really spook it, you have to hit it on the side. I was lucky and got the eye.” Once again, she did not let him ask his next question. “Sadly, that ends my association with Mr. Roux, so I can’t tell you any more than that, nor can anyone from this school. He stayed far away from the ladies of Mrs. Robinson’s after that for some reason.”

  “Do you know who killed him?”

  She did not break her gaze. “I heard it was a wolf.”

  “Surely a practical, intelligent girl like you doesn’t believe that nonsense about werewolves?”

  “I didn’t say werewolf, Inspector. I said wolf. No, I do not believe a man turns into a wolf at a certain time of the month and kills whoever crosses his path. That is silly superstition. But if he was clawed to death, then logic would dictate it was an animal, and we have no bears or mountain lions in these woods.”

  He was still crafting his response when there was a knock on the door. “Enter.” It was the woman who’d answered the door. “Is something wrong?”

  “The constable has sent a messenger,” she said. “There has been another murder.”

  CHAPTER 3

  After quickly mentioning that their conversation would continue at another time, Inspector Audley left Miss Bingley and rushed out of the school, very nearly running. “It’s a lady,” said the messenger, a hired hand of the local constable, named Andre.

  And then they did, literally, run. Fortunately the inspector was in good health, and they had not more than a few miles to go before reaching the cabin and the crowd surrounding it. “Inspector!” called the constable.

  “Did anyone move the body?”

  “No, the mortician is still on his way.”

  “Then I will look around before he gets here and disturbs the scene of the crime.”

  “You’d best cover your nose, then.”

  He did not need to be told twice. He poured some wine from his flask onto a rag he carried for this purpose and covered his mouth with it.

  Despite his precautions, the stench was overwhelming as he entered the cabin. The dead woman, a portly lady in her mid-fifties, was on the floor near her bed, her throat slashed, blood staining the rug beneath it. The cabin had one room of assorted knick-knacks, furniture, and an iron stove. He touched it – cooling off. She had lit it for heat at night and never doused the flames. And from the stench, he presumed that she had been killed sometime after sunset the evening before. As the constable shrunk back to the door, coughing into his rag in disgust, Audley marched over and raised one of her arms. It was stiff, and there was blood and grime under her fingernails. No doubt he would find bruises on her body – there had been a fight of some kind. The few things she had had were strewn about. He looked back at the lamp he had stepped over and picked it up. The glass was smashed and he plucked the candle from the frame. From where the wax fell, it looked like it had been upright when it had last been burning, so either she snuffed it or the murderer snuffed it to prevent the house from burning down. Not exactly the actions of a wild animal. “Who was this woman?”

  “Mrs. Christelle Bernard, Inspector.”

  “Who was she? What did she do?” He noticed a ring on her finger. “She was a widow.”

  “I believe so, yes.”

  “Did she have a living? Or savings of some sort?”

  “I don’t know. We can find out, but I believe – she used to work at the manor.”

  He dropped the arm and stood up. “For the marquis?”

  “Yes, Inspector.”

  That was all he needed to hear.

  ~~~

  Later that afternoon, Inspector Audley found himself again in Monsieur Lambert’s workshop, this time with two bodies before him instead of one. He had sufficiently recovered from the original shock to his system of the stench of death, but had lost all appetite for lunch and spent the time instead in his room at the inn, going over his notes and writing more as furiously as he could.

  He was lucky in one thing, which was that the body of Mrs. Bernard had not been found a day, even half a day later. He had given permission for Simon Roux to be buried, but now he wanted the body to compare. He only needed a minute before he turned to Lambert and said, “The wounds are different.”

  “Yes, they are,” Lambert said, walking past him to put the last of the paint on Roux’s face. He had not been pretty when he died, but he would leave this world at least with a decent face, however false it was. “She fought back.”

  “Unarmed. But the mouth wound is different. Like – knife wounds.” He looked closer, tilting his head to the side and raising the lamp closer. “Yes. One slash to the throat to kill her. Then as she was bleeding out, two more slashes on either side to match up. And then, a claw of some animal was run across the wound to make it look like Mr. Roux’s wounds.” He pulled away. “A different killer. So now we have not one, but two.”

  “So it seems,” said the mortician.

  “And still, no solid motives. We know only that Roux had enemies, but most were female. And we do not know what Mrs. Bernard knew that got her killed last night.” He looked sadly at her pale face. “We may never know for sure, but I have my suspicions.”

  ~~~

  The only people to attend Simon Roux’s funeral were the people necessary for it to occur. Audley had to authorize it, Constable Simon had to organize it, the mortician and his assistant had to deliver the coffin, and the priest had to say the blessings. The ceremony was carried out with extreme brevity.

  Audley wouldn’t even be here, watching some wandering ruffian be covered with earth after a death that he probably had coming, if it hadn’t been for the connection to the marquis, if there was one. There was still no distinct line between them. But the death of Mrs. Bernard insisted everything was tied up in a very intricate knot, or was getting more tangled as it went along.

  If he couldn’t solve these murders – at least, not immediately – he could at least try to stop more from happening. After the ceremony, he crossed himself and walked away from the graveyard with the constable. “I need a list of everyone living in walking or riding distance that used to work for the marquis.”

  “That will take some time.”

  “It’s not a large town.”

  The constable shrugged. “It’s not Paris, Inspector, but there are many people here, more than you see at the Verrat or the market. People on the farms, people in the forest. Gypsies.”

  “Gypsies?”

  “A small band. They live deep in the woods, they say.”

  He shook his head. “Gypsies move around, Constable. Is this another local legend?”

  “Non, Inspector. We can see their fires sometimes, on a clear night. Perhaps you should look tonight, when the moon is full. But if you go into the woods – I will have to answer to Paris if you disappear.”

  Oh yes, the full moon. We’ll see what it brings. “Duly noted, Constable. Now get me that list. Those people are in danger.”

  “Danger, Inspector?”

  “Yes, danger! The day after I question all of the marquis’s servants, a dismissed servant is found dead before I can speak to her. You think that is a coincidence?”

  “Simon Roux never worked for the marquis.”

  Audley frowned. “True.” He did not want to say that he knew there to be two killers. Not only did he not fully trust the constable, but he also doubted the little man’s abilities to comprehend it. “We shall see what turns up.”

  “Where are you going, Inspector?”

  He was turning off the path, towards a certain manor. “I have an important question to ask the good marquis.”

  ~~~

  The sky was beginning to darken when he was ushered into the sitting room to wait for the marquis. He paced behind his chair, ignoring the tea set out for him until Marquis de Maret appeared, looking a bit rushed. He had yet to dress for dinner. “Inspector Audley.”

  He bowed. “ I am in need of
a moment of your time.”

  “Of course.” Despite his polite response, the marquis did not look pleased at the unannounced interruption. “Please, sit.”

  Audley did so, but did not relax. “Have you heard about the death of a Mrs. Bernard?”

  “No,” said the marquis, sitting down across from him. “When was this? Recently?”

  “She was found this morning. I believe she used to work for you.”

  “Yes.” He swallowed. “She worked in the kitchen. I confess that I did not know her very well. An older woman, yes?”

  “So she was among those who were dismissed five months ago?” Audley said, which seemed to rattle the marquis, who was intelligent enough to sense he was being interrogated.

  “Yes.”

  Audley opened his book. “Why was she dismissed?”

  “I – I don’t remember.” The marquis sunk further into his chair. Either he was genuinely shocked or was trying to appear so. Audley admitted to himself that he couldn’t tell.

  “You dismissed the entire staff before the arrival of Lady Littlefield. Is this correct?”

  “Not all at once, but yes.”

  “Why?”

  The marquis blinked. “How is this relevant to Monsieur Roux? Was she involved with him?”

  “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that she was murdered, in the same way that he was, except she was in her home and was not a universally hated person in town. And I may ask whatever questions I like to try and solve this case.” He continued, “You can refuse to answer any one of them, if you wish, or even have me tossed from your house, but you can understand that it won’t look very good after you brought me here.”

  “Of course, of course.” The marquis was recovering. “There were two reasons. First, when I arrived here in 1817, I had to scrape around for servants, many of whom I never found to be competent, but I kept them on for the sake of convenience and because the town was uncomfortable with the nobility returning. But I needed a competent staff to impress Lady Littlefield, whom I am eager to impress.” He hesitated. “The second reason – you will keep in confidence?”