“So you decided to do it yourself.”
“Yes.”
“Because you’d be able to help so many more people.”
“That’s what I told myself,” she said. “But I was just fooling myself. I did it because I’m having trouble making the payments on my new car, a car I didn’t need in the first place. But I need the car now, and I need the phone ringing, and I need—” She frowned, put her head in her hands. “I need aspirin,” she said. “That first time, when I told you about Melissa Sporran, the headache went away. But I’ve told you everything about Eric Ackerman, more than I ever planned to tell you, and the headache hasn’t gone away. It’s worse than ever.”
He told her it would pass, but she shook her head. She knew it wouldn’t, or the bad dreams, either. Some things you just knew.
DETECTIVE: LADY VESPASIA CUMMING-GOULD
AN AFFAIR OF INCONVENIENCE
Anne Perry
AN INTERNATIONALLY BESTSELLING AUTHOR of historical mystery fiction with nearly twenty-eight million copies sold, Anne Perry (1938– ) has produced nearly eighty books, most of them classic Victorian-era detective novels about Thomas and Charlotte Pitt or about William Monk. Among much else, she has written a dozen highly successful Christmas-themed novellas in which Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould is featured, plus works set during World War I.
Perry’s first book, The Cater Street Hangman (1979), featured Thomas Pitt, a Victorian policeman, and his highborn wife, Charlotte, who helps her husband solve mysteries out of boredom. She is of enormous help to him as she is able to gain access to people of a high social rank, which would be extremely difficult for a common police officer to do. There are nearly thirty books in the series, set in the 1880s and 1890s. With Twenty-One Days (2017), the Pitts’s son Daniel has been persuaded to take on his own case in what may be the start of a new series.
The Monk series, with more than twenty novels, beginning with The Face of a Stranger (1990), is set in the 1850s and 1860s. Monk, a private detective, is assisted on his cases by an excitable nurse, Hester Latterly.
After winning the Edgar in 2000 for her short story “Heroes,” set during World War I, Perry began a series of novels featuring its protagonist, British Army chaplain Joseph Reavley, whose exploits and character were suggested by the author’s grandfather; the first book was No Graves as Yet (2003).
Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould has been a secondary character in the Pitt series but is the author’s favorite. “She’s always been one of my favorite characters,” Perry has said, “and she’s who I would like to be. She has courage for life, she has wit, and she has intelligence and grace and [beauty], but her beauty is more than just a matter of her features; it’s something within her.” She is noted for expressing her opinion of how women are treated in England at the time.
“An Affair of Inconvenience” was originally published in the Fall 1998 issue of Mary Higgins Clark Mystery Magazine.
An Affair of Inconvenience
ANNE PERRY
IT HAD BEEN QUITE DISTINCTLY the sound of breaking glass, once, sharply, and then silence. Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould sat up in bed. It had come from the room next door, the only unoccupied guest room in the house.
On a long country weekend such as this, when the London season was over and the Queen and Prince Albert had retired to the late-summer pleasures of Osbourne, it was not unusual for there to be a number of romantic affairs conducted with discretion but distinct relish. An assignation in the middle of the night was not of itself remarkable. But it should not entail the smashing of glass. That sounded more like an accident, or even an intruder.
Vespasia fumbled in the dark for a moment, found the matches, and lit the lamp on the table beside her. She rose and pulled her ivory silk robe over her shoulders without bothering to straighten the cascades of lace or arrange her hair carefully. She picked up the lamp and walked softly across to the door and opened it.
The corridor outside was dimly lit from the gas bracket halfway along, turned down as low as possible until it burned yellow. There was no one there and total silence.
She tiptoed along to the next door and put her hand on the knob. She turned it slowly and pushed. It swung open.
Lady Oremia Blythe was standing in the center of the room, her abundant fair hair streaming around her shoulders, her yellow peignoir with its gleaming satin and extravagant ribbons hanging open over her nightgown. In her right hand was the brass base of an oil lamp. The splintered shards of its mantle lay on the floor around the recumbent body of Sir Ferdinand Wakeham. The crown of his bald head was bleeding a little. He was wearing a paisley robe and a striped cotton nightshirt. Oremia was ashen-faced, her eyes wide with horror.
Vespasia glanced automatically at the bed. The four-poster had been made carefully but not with the skill or the neatness with which a chambermaid would have done it. The corners were uneven. The coverlet was not smoothed under the pillows. Its recent use was apparent.
What was far less apparent was why Oremia should have struck Ferdie senseless, or in fact why she had been with him at all! Vespasia had been observing the gathered company all weekend. She had seen the covert glances and smiles, the twitching of skirts, the dropped handkerchiefs, the unnecessary errands, the laughter and lingering moments. She was well aware that Ferdie’s interests lay elsewhere.
She gazed at Oremia with raised eyebrows.
“Oh…er…Vespasia…” Oremia began awkwardly, blinking at last. Her hand holding the remnants of the lamp was trembling very slightly. She licked dry lips. “I…er…” She swallowed. Her voice cracked. “Vespasia! What am I going to do? For God’s sake…help me!”
Vespasia closed the door behind her softly and turned to face Oremia, whom she was not particularly fond of. But she would help for Oremia’s husband’s sake. Toby Blythe was not merely an old friend who deserved better than the scandal and the mockery this would cause, he was a man with a public reputation to preserve, upon which his position depended and his power to do a great deal of good—good about which Vespasia cared profoundly. He was a man ahead of his time in seeking to widen the franchise, an altruistic but unpopular cause among his peers. Ridicule would be the most potent of weapons against him.
“What happened?” she inquired, not entirely sympathetically. Certainly she was curious.
Oremia was torn between the desire to defend herself and a need to enlist Vespasia’s help. Self-preservation won. “I…” She steeled herself, her expression reflecting her dilemma. “I had an…assignation here. My lover”—she said the word with a brightness in her eyes and the flicker of a smile on her lips—“my lover had not yet left when Ferdie came in. I had no choice!” She raised her shoulders in an elegant shrug. “I could not allow him to find us here! I did the only thing I could. I had the lamp in my hand…I used it.”
“I see,” Vespasia said dryly.
“For heaven’s sake, what am I to do?” Oremia’s voice was rising, and there was a note of panic in it. “Help me!”
Vespasia forced herself to think of Toby and stifle the response that came naturally to her tongue. Toby had been not unadmiring of Vespasia in the past. She had most agreeable memories of him. She could smile even now as she thought of them. Her mind raced. How many believable explanations were there for this rather ridiculous scene?
“It’s not amusing!” Oremia snapped, her face pink. “Have you any idea—”
“A very vivid idea,” Vespasia said coolly. “A great many ribald jokes, none of them flattering.” She had no knowledge who the lover might have been and did not choose to ask. The solution was now fully formed in her mind. “Put that lamp down, or what remains of it…there!” She pointed to the floor about a yard from Ferdie’s head. “And go back to your bed. Close your door. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, you slept through the night without waking. You heard and saw nothing at all.”
Or
emia stared at her as if she hardly dared believe her.
“Go on!” Vespasia ordered. “Before Ferdie comes to his senses and it’s too late!”
“Oh! Yes. Yes, of course. Vespasia…” Still, she hesitated, breathing heavily.
“No, I won’t tell Toby,” Vespasia said, answering the unspoken question. “Now hurry, and do exactly as I told you.”
“Yes. I will.” And this time she swept past Vespasia, who caught her by the arm as she was about to fling the door open.
“Watch!” she hissed. “Make sure there is no one there! You can’t afford to be seen!” She nearly added “you fool!” and bit her tongue only at the last moment. Vespasia was still the most beautiful woman in the house, perhaps even in England, but she was twenty years older than Oremia Blythe, and she had learned a little wisdom and perhaps a little regret.
Oremia caught her breath in a sob, keeping her back to Vespasia, her shoulders stiff. Possibly it was embarrassment, but more likely it was anger. She put her hand on the doorknob and turned it very slowly. The latch freed, and she pulled it open no more than three inches, then four, then a foot. “There’s no one here,” she said with satisfaction, as if she had known it all along.
“Then go quickly,” Vespasia commanded. “And stay in your room unless something happens that would waken the dead.”
Oremia swung around. “Such as what?”
“An explosion or a fire alarm!” Vespasia said tartly. “I don’t know!”
Oremia disappeared along the corridor and around the corner. Vespasia turned back into the room. Mercifully, Ferdie Wakeham was still insensible. She wondered if she ought to hit him again, just to make sure he remained that way. She still had a considerable amount to do, for which she required his mental absence. But she did not wish to injure the poor man beyond what was absolutely necessary.
She paused only a moment. She would trust to luck. Besides, what she planned to do must be done immediately, and there was no other weapon readily to hand.
She went over to the window and opened it, gave him a last swift look to make sure he was still showing no signs of returning to consciousness, then slipped out the door herself and went along the corridor to the linen cupboard. She opened the door and whisked inside, pulling it almost closed, and waited, her eye to the crack.
She was just in time. She had barely arranged herself when a figure passed by––a lush, feminine figure, all gleaming skin and rustling silk, most inappropriate for a discreet assignation. It was the Honorable Mrs. Leonora Vickery—fourth bedroom on the left, east wing.
As soon as Leonora had passed on her way to the spare room—and passed Ferdie Wakeham, whom she would expect to be there awaiting her––Vespasia came out of the linen cupboard, picked up her skirts and ran down the corridor, across the landing and into the east wing. She passed the first door, second, third, and opened the fourth. She went in, swung around, closed the door silently and immediately turned up the gas, which was so low as to be barely burning at all.
She looked around the room. The bedcovers were thrown back where Leonora had climbed out. The brushes and combs were set out on the dressing table, the chair askew where she had sat arranging her hair before leaving. There was her jewel box. That was what Vespasia needed. In half a dozen strides she passed to the window and threw up the sash. The night air was warm and faintly scented with cut grass. One of the gardeners had trimmed the croquet lawn in the afternoon.
She went back to the dressing table and picked up the jewel box, making sure all the drawers were closed, then took it to the window and threw it out, sending it as far as she could. She closed the window, as quietly as possible. Even so, it made a slight click.
She turned down the gas again and opened the door a crack. Thank heaven there was no one else about. She could not afford to hesitate even an instant. Leonora would have found Ferdie by now and with any luck would have realized she could not afford to be discovered in the west wing at this hour of the night. Even if he had cried out, she could not possibly have heard him had she been in her own room, or anywhere else for which she could provide a reasonable explanation. And a glance would tell her Ferdie needed some medical attention.
The only disaster would be if Leonora panicked, or if Ferdie had not enough sense to realize he needed assistance, or conceivably if Leonora were so in love with him that she threw caution and both their reputations to the wind and summoned help on the spot. Mercifully, not likely!
Vespasia came out of the east wing onto the landing and passed the foot of the stairs leading up to the attic, where the servants had their rooms. This flight of stairs was for convenience, for valets and ladies’ maids to come as soon as summoned. There was a large vase of flowers on a table. It was crooked, as if someone had knocked it in the extremely dim light.
She turned into the west wing and stopped abruptly, her heart beginning to beat violently. Someone was moving at the far end! Leonora! Vespasia had meant to be back in the linen cupboard by now. She had been too slow! If she were caught here, Leonora would be bound to leap to the conclusion that Vespasia was out of her bed for the same purpose she was herself!
Vespasia would greatly prefer not to give Leonora such a weapon in her hand. Should she turn the landing light down so far that she would not be seen?
Yes!
No! Then Leonora might fall over something in the dark and possibly raise the house. Vespasia could just imagine the scene if Leonora knocked over the vase of flowers at the bottom of the servants’ stairs. Or the jardiniere by the banisters. How could she possibly explain that? Inebriated—at the very kindest! But on the landing in the middle of the night?
More likely, Leonora would turn up the gas again, and certainly see Vespasia, and wonder what in heaven’s name she was doing. Then there would be only one conclusion––and not a charitable one.
She was coming. Vespasia could hear the rustle of silks. Stupid woman!
Vespasia flattened herself against the wall next to the potted palm and stood rigid, almost breathless.
Leonora came out of the corridor and passed within a yard of her. Her almond-flower perfume was sweet in the air. She was tiptoeing, watching where she was going. She was breathing heavily. Not surprising. She had just found Ferdie senseless on the floor and debated what to do. Vespasia had relied on the shock causing her to pause at least a few moments before leaving.
Now Leonora was going back to her own room. She passed by the newel post of the main stairway down, safely negotiated around the jardiniere and then the table at the bottom of the servants’ stairs. A moment later she was into the east corridor and back in her own room.
The instant the crack of light disappeared from under Leonora’s door, Vespasia swung around and ran along the west corridor past her own room and into the unoccupied room where Ferdie Wakeham still lay amid the shattered pieces of the lamp. He was just beginning to stir.
“Oh, Ferdie!” Vespasia exclaimed with horror. “How incredibly brave of you!”
“Wha…What?” He blinked, opened his eyes and winced sharply as the light caught them. “Ooh! Ooooh.” He put out his hand and caught it on a piece of broken glass. He swore loudly and snatched his hand away, putting it to his lips to stop the blood. “What in hell happened?”
“You must have caught him,” Vespasia said, as if it were the only possible answer.
“Caught him?” He remained motionless, acutely aware of the glass around him.
“The burglar! You heard him and came to tackle him. You caught him right here, only he seized”––she looked around, then down at the floor––“the lamp and struck you over the head.” She let her expression convey her admiration for his courage and quick action. “No doubt he fled, leaving you here.” She glanced meaningfully toward the window. “Please allow me to help. We owe you so much.” She bent down and very carefully began picking up shards of glass and putti
ng them in the wastebasket.
He sat blinking uncertainly.
She put the last of the pieces into the basket. “There. Now you may rise without further injury. You may be feeling a little dizzy.” She looked at his head earnestly. “He appears to have struck you rather hard. I dare say he was a very large person, a complete ruffian.”
“Yes…” Ferdie agreed. “Yes, he was rather large.”
“Allow me.” She offered him her hand, and he took it, climbing to his feet rather shakily. Poor Ferdie was looking very much the worse for wear. Yet had he regained his senses any sooner it would have been most unfortunate.
“Thank you.” He accepted her help, swaying a little. “Yes…a real ruffian. I am most obliged to you. I assume you heard the…the lamp breaking?”
“Yes,” she said quite truthfully. “I sat in bed some minutes, gathering my wits before I realized there must be something very wrong. I think I was deeply asleep.”
“Yes,” he nodded, and winced, standing suddenly very still. It had not been a good idea to move his head. He groaned involuntarily. “Yes, of course,” he whispered.
“I think we had better raise the servants and see what damage he has done,” she said. “And perhaps get some ministration for your head. That cut looks rather unpleasant. I don’t doubt you will have a severe headache in the morning, if you have not one already.”
“I have,” he said ruefully. “I’ve never had a hangover like it.” He smiled at her. “This is worse than rough cider…or at least as bad.”
“Come.” She offered her arm again and, when he took it, led him to the door and back along the corridor to the landing. She sat him in the only comfortable chair and turned up the gas in all the brackets. There was still no noise in the house. If anyone was awake, he or she was being remarkably discreet, assuming the movement was all illicit and better unobserved.
The Big Book of Female Detectives Page 168