A Virtuous Death

by Christine Trent

  “How do you possibly expect to inject me with turpentine—in Princess Beatrice’s art room—and think no one will suspect you?”

  He smiled again. “Do you listen to nothing? A couple of needed piercings—perhaps under your arm this time—will never be noticed, and I will carry your body elsewhere. Perhaps I toss you down the Grand Staircase so that it looks like you tripped and fell. A tragic accident. The royal family would mourn you, no doubt.”

  He pulled the syringes from his pocket once again and stood. “Enough nattering. The family will be home soon.”

  This time, Violet didn’t hesitate. She stepped deliberately to the table that held one of the lit oil lamps, picked it up, and threw it with all of her might at her target.

  “More stupidity, Mrs. Harper,” Caradoc said. “You missed me by at least—what? Oh! You dreadful little—”

  Violet had hit what she intended, the turpentine bottle. It shattered, and the vaporous liquid met the lamp’s flame, igniting in the air in a blinding firework. Flames landed on the art tutor’s apron, already damp in spots from turpentine. He patted at the flames but must have inadvertently pushed the syringe plungers again, for his apron erupted in golden heat.

  “How dare you?” he sputtered, moving backward. One of Beatrice’s many canvases was now on fire, and the flames, enjoying their meal of paint and horsehair brushes, threatened to spread farther. Violet could only imagine what would happen when they had a taste of the carpets and draperies. If she didn’t get past Caradoc quickly, she’d be trapped in an inferno.

  She had to do two things first. Running to the birdcage, she opened the door and shouted, “Go!”

  Peaches didn’t hesitate, jumping off his perch and flying past the gilded door, over Caradoc’s writhing, flame-engulfed body, landing on the heavy brass doorknob of the room’s door and beating his wings wildly.

  Violet raced to the heavy draperies and tugged on them. They were tightly affixed to the wall. She pulled again, harder. She heard a faint tear, despite the sound of the growing fire, which both crackled and roared in an unholy alliance of destruction. Rivulets of sweat ran down her face into her collar, making it itch against her neck, but there was no time to think about it.

  She managed to rip off a large section of a drapery panel. It was preposterously heavy, and Violet had the rambling thought that she needed to tell Mary not to use this fabric in her new lodgings, lest she be unable to tear it down in case of a fire.

  Between her long skirts, her drenched skin, and the unmanageable drapery in her hand, she nearly tripped twice as she made her way toward the door, coughing as the smoke swirled around her, making it difficult to breathe. Caradoc was howling as he attempted to rip his apron from his body. Violet used the curtain material to smother most of the flames around her as she made her way out. Caradoc reached his arms out to her in a blazing inferno of supplication.

  She threw the drapery over the man and wrapped her arms around him, holding him as the fire died out. When he fell limp against her, she laid him on the ground, still careful not to let her dress touch any burning embers nearby. Once he was resting on the ground, she quickly removed the drapery from his body to finish beating out flames and embers until she could no longer see anything glowing red.

  Had none of the staff heard what was happening up here?

  Utterly exhausted, she sank down next to Owen Caradoc. “Are you all right?” she asked, but immediately saw that he was not. His eyes stared vacantly at her, and the stench of his burnt flesh was far worse than that of turpentine.

  A man’s own evil never ceased to turn on him like a rabid dog.

  She shut his eyes. “I’m sorry, Mr. Caradoc,” she said quietly. “But I’ll not serve you in death. I’ll send you back to your brother on the funeral train, and he can have you buried in Wales.”

  Trembling and nauseated from the exhaustion of her ordeal, Violet covered Caradoc with the piece of drapery with which she had beaten out the flames from his body, then dropped heavily back to the floor again next to his remains.

  Violet was finished with the death surrounding Buckingham Palace.

  As Violet wearily rose from Caradoc’s stiff body, she again coughed violently from the smoke that still filled the room. As her heaving subsided, Peaches appeared from nowhere, landed on her shoulder, and offered her a loud and belligerent chirp.

  “My apologies, Peaches. I was only doing my best to save you.”

  The door banged open. Two footmen and a young maid, followed by Louise and Beatrice, burst in. They all froze, utterly mystified by the scene before them. Beatrice’s spate of coughing set them in motion again. The footmen and maid, trained to clean and straighten whatever was before them, went right to work. While the maid futilely attempted to right the blackened room, the footmen lifted Owen Caradoc’s body to carry it out.

  “No!” Violet said. “Scotland Yard must see him first.”

  “Mrs. Harper,” Louise said, “what has happened here?”

  Violet shook her head. “An unfortunate end to a man’s unfortunate plot.”

  “Is that Mr. Caradoc?” Beatrice asked.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  The girl frowned and bit her lip. As if sensing her distress, Peaches flew from Violet’s shoulder onto Beatrice’s and whistled softly in her ear. The girl and her bird chirped quietly at each other.

  “Was he . . . ?” Louise said.

  “Yes.”

  “I can’t believe it.”

  “Nor could I.” Violet explained to Louise what had happened as more servants entered the room to cover any evidence of destruction, as good servants do, making a wide berth around the art tutor’s body.

  “I’m thankful you’re safe, Mrs. Harper, but you do look a fright. Thank God Mother is staying at Cumberland Lodge tonight. Hopefully, this room can be made to look somewhat normal by tomorrow. I dread her finding out that another palace servant has been disloyal.”

  Beatrice had Peaches on her finger. She kissed his beak and said, “Did Mr. Caradoc do something bad?”

  “I’m afraid so, Princess.”

  “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  Beatrice nodded solemnly. “I didn’t really enjoy my art classes, anyway. Perhaps now Mother will allow me to learn to play the piano.”

  14

  Inspector Hurst shook his head as he entered Beatrice’s damaged art room, Inspector Pratt at his heels. He took charge of the room, ordering the servants out and inspecting Caradoc’s body. Finally, Hurst joined Violet, who was despairing of her soaked clothing and the smell of smoke permeating every pore of her skin. She needed a mirror and a bath, just not in that order.

  “Given your condition, I suppose you’re responsible for this,” Hurst said.

  “Indirectly, yes.”

  He sighed. “Mr. Pratt, take notes. I’m sure this will be an enlightening explanation. Now, Mrs. Harper, do tell us what sort of mischief you’ve been up to.”

  With Inspector Pratt furiously scribbling away, Violet accounted for the past few hours. When she was done, Hurst shook his head. “Just a moment. You’re saying that Meredith, the man we have in custody, had nothing to do with those deaths?”

  “No. There have always been two minds at work. Both were followers of Karl Marx, but Mr. Meredith was after the queen in order to destroy the monarchy, while Mr. Caradoc had varying motives, with an overall goal of taking over the moralist movement.”

  “Were they working together?”

  Violet shook her head.

  “But surely they knew each other as servants of the palace.”

  “Yes, but that was coincidence. Mr. Caradoc witnessed Mr. Meredith at some of Marx’s meetings, and the two once spoke in the corridor, but they weren’t confederates.”

  Pratt looked up from his notes. “A lesson to us, sir, that it isn’t always just one perpetrator on a crime, even if it isn’t a gang.”

  “Heaven forbid I should take crime-breaking lessons from an
undertaker. You were fortunate, Mrs. Harper, that you didn’t get yourself killed on numerous occasions throughout this case.”

  “In fact, Inspector, I agree,” Violet said. “I am far more competent at managing corpses than criminals.”

  Mollified that he’d won the point, Hurst softened. “All’s well now, I suppose. Which reminds me, ahem, speaking of all being well, how is your friend—Mrs. Cooke, isn’t it?”

  “As well as can be expected. She is, of course, still in mourning and will be so for many more months, Inspector.”

  “Yes, yes, of course. I mean nothing untoward. My concern was merely for a lady in distress. I am an agent of the law, concerned for all of the kingdom’s citizenry.” He puffed his chest at his vaunting self-description. “Please give Mrs. Cooke my regards.”

  “I will.”

  “Don’t forget, Mrs. Harper.”

  Oh dear.

  After returning to St. James’s Palace to bathe and tell Sam what happened, Violet felt an immediate need to visit Josephine, so that the moralist would know she was now safe. Sam argued against the lateness of the hour for visiting, and Violet eventually agreed to wait until morning.

  Before dawn, though, Violet was dressing and urging Sam out of bed so that they could hurry to the moralist’s headquarters. Josephine was unlocking the front door when they arrived and invited them in to share in some poached eggs, oysters, and bacon she’d just picked up.

  Over their morning repast together at the repeal headquarters’ largest table, a round oaken affair that wobbled on its base, Violet relayed to Josephine what had happened with Owen Caradoc.

  The moralist nodded sadly. “I wondered if he might be involved, but didn’t want to accuse him if he was innocent. He came to me months ago, seeking to join our movement, but his words and manners told me that he saw us as a way to glorify himself, not God. There was no spiritual fire in him, so to speak, just a self-consuming desire for power. He was here several times to press his case, but I always rebuffed him.

  “I was also suspicious that it was Mr. Caradoc who had followed us into the street, simply because he was the most volatile human being I’d ever met. Had I known he worked for the queen, I would have reported him immediately. If only I had known!”

  Josephine speared the last remaining oyster and put it on her plate. “Poor Lillian, to have been caught up with him and then suffer such a consequence for his attentions. I pray she is at rest now. I suppose my next task is to inform her parents, even though they let her be given a pauper’s burial.”

  Violet and Louise strolled privately in the palace gardens. Louise was particularly animated, which Violet took to be due to her relief that her friends’ murders had been solved.

  “Your husband must be so pleased by your bravery,” the princess said, plucking a stem of lilac and inhaling deeply from its heady fragrance before twirling it between her fingers. Violet noticed that the princess was wearing her bracelet made from Lady Marcheford’s hair, as well as her mourning brooch commemorating Lady Maud.

  “Yes, except he worries now that he cannot leave my side to buy a newspaper without my becoming embroiled in a life-threatening circumstance.”

  Louise laughed for the first time since Maud’s death. “I must admit, I always thought it was Marcheford who was guilty.”

  “I thought so, as well. I also had my suspicions of Sir Charles Mordaunt.”

  Louise gave an unladylike snort. “That fool. He’s got no more brains than a donkey. First he marries a giddy little debutante, then expects her to mummify up in Warwickshire while he spends his days running down deer and blasting grouse. He didn’t even bring her to London while he sat in Parliament. If she sought a little entertainment, who can blame her? Now he’s bruiting it about that Bertie had a dalliance with her. What good does he think will come of pursuing a divorce from Lady Mordaunt and naming my brother as a corespondent?”

  Violet had no answer.

  “Mother is furious with Bertie over it, but she’ll defend him; you can be sure of that. Did you know that she’s also furious with Mr. Brown?”

  “No, and it surprises me.”

  “She told me privately that his handling of things with you—falsely calling upon the spirits to lead you to me—was unconscionable. Naturally, she’s too afraid of falling out of his graces to actually confront him. She just railed at me for it. Imagine if it had been Bertie or me who’d used you so carelessly.”

  Violet had no answer for this, either. She’d witnessed how little Victoria tolerated indiscretions in her children.

  “What Mother doesn’t know is that Mr. Brown was carrying on with Lady Hazel. Oh, how jealous she would have been to learn of it. I should have tattled on him, but I couldn’t bear to hurt Mother that badly, especially now that I’m, well, in a better position with her. So instead I talked to Hazel, and convinced her that a dalliance with a servant—even if he is the queen’s favorite servant—could only end in ruin for her. She broke it off with him a few days ago and, to his credit, you’d never know his heartbreak except by the thicker fog of spirits clinging to him, although I guess even that is no indicator of anything amiss with him.

  “Speaking of dalliances,” Louise continued, “have you heard the news? Marcheford is engaged to marry Lady Henrietta Pettit. Everyone is aghast, what with poor Charlotte hardly cold in her grave. A double injustice for my dear friend. He’ll be ostracized for a while, but he’s the heir to an important marquess, so he’ll be forgiven. I hear Lady Henrietta has a velvet viper’s bite, so it is my greatest wish that she use it on him regularly.”

  For this Violet had a ready reply. “Lady Henrietta is sure to have the upper hand with Lord Marcheford. It may be that in time he is the one who carries a pistol to protect himself.”

  Louise nodded. “What do you think will happen to the coachman?”

  “Mr. Meredith? I see no happy end for him. I suspect he will quickly be found guilty of treason, attempting to murder the queen, and a variety of other charges, and sent immediately to the gallows at Newgate. I’m sure he’ll enjoy the sensationalism of his trial, though.”

  “A more painless end than Mr. Caradoc’s, I’ll warrant. That’s fitting. Mr. Caradoc deserved intense, hellish pain, since he murdered dearest Maud and Charlotte, as well as Miss Cortland.”

  “I wonder,” Violet said, “how Her Majesty is coping with what has happened? Does she particularly blame anyone?”

  “You mean for hiring Mr. Caradoc and Mr. Meredith in the first place? Mr. Norton received a serious dressing-down, but he’ll survive in his position. Truthfully, I think she was more agitated over whatever evil influence Mr. Caradoc may have had over Beatrice than upon any danger she herself was in. Beatrice is her favorite, you know. Mother will never let her marry, a fate I don’t intend to share. Which reminds me.”

  Louise paused at a bench and invited Violet to sit with her.

  “I must share something with you,” Louise said, tucking the lilac stem above her ear. “I’ve met someone, someone I think I might marry.”

  “Truly? Princess, that’s wonderful. Who is it?”

  “John Campbell, the Marquess of Lorne. He’s the heir to the dukedom of Argyll. He’s very handsome and debonair, and I believe he is quite taken with me, too.”

  Undoubtedly any peer of the realm would be quite taken with a princess.

  “Congratulations, Your Highness. Does Her Majesty approve?”

  Louise wrinkled her nose. “I’ve not told her yet. I want to be sure before I suggest such a thing. Mother has come around, but she will have to battle Parliament on my behalf should we reach the point of a proposal. Speaking of proposals, I understand Mother offered you permanent quarters at St. James’s Palace as a reward for ridding the world of Owen Caradoc.”

  “Yes, but my husband and I intend to start over in London in our own way. I’ve bought back into my old undertaking shop, and we are fitting out the quarters over it.”

  “It won’t be as prestigious as li
ving at St. James’s.”

  “No, Your Highness, it won’t.”

  “I bet Mother had apoplexy when you refused her.”

  “It wasn’t quite that bad. My husband and I are still invited to attend the Suez Canal opening in November.”

  “Then you are still in her good graces. I doubt I’ll be allowed to travel there. Mother will require that I stay behind to write boring thank-you letters and notes of condolence and invitation refusals. You must be sure to tell me what Egypt is like.”

  “I would be most pleased to do so, Your Highness.”

  “I believe I shall count you among my friends, Mrs. Harper.”

  Violet wasn’t sure she could survive much more royal friendship.

  Violet returned to St. James’s, where Sam was tightening a strap around a trunk. “For heaven’s sake, woman, how many geegaws have you collected since I’ve been gone?”

  “My notes and papers probably take up the most room. Oh, and I suppose I’ve been dragging undertaking supplies into the palace. That will all go into the shop. Don’t worry, Sam, I won’t have you shaving among bottles of embalming fluid.”

  He stroked his face. “Perhaps I’ll grow a fuller beard and avoid any risk of encounter with your concoctions. I’ve just read about Professor Modevi’s beard-generating cream. He promises that my resulting thick and silky whiskers will add to my strength and virility. What do you think?”

  Violet was saved from a retort by a palace servant, who said that they had an unannounced visitor in one of the reception rooms. His emphasis on “unannounced” was to let Violet know that people did not simply come and go as they pleased on royal property.

  She bit her lip to hide a smile, glad that today she would be leaving stuffy royal etiquette behind. She and Sam walked together downstairs to greet their visitor.

  Violet gasped at who awaited her, then smiled. “My sweet girl, you are the perfect ending to a troubled time,” she said to her daughter, Susanna, who stood next to her new husband holding a fluffy cat in her arms.