by Joan Smith
“Brandy? Are you mad?” Prance demanded without either lifting his head from the pillow or removing the black velvet mask from his eyes. “Can it really be time to arise already? I am still tired.”
“It is barely seven, milord.”
“Seven in the morning?” Prance howled, sitting up and removing the mask to glance at the dainty French clock on his bedside table before turning a fulminating eye on his valet. “What is the meaning of this, Villier?”
Villier bit his lower lip, then took courage and said, “Bad news, I fear.”
“Not Besner! The appointment is not to be announced for a week or ten days.” There were no secrets between them.
“Worse – possibly.”
“Don’t trifle with me, Villier. What have you done?”
“I am innocent of the outrage! I swear all was in order when we locked up last night and left the atelier.”
“But what happened? Have I been burglarized?”
“Worse! The place has burned down.” After this stunner, Villier clamped his whole hand over his lips. He allowed a suitable pause for Sir Reginald to gasp before continuing. “I felt in the circumstances you would be willing to forfeit an hour’s sleep and require a sustaining sip of brandy.”
Prance jumped out of bed, tugging at his nightshirt of finest linen. “Burned down! How the devil did that happen?”
“I have no idea, sir. It seems it happened during the night—some passersby saw flames through a window and notified the fire department. It has taken this long to determine you are the tenant.”
“All my paintings gone! Years of work!” Well, months anyway.
“It seems it was not a total disaster. Should you not go down and see the remains?”
“Of course. A quick shave and my blue Weston superfine, Villier. The one with silver buttons, and my striped waistcoat with it. You know the one I mean. And send for my carriage.”
“You haven’t touched your breakfast,” Villier scolded.
“One does not eat at a time like this.”
When Prance had had his shave and been eased into his jacket and buckskins he went belowstairs, where he again refused breakfast. The door knocker sounded and Coffen was shown in. “We’ll go with you, Reg,” he said in his usual blunt way.
“How did you hear?”
“Black saw the messenger and had a word with him.”
Black was a famous snoop. He had developed the habit when he worked for Lady deCoventry before her marriage to Luten. It was mainly her suitor, Luten, he kept an eye on in those day. He watched from windows, he eavesdropped from behind doors, he read her letters and scanned all comers and goers on Berkeley Square.
“P’raps I ought to run over and tell Luten.”
“This is hardly a case for the Berkeley Brigade,” Prance said.
“You never know. With luck it might turn into one.”
“Luck! What has luck to do with it? It was obviously an accident.”
“Could be arson. Arson’s serious.”
“I shan’t wait. I’m leaving at once.”
“Let us go then,” Coffen said. He had already called his carriage and when Black got there it transpired he had sent word over to Luten’s house, so there was no delay. The two carriages proceeded at a quick pace through the quiet early morning streets to Ironmonger Lane.
It was soon clear from the undamaged exterior of the atelier that Villier’s love of drama had caused him to overstate the case. Prance leapt from the carriage and ran inside. Coffen, hot on his heels, noticed that the door was not locked. But when they entered, the smell of smoke assured them there had been a fire of some sort, though not a bad one. There was no sign of charred wood nor ashes. They rushed to the large main room where the actual painting was done, and where guests came to watch the artist at work and be entertained. It, too, seemed undamaged.
Prance kept his staff to rigid standards. The maid and footman he had chosen from his staff for the job had apparently cleaned up after the party the night before. No glasses or plates littered the surfaces. The floor had been swept. “Everything seems to be in order,” Coffen said, frowning as he walked about, sniffing the air.
After a few moments’ investigation, Prance said, “My paintings are all here and undamaged, thank God.”
“My little sketches are here as well. Tempest in a tosspot,” was Coffen’s conclusion. “Funny, though, I do smell smoke. Your front door wasn’t locked either, Reg. It would have been easy for someone to get in.”
“No doubt the firemen are responsible for leaving the door open. I shall look into that.”
“How’d they get in? No windows are busted, and the door lock ain’t broken, or even scratched. I looked.”
“I shall speak to Burton. He was in charge of cleaning up and locking up. And making sure there was nothing burning. There is a stove in the kitchen but it wasn’t used last night. No tea or coffee were served, and the hors d’oeuvres were all cold. I don’t allow anyone to smoke in the studio, so I really don’t see -”
“Someone might have sneaked into the kitchen to blow a cloud,” Black suggested, and went off to investigate.
Before he returned Luten and Corinne arrived. “We came along to see if we could help,” Luten said, looking around and frowning. “Everything seems in order, barring the smell. What happened, Prance?”
“That is just what we are all wondering. Coffen noticed the door was unlocked when we arrived. I cannot believe Burton left it unlocked. He is utterly dependable.”
Luten began prowling about. “Here beneath this front window is where the fire was lit,” he said a moment later. “The flames would have been visible from the street. These rags you use to clean off your brushes and so on must have caught fire. Spontaneous combustion, I daresay. It could have been worse. I see a tin of linseed oil has spilt, and some turpentine as well. I expect you use that to clean your brushes. If the flames had leapt another foot the whole place might have gone up. All those stacked canvases would be easy burning.”
“But I would never leave the lid off my oils. I am fastidious to a fault about such things. I deplore a messy workplace.”
“That’s true,” Corinne said. “I have noticed how careful you are.”
Coffen, who was examining the scene of the fire, had soon come up with another clue. “I see there’s some twists of paper charred on the ends, like we used to light the fireplace. That says to me it wasn’t a spot of combustion like you thought, Luten. Someone started the fire on purpose.” He held one of the spills up. “They’re not yours, Reg?”
“No, definitely not.”
Coffen untwisted one of the spills, hoping for a clue. “The bounders used my paper! This is off the pad I use for my little sketches. That don’t help us much.”
Black joined them and was soon apprised of the situation. “So the fire was set on purpose, near the oil and canvases,” he said.
Prance turned pale. “It is only by the grace of God the place wasn’t razed to the ground.”
It was rare for Coffen to have an opportunity to correct Prance, and he used it. “You mean lowered to the ground, Reg. The flames go up, but the place burns down.”
“Raze means lowered,” Prance said with a weary sigh.
Coffen nodded. “Ah, French.”
“Close enough.”
Black, who had been examining the site of the fire said, “Luckily the fellow didn’t know what he was doing. He’d ought to have set the fire closer to the spilled oils. There’s no sign of trouble in the kitchen. No cigar butts or what have you. The only thing amiss was the cellar door was ajar, like the front one.”
“The location and the spilt oils and the charred twists of paper say pretty clearly someone was trying to set the place ablaze,” Luten said. “Arson, in other words. Any idea who might have done it, Prance?”
The first name that occurred to Prance was Oliver Besner, but he could see no reason for it. It wouldn’t help his race for the presidency. A jealous artist? But he w
asn’t a great artist. Certainly no threat to Romney and those boys. His real success was in writing, and from the legions of writers jealous of his success, no name stood forth.
“None at all,” Prance said, shaking his head.
“Anything missing?”
“I don’t keep any valuables here. Just my paintings and supplies.”
Corinne lifted the cover of the painting he was doing of her. It was there, but the little sketch he usually propped up beside to use as a guide was gone. She pointed it out to him.
“Ah, my little ébauche. Now that is odd. It was there yesterday. In fact, it was still there last night. Half a dozen guests wanted to see what I was working on and asked about it.”
After more searching, it was determined that the only thing missing was the little rough sketch of Corinne. This greatly annoyed Luten, who was possessive of his wife, and worried for her welfare, especially at this time. Why had someone taken that little sketch and nothing else? Was the fire a ruse to hide his trick?
There was no saying what a man so attracted to her that he would start a fire to conceal stealing her likeness might do. Not wanting to frighten her, he asked her in a seemingly casual way, “Any idea who might have wanted the sketch, my dear?”
Luten was a terrible actor. “None in the least,” she said, chewing back a smile. “Is my caricature also missing, I wonder? Coffen?”
Coffen rifled through his sketches and said, “Nope, here it is. They weren’t after my little doodles. None of Reg’s paintings are gone, so it’s pretty clear they didn’t break in to steal anything, just to burn the place down. Wouldn’t you think fellows too stupid to even start a proper fire would leave a few clues, but there’s nothing here. It don’t make sense. Nossir, it’s a complete mystery.”
Coffen loved a mystery. He enjoyed ferreting about for clues, something he could pick up and figure out who dropped it, and what it meant. He preferred that the mystery be accompanied by a murder. Before they even left the studio, he got his wish.
Chapter Three
They were still discussing the mystery when the door opened and a stout little fellow in a flaxen wig, straight cut jacket and kerseymere breeches stepped in. Officer Townsend, the most famous of the Bow Street Runners, was well known to them all from former cases. He doffed his white hat to Lady Luten, gave a smirking smile, bowed and said, “Ah, I see my news has preceded me. The Brigade is already gathered. Shall we get down to business, gentlemen, and milady?”
“How the deuce did you hear about it, Townsend?” Luten asked.
“I make it my business to be informed when a corpse turns up.”
“A corpse!” Coffen cried, with more joy than sorrow. “Who?”
Luten said reluctantly, “Your coming here suggests it was no natural death.” Worse, it suggested that Prance was involved somehow.
“Murder,” Townsend announced with satisfaction. The Runners worked on commission, and he knew from past experience that Luten was a free spender. Sir Reginald, with his pockets bulging from the success of his novels, should be equally generous. “The victim is a Mr. Rupert Burnes.”
“I never heard of him,” Luten said, and breathed more easily. He was eager to get his wife away to the seashore to build up her strength for the coming accouchement. It was by no means imminent. In fact other than a special glow she was wearing lately, one would never guess to look at her that she was enceinte. The doctor thought she would deliver in November. “What makes you think the victim has anything to do with us?”
Townsend turned a sharp eye on Prance. “Your name was jotted down on a note in Burnes’s pocket, Sir Reginald, and this address. As you have just opened your little studio, I assume the visit was for either yesterday—or was it to be today?”
“It was yesterday, but it wasn’t an appointment. He dropped in. I had never heard of him before.”
“And what was it he wanted to see you about?”
“He wanted to sublet my atelier from me. He was very insistent. Offered twice what I’m paying. Of course I turned him down. I’ve just got established here.” He wafted a shapely hand about the room. “All my painting paraphernalia. I soon shoo’d him out the door. “
“Did he say why he wanted it?”
“I didn’t bother to ask him. I just told him I was not interested at any price.”
“Well, I might have the explanation as to why he wanted it, or a clue anyhow,” Townsend said, and looked about for a seat.
Coffen perked up at the magic word ‘clue’. They all moved to the chairs grouped around the easel and sat down in a semi-circle. “It seems he has a year’s lease on the buildings on either side of you. You’ve likely noticed they’re both empty. P’raps he was planning to set up some sort of business.”
“A fellow doesn’t usually start business on such a large scale,” Luten said, frowning. “He’d need more than a one year lease if he were planning to develop the area, rip these old buildings down and put up something grander. That would be expensive. Perhaps he had an option to buy the adjacent houses.”
“I doubt it,” Townsend said, with a shake of his flaxen wig. “If he did, it wasn’t at his flat. There were no interesting letters or papers there, and so far as I know, he didn’t have an office. He lived in a cheap set of rooms at the end of the street. A fellow with money would have a finer place to hang his hat.”
“Which house was he living in?” Coffen asked. He liked to get all the details. It had already darted into his head that he’d have a look about Burnes’s flat for clues.
“The big rooming house on the corner of Gresham Street. And his rooms were in the attic at that. I thought when I saw his body he was more of a gentleman. He was well enough dressed, had a watch and a few pounds in his pocket. He had a few decent jackets in his closet and a bunch of books, a few rubbishing little statues and what not. The whole lot was hardly worth fifty pounds.”
“So he hadn’t been robbed,” Black said. “Sounds like a rank amateur. Hadn’t even the sense to snabble the watch and make it look like a robbery. How was he killed?”
“A knock on the head with a blunt object. In fact several knocks, just to make sure he was gone. A bloody mess.”
“That don’t sound like it was planned,” Black said. “He’d have used a gun, or a knife if he wanted to keep it quiet. Where did it happen?”
“Hard to say. The body was reported by a decent married fellow name of Cooper. It had been dumped in an alley off Capper Street but he wasn’t done in there. The fellow who found the body was on his way home from a night out with friends but he was sober. I’m convinced he had nothing to do with it or he’d not have reported it. I believe the fellow was killed elsewhere and the body taken there, for a neighbour saw a carriage stop at the mouth of the alley and two men got out. It’s dark there, but he thought the fellows were helping a friend who was the worse for drink. A bunch of students live in the area, so coming home foxed is nothing new to folks there.”
“Students don’t usually have a carriage,” Coffen said. “Was it a hackney?”
“That I can’t tell you. Just a dark carriage. No description worth a pinch of salt of either of the men or the rig. That’s about the sum and total of what I can tell you. We got the report early this morning.”
Luten gave Townsend a heavy frown, put his arm around his wife and said, “I’ll take you home, my dear.”
“I’ll stay, Luten,” she said firmly. She was finding Luten’s efforts to wrap her cotton wool tiresome in the extreme. “It seems the Berkeley Brigade has a new case. I wonder if it has to do with Prance’s fire.”
Townsend’s head jerked up. “Fire, you say? Where? Not your house, Sir Reg, with all your fine gewgaws?”
Prance bridled to hear his valuable collection of paintings, sculptures and other rare bibelots reduced to gewgaws. “No, my gewgaws are safe. The fire was right here.”
Townsend sniffed the air. “I thought I smelled smoke when I came in but as I looked around and saw no evidence
, I thought you must be burning garbage.”
Prance directed him to the corner where the fire had been set and pointed out the spilled oil, the charred paper spills.
Townsend nodded wisely and said, “A failed attempt at arson. I wonder now if this was the work of Burnes—but no. He didn’t want to get his hands on the place, only to burn it down. And it can’t be for insurance, for he don’t own it. Since the fire didn’t catch on, p’raps ‘twas an attempt to smoke you out, no pun intended.”
“We don’t know that the murder had anything to do with the victim’s effort to rent Prance’s studio,” Luten said, though he suspected this was mere wishful thinking. It bothered him, too, that the sketch of Corinne was missing. The only thing missing, which gave it added importance.
“You may be right. We don’t know enough about the fellow yet,” Townsend said. “Well, it’s early days. I’ll let you know if I find anything interesting, and you might return the favour.”
“Of course,” Luten said. The others nodded their agreement. Townsend pushed his hat on his head, made an elaborate bow to Lady Luten, and strutted out to his waiting gig.
“Let us leave. I can’t work with the stench of smoke in my nostrils,” Prance said.
“Try breathing through your mouth, like me,” Coffen suggested in a kindly way.
Prance, in a foul mood from lack of sleep, food and general bad luck, snapped, “Try shutting your mouth.”
“Then I’d have to breathe through my nostrils.”
Prance ignored him. “I’ll send Burton down to clean up the mess and air the place out. I’ll let you know when it is habitable, Corinne. Thank goodness the knave didn’t destroy your picture. I am rather pleased with it.”
As they left, Coffen got Reg aside and said, “I can see you’re in one of your moods, Reg, and I don’t blame you, but before we leave, is there any chance you’ve been pestering someone lately? More than usual, I mean—no offence. Leaving Burnes out of it, the fire could’ve been set by someone who’s jealous of you. A fellow with all your talent is bound to make people jealous.”