Murder on Ironmonger Lane

by Joan Smith

  Between fatigue and frustration and disappointment no one was in the mood for conversation on the way home. “Do we meet tonight or tomorrow morning?” Black asked Luten when they reached Berkeley Square.

  “Not tonight, if you please,” Prance said. He had seen Villier watching at the doorway for him. Villier would give him a massage, and a posset liberally laced with brandy.

  “Tomorrow morning will be soon enough,” Luten said.

  He was angry, tired and extremely frustrated. It was not the loss of the Roman relics that bothered him so much as that the man who murdered Burnes was slipping through their fingers. With a few exceptions such as war and the lawful execution of criminals, the taking of a human life was God’s prerogative, not man’s. Those who did it must pay for it, and perhaps even more importantly, be made an example of to deter others.

  His scowl softened as he saw Corinne, half concealed in shadow as she had extinguished all but one lamp when she moved to the sofa to wait. How small and vulnerable she looked. Yet within her grew a whole new human being, their son or daughter, perhaps even a future Prime Minister. So long as the mother survived, he would be happy with the miracle of a healthy child of either sex. She wouldn’t go to bed until she knew he was home safe. Well, he was, and he would catch Burnes’s murderer too. He would just have to come up with another plan. He almost hated to awaken her, but it was past their bedtime. As soon as he touched her shoulder her eyes flew open.

  “Luten!” she exclaimed, looking around for the others. Then, seeing no sign of them, and seeing his expression, she said, “What happened? No one was hurt?”

  “No one was hurt,” he said. “No one came. It was all a waste of time.”

  She sat up and reached a hand out to him. “Oh dear. I am sorry.”

  “It’s all right. We’ll just have to think of some other plan to nab him.”

  “You’ll think of something,” she said, with a trusting smile that did him more good than the two or three glasses of brandy he had been considering.

  “Yes. Let us go up to bed.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Due to their late night the group did not meet until after ten the next morning. Luten had been up two hours earlier and made a few calls. “Let us consider what went wrong last night,” he said. “How could Blackbeard have learned what we had in mind? I am assuming that is why the pick-up wasn’t made as planned.”

  “Surely it is obvious your friend Rochford, or possibly Phipps, is the cause,” Prance said at once.

  “I have spoken to them both this morning,” Luten said. “I will vouch for Rochford—well, he’s a fellow of your society, Prance. Surely you can’t believe he is working against your aims.”

  “He might have said something without meaning to give the show away.”

  “He assures me he didn’t reveal anything to anyone.”

  “Well, as to his being a member of the Society, he is not an active member,” Prance said. “He never comes to the meetings.”

  “He contributes large sums of money, however. Who do you think pays for your headquarters?”

  “Really? I didn’t know that. Well, I always thought Phipps the more likely one in any case.” It occurred to him that a hefty contribution to the Society might oil his path into the president’s chair. But no, Besner would accuse him of buying the honour.

  “I spoke to Phipps this morning as well. He is quite irate that his meeting to pick up the mosaics was put off. I assume the reason is that Blackbeard found out we are on to him.”

  He drew a note from his pocket and said, “He received this note yesterday informing him not to come, and telling him he would be notified of a future safe time and place. Strangely, he received the note around noon yesterday, which suggests Blackbeard found out our plan almost as soon as it was made. How did Blackbeard know? We each have to look back and consider who we might have dropped some clue to. Naturally I do not think anyone of you let the secret out on purpose. What I hope to discover is who you might have spoken to.”

  Coffen, the lover of tangible clues, reached out, took the note Phipps had received and examined it, but what had looked like an excellent clue told him nothing.

  Luten turned to his wife. “What about Mrs. Ballard’s visit to Mam’selle, Corinne?”

  “Mrs. Ballard didn’t know your plan for last night. She told me every word she said. Other than Mam’selle, who spoke only of bonnets, the only person she spoke to was Mrs. Hope, an Englishwoman who works there. Mrs. Hope has nothing to do with Leclerc.”

  “Any chance one of the French workers overheard her asking about Leclerc?”

  “No, she and Mrs. Hope sat apart from the French workers.”

  “And you yourself haven’t spoken to anyone?” he asked, knowing it was unnecessary, but wanting to show no favouritism.

  “You know I haven’t been out of the house,” she said.

  “You and Black, Coffen? How about that janitor you spoke to? Any chance of a slip-up there?”

  “I don’t believe he even knows Leclerc’s name,” Coffen answered.

  “We said nothing about it to the janitor,” Black said. “Blackbeard had no reason to go back there, unless to pay a call on Thomson. He’d stripped the flat already. The slip didn’t happen through our visit to Gresham Street.”

  Coffen took his turn. “We tooled past the toy shop and Mam’selle’s place on Capper Street a few times, but even if someone saw us and maybe wondered, they wouldn’t know we knew about the delivery last night. Or thought we knew.”

  “It must be Phipps,” Prance said again.

  “Who did you speak to yesterday, Prance?” Luten asked.

  “Oh lord, half of London. People are always coming up to me to comment on that magazine cover. But they weren’t interested in the mosaics.”

  “You went to call on Binwell to explain about your caricature on the magazine cover,” Luten reminded him.

  Prance stared in vexation. “I hope you’re not suggesting that Scotty, the President of the Society, undermined the work he has devoted his life to!”

  “Certainly not, but knowing his views, you wouldn’t feel it necessary to watch your step in front of him. He might, in the same way, have said something to someone else during the day.”

  “Whom did you speak to, Luten?”

  “About the mosaics, only Townsend, Rochford and Phipps. Was anyone else there when you spoke to Binwell?”

  “Just Besner, another stalwart of the Society,” Prance said. “And naturally I didn’t reveal our plans. Next you will be suspecting me.”

  “Of course not. What did you three talk about? Anything that might have been misconstrued ... You have mentioned that Besner spends his days trying to drum up support for his run for president. He must speak to all kinds of people interested in the mosaics.”

  Prance liked the notion of Besner being the leak, even if innocently so, but didn’t see how he could be involved. “Oh, Besner was there, waving the Satirist under Scotty’s nose, and saying how I was trivializing the work of the society. I talked my way out of that all right. Then to change the subject when he saw Scotty liked the cover, Besner got on to talking about Bonaparte’s despoiling of Egypt and Italy. He was hot in his praise of how the French are documenting their thefts. They do a superb job, actually. Much better than England in that respect. We have nothing like their publications.”

  “Praising France, was he?” Coffen asked sharply.

  “He and Scotty both, but they are not francophiles. It was just France’s documenting of their spoils they were praising.”

  Coffen was not about to be put off the scent of a clue by a francophile, whatever that might be. “I wonder now if Besner would be a friend of Mam’selle. According to what Mrs. Ballard learned, she has another fellow on the string. She’s been seen driving about with some fellow who don’t have a beard.”

  “Besner is a happily married man,” Prance said. “Did he not tell you so, Corinne?”

  “Yes, he me
ntioned his wife has some sort of business.” He had also flirted with her, but she had not told Luten that, nor was she about to say so now.

  “Anything to do with bonnets?” Coffen asked hopefully.

  “She works with some furniture maker,” Corinne said. “She advises clients how to decorate their houses.” After a little silence while this was digested, she added, “Mrs. Ballard mentioned the fellow she was seen with is handsome. Looked a little like Byron, Mrs. Hope thought.”

  “Anything else?” Luten asked.

  “Nothing to the purpose. She said Leclerc has no footman, and his coachman looks like an ex-bruiser, with a broken nose and a squinty eye.”

  “The janitor at Burnes’s place mentioned Blackbeard’s coachman was ugly,” Coffen said. “Drove a plain black rig drawn by a pair of bays.”

  Prance felt a tingling along his spine. Besner was a handsome young dog. He had often noticed a slight resemblance to Byron. He had also wondered why Besner would hire such an ugly coachman, with a broken nose. Oh dear! What should he do? Besner had certainly been pumping him for information yesterday when he chanced to mention something about a French involvement in the case.

  Had he feared they were on to the Leclerc angle? It was Leclerc who ran the toy shop and sold the relics, and Besner was familiar with the shop. That must be what set him off. Luten would kill him for having been so indiscreet. Yet to lay the blame for the robbing of the relics on Besner, who held himself up as a defender of all the Society stood for, was a wicked temptation. But was it even conceivable that Besner was Leclerc? Every handsome, dark-haired man in London was compared to the incomparable Byron. On the other hand, Besner’s uncle, Sir James Crow, was said to know a great deal about relics in London.

  Coffen caused a distraction by saying, “I thought Besner looked like Byron myself, only without the limp, of course. You wouldn’t happen to have a sample of his writing, Prance?”

  “I don’t, but I daresay I could get one. You’re not thinking that note Phipps received was from Besner?”

  “Just an idea. It’s a pretty long shot.”

  “I have a note from him,” Corinne said. “He sent a bouquet of flowers thanking me for inviting him to Prance’s little soiree. The only gentleman who did so.”

  “Do you still have the note?” Coffen asked.

  “I didn’t keep it. I believe I just set it aside on the table. Evans might know what happened to it.”

  “Might as well ask him, just to be sure,” Prance said. He might not have to confess his dereliction, if the handwriting matched, though Luten would still ask questions.

  Evans was called, the note was described, and he was off to the kitchen to interview the maids. He was back shortly, bearing a wrinkled sheet of paper. “Is this the note, milady?” he asked.

  “Yes, this is it,” she said after a quick glance.

  Coffen, still holding the note Phipps had received, compared them, scowled and passed them to Luten. “If these handwritings ain’t twins, I’m a blind man. Even the paper’s the same kind.”

  Luten’s heart was racing. It was the best lead they had found yet. He studied the notes and passed them to Prance.

  “Definitely by the same hand,” Prance said. “Those high capital letters. Graphologists say they denote a high opinion of oneself, I believe.” He must take care to decrease the size of his capital letters. “Well, this is certainly a stunner. What do we do about it, Luten?”

  A grim smile moved Luten’s lips. “We prove it,” he said.

  Prance shook his head in confusion. “I can’t understand why he would do such a thing. He really is very interested in the safekeeping of Roman relics. He doesn’t have an expensive style of living. He doesn’t belong to any of the clubs. I wonder if he is in debt.”

  Corinne said, “Keeping a mistress is expensive. She lives in a house, not a flat, and he signed the lease.”

  “I don’t actually know what his financial position is,” Prance said. “I just assumed there was some family money behind him, property providing a competence you know. He certainly doesn’t have any sort of regular employment. That little toy shop can’t bring in much.”

  After thinking a moment, Corinne said, “I can tell you where he gets some of it. Leclerc is the owner of Mam’selle’s millinery shop, and according to what Mrs. Ballard learned, it is making a very tidy profit. He is making money from selling the relics as well, of course.”

  Prance shook his head in confusion. “I couldn’t be more shocked if I learned he was an axe murderer,” he said.

  “French,” was Coffen’s terse explanation. “Leclerc might be his real name for all we know, and Besner an alias, despite he don’t seem to speak French.”

  Luten chewed back a smile. Coffen’s deep distrust of the French was well known. “A small piece of handwriting seems flimsy evidence to condemn the man of murder,” he said. “The implication is certainly damning with regard to selling the relics, but for murder we need more proof.”

  “It ain’t proof positive, just hypotenuse,” Coffen nodded, “but it’s the relics that are at the bottom of Burnes’s murder right enough, and it’s Blackbeard that’s responsible for selling them. If we could get hold of the black beard in his possession it would prove Besner’s him, eh?”

  “It would certainly go a long way,” Luten allowed.

  “He lives on Howland Street, off Tottenham, not far from the toy shop, actually,” Prance said, knowing that Coffen and Black usually made a search of a suspect’s premises before doing anything else.

  “It’s his carriage we should search,” Black said. “He wears the beard at Denny’s and Mam’selle’s, but he drives a plain black rig whoever he’s being. He must keep the beard there.”

  Coffen nodded and Black continued. “He could be anyone in a plain black rig like that. There’s hundreds of them on the road. He could go on from either of them places to some place where he ain’t Leclerc. All he’d have to do is pull off the beard and stop talking French. You wouldn’t happen to know where he stables his rig, Sir Reg?”

  “Not offhand. It must be somewhere near his house.”

  “Right. Shall we be off, Mr. Pattle?”

  “No time like the present.” Coffen turned to Luten on his way out. “We’ll be back as soon as we find anything.”

  “Mind that coachman. Mrs. Ballard thinks he might be an ex-bruiser,” Lady Luten called after their fleeing forms.

  Luten looked from his wife to Prance. “I’d feel we were on firmer ground if we had some inkling of a motive. The man seems genuinely devoted to preserving the relics. Has he ever said anything that hints at a motive, Prance?”

  “Not a word, and he never said anything that hints at his having a mistress either. I didn’t even know he was married until Corinne told me. He keeps anything personal very close. He has occasionally mentioned his uncle, Sir James Crow, who was once a prominent member of the Society and a friend of Scotty’s. I know he is socially ambitious. You should have seen him making up to Emily Cowper at my little atelier party. He was certainly rolling his eyes at you as well, Corrie. Sending those flowers after a simple little evening do. No one does that.”

  After a frowning pause Luten said, “I could understand the selling of the relics, hypocritical though it is to pose as their defender. What I cannot understand is murdering for money. A fairly small sum, I mean. Hardly a fortune.”

  “We don’t know how much he’s making on the relics,” Prance pointed out. “To a poorish man a thousand or so would make a huge difference.”

  “What else could it be but money?” Corinne said. “It seems to me it is at the bottom of most the murders we deal with.”

  Prance listened, then spoke. “I feel, in Besner’s case, the money is really a means to an end, a toe into society. He is constantly needling me about my friends, doing it in a way that makes me believe he envies me my position. He truckles to anyone in the Society who has any claim to the nobility. Perhaps that is why he wants the presidency s
o badly. It has a certain social cachet. So, how do we set about catching him, Luten?”

  “That will take some thought. Come back this afternoon, Reg. Coffen and Black will report back after searching Besner’s carriage. You know Besner better than any of us. Cudgel your brain and try to remember anything that might help us.”

  Prance was happy to escape without admitting how indiscreet he had been in his last conversation with Besner at Scotty’s house.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  As they drew near to Howland Street, Coffen told Fitz to let them down and drive the carriage back to Berkeley Square. They had decided to hire a hackney for the tour of the local stables, fearing their carriage might be recognized as the one that made frequent trips up and down the street. Fitz nodded and drove off in the wrong direction. Fortunately Black wasn’t looking.

  “This’ll take all day,” Coffen scowled, as they left the second stable and returned to the waiting hackney. “There’s only two stables catering to private rigs in the whole neighbourhood, and Besner’s rig ain’t kept in either of them. Where the deuce do they keep their rattlers and prads?”

  “This ain’t Berkeley Square, Mr. Pattle. These houses don’t look like they keep a carriage. The few bigger houses have private stables out back,” Black mentioned.

  “Besner’s don’t, nor Mam’selle’s either. We’ve been up and down Capper Street half a dozen times the past few days.”

  “I wonder now ... Besner’s house is pretty close to the toy shop.”

  “There’s no stable there either. Nothing but bushes—with thorns.”

  “Yes, but what’s behind them bushes? We never looked in the daytime and couldn’t see for the dark the nights we were there.”

  The hackney driver, listening, got down from his perch. Until that moment he had been an anonymous fellow with hunched shoulders, wearing the dilapidated hat of his profession. Seen head on and erect, his jacket proved to match his hat, and the man suited his outfit. He came forward uncertainly, doffed his hat and said, “Not meaning no disrespect, sirs. My name’s Tipper. Tipper Wedge. I couldn’t help overhearing yez talking. Toy shop, did yez say, sirs?”