by T. F. Banks
For the briefest moment the woman leaned her forehead against the door, which she still held partially open. A moan escaped her, and she pressed her eyes tightly closed. With a visible effort she pulled herself upright, squaring her narrow shoulders and composing her face. It was a remarkable act of will, as though she had not a moment more to give over to grief.
“I was about to send John off for the local constables,” she said, her voice deflated. “Madame has been gone now for more than a day.”
“Why didn't you send for the constables earlier?”
The woman looked acutely embarrassed. “Madame has gone off unannounced before,” she said, hardly seeming to move her lips, as though what she confessed should not be heard by others. “But mind my manners. Do come in.”
Mrs. Johnson, for that was her name, led them into a small front parlour whose light, graceful appointments spoke of a French influence. On every side lookingglasses reflected their movements. Madame Desmarches apparently did not find her own appearance unseemly.
Tea was produced next, a stir audible in the other rooms as the arrival of the Runners became known.
Mrs. Johnson composed herself in a chair, crossed her arms, and said, “What has happened to my mistress?”
“At the moment we are not certain.”
“We thought it might be self-murder-” Presley broke in but at a look from Morton fell silent.
“What might I do to help?” Mrs. Johnson asked, visibly shaken by the mention of suicide.
“Answer all my questions as honestly as you can. Leave out no detail, whether you think it relevant or not-I will be the judge of that, Mrs. Johnson, if you don't mind. Now tell me everything you can about Madame Desmarches, beginning with how long you have been in service here.”
The woman thought a moment before she began. “Three years three months,” she said. “I have the exact date written down somewhere.”
“That is accurate enough for now. If you have served her so long, you will know much of her character.”
The woman nodded, as though this were a compliment to her own judgement. “Madame was a good person, Mr. Morton, and a good mistress. Oh, she put on some continental airs, but for the main she was kindly, and never cold or haughty.” She glanced at Presley. “I saw no sign that Madame was desponding, although 'tis certainly true she seemed very uneasy the last day I saw her.”
“And which day was that?”
“Day before yesterday, Mr. Morton.”
She glanced over at a chair set by a window, as though she expected to see her mistress there. “Even so, I would be very surprised if she would have committed the deeply dyed sin of self-murder.”
“She was a papist-a Catholic?”
Mrs. Johnson shrugged. “I'm not sure, Mr. Morton, though her church certainly was not the Church of England and must therefore have been who knows what tottering pile of heathen or papist superstition, which would be no strong fortress against the cruel buffets of this world.”
“She came from France. Do you know where?”
Mrs. Johnson shook her head, as though ashamed to admit such ignorance.
“Do you know anything of her family?”
“Not a thing, sir. She never spoke of them. I thought the memories might be… painful to her.”
“Perhaps they were. What became of Monsieur Desmarches?” Morton wondered. “Madame Beliveau told us that Madame was a widow.”
“As for him, Madame said only that he'd vanished in the French wars. The Corsican had swallowed him up into his armies, and she had never heard more of him. If he died on campaign, she had not been informed, as she herself had chosen to flee France and stay true to her anointed king. For that sentiment, at least, sir, I honoured her. It showed a good and faithful heart, even if deprived of the succour of true religion.”
“The last day you saw her, you say she was uneasy. In what way? What led you to believe this?”
“She were distracted, sir. Not unhappy, or not deeply so, but twice I spoke to her, and she did not notice, which was very unlike her.”
“Was there anything more? Anything at all unusual?”
“No, sir. Not that I can think…”
“How did she pass that day?”
“She spent some time sitting in the garden. She cut and arranged some flowers before the supper hour. She read for some time in the garden-a French book, sir. Gave me instructions for supper.” She shook her head. “A most common day it was, Mr. Morton.”
“No visitors?”
“None.”
“And the next morning, what happened then?”
“Madame was not here, Mr. Morton. Nothing else was amiss.”
“Not a thing? Think very carefully, Mrs. Johnson. This might be terribly important.”
“I'm sorry, Mr. Morton, but the house was in perfect order.” A gnarled finger shot up. “No, that is not true. The vase containing the flowers had been broken and cast away. I found it and the flowers behind the kitchen, which, now that you mention it, is odd.”
“Why so?”
“Well, it is not where we would normally dispose of broken glass, Mr. Morton. I thought Florrie, the scullery maid, had done it, for she is a thoughtless little thing, but I asked, and she claimed to know nothing of it.”
“What did you think had happened to it?”
“That Madame had somehow knocked it over and broken it, Mr. Morton. Such accidents happen.”
“Indeed they do. When you realised your mistress was not here, what did you think?”
“That she had gone to visit friends. It has happened before, though she would always leave a note saying when to expect her back and giving any other instructions she might have.”
“And whom did she visit?” Morton wondered.
“I don't know, sir. Madame never said.”
“But certainly her friends came to visit her?”
“Only Madame De le C?ur or her daughter. They came most often to fit her for garments-she dressed very well, Mr. Morton, and was a beautiful young woman. Madame De le C?ur or her daughter visited occasionally when there appeared to be no business. No one else.”
Morton glanced over at his young companion.
“Who was in the house two nights past, when last you saw Madame?” asked Jimmy Presley.
“Just Florrie, who I've mentioned. She sleeps in the pantry. The rest of us live out. I'll grant you 'tis not a common arrangement, but this is how Madame wished it. Perhaps 'tis done this way in foreign parts.”
It was done this way in parts of England, too, Morton reflected, when discretion was desired.
“John, the footman, and the cook Francoise and I generally arrive just about six o'clock each morn and leave after our supper at nine of an evening. If Madame wants-wanted… anything in the night, she could ring for Florrie. We were given thirty shillings extra, in place of lodgings, and we had our board. Madame was generous, as any of us will tell you. We have our wages now till the end of the month. After that”-she sighed-“we will be put to sore shifts to find positions as good again. But the Lord will provide.”
Morton tried to phrase his next question delicately.
“Did Madame ever mention if… she owned this house outright?”
A look of indignation flared in Mrs. Johnson's eyes. “I should never have spoken to Madame about such things, nor she to me.”
“No, certainly not. Well, we would have a word with Florrie, if she be here.”
Mrs. Johnson led them back through the servants' door, along a covered walkway, and around into the kitchen, which was in a brick annex at the back and to the side of the main house. The cook Francoise was here, a gaunt middle-aged woman, whose awkward grin revealed very bad teeth as she nervously curtsied to the two visitors. It seemed Florrie was in the herb garden, and Francoise went for her. While Morton and Presley waited, they looked about. As kitchens went, Morton thought, it must be a reasonably pleasant place to spend the long hours of drudgery that were the lot of women like these-and
of his own mother in years past. A fairly clean and spacious room, cool even in July, and well enough lit by the long row of windows set in one wall, even if the view was just of the tall green wall of privet. The only disadvantage would be the distance to the main house and thus the extra steps, many times a day, as trays and teacups and a thousand other things were carried into and out of the presence of the mistress.
Florrie, when produced, proved to be a thirteen-year-old slip of a girl in a very grubby smock. The Runners seemed to be her deepest terror.
“Were you in the house two nights past?” demanded Jimmy Presley. Florrie gaped up at him in horrified silence.
“You were, Florrie, weren't you?” prompted Mrs. Johnson. “The way you always are?” Florrie managed a small, uncertain nod.
“Where does she sleep?”
“Show the men where you sleep,” Mrs. Johnson told her. The girl led them to a windowless alcove behind the oven, adjoining the coal scuttle, where a pathetic pallet, the stump of a candle, and a single alternate dress hanging on a nail in the wooden crossbeam indicated the abode of the most menial member of the household.
“Did your mistress have any callers that night?” Morton wanted to know.
For a moment Mrs. Johnson stayed mute, giving Florrie a chance to respond independently. This was beyond her, however. In a convulsive movement she hid her face in her apron. The housekeeper reached and briskly pulled her hands down again.
“Foolish girl! Now, attend to the gentlemen. Madame had no visitors that night, did she?” Mrs. Johnson's tone was firm but not harsh. “She never did have visitors of a night, did she? She was a most proper lady, wasn't she?”
Florrie looked quite helpless until, unexpectedly, Francoise came to her aid. “Alors, ma petite, tell the shentlemens, joost, did Madame 'ave no visitor two night ago?”
“She didn't!” squeaked out Florrie now, and looked profusely relieved.
“There, bon, good, you see.” Francoise smiled apologetically to Henry Morton. “Really, sir, she is a good fille, but not accustom' …” She trailed away, glancing uneasily at Mrs. Johnson, who now wore a deep frown. Jimmy Presley, however, had picked up the same notion the housekeeper had.
“You mean there were visitors on other nights?” he bluntly demanded. This, however, produced total si-lence-shocked, alarmed, or indignant-on the part of all three domestics. Henry Morton took another approach.
“Well, it matters little enough who was or wasn't here, except on the night in question. Now, Florrie, on that night, did you hear any noises? Did you hear anything unusual, especially coming from the upstairs part of the house, from your mistress's room?”
Florrie looked almost desperate now but could be induced to say nothing.
“Caterwauling, or screechinglike?” prompted Jimmy Presley. Morton's young colleague had shown real potential as a Runner since his promotion from the Worship Street Patrole a couple of months earlier. Morton already owed much to his courage and resolution, in the recent business with George Vaughan and his confederates. But there were some things Jimmy had yet to learn about questioning and patience.
“Would Florrie remember if Madame rang for anything that night?” Morton asked, generally. Florrie looked nervously at Francoise, who repeated the question in slightly different words, which induced the maid to close her eyes and vigourously shake her head.
“But she usually does, doesn't she?” Morton smiled encouragingly. “Florrie usually takes her something or other during an evening?”
“Aye!” piped Florrie, without assistance. “Tay, or biscuits!”
“But not that night.”
A shake of the head so forceful that Florrie's stringy blond locks flung about her thin shoulders.
Morton had Mrs. Johnson call John the footman as well and instructed them all to come with the Runners as they made their way back into the house. They went through each room, asking Mrs. Johnson to look carefully at each and tell them if there was anything out of place or unusual. Morton and Presley also ran their practised eyes over each finely appointed room, but they saw nothing. Certainly no signs of anyone being tortured.
They finished their inspection with Madame's bedroom. Morton kept them waiting in the hall, as questions might occur to him.
The room was in perfect order, the windows open on the summer afternoon for airing, the counterpane on the four-poster smooth and neat, and the furniture dusted and polished. He called in the housekeeper.
“Who makes up the bed?” Morton asked.
“That is my task, sir,” said Mrs. Johnson stiffly. No matter what was being investigated, clearly from her perspective it was most improper for any man to enquire into even the most prosaic secrets of the female preserve. But Morton was not to be put off. And there were worse things to be asked.
“On the morning after Madame Desmarches's disap pearance, what was the condition of this bed?”
“I do not take your meaning, sir. ‘Condition’?”
“I mean, firstly, did it appear to have been slept in?”
A hesitation. “No.”
Mrs. Johnson's face reddened. As Morton watched her, he wondered if certain possibilities about the life her beneficent mistress led were only now occurring to the devout mind of the housekeeper. Or was she merely trying to hold fast in some unfathomable female solidarity?
“Have they been laundered since Madame disappeared?”
Mrs. Johnson wrung her hands in agitation at such vulgar questioning. “They have,” she muttered.
Morton suppressed his irritation. “Were they stained? Did they have any traces of blood? Or other stains?”
Now, finally, Mrs. Johnson rebelled. “Mr. Morton, sir! Where is your decency!”
“I am doing my duty, Mrs. Johnson. Were there stains? I am perfectly aware that their causes might be… diverse.”
Mrs. Johnson's face was an undescribable hue. “They were that morning, sir, in the state one would expect of a gentlewoman of Madame Desmarches's standing.”
“That morning…”
Morton surveyed the room silently a moment with folded arms. What had gone on here? Surely if thumbscrews had been applied in this genteel little world, there would be some signs of struggle. A broken vase hardly seemed enough-just as likely an accident after all.
“Where is Madame's writing-desk?” Morton asked. He was led by the silently disapproving Mrs. Johnson into the next room, a sunny, cheerfully furnished lady's boudoir. The walls were ornamented with prints of peasant life, something in the manner of Chardin, he thought-more earnest than licentious.
The little roll-top secretaire was not locked: the key sat casually on the ledge on top. Morton slid back the veneered cover. Everything was orderly: neat, but not obsessively so. Blank paper, ink, quills, a sharpening knife, wax. He opened the drawers, one after the other. Empty, or half-filled with other casual piles of blank paper, nibs, blotters, the usual paraphernalia. And that was odd.
“Has this room been tidied since Madame's death?” he asked. “Has the desk been put in order?”
“There was no need,” replied Mrs. Johnson. “Everything was proper, as you see it. I only dusted.”
“Where are Madame's letters?”
Mrs. Johnson blinked at him a moment. “Which letters do you mean, Mr. Morton?”
“There is pen and ink, a quire of blank paper, but no letters, written or received. Where does Madame keep her letters and papers?”
Mrs. Johnson stared, apparently baffled. “Well, here, sir-the few that there were.”
“But they are not there.” Morton considered. The pennibs were sharpened, the blotter stained. “Was it her habit to lock this desk?” he asked.
“She trusted her servants, sir!”
“I've no doubt of that. But did she lock the desk? Do you recollect?”
Mrs. Johnson hesitated, in apparently genuine uncertainty. “I do not remember, sir. Or I never noticed. It was not my habit to try her drawers! But perhaps…she did.”
&nbs
p; “A foreign practise, perhaps.” Morton allowed himself a slight smile. “Picked up in France, where domestics are less reliable.” And where, he silently added, servants had been known on occasion to betray their masters and mistresses to Madame Guillotine.
Jimmy Presley had opened the window and was looking down.
“Morton?” The tone of the young Runner's voice alerted Morton.
He went and stood beside Presley and looked down into the courtyard below. There, on the paving stones, one could see, as clear as clear, an almost-round area that was of a different colour, free of dust-as though it had been washed clean.
The two Runners went quickly down the stairs. It took them a moment to find the spot, for close up it was not obvious, which no doubt explained why no one had noticed it before.
Morton crouched over the paving stones, searching, cursing the fashionable tightness of his breeches. There was nothing to be seen. Morton looked up at the window above. Certainly anyone falling from Madame Desmarches's window could have landed here.
“Who washed this spot clean?” Morton asked.
Mrs. Johnson, who stood by clutching her hands tightly together, shook her head. “I don't know, Mr. Morton. John might have done so, but I don't know why.”
Morton stood up. “Jimmy, find a spade or a bar of some kind and pry these stones up.”
A quick tour of the outside of the house revealed a third door, the back entrance, partly screened by a rose trellis. Private, discreet. And in the meadow beyond a small gate in the hedge, plenty of room to leave a hobbled horse to graze, even for hours, and not have it seen from the road.
“And the broken vase?” he said to the hovering Mrs. Johnson.
“Back here, sir.” Morton followed the slight woman to the back of the kitchen, where they found the shattered ceramic vessel and wilted flowers. Morton turned the shards carefully. There was some brown substance dried on the sharp edge of one, but even if it was blood, it proved nothing. The wilted flowers and what had clearly been a beautiful vase made Morton suddenly very sad. He stood for a moment staring.
“No one disliked your mistress,” Morton said, still staring at the cast-away blooms. “Be absolutely truthful, now.”