by Joan Smith
Byron took one last sip of wine, rose and said, "I'll have to ask for his room at the desk. If I'm not back down in five minutes, join me."
"I thought you might want to come back down and watch for Danby's return. You could detain him while I did the job abovestairs."
"Think again. You promised me criminal activity, and now you want to keep all the fun for yourself. If Danby is out, he won't be back this early. You come up. It will save me the bother of limping down and up again. We cripples must think of these things."
Luten nodded and continued eating without tasting, keeping an eye on the head and shoulders clock on the mantle. Never had five minutes seemed so long. After four minutes he was convinced the clock wasn't keeping proper time. He beckoned for the waiter and paid the reckoning, then he went out into the corridor and up the stairs. Byron stood at the top of the landing, waiting in the shadows. He looked pale. As he reached the top of the stairs Luten said, "All clear? There was no one in?"
"Not a living soul," Byron replied in a hollow voice. "And I mean that quite literally," Luten noticed the excited glitter in his eyes and the tension around his lips.
"You don't mean—"
"He's dead. Poisoned, I think. The door wasn't locked. Come and have a look before we call Bow Street."
They hurried down the hall, around a corner. Byron opened a door on the right side and they went in. "The lamp was lit when I arrived," he said, "so he was still alive after dark. But not much after, I think. The oil has burned low."
Luten went to the body. It lay on its side, crumpled on the floor beside the chair, with the knees drawn up towards the chest. The face was contorted with the mouth open, giving the effect of a gargoyle. A glass of brandy had fallen from his hand. The liquid spread in a dark stain over the green carpet. Luten lifted the arm. Danby had been dead for some time, to judge by the stiffness of the joints. It was dark enough by four in the afternoon to need a lamp. It was now half past eight, so he might have lain here for over four hours. Where would the valet have been all that time? Did he have a valet? Have to find that out. An opened bottle of brandy sat on the desk. Luten put his finger in the dregs in the glass and smelled it.
"Cyanide, I think. I catch a whiff of almonds beneath the pungent brandy fumes. The strong taste of the brandy would mask it." He went to the bottle and sniffed it. "The whole bottle's been poisoned."
Where had he got the brandy? Had it been a gift? Or had someone called on him and slipped the cyanide into it? In that case it must have been a man. A lady wouldn't call on a gentleman in his bedroom. The bottle was nearly full. He stared at Danby's face for a moment, with an instinctive pang of grief for another young life stamped out. Perhaps he wasn't guilty after all. He certainly wasn't the only guilty one in any case.
Byron watched him uncertainly. "Do you want to look around before we call the police?"
"Just pull the bell cord for a footman. We'll send him off to Bow Street and still have time to search the room before he arrives. Tell him to ask for Townsend, he's the best, and discreet. See if you can find the money or Mrs. Huston's diamonds or anything that might have held the cyanide."
Byron did as Luten asked. Luten clenched his lips and did what had to be done. He felt like a ghoul as he slid his fingers into the dead man's pockets. Strange how cold flesh no longer felt human. The form beneath the jacket and waistcoat might have been a dummy. The pockets contained nothing of interest. Just a little money, a deck of cards, a comb, keys.
When the footman arrived Byron met him at the door and sent him off to Bow Street. Then he and Luten began a quick but thorough search of the rooms. Luten took the bedroom, Byron the sitting room attached, which served as a study and parlour.
In the pocket of a greatcoat at the back of the clothespress Luten felt something small, hard and cold. He drew it out–Mrs. Huston's diamond necklace. A note on the bedside table requested the servant who cleaned his room to have his buckskins cleaned. The note suggested that Danby didn't have a valet, but used a hotel servant, another sign of being short of money. Every gentleman of fashion had a valet.
Luten studied the note. It had been dashed off hastily but the formation of certain letters revealed that it was written in the same hand as the Bee's notes. The paper was also the same. So Danby was the Bee, but his death confirmed that he hadn't worked alone. There had been some falling out amongst thieves. Who was his partner–or partners?
Byron came in from the next room holding out a wad of unpaid bills. "If Danby was a nabob, I'm a virgin," he said, showing Luten the duns. "There were no business papers in the desk. A man of affairs would have a welter of them. I don't believe he had a penny, other than what he gouged from his victims or won at the card table."
"He's the Bee all right," Luten said, dangling the diamond necklace from one finger. Bursts of brilliance flashed as it turned in the lamplight.
"I'll return this to Mrs. Huston. No need for her to be involved in the investigation. Keep looking. Where would he have hidden the money, or his bankbook? Keep an eye out for anything else he may have planned to use for illegal gain as well–love letters, that sort of thing."
They searched under the carpet, in drawers and under the mattress, in every pocket and the toe of every boot, even the hems of the curtains. They found neither money, incriminating written matter nor a bottle that could have held the cyanide. Either the poison was in the bottle when it came into the room, or the murderer took it away with him.
Byron said, "You know, Luten, there's no need for you to be officially mixed up in this. It seems we still have another Bee to catch. Why let him–or her–know you were on to Danby? I'll say I merely called on him to invite him out and found the body. He's been dead long enough that I won't be suspected."
"I don't like to saddle you with it, but actually it's a good idea."
"You'd best go right away."
"Right. Try if you can find out where he got that brandy. Ask if he had any callers. Call on me when you're through with Townsend."
"At your place?"
"I'll be at Lady DeCoventry's."
"Lucky you."
Luten met a Bow Street officer rushing in at the front door as he entered the lobby. His red vest and staff announced his calling. He didn't know this officer and didn't stop. He called for his carriage and headed to Berkeley Square.
* * *
Chapter 29
Luten held his finger to his lips to deter Black from announcing his arrival. He wanted to surprise Corinne. Through the open doorway he looked into her cozy, feminine drawing room with flames leaping in the grate, thankful to be there and not in the cold and stately grandeur of his own mansion. He planned to remove the furnishings of this room and create a replica of it in one of the smaller chambers of his house across the street when they married. It would be their private parlour. As he entered the room his gaze moved to her, before she realized he was there. He felt a surge of joy as he always did when he looked at her.
She sat staring at the cards on the table with a thoroughly bored expression on her pretty little face. Some lover's instinct must have told her he was there. Her head lifted suddenly and as she saw him, a smile that dazzled like the morning sun beamed from her face. She rose at once and flew, eagerly as a bird from its cage, to greet him. He seized her fingers and they returned hand-in-hand to the card table without exchanging a word, yet their mutual pleasure had been fully understood by the look that passed between them.
Mrs. Ballard scooped up her winnings and minced out with a smile and curtsey all around. Her late husband did not approve of playing cards for money, but pennies, she rationalized, hardly counted. Though they did add up when Coffen was such a very bad player. Of course every penny would go to charity.
"What's happened, Luten? You look pale," Corinne said when they were seated. "Is it bad news from France?"
"I wasn't at the House. I was working on the case. I had dinner with Byron at Stephen's Hotel."
"Prance won't like that," C
offen said. Corinne was curious to hear who had suggested this dinner, but before she could ask Coffen said, "So it's about Danby." He leaned forward, blue eyes gleaming. "What's he been up to?"
"Getting himself murdered. He's dead."
Coffen's loud "What?" overrode Corinne's soft gasp. She poured wine and Luten gave them an account of his evening.
"You don't figure it might have been suicide?" Coffen said.
"We couldn't find anything in his room that could have held the poison. The whole bottle had been doctored. My feeling is that someone sent him a poisoned bottle. For that matter, why would he commit suicide? He didn't know we suspected him."
"I was thinking of Mam'selle," Coffen replied. "If he was her fellow, her death might have plunged him into a bout of melancholia. But very likely 'twas murder. So, he wasn't the Bee then?"
"He was certainly a member of the hive," Luten said and explained about the note and Mrs. Huston's diamond necklace.
"I'm glad you took the necklace to return to her," Corinne said. That was like him, thoughtful. "I wonder if a lady killed him. Poison is a lady's method, especially useful when she couldn't go to a gentleman's room without exciting comment."
"Could have rigged herself out like a bit o' muslin," Coffen said.
"Byron is at the hotel now. He'll try to discover how the bottle got there," Luten said. "It seems Danby's being a millionaire is all a sham. His desk was full of unpaid bills. He didn't even have a valet."
They continued discussing it for some time. Prance, who had been watching from his drawing room window, was thoroughly incensed at being left out. Luten's going out and rushing back in as if pursued by the hounds of hell told him something interesting was going on and they hadn't notified him. And after all his work for them in Brighton! Typical of Luten's highhandedness.
When Petruchio came frisking about his feet it was all he could do not to kick him. He called his butler and asked him to please remove the animal. He was about to call for his carriage and go to his club when he recognized Byron's carriage rounding the corner. An expression that was more sneer than smile alit on his narrow face. Perfect! He would go out with Byron and enjoy an evening of civilized conversation.
He watched with disbelief verging on apoplexy when Byron's carriage passed his door and drew up in front of Corinne's. It was clear from the way he hurried up the stairs that some momentous event was in progress. Whatever it was, Byron was in on it! He would never dare to call on Corinne at this hour without Luten's knowledge. What could it be? Flaming with curiosity, he had to swallow his bile and go, cap in hand and uninvited, to find out.
And to make it worse, Byron hardly glanced at him when he was announced. A barely civil nod, if you could call that a greeting. Corinne recognized the flaring nostrils and strained lips of a severe snit and made him welcome more effusively.
"We were about to send for you, Reg," she lied. "There have been startling new developments in the case. You must give us your opinion." Luten, watching, smiled to consider what a wonderful political hostess she would make.
"First I must hear the details," Prance said, reining in his ire as he lifted his coattails and sat down on the arm of a chair.
"Danby's been murdered," Coffen announced in his usual blunt way.
Prance rolled his eyes. "It never ceases to amaze how you can ruin such a promising story," he scolded. "One does not begin with the climax, Pattle. You should build up to it, arousing curiosity by intriguing details, which have now lost their luster."
"It ain't a story. It's real," Coffen pointed out.
"But I'm sure there are fascinating details?" He turned to Byron for a more complete recital. He certainly would not oblige Luten by asking him.
Even Byron was not his usual eloquent self, but he gave a coherent and comprehensive account of the facts. Once Prance got over, or at least assimilated, the injustice of Luten's asking Byron to accompany him instead of himself, he said, "So it seems we've been wasting our time on the drone, when it is the Queen Bee we should have been concentrating on."
"Cherchez la femme," Coffen said. "Though there's no reason the Bee couldn't have been two men, come to that." This new notion caused a little pause, during which Coffen, unfortunately, added, "Two bees or not two bees" as Shakespeare said. "I'm surprised you didn't quote that at us, Prance."
Prance shook his head. "Two e's or not two e's. In that case, not. In the word be, I mean. Never mind, I believe we're looking for a woman right enough. There was a woman with the man who got his hand in my pocket and stole Miss Winchley's money. Now who could she be? The dashing Lady Callwood leaps to mind, of course. Surely the only lady of that crew with the sort of insouciant gall to pull off the various pranks involved."
"No reason one of them couldn't have been a dainty fellow dressed up like a woman, like you were at the Pantheon," Coffen said. "But if it was Callwood, it'd explain one thing that's been pestering me. Where did the Bee get all them bees he sprinkled over her dead dog? He didn't. She made it all up."
"Could he—or she—not have gathered them chez Hummer-Winkler?" Prance suggested. "He knew Winkler kept bees. He must have been there. The workers push the drones from the hive when their job is done, I believe."
Coffen nodded. "Very likely that's it, if the other Bee isn't Lady Callwood."
"It sheds no light on the lady in the case," Corinne said. "Lady Jergen and Lady Callwood were at the Pantheon. Either of them could have been with the Bee for a few moments. We don't know when the Bee actually got into your pocket, Reg. Or it could have been Mrs. Webber, who made a point of telling me she wasn't there."
"I think we all agree we can acquit Miss Winchley and Mrs. Huston in any case?" Prance said. They all nodded. "Surely there is no reason we need limit ourselves to the Bee's victims in our search for his murderer. Anyone involved with Danby might have done it."
"What other involvements had he?" Byron asked. "He wasn't courting any lady, so far as I know. He had no sworn enemies. He usually won at cards, but there was never any suggestion of cheating, and in any case that would more likely result in a duel than poison. So how are we to find out who killed him?" He looked all around.
Only Prance noticed that "we" and felt a nettle of resentment. Since when was milord Byron one of the Berkeley Brigade? Had Luten unilaterally invited him to join them? Prance wanted to keep Byron for himself, except for those occasions when he might prove useful to annoy Luten by flirting with Corinne.
"Did you have any luck finding out where the bottle of brandy came from, Byron?" Luten asked.
"It was delivered to the front desk. Not by a liveried footman, which would have given us something to work on, but by one of those anonymous link-boys, who all look alike. Ten or twelve years old, tow-coloured hair, shabby. There must be hundreds, perhaps thousands of them in London."
Coffen pulled at his ear. "They each have an area they work, like footpads. It'd be more than his life was worth to poach on another lad's territory. The one that delivered the bottle must work near Stephens's Hotel."
"Or close to whomever hired him," Prance suggested.
"Either one of them places," Coffen agreed. "What time of day was it delivered, Byron?"
"Late afternoon, around four."
"Was there a note with it?"
"No, just the bottle. The clerk who accepted it assumed Danby had ordered it."
"Did he have any callers that afternoon?" Luten asked.
"Tom Pritchard called on him around two. Danby came down to the lobby to buy a journal after Pritchard left. I've seen them playing cards together at Alfred's. I can't believe Pritchard would be involved in this. He's a young innocent."
"We haven't talked about why Danby was killed," Coffen said. "The how and the opportunity were there in the bottle, but why? If he was working with someone on the Bee business, why did she, if it was a she, suddenly turn on him? There must have been a falling out between them."
"A lover's quarrel, peut-être?” Prance suggested. "Was M
am'selle Grolier the victim of a jealous she-lover, and innocent of anything to do with the Bee qua Bee?"
"Quay? What's a quay got to do with it?" Coffen demanded. When Prance rolled his eyes Coffen said, "Ah, French, is it?" and ignored it. "What I think happened is that the Bee and the queen bee fell into a spat over the money since there was no trace of it in Danby's room, t'other person must have it. And we know Danby was in need of cash."
They discussed this, then Luten said to Byron, "We have another job for you, if you're game." Prance came to rigid attention, ready to assert his right to any job that sounded interesting, or at the very least to accompany Byron. "There's something we meant to check up on but it seems to have been overlooked. Since you're on friendly terms with Gentleman Jackson, I'd like you to ask him if Danby spent his mornings there the past week, and ask about the afternoons at Manton's." Prance decided not to interfere. A trip to Gentleman Jackson's was only slightly less revolting than a trip to a slaughterhouse.
"I'll do it tomorrow morning," Byron said at once. "If he was using Jackson as an alibi, I shouldn't think he'd lie about it though. It's too easy to check."
"Just dotting the t's and crossing the i's," Coffen explained.
"Ah yes, nothing like crossed eyes to keep things clear," Prance said, smirking at Byron, who playfully crossed his eyes.
"Exactly," Coffen said, taking it for a compliment. "You ought to send a note off to Brighton and see if the police there have any clues as to who killed Mam'selle, Luten. I'd do it myself but no one would pay any attention to me. You remember when I talked to the tobacconist across the street from Mam'selle he said a lightskirt and a lady went into the place that morning. The lightskirt didn't come out hollering so it stands to reason Mam'selle was still alive then. If one of them killed her, it was the lady. The tobacconist said the lady wouldn't find anything to suit her at Mam'selle's, which lets Lady Callwood out. She wears pretty flashy bonnets."