by Kate Parker
I hoped she’d keep my secret. Oh, she had to stay silent. Already my face was burning.
“Quite wise, Emily.” Her no-nonsense tone told me she wanted nothing less than the truth. Her husband was dead. I’m sure she felt she deserved to know all.
She ordered the butler to have the staff hang black crepe at every door, window, and mirror before she led us into her morning room, where we each took a seat near the warming fire. I took off my gloves and made myself as comfortable as I could for the grilling that was to come.
Before the police could begin their questions, I hurried to speak first. “Lady Kaldaire, I was playing a game with your husband to get him to pay my bill for your hats because my brother, Matthew, is deaf. I want to send him to the School for the Deaf. It’s in Doncaster, a residential school, and a very good place. It’s also very dear. Hence my need for every penny I’m due.”
“Has he been deaf long, Emily?” she asked.
“When Matthew was eight, he and my mother both fell ill. Mother died of the fever, and Matthew lost his ability to hear. Then he gave up speaking and can’t be persuaded to try. I took over her millinery business and raising Matthew.” I gave a sound that was half-chuckle, half-sob. “It’s a good thing I have a talent for making hats, because I have none at all for raising young boys.”
She nodded and gave me a small smile. “They can be difficult. You’ve raised him on your own?”
“My mother’s cousin, Noah, runs the workshop and keeps Matthew out of trouble when I’m in the shop.”
“But he wasn’t watching your brother last night,” Inspector Russell said.
“No. Not last night.”
“Whose horse and cart was it?”
“The workshop’s. Cousin Noah’s.” I held up my hands. “He’s run the workshop since before I was born. I don’t know what’s his and what’s mine anymore.”
“Is the workshop near your shop?”
“Just across the alley, facing out on a side street. It’s very convenient.”
“I’ll bet it is,” Russell muttered.
I gave him a level stare. I guessed he thought he could be rude because of my father’s family, but I’d try to prevent that if I could.
The look he returned appeared innocent. Then he said, “Where does your father’s family fit into this cozy arrangement?”
“It doesn’t.” The fury in my eyes should have knocked him to the floor.
It didn’t seem to bother him in the least, as he gave me a cold smile. “Does Lady Kaldaire know your father is part of the notorious Gates gang—robbers, burglars, gamblers, confidence tricksters, and thieves?”
“I’ve never heard of this Gates gang,” Lady Kaldaire said with a note of disdain.
“They’re suspected of the Grand Metropolitan Hotel robbery and the Covington Art Exhibit robbery. The list goes on and on.”
I heard her gasp as I glared at him. How dare he? How dare he expose my most painful secret to my client? My hands curled into fists as I snapped, “I don’t know why she would. I have nothing to do with them.”
“I don’t believe you.” He displayed no emotion at all.
“Believe what you like, Inspector Russell. You’re wrong about me.”
“I looked you up in the records room at Scotland Yard after I left here last night. You’re Henry Gates’s daughter, and my, but he has an impressive file.”
It was a good thing I was seated, because I felt as if the floor had dropped out from under my chair. I couldn’t catch my breath or move my limbs. He had destroyed my business.
In the silence that followed, Lady Kaldaire said, “I believe her, Inspector.”
“With all due respect, ma’am—”
“If you’d use your brain, you’d know she wouldn’t have had to deal so extravagantly with my husband if she had criminals to force him to pay her, or if they were paying for the boy’s schooling out of their illicit gains.” She raised her graying brows and looked at him with her lips pursed together.
“We searched her shop—”
“You did what?” I was incensed. Had they put their dirty paws on my hats? Or rooted around the till or examined my books? And then my anger slid into fear. What had they found?
He gave me a satisfied smirk. “We searched your shop storeroom and found items from a recent burglary. Specifically, jewelry.”
Blast. I’d taken that jewelry to force Lady Eddington to pay my bill rather than her gambling debts. Her response was to tell me to sell the jewelry. And then she had the nerve to report the worthless paste stolen as real jewelry. Witch.
“Whose is it, Emily?” Lady Kaldaire asked.
I looked at her, wide-eyed.
“It’s obvious from the look on your face you know about the jewelry. No prevaricating.” Her look was stern.
I lowered my head. “It’s Lady Eddington’s.” Evil, rotten…
“I’m not surprised,” the older woman told me. “Julia has never been particularly timely in paying her bills. Was this another of your little games to get the upper class to pay what they owe you?”
“Yes, ma’am.” What else could I say?
“Does the value of the jewelry cover her bills?”
“No, ma’am, it does not.” Which made me even angrier. At Lady Eddington, not Lady Kaldaire.
“I think you should tell Inspector Russell the truth about the jewelry.”
I looked into her eyes and saw she knew. And that she found the whole situation amusing.
“What truth about the jewelry?” the detective asked.
“Have you had it appraised?” she asked him.
To Russell’s credit, he immediately understood. “No, we haven’t. And when we do, I gather we’ll discover they aren’t worth enough to charge you with a serious crime.” He looked from me to Lady Kaldaire. “But how did you know they’re fake?”
“I guessed. Knowing Lady Eddington, it’s the only possible conclusion,” Lady Kaldaire said.
“And you?” Russell asked, eyeing me closely. If he hoped to discover I’d asked a member of my father’s family, he’d be sadly disappointed.
“I was taught how to tell real from fake by studying the stones.” I didn’t want to tell him it was a game I had played as a child with my grandfather.
“Then why take them at all?”
“It takes close examination in good light. Not something I could do while removing them from Eddington House.”
“Why keep them if they’re worthless?” Inspector Russell appeared genuinely curious.
“It’s a game, Inspector. I have something she wants returned before her friends and my fellow tradesmen discover she’s as phony as her jewels. I don’t care about her reputation. What I want is for Lady Eddington to pay me for the hats I made for her.”
He shook his head at my revelation. “Nevertheless, you admit to breaking into Eddington House and into here. I have to charge you for that. And I doubt your customers will like doing business with a criminal. The daughter of a criminal.”
“You do realize, don’t you, Inspector, that I will testify under oath that Emily didn’t break in here.” Lady Kaldaire gave me a tiny smile. “And Lady Eddington doesn’t dare press charges. She’d have to admit the fakes you collected are hers.” She gave the inspector what I thought of as the aristocratic stare.
Bless Lady Kaldaire. She defended me to the police about the attack on her husband and now over the break-ins I’d committed. She was doing her best to protect me.
I glanced over at the gray-haired sergeant. He was studying his notebook, pencil poised, with a face as devoid of expression as Lady Kaldaire’s. It was a technique I needed to learn.
When I looked at Inspector Russell, he was examining me with calculation in his eyes. He had something else planned for me. I wished I knew what.
“I suppose you have us stymied for now, Miss Gates, but don’t think this is finished. We still have a murder to solve,” Inspector Russell said as he rose from his chair.
&n
bsp; The sergeant was immediately on his feet.
“I want you to solve the murder, Inspector. I don’t want anyone thinking I would do such a thing. Even my notorious relatives wouldn’t kill a man.” I knew he couldn’t deny that. They’d never been suspected of murder. Why did I have to be the first in the family?
I walked with Lady Kaldaire to the front hall and she made certain there were no other policemen in the house before the butler showed them out. “Now, Emily, let’s return to my morning room. We need to talk.”
I could feel my business, my income, my life falling apart. Matthew would never get to go to the School for the Deaf. I could feel the weight of this murder, with police investigating and people suspecting me, pressing me down. I felt myself shrink and my feet turn to lead.
“We’ll need tea,” she told her butler.
Tea? She wouldn’t be terminating my services over a shared cup of tea. My body was suddenly lighter.
When we were both seated with the door shut, Lady Kaldaire said, “You are obviously a young woman with some unique talents, and you have a commendable goal in sending your brother to school. I need you to do something for me. I need you to retrieve the contents of the safe. In return I will pay you handsomely, which you can put toward your brother’s education. And I will keep your secret about your relatives.”
Surprised, I said, “After I admitted to planning to steal the Lady in Blue from you?”
“That is a ridiculous and scandalous pose for a great-grandmother to take.”
“She wasn’t a great-grandmother when the painting was done.” I suspected the scantily dressed woman in the painting had been twenty when she posed for it.
She dismissed it with, “She knew she would be one day. I don’t care if I ever see the painting again. It is the contents of the safe that are dangerous.”
Chapter Three
Dangerous? My breath caught. Being suspected of murder was quite enough danger for me. What was I getting myself into? “What exactly was in the safe?”
“A letter.”
“Yours or Lord Kaldaire’s?”
“He had obtained it. I would never be so indiscreet as to keep anything of this nature.”
I believed her. “What’s in the letter?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Then how will I know who stole the letter or whether I have the right one?” She was being difficult, which made no sense if she wanted my help. And what had her husband been doing to receive an embarrassing letter?
The tea arrived at that moment, forestalling conversation until the maid was gone, the door shut, and the tea poured. We both took a great deal of sugar in our cups. Once Lady Kaldaire had a fortifying sip, she set her cup back in its saucer and said, “I suppose you’ll need to know. Horace heard rumors about a royal who was not as royal as that person claimed.”
“You mean a bastard?”
I received a dirty look for my language before she continued. “He began an investigation into the allegations, quite discreetly. He purchased the letter that started the rumors and put it in the safe. Apparently, his investigation wasn’t as discreet as he’d hoped.”
“If it’s the royal family who had that safe opened, I stand no chance of getting that letter back. It’d be burned by now.”
“I don’t believe the royal family has anything to do with this. I suspect the perpetrator was an enemy of our royal family or our nation.”
A knot of apprehension formed in my stomach. Being hanged for murder seemed at that moment to be a more peaceful way to die. “Aren’t they the same thing?”
“Not at all. There are foreign governments who are against British interests, but who wish our rulers no harm. Then there are those who plot against our royal family because…”
When she fell silent drinking her tea, I said, “Why would anyone plot against our entire royal family? Or is it just one? There are quite a lot of them.”
“There is a faction that wants to replace our current line of succession with another. Or if not replace it, embarrass our sovereign.”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed. “So who is supposed to be illegitimate? King Edward? Queen Alexandra? Prince George? His young sons?”
“Victoria.”
I fumbled my teacup and nearly dropped it, splashing tea in the saucer. “You’re going to try to tell me that Queen Victoria’s parents weren’t married? I’m sure someone would have known before now if that were true.”
“No. The letter purports that Victoria’s mother had a lover who was Victoria’s true father. That the Duke of Kent was impotent. That Victoria didn’t have a drop of royal blood.”
What a foolish thing to worry about all these years later. No one would know for certain or care. “Who would gain by raking up that muck now?”
“The King of Hanover, who is also the Duke of Cumberland, and his heirs. The original Duke of Cumberland was next in line of succession of George III’s sons after Victoria’s father. Can’t you picture the donnybrook that would cause, with competing claims and Parliament trying to sort everything out?” The smile slid off her face. “It would be a national disaster.”
“Who would really benefit by declaring Victoria illegitimate?” Not that I could imagine it. She’d reigned for over sixty years when she died. Entire generations knew her as queen. No one would believe this.
“Ernest Augustus, Crown Prince of Hanover, a kingdom that no longer exists, as well as titled the third Duke of Cumberland. And his brother, Prince Maximilian of Hanover, who is a good friend of the kaiser. And Kaiser Wilhelm, although a descendant of Victoria’s, derives his royal title from his father’s side of the family. What Wilhelm and Maximilian would both like is for King Edward to be embarrassed.”
“Why?”
“They can’t stand him.” She spoke with such simplicity that I nearly giggled at the image of rulers acting like small boys.
That sounded like a stupid reason to break into a safe to steal a letter about a birth almost one hundred years before. The letter was nonsense, ludicrous, absurd.
“Prince Maximilian’s the one you need to investigate, Emily. And to watch out for.”
“Well, if he’s in Germany—”
“He’s not. He’s here in London. He has a house nearby in Mayfair. He always appears to be in mourning, even when he’s not. Of course, he could have tried to steal the letter and become my husband’s killer by accident.” She lifted one hand and wiggled her fingers, as if she were calling someone. Which was odd, since we were the only two in the room.
“This reminds me; I need to get someone in to make up some mourning clothes for me. Will you do two hats to begin with? One with a medium, curved-down brim and lots of long net to hide my face during church services and trips to the cemetery after the funeral. I hate people peering at me, trying to guess if I’m truly sorrowful. The other hat should be similar to the style I like, only in black, and with a veil.”
“But what about your widow’s veil? It’s worn with a cap.”
“Do you really think I could wear a widow’s cap while not knowing who murdered my husband and put me in mourning clothes? Never. First, we’ll find his killer. Only then can I wear crepe ribbons.” She paused and sighed before saying, “You do understand, Emily?”
“Of course, my lady.” I’d never forgiven my father and his family for their role in my mother’s death. That meant I had never been able to properly grieve.
What I wasn’t expecting was the fit of sobs that burst out of Lady Kaldaire. She had been stoic until that moment. Now I found myself awkwardly patting her shoulder and murmuring as I would to a child who’d lost a toy.
After she dried her tears and blew her nose, she said, “He was such a fool, but he was my fool. We were never a love match. We married for all the usual reasons anyone in our set makes these alliances. And when I failed to give him an heir, my one and only duty, he never blamed me. He was more optimistic about our chances than I was whenever it was mentioned.
And then he simply said, ‘Oh, the title will pass to Laurence’s oldest’ without a word of recrimination. He could be a kind man. Oh, Emily, I’ve just discovered I miss him.”
She cried softly for so long that I felt it necessary to hand her my clean handkerchief. I’d never seen any show of emotion from any of my customers before. I realized she was the first customer I actually liked, because she thought me worthy to see her as human.
“Thank you, Emily. You’re very kind.” She dried her eyes and said, “Don’t tell anyone what I told you about the contents of the safe. But think about it. How will we get that letter back?”
“Why do we want to get back something that is just so much malicious gossip?”
“Because,” Lady Kaldaire said in a tone to be used on a peasant, “Lord Kaldaire’s killer thought it was worth stealing.”
“And once we get it back?” I suspected her “we” meant I was to do all the dangerous, illegal acts.
“Burn it, of course. I don’t know why Horace didn’t. Probably expected an honor for returning it or some silliness like that. And now look at the mess. We must get it back and burn it for the good of the country.”
“Shouldn’t the government do that?”
“You think a bunch of men can accomplish something that needs a delicate touch?”
I stared at her. She was probably right, but that didn’t mean I had to like sticking my neck out for the royal family. They wouldn’t save me if anything went wrong. “That inspector will be watching me. If I do anything illegal, he’ll put me in jail.”
“Emily.” Lady Kaldaire put years of practice at issuing orders into her voice. “I will keep your unsavory relatives a secret. Your secret is safe with me, no matter what. In exchange, I hope you will help me retrieve that letter.”
My mother had kept her connection to my father’s family hidden her entire married life, and I had done the same since her death. This was the first time our secret had been discovered, and it was my fault.
I felt obligated to retrieve the old letter from a possible killer. It was the only way out of this mess, sweetened with money for Matthew’s school. Gee. What could be easier? I folded my arms across my chest. “I’ll do it. I have no choice.”