by M. J. Carter
Scott nodded grudgingly. “Though it might be best not to bruit it too much abroad.”
“I am overcome by your kindness, Your Lordship!” said Helen, and smiled charmingly.
• • •
HELEN LAID HER BONNET on the bed and arranged herself on the chaise longue, her cloak wrapped tightly around her shoulders.
“I am so sorry you have had such a time finding me. But now you may rest.” I began to talk rather too fast. “The rooms are very comfortable, are they not? I have sent Sarah to draw a bath for you—they have faucets where the hot water comes steaming straight out; it is the height of luxury. The fire will be lit shortly.”
She frowned. “You are going somewhere.”
“I must, Helen. I have work to do. It is why I am here. But I will be back before long to change for dinner. And perhaps I need not leave at once. How are you? Are we dining out?”
“I am perfectly well, of course. We are invited to dinner by Lady Falkland. I wrote to say I was coming up and she insisted we must come.”
I knew that if I pressed her further, I should either upset her or make her angry, but I could not stop myself. When we were alone, the distance between us seemed to yawn, and at the same time I felt her fragility so deeply. “Truly? No gloomy days? Bad thoughts? Is that why you came?”
“No,” she said shortly. “I told you, I needed a change. Lord knows Bainton is dull enough.”
I sat down beside her. “How are you? Please tell me. How is the house? How is Freddy?”
“All perfectly well. Do not press me, William, it makes it worse.”
“My dear.” I felt myself put too much into the words. “I am sorry.”
“No more apologies.” She gave a laugh. “I need some things. A new dress, gloves and a bonnet and a shawl, and some alterations to my old things. Surely we can afford it? We are not paying for our lodgings.”
“Of course, my dear.”
“Shall I meet Mr. Soyer?”
“Most certainly, but it would be better to wait until after our work is done. He is very preoccupied just now. In a few days,” I said.
“Where are you going now?”
“To the kitchens.”
“To see Mr. Soyer?”
“I can explain.”
“Not now. I am tired.”
“You do not wish to know what I am doing?”
She waved her hand vaguely. “Later, perhaps. I hope it is not dangerous.”
“It is not. But I do have work to do here—neither social calls nor dangerous—but they will take me away from you, for the next two days, and then I should be free.”
“No matter. Just tell me: where is Blake in all this?”
“Not here.”
She pulled her shawl closer about her. “I am not a fool, William. When did you acquire a manservant?”
“We judged it would be more useful for our inquiry if Blake was in disguise. No one knows.”
“His idea, I suppose. Getting you into trouble again. Very well. I shall see you later.”
I felt a rush of contrition. “Good-bye, my dear.” I kissed her forehead.
She did not look at me.
• • •
“WHAT SHALL we say to these suppliers?” I said ill-temperedly to Blake as we strode up to Piccadilly. I still believed we should have seen Duncombe first. “‘Tell us whether you are sending poisoned goods to the Reform’? They are hardly going to confess that they have been lacing the butter.”
Blake rearranged his hair over his scar and set his cap back on his head. “You’re an entrepreneurial gentleman of means moving up to London.”
“You mean, in trade?” I said, my dismay palpable.
Blake ignored me. “Money talks loudest. You plan to set up a small club catering to your friends’ epicurean tastes, and you are looking only for the best. Once you are talking, you will mention you acquired your list of suppliers from the great Monsieur Soyer himself. See what they answer. We simply want a feel of these places. It’ll be enough.”
“I am a soldier, not an actor!” I protested. “I cannot carry such a thing off. It is demeaning.”
“There’s not much acting involved. These types do not expect much from their grander customers; they prefer them ignorant.”
We worked our way through the small emporiums around Bond Street and the farthest end of Piccadilly. I would ask for the senior clerk, set my questions, Blake standing respectfully at my elbow. I would be prevailed upon to try a little cheese or cured meat, or inspect a game bird or taste a slice of pie. Then I would mention the Reform. At the first establishment, there was a short and awkward pause, followed by a speech in fulsome praise of the club: how honored they were to supply it, what an exemplary customer it had been. The same momentary hesitation was evident at the second, and at the third the manager said, “Of course we hope Monsieur Soyer’s unfortunate . . .” before he remembered himself and came to a halt.
At Davey and Pane in South Audley Street, the elderly wine merchant had a particularly antique but charming manner. I introduced myself in the usual way and asked about the wines and sherries while Blake quietly looked about. The place had the air of a church and the smell of a schoolroom, with its wood panels and highly polished tables. There was not a bottle in sight. The gentleman asked me if I was a Devon man. I answered in the affirmative, and he said he had grown up there and knew the Bainton Averys; he had been supplying a great-uncle of mine (my one rich relative, whom I hardly knew and liked little better) with wine for years. He brought out a number of small glasses and fine old bottles and insisted I taste them.
Blake scowled at me. “We do not have time for this,” he hissed, and pressed a scrap into my hand.
Ask about sharp practice and get a move on, it said.
“My dear sir,” said I, when he returned, “may I ask you a question?”
“Ask away.”
“I am somewhat of an innocent when it comes to this business. I know there is sharp practice about—of what should I be wary?”
“Sad to say, sir, supply is not as honest a business as it should be. But it has ever been so. May I be blunt, sir?”
“Please.”
“You should watch your accounts and keep an eagle eye on your chef or butler. There are certain practices . . .”
“Please enlighten me.”
“It is not uncommon for a butler in charge of a large establishment to demand commissions—or ‘presents,’ as they are called—from his suppliers in return for his custom. Another trick: each month, a butler or steward will come to the supplier and demand that an extra few pounds or more be added to the monthly bill. This sum he will offer to divide with the supplier; if the supplier refuses, the customer will not merely take his custom elsewhere, he will denounce him and claim his goods are shoddy or that he is dishonest. So, if the supplier refuses, he loses custom; if he accepts, he is drawn into fraud. It is most tiresome. If you really wish to have the best and to pay the right price for it, you must watch out for such things, or make a kind of peace with your staff.”
He gave me an almost fatherly look, as if he was quite sure that I should certainly fail to take his advice.
“This must give rise to a good deal of bad blood?”
“Most tradesman are inured to it, sir. Some are happy to profit by it. Some find it wearing.”
“There must be establishments where this is not the case? I should be most amazed and disappointed if Monsieur Soyer at the Reform were engaged in such things.”
His answer was carefully politic. “Of course, I cannot comment on individual cases, but the Reform is good enough to use our cellars, and I am certain they do not find them wanting.”
I left with two very fine and expensive bottles of claret I had not intended to buy.
• • •
OUR LAST VISI
T WAS to Bentley and Adams’s greengrocers, in Covent Garden Market. They had made the second delivery that had so enraged Soyer he had sent it back.
I had first walked through Covent Garden the previous November, marveling even in that dark season at the streets dyed green by the trodden corpses of leaves and the fat, ripe perfume of flowers and fruits. In early spring, the effect was even more dazzling: lines of early flowers, many impossibly hothoused, and pyramids of exotic fruits—melons and pineapples—I had never thought to see outside India.
Bentley and Adams stood out from its row of stalls by virtue of its long frontage and the elaborate arrangement of its fruits and vegetables. Outside, there were boxes of potatoes and carrots, onions and cauliflowers, leeks and beetroots, piled upon each other. At the stall’s entrance a display of handsome asparagus and rhubarb, young carrots, radishes, the first small lettuces and a few very early peas. Below, boxes of luminous oranges and lemons. Clearly, the stall regarded itself as well above the cut of the other vegetable merchants.
Inside, it had the air of a counting house. A clerk in a long white apron and shirtsleeves sat on a stool at a high desk. There was a counter of plain, polished wood, which Blake said was for the servant trade. “I shall speak for us this time,” he said. “They expect to deal with servants.” I waited in the doorway.
There was a genial man in a spotless apron and a smart jacket at the counter. Blake gave his story. Mr. Bentley, for it was he, liked to talk.
“Oh, Mr. Soyer, what a man! A genius, I should say. What he can do with one of my modest old leeks, or just a potato, well, it’s a miracle, a piece of magic, I tell you.”
“You’ve tasted his food? You are very fortunate.”
“He has been so kind as to invite me to his snug at the Reform to sample some of his dishes. I won’t hear a word said against him.”
“Does anyone say a word against him?” said Blake.
“Why, no . . . I meant it simply as an expression.”
“I have heard he can be very fussy, sends goods back for no good reason, doesn’t pay his bills,” said Blake insinuatingly.
“May well have been one of my deliveries!” said Mr. Bentley cheerily. “You must understand, Mr. Soyer is a perfectionist. One expects a little bad weather from such a man now and again, especially in a long-existing business arrangement. Sometimes we do not quite hit the mark, and he will take only the best. I am proud to supply him.”
“Does the Reform pay its bills on time?” asked Blake in a confidential tone.
“I do not know what business it is of yours,” said Mr. Bentley, startled.
“None at all. My gentleman is a great admirer of Soyer, but he has heard certain rumors.”
Mr. Bentley picked up a bundle of asparagus. Blake leaned against the counter, looking entirely at his ease.
“Well, perhaps I should not say,” Bentley said, “but the kitchen is a little slow to pay. I had heard the club was overstretched. I expect to get my money in the end. I trust the man and have good reason to.”
“How d’you mean?” said Blake.
“His soup kitchen for the poor in Spitalfields. The silk weavers have suffered terribly, you know, from competition from the mills in the north. It’s a great shame. Mr. Soyer has set up a subscription to pay for it, but most of the money will come from his own pocket. I know, because me and Solomon’s next door have supplied most of the vegetables. Tons of onions and carrots.”
• • •
“ENOUGH!” I SAID, as we departed the green-stained streets of the market. “No more grocers. Nearly a whole afternoon, and what have we accomplished?”
“You think we got nothing? We know the club is delaying payment and the suppliers are antsy. We know how the servants work scams. We know that at least one supplier whose produce Soyer has sent back is not raging against him.”
“Can we not try Duncombe?” I said. “He must be out of bed by now.”
• • •
“CAPTAIN AVERY!” Duncombe made a great show of welcoming me. “Such a pleasure to see you again! I was just on my way to change for dinner, but I should far rather receive you.” He seemed quite immaculate to me, in a narrow-waisted frock coat of silver gray, with a pale blue silk cravat and a waistcoat in blue-and-gray silk paisley.
“May I offer you a libation?” He looked past me with a gleam of anticipation. “This isn’t, by any chance, the famed Mr. Blake?”
Blake and I fell over each other’s words in answering in the negative.
“My manservant Maguire,” I mumbled.
“My mistake,” said Duncombe. “It is simply that I really am most intrigued by your erstwhile colleague. And I must apologize for my condition on your last visit—not worthy of a gentleman at all. Though may I say that despite the sad news that you bore, I was truly glad to make your better acquaintance.”
“Not at all, Mr. Duncombe, think nothing of it.” Neither of us mentioned having seen the other at the Reform the evening of Addiscomb and Rickards’s poisoning.
“Madame Rumor whispers that the club is closed for a second day. I trust you will manage to resolve matters, Captain Avery. Indeed, I have guessed why you wish to see me, and, though I know the evidence may seem to add up, I must plead not guilty. It was not me, or not me alone.”
“I see,” I said, bemused. “I have not yet accused you of anything.”
“But you were about to,” he said, leaning forward confidentially.
“You have heard then about . . . ?”
“Well, naturally.”
“I see,” I said, entirely put off my stride. “And you thought that I—”
“Well, why would you not jump to conclusions? I would have. I know you saw me with Molesworth at the club the other night. The truth is, I did play a role. Though I am dreadfully sorry for it.”
I thought of that table of Duncombe, Molesworth and the butterfly brigade, and I saw him drinking with Addiscomb and Rickards.
“So you were involved? You admit it?” I said, amazed, and feeling an almost triumphant light-headedness.
He sighed. “I must take some responsibility.”
“And who else?”
“Molesworth, principally, then some of our younger radical friends went further than they should have. You saw them the other night. Though I also imagine some of the staff have acted.”
“I am astonished!” I said. “Why did you do it? Was it to break apart the club? To be revenged on the Whigs? On Lord Palmerston?”
Duncombe looked penitent. “Nothing so extreme. Simply to do some mischief, though some of the young ones are, admittedly, very angry.”
“Some mischief! Is that what you call it?”
At this point, Blake coughed.
“Captain Avery, I think you are taking on a little,” said Duncombe. “And really, my own part was quite small.”
“Quite small? It cannot have been so small, Mr. Duncombe. We know that you were at Soyer’s dinner when Mr. Rowlands was taken ill. I saw you drinking the healths of Rickards and Addiscomb two nights ago, only hours before they were taken ill. And we have discovered that you dined at the club some weeks ago, on the night on which Mr. Cunningham died.”
“Captain Avery, I am confused. I thought Cunningham had a bad heart. What is this about?”
“Do not deny it, sir.”
“Is it true, then, that another member died two nights ago?”
Blake coughed again and said, “Excuse me, sir.”
I said, “You know it is, sir.”
“I had heard rumors.”
“Mr. Duncombe, you cannot take it back now. You seem extraordinarily composed, given the terrible damage you admit you have caused.”
“I think that is going a little far, Captain Avery.”
Blake poked me in the ribs. I ignored him. “Too far! You killed your friend and pr
otégé in order to—”
“I what, Captain Avery?”
“You heard me, Mr. Duncombe.”
Duncombe’s expression turned from pleasant confusion to dawning horror. “Captain Avery, what is it precisely that you think I have done?”
“Mr. Duncombe, what is it you were admitting to?”
“Not that I had any involvement in the death of my friend! Or anyone else, for that matter.”
“I thought—” I said, “I thought you were confessing that . . .”
“I see,” said Duncombe, in a strained voice. “We were at cross purposes. I must say, I am aghast that you could think such a thing of me.”
“I am sorry, sir.” I could barely meet the man’s eye. “A misunderstanding. But it does seem that you were the only member present on the three occasions when someone has died at the club.”
Duncombe looked mortified. “I assure you that is a coincidence. I do not even recall being at the club on the night when Mr. Cunningham died. I had heard he had passed, but I do not even remember when it was.”
“I did see you take a drink with Mr. Addiscomb and the Honorable Mr. Rickards?”
“Yes,” he said in a hushed voice. “But I have always had acquaintances on every side of politics. It is not a crime. I have known Rickards for years. We were both in the Dragoons many years ago.”
“I think, perhaps, I should take my leave, Mr. Duncombe.”
Leadenly, I made for the door. I think, if a bolt of lightning had struck me at that moment, I would have been grateful.
Before I could depart, however, the door opened of itself and Molesworth came in.
We stared at each other.
“Avery,” said Molesworth curtly. “And who is this?”
“My man Maguire. How do you come to be here, Mr. Molesworth?”
“That’s an impertinent question. I did not know the club had engaged you to quiz committee members.”
“I will do whatever I must to find the man responsible for the poisonings.” I was a little taller than he, and he only some five years older than me. I did not feel at a disadvantage.
“I thought it had already been decided that it was the girl.”