Miss Treadwell's Talent

by Barbara Metzger

  The threat of the magistrate, not Max, convinced Shimpton’s chatelaine to leave, to be replaced by a kindly older woman with three grown sons of her own. She’d know how to look after the gudgeon, Maylene believed, until they could find him a wife to bear-lead the bacon-brain.

  Maylene needed a bath. What she got was a hurried wash in the basin of tepid water left from her morning toilette. Afternoon callers had arrived and, according to the upstairs maid, one young gentleman in particular was asking for Miss Treadwell, not Lady Tremont.

  A young gentleman? Maylene put on her newest day gown, a high-waisted sprigged muslin with blue ribbons that matched her eyes. Unfortunately, she did not have time to repin her hair, which had come out of its braid again, so she tied another blue ribbon around what curls she could gather and went downstairs.

  Campbell would not have made the error. The young man was no gentleman. He was a solicitor, ill at ease and awkward. Maylene could not decide if he was uncomfortable to be among the titled guests or to be in a house of haunts, but Mr. Ryan kept tugging at his collar and consulting his pocket watch, with a wary eye on Lady Tremont. He must believe her poor mother was a witch, then.

  Maylene took him aside and offered tea. The poor fellow looked as if he could use spirits, of the liquid variety, but their cabinets were not stocked. Perhaps Lord Volstead’s contribution to psychical research could extend to the wine cellar.

  “You wished to see me, Mr. Ryan?”

  “Yes. No.” Ryan almost ran his fingers through his red hair, until he recalled that it was pasted across his forehead with pomatum. “That is, I have been sent.”

  “Sent? By…?”

  “My employers, the firm of Hand, Hadley and Choate. They, ah, also handle Lord Volstead’s affairs.”

  And his lordship had wasted no time in consulting his legal advisers on the validity of his uncle’s will and the gambling chit. Maylene had known the Treadwell ladies’ reputation would benefit from this day’s work, though not so quickly. She’d thought Volstead would celebrate his stroke of good fortune when he went to his clubs that evening, and had hoped he’d mention her mother’s name.

  “His, ah, lordship was very grateful for your, ah…”

  Divination? Soothsaying? The unfortunate young man obviously labored under the misapprehension that magical forces were involved, ones that could turn him into a frog if he offended. Maylene almost told him not to worry; he was already a toad. Instead, she poured her guest a cup of tea and offered a plate of poppy seed cake. The cup rattled in Ryan’s hand as he accepted it, and then the slice of cake he’d balanced on the edge of the saucer wobbled, ready to fall. Maylene held out another saucer just in time. Now Mr. Ryan’s face was as red as his hair.

  Taking pity on him, Maylene said, “Yes, it was a lucky find, wasn’t it?”

  “Luck, that’s right.” Ryan was relieved to be handed a solution. A chap could comprehend luck, by Jupiter. Guidance from above was another matter. “Lord Volstead called you Lady Fortune. And my superiors decided they’d ask your assistance, having nowhere else to turn.”

  “I see,” she answered. “Their last resort.”

  “Yes. That is, no. Lud, no offense, Miss Treadwell.” He took a deep breath. “You see, my employers are men of reason, but their own searches have yielded no results, despite the investigators they have hired and the advertisements they have placed in the newspapers and the reward they have offered.”

  Munching on her own slice of cake, Maylene heard the fascinating word “reward.” “And now?”

  “Now they are willing to rely on…”

  “Luck? Woman’s intuition? Or my mother’s contacts in the spiritual world?”

  The teaspoon flew out of his hand. “Lud, not that, that last. That is, Lord Volstead said as how it was you and some helpers who found his papers. Not Lady Tremont. No disrespect intended, Miss Treadwell.”

  “No offense taken, Mr. Ryan, but just what is it that your estimable associates are looking for?”

  “An heir. If we can prove he is, indeed, the heir. But we have to find him first. Lord Volstead swears you can find anything.”

  Maylene was getting a headache. “I think I need a tad more information, Mr. Ryan.”

  He dabbed at his lips. “Yes, of course. Five years ago the Duke of Winslowe died. His son and grandson were both killed in a coaching accident on their way to the funeral. The duke’s brother and his entire family had succumbed to the smallpox epidemic. A younger brother died, leaving only three daughters, and the oldest male cousin died a bachelor. The next cousin in line had emigrated to the Canadian provinces, where his surviving son became a trapper.” Ryan shuddered and took another swallow of his tea. “Hand, Hadley and Choate sent agents across the continent, only to find that the heir apparent had apparently been killed by a bear. You can imagine how long the investigation took. We had to be sure.”

  Maylene wished she had her pad and pencil handy for taking notes; she’d never keep all this straight in her head. Then again, they were all deceased, and Mr. Ryan seemed to have no desire to communicate with any of them, thank goodness. “So who is the heir?”

  “There was a cadet branch of the family in the generation before the last duke. We have been tracing them for the past two years, through Ireland and Wales, searching parish records and registers. My superiors believe that a young man named Joshua Collins from Yorkshire is the new Duke of Winslowe and heir to the estates and fortune. Unfortunately, we cannot find Mr. Joshua Collins, nor even ascertain if he is alive.”

  “Then you will wish an appointment with my mother to search the afterworld?”

  Ryan choked and spewed crumbs across his lap. “Afterworld? Heavens, no. What good would a ghost be to us? We’re looking for a music instructor, not a mirage.”

  “A music instructor?”

  “That’s what he was until last year, pianoforte and violin teacher in Bath. Then he gave notice to his students and fell off the face of the earth.”

  “Surely, someone knows where he is. A school, a concert hall if he is a musician, friends, relations.”

  Ryan shrugged. “We have tried them all. That’s why Mr. Hand sent me to you.”

  “But I have connections in neither Bath nor Yorkshire.”

  “There is a sizable reward, and my employers are willing to reimburse you for your time.”

  But she had no information gatherers, no helpful troops of street urchins in Bath. She had no place to stay, and could not leave her mother alone in London for as long as an investigation could take. She already had three inquiries under way, to say nothing of finding Lord Shimpton a bride. And her a husband. To leave London during the Season was to admit defeat. “Perhaps in the summer,” she said.

  “Did I say there was a very large reward?”

  Chapter Four

  He’d be handsome and single. There was no justice in this world if the missing heir was already married, Maylene decided. And the starving musician would be so grateful to be rescued from his attic room and handed a fortune that he would fall on his knees, vow his eternal devotion, and offer for her hand in holy dukedom. Holy matrimony, she corrected, then laughed at herself. The only way Mr. Joshua Collins would fall at the feet of Miss Maylene Treadwell was if he collapsed in a faint at her news. She was definitely not the type of female to bowl a man over with her looks or charm at first meeting, although Mr. Ryan had seemed pitifully grateful when she agreed to think about his dilemma. Perhaps he was merely grateful to be leaving a residence where the other callers might be culled from the graveyard.

  Maylene had been unable to convince the young solicitor to stay for dinner, much less for her mother’s evening gathering. He would have left sooner if he’d noticed the predatory look on her mother’s face as Lady Tremont glanced at them in the corner of the parlor, heads together. Mr. Ryan might have had “son-in-law” writ on his forehead, in hair grease. Mama must be growing desperate, Maylene thought, to consider a very junior man of affairs as a suitor for he
r daughter. Desperate enough to ask Max to locate the old duke, she hoped. Surely, His Grace would know the whereabouts of his own heir.

  Not willing to put all her eggs in one very fragile basket, Maylene convinced her great-aunt to write to her correspondents in Bath, and persuaded Campbell to check with his sister’s husband’s cousins, who owned a tavern outside the resort town. She swore them not to reveal the reasons for their inquiries, as Mr. Ryan feared imposters or duke-nappers almost as much as he feared the supernatural.

  She could think of nothing else to do, unless her mother received inspiration from on high. Schools and theaters had already been checked, as had way bills for ships carrying emigrants, every professional orchestra, all the employment agencies. Collins must never read a newspaper, she thought, or else he had a good reason for not answering the solicitors’ advertisements, which would make him even harder to find. And the man had been missing for over a year. Meanwhile, she had a gathering of ghouls to direct.

  The circle was larger this evening. Lady Crowley and Lord Shimpton were there—and the solicitors thought Maylene was lucky!—as were two other “regulars,” Sir Cedric and his lady, who frequently sought contact with their lost soldier-son. Max always told them the boy was at peace, dreaming of them, and they always left relieved. Lastly, Lord Patterson had arrived, pathetically anxious to discover news of his missing Toby. They were all, including Aunt Regina and Campbell the butler, taking their designated chairs at the round table, which Maylene had hastily rearranged so that Lord Shimpton was downwind of her.

  When they were all seated, holding hands with nervous smiles as strangers touching each other were wont to do, Lady Tremont directed everyone to stare at the candle in the center of the table, to concentrate their thoughts on their blessed departed.

  “Max,” she called after a bit. “Max, dear, are you there?”

  Then came a knocking. Sir Cedric, at Maylene’s side, jumped and squeezed her hand hard enough to stop the flow of blood. His wife screamed.

  “Max?”

  Max did not rap on the table to signify his presence, Maylene knew. Lady Tremont would not stoop to so theatrical, so common a device. Still, they heard a definite knocking. Lady Tremont frowned. The maid was in the music room, and the young footmen were dealing with Lord Patterson’s Toby, so there was no one to attend the front door. “We are already disturbed, Campbell,” Lady Tremont told her butler, “so you might as well see what the noise is about.”

  Campbell disengaged himself from Lord Shimpton with no little relief and left the room. Straining to hear, Maylene thought she detected two strange voices raised in some kind of altercation with Campbell. If she hadn’t been so careful of the household accounts, she’d have worried the bailiffs were at the door. After a minute or two, while Sir Cedric and his wife pretended they’d not been frightened out of their wits, Campbell returned to the room. Two gentlemen stood behind him, still in their caped greatcoats. They held their hats and walking sticks, but strode into the parlor very much as if they intended to stay.

  Campbell introduced them as if they were guests at a ball, and as if he hadn’t been staring at a candle, awaiting a visit from a vapor. “His Grace, the Duke of Mondale,” he intoned. “And Socrates, my lord the Earl of Hyatt.”

  Ignoring the callers, as best one might two large, angry, and determined gentlemen, Lady Tremont addressed her faithful servant. “Tell them I am not at home, Campbell.”

  Aunt Regina gasped. The Duke of Mondale was one of the most respected men in Parliament, having devoted himself to the nation’s welfare after losing his wife some ten years ago. Lord Hyatt was a legend in his own right. Young and wealthy, he disdained Society, preferring his vast country properties. The betting books, when they dared to mention his name, generally held favorable odds of his remaining a bachelor, despite all the lures cast for him. Aunt Regina kicked her niece under the table and hissed, “You are, too, at home, Thisbe.”

  Since this was so obvious a truth, the older, distinguished-looking gentleman stepped forward and bowed politely. Then he begged Lady Tremont’s forgiveness for the intrusion. “My case is desperate, my lady, and I beseech you to…to do whatever it is that you do.”

  Maylene noted that His Grace was indeed pale and drawn, with lines etched in his forehead and cheeks. The much younger earl appeared simply angry, scowling and slapping his walking stick against his highly polished Hessians. Larger, broader, his dark-haired, grim-faced presence seemed to fill the dimly lighted parlor. In the shadows, he looked like a messenger from the netherworld, come to punish poor mortals for dabbling in the spiritual realm. Maylene shivered, and not simply because the usual scant fire was not penetrating the parlor’s chill.

  “I am sorry for your difficulties, Your Grace,” her mother was saying, “but we have already begun the session for this evening. It will be hard enough to recapture the correct mood.”

  Maylene could have sworn she heard Lord Hyatt snort. Her eyes narrowed. She might have her own opinions of her mama’s flights of fancy, but no arrogant aristocrat was going to belittle her beloved mother. She drew her shawl more closely around her shoulders and prepared to stand, to do battle with Lucifer himself if need be. But her mother was going on. “If you wish to make an appointment with my butler, I would be happy to consult with you tomorrow. That is the way of these things, Your Grace.”

  Mondale ran his hand through silver-tinged locks. “I can only apologize again and beg you to make an exception, Lady Tremont. I am at my wit’s end, and when I heard Lord Volstead singing your praises this evening at my club, I knew I just had to come, to ask for your help. He swears you and your, ah, minions can find anything, even if a fellow doesn’t know it’s missing.” He sighed. “Ah, if that were only the case.”

  Lady Tremont’s tender heart went out to the man so patently suffering. “Just what is it, Your Grace, that you are trying to find? Or should I say whom?”

  Lord Hyatt coughed in warning, but the duke was determined to get help, no matter that he had to air his family’s dirty laundry in so public a manner. “My daughter, ma’am, though I beg you not to mention this to anyone.” He bowed to the rest of the company, and everyone nodded their intentions of keeping his confidences. “We gave out that she is visiting an ailing relative, but she never got there. I have no idea where my precious Belinda could be and fear she might have been kidnapped since she is a considerable heiress. Bow Street is trying to locate her, and every man I could hire, but with no results so far. I thought…”

  “You thought Max might be able to find the young lady,” Lady Tremont concluded, nodding.

  “Max?” The duke shook his head. “No, although if you have confidence in your own man, I would add him to my payroll.”

  Her mother laughed. “Oh, Max is not for hire, but sit down, Your Grace, and we will see if we can find any answers for you.”

  Aunt Regina let out a breath of relief and smiled, showing the duke her new false teeth. “And take your gloves off, Duke.” Aunt Regina batted her equally false eyelashes at him. The duke bowed again, handing his coat, cane, and gloves to Campbell.

  Already half out of her chair, Maylene stood back and said, “Please take my seat, Your Grace. I will be just as happy to observe from afar tonight.” She gathered her shawl and moved to the sofa that was, happily, nearer the fire. She pulled a pad and pencil out from the workbasket set nearby and prepared to gather what information she could.

  As he sat, bowing to the others garnered around, the duke told his friend, “You might as well leave, Soc. I might be a while.”

  When Maylene jerked her head toward the door, Lady Tremont seconded Mondale’s suggestion. “You seem anxious to be on your way, Lord Hyatt. Such, um, agitation is not conducive to focused thoughts. The mood, don’t you know.” And Hyatt’s stormy countenance and looming presence were not comfortable, either. If ever there was a nonbeliever, Maylene felt, it was this broad-shouldered, sharp-eyed earl.

  If Lady Tremont wanted him gone
so badly, Lord Hyatt decided, he believed he’d stay. So what if he had an appointment with Lady Ashford, the most dashing and expensive widow in all of London? Friendship had to come first. Besides, Aurora knew better than to sulk or berate him for his tardiness. But this delay would cost him, he also knew. The bauble—Aurora preferred rubies—he could easily afford. The extra hour of tedious small talk to assuage Lady Ashford’s feelings of ill-usage was a far higher price. He was not sponsoring the female’s London Season for her conversation, by George, but he was too much the gentleman to rush a woman into intimacy. And Lady Tremont had the nerve to talk about losing the mood!

  Then again, he’d wager that Lady Tremont had the nerve to sell snowballs in hell. Just look at all the fools gathered at her stage, waiting for her performance. He nodded curtly to his acquaintances, surprised to see such usually rational beings as Sir Cedric and Lord Patterson at this farcical, fraudulent fortune-telling. He was not at all shocked to see Shimpton in attendance. The simpleton was liable to believe the moon was made of green cheese. That was another black mark against Lady Tremont and her ilk: only a hyena preyed on the helpless. Well, they were not going to get their fangs into his old friend Mondale, not if Hyatt could help it.