by Joan Smith
It was by no means certain that Minnie Vulch would be out of bed at ten o’clock, but he climbed the dusty flight of stairs and rapped on the door of number three. To his surprise, the door opened immediately and an exceedingly plain-looking woman past the first blush of youth opened the door. An unlikely orange halo of hair, the color fresh out of a bottle and the curls fresh out of their papers, bounced youthfully around her platter face, which had, along with a bad complexion, teeth too large for her mouth. It seemed malicious of nature to have loaded so much contumely on one female.
Nature had been kinder to her below the neck, however. She was well rounded and showed off her form in a tight-fitting apple green gown worn lower in the front than ladies wore them in day time, and garnished with strings of glass beads that no lady would be caught dead in at any time.
Her smile of welcome faded when she saw Black. “Oh, I was expecting someone else,” she said.
Black assumed his classiest voice and said, with a lift of his hat, “Have I the honor of addressing Mrs. Vulch?”
She put one hand on her hip, eyed him up and down and said, “Who wants to know?”
“My name is Mr. Black. I’m afraid I have bad news for you, Mrs. Vulch. It’s about your husband.”
She rolled he eyes. “Oh lord, what’s he been up to now? Got hisself arrested, I expect? You’d best step inside.”
He was familiar with the arrangement of living in one room. The sofa that performed double duty as a bed, the grate that supplied inadequate heat and cooking facilities, the small table and chair tucked away in the farthest corner with the food, dishes and tea pot pushed to the back of the table, the curtain stretched across the alcove on a string to hide the clothes. All of it crammed into one room distempered in a bilious green. Minnie kept her room tidier than most women of her unfortunate sort.
“If it’s money he’s after, I haven’t got none to spare,” she said. “He’s already living free in my house. It’s robbery, that’s what it is.” She sat on the bed cum sofa and indicated that Black should join her, which he did. “Where have they got him locked up, and what does he want of me?”
“Your husband isn’t in jail, Mrs. Vulch. I’m sorry to have to tell you, he’s dead.”
Her mouth fell open, the blood rushed from her face, and a howl like a banshee rose from her throat. “Dead? Oh no! Oh God, no!” She threw her head on Vulch’s shoulder and sobbed, while he patted her back and made soothing noises. After the worst of her grief had run its course, she sat up and wiped her eyes and nose with the handkerchief Black supplied her.
“I thought you was him when you knocked, for he said he’d be coming to London this very week. I expected him today, and then to hear this news.” She straightened her shoulders and asked in a hard voice, “Who killed him?”
Not what happened to him, not how did he die, but “Who killed him?” It occurred to Vulch that the fancy dress and clean room might be preparations for the husband’s visit.
“Why do you think he was murdered?” he asked.
" 'Cause I know Vulch. It was that dirty business he was mixed up in, wasn’t it? I told him he’d get hisself killed, but would he listen to me? Oh no!”
“What dirty business was that, Mrs. Vulch?” he asked, quietly, so as not to upset her further.
“Where’d he get the money for that gelding from?” was her answer. “Vulch never had two pennies to rub together. If it wasn’t for me inheriting my uncle’s house, we’d have been living under a haystack. Then in his second last letter he says he’s got hisself a blood gelding. And that letter I got yesterday, boasting that his pockets would soon be jingling and he’d come and fetch me. Here, read it for yourself,” she said, and rose to hunt around the crowded room for the letter, while Black waited with bated breath. She found it tucked under the milk jug. Milk had dripped on to it, leaving a crusty circle.
“Care for a cuppa?” she asked, when she handed it to him. “Don’t I wish I had something stronger. My nerves could do with some bracing. It’s not every day your husband dies on you.”
“Why don’t I nip out and get us a bottle?” he said. “I passed a gin house not far away.” Her tongue would run more freely with a little gin inside her.
“I wouldn’t say no,” she said at once. “It’s my nerves, that’s what it is. Vulch dead. I can’t believe it.”
He took the note and dashed around the corner to buy the bottle of gin, read the note while he waited for service, and darted back. The note was as Minnie had said. “Minnie: I miss you something awful. I have a little something running that will make us rich. Don’t come home. I don’t want you mixed up in it. I’ll come for you real soon and we’ll have a real good time in London before we go home. Your loving husband, Howie.”
He was careful to get a couple of glasses of the gin into Minnie before he questioned her about the letter. It wasn’t enough to make her tipsy, but he hoped it would dull her wariness. “What do you figure he was doing to make the money?” he asked, in a companionable way.
“Vulch would turn his hand to just about anything that came along, but it wasn’t cards. He never made enough at that to keep the bailiff from the door. If I’d of been home I could tell you more.”
“Did he ever have anything to do with the Richardsons?”
“Them at Redley Hall? They wouldn’t give the likes of Vulch the time of day. Mind you, I never seen them myself. I just heard they’d be coming when the old gaffer turned up his toes and the niece got the place. I know Vulch asked Sir William for work when they were at the hotel in London. It was the one where Vulch was working as an ostler. When he found out who they were, he asked Sir William if he’d be needing help at Redley Hall, but he was turned down flat. I expect he went with ale on his breath. He never could tug his forelock neither.” She ended on a tsk that was half annoyance, half pride.
“The Richardsons stayed at the hotel where Vulch was working?” he asked, moderating his voice to mere casual interest.
“That’s right. Stephens’s Hotel on Bond Street, where the officers stay. You’d think the likes of them would stay at a fancier place like the Clarendon or the Pulteney. Well, the wife being a bit simple, I daresay he didn’t want to parade her in front of the smarts and swells.”
He had to lower his head to hide the fierce interest he feared might escape his eyes. “The wife was a bit of a knock-in-the-cradle, was she?” he asked quietly, flicking an invisible speck of dust from his sleeve.
“I know she wasn’t let out without a keeper. They took most of their meals in their room as well. Vulch said the keeper and Sir William went out one night. Something between them I shouldn’t wonder, the wife being simple. One of the maids told Vulch the wife played with dolls, if play’s the right word. She treated that little dolly like it was alive. Told the maids to tiptoe so as not to wake the baby. Sir William treated her like a child. Well, he had to, didn’t he? She got out once and was found bawling in the lobby, looking for her baby. Can you believe it?”
“Interesting.” He kept feeding her gin and quizzing her, but Minnie had nothing else of much interest to tell him. Vulch had visited her in London when he was working at the hotel. It had taken him a month to find her, but he finally did. Well, he knew she liked the theater for a start. She hadn’t had her fill of London at that time and refused to go back with him. She hadn’t seen him since he left London, and they seldom corresponded. That last letter came like a bolt out of the blue, and was welcome as things weren’t going that well for her. Whatever rig he had running, she was unaware of it.
Black was inclined to think Lady deCoventry was right, that he had only written that last letter to keep her away from Nottingham.
“Well,” she said, pushing away her glass. “It looks like I have a trip to make. I’ll have to go home to bury him. And reclaim my house,” she added, with grim satisfaction.
“Of course you won’t want to travel alone, Mrs. Vulch. I’ll accompany you.”
She narrowed her eyes at
him. “What’s it all got to do with you, if you don’t mind me asking, Mr. Black?”
He was stymied, but not for long. “I was asked to inform you of your husband’s death.” He didn’t say by whom, and she didn’t ask. “As I’m going to visit Lord Byron, I shall accompany you.”
She ran her gaze over his severe black suit and saturnine face. “You don’t seem his lordship’s sort.”
“It’s business, Mrs. Vulch.”
“There’s one gent that won’t be sorry Vulch is dead.”
“Why do you say that?” he asked, and listened closely for the answer. Lady deCoventry hadn’t intimated that Byron might be involved in the business. Had he stumbled on to a new clue here, or was Vulch so universally despised that all his neighbors loathed him?
“There was bad blood between them. Vulch never had a good word to say about his lordship.”
“What was that all about, then?”
“I expect Vulch fleeced him somehow. He never said. P’raps it was only the poaching.”
This was filed away for further cogitation. “I’ll inquire at the coaching offices and let you know when the next stage leaves. Pack up, my dear. You’re going home.”
Her shoulders sagged. “To an empty house,” she said, tears starting again in her eyes. She did seem to have some feelings for her late husband. Either that or the gin was getting to her.
“It won’t be empty long, I fancy,” he said with a roguish wink. Minnie recovered from her grief long enough to cast a leering smile at him.
“Ain’t you the one,” she said, and hiccupped. “We’ll go together then, but there won’t be no slap and tickle. I’m a new widow.”
They left on the noon stage, stopped overnight at Rushden (in separate rooms, each paid for by the occupier) and arrived in Nottingham the next afternoon. He suggested that she report to the constable that she had returned and would be taking up residence in her house. “Do you have a key to get in?” he asked.
“Of course I do. It’s my house.”
Minnie’s financial resources were exhausted. Black had to hire a gig to drive her home. She said she would speak to Eggars the next day, but they did stop at Hucknall, the nearest village, ostensibly to buy groceries. The first stop was at a tavern to purchase a bottle of gin. Minnie put her hand on Black’s arm and strode down the street, stopping to accept consolation from her neighbors.
“This here is Mr. Black, my solicitor,” she said, with a proud waggle of her head. “He brought me from London to get my house back. He’s putting up at Newstead Abbey.”
Black accepted this erroneous introduction with a stiff bow. To Minnie he said, when they were alone, “You’ll not want to be alone in the house. Why don’t you ask one of these friends to stay with you?”
“Why shouldn’t I want to be alone?” she demanded. “If I’m lonesome or need anything, I’ll call on the neighbors.”
When they arrived at the little cottage, Minnie drew out her key but couldn’t insert it in the lock. “He’s gone and had new locks put on,” she said with a tsk of annoyance. “Now what?”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Black said, and had the door open before long with the aid of his hasp knife.
She thanked him “ever so” when he saw her into the house. He asked for directions and drove directly to Newstead Abbey. Accompanying Minnie home, he felt, made a good enough excuse for his coming uninvited.
* * *
Chapter 24
The message from Black was delivered to the salon for Lady deCoventry as soon as she and Mrs. Ballard left the gentlemen to their port. The maid said, “He says he wants to see you, urgently, milady.”
“What — is he here, at Newstead?” she asked in confusion. Mrs. Ballard gave a tsk of annoyance.
“Yes, milady. He’s been waiting in the kitchen till you finished dinner. He seems to think it’s important.”
“It is! Send him straight up. And ask the butler to tell Lord Luten he’s here as well.” The maid darted off, and Corinne turned to Mrs. Ballard, whose lips were clamped in a most unchristian manner to hear that Black had managed to horn in on this visit. Nosey old Parker.
“Black must have found out something important to come scrambling all the way to Newstead,” Corinne said.
“So it seems,” Mrs. Ballard replied.
Black arrived a moment before the gentlemen, and had the exquisite pleasure of seeing her actually rise from the sofa and rush to him with her hands out and a smile of welcome lighting her pretty little face. His hands tingled as her white fingers closed over his. The tingle rushed up his arms and through his whole body, making his head spin.
“I’ve sent for Luten, Black,” she said, releasing his hands. “Come in and have a cup of tea. You must have been traveling all day. You found her?”
“Oh aye, your ladyship, right where you said she’d be.”
He allowed himself to be led to a chair, nodding at Mrs. Ballard, who nodded back with no sign of delight. He was just sitting down when the four gentlemen came rushing into the salon in a group. For one embarrassed moment they looked at Black, who sat down and immediately rose, Black looked back at them, all wondering how to behave in this strange predicament of a servant being treated like an honored guest.
Byron, the host and the least hidebound by convention of the group, came forward and said, “Welcome to Newstead Abbey, Black. We’re on nettles to hear what you’ve discovered. Shall we all sit down and be comfortable?”
Black didn’t find the experience comfortable, but he did resume his seat.
Prance lifted his coat tails, perched on the arm of a chair, clapped his hands together and said, “Silence, all! Now start at the beginning, Black, and tell us everything. One doesn’t have to inquire whether you found her. You wouldn’t be here otherwise. Just tell us, what is she like? What did she say?”
Black began at the beginning and made a good story of it, omitting only her mention that Lord Byron would be happy to hear of Vulch’s death. That intriguing tidbit would be revealed to his mistress in private. He drew out the letter Minnie had given him and handed it to Luten. “Have a look at this, your lordship. Vulch was trying to stave her off right enough,” he said.
Luten read the letter and passed it on to Byron. “Yes, certainly,” he said, “but the more interesting thing is this tale of Lady Richardson being simple. She’s nothing of the sort. Sharp as a needle.”
“Wide awake on all suits,” Coffen added. “Slyest lady in the parish.”
“They go off that way sometimes when they lose their baby,” Black offered. “She might of recovered. Did she have another kiddie?”
“Yes,” Luten said. “A little boy, Willie.”
“That’d explain it, then.”
“I suppose so,” he said reluctantly. The others all wore the same uncertain expression.
It was Coffen who gave tongue to their general dissatisfaction. “Hard to imagine that lady ever losing her wits. She don’t seem the type.”
“Indeed she don’t,” Byron agreed. “If either of them suffered in that way, it’d be Sir William. He’s a born worrier, and he dotes on the lad. The logical twist for this plot is that the companion, Nessie, is posing as Lady Richardson, except that Lady Richardson is a Redley and has the nose to prove it.” He turned to Black. “Vulch didn’t happen to tell Minnie what Lady Richardson looked like?”
“Only that she was pretty. ‘A pretty little thing,' he called her.”
Prance leapt on it. “Little? Did you say little? I wouldn’t describe her as little. She’s a good five and a half feet.”
“That might seem little to Vulch,” Coffen said. “He was tall as a steeple, and wide as a barn door.”
“On the other hand,” Corinne said, looking around with a meaningful stare, “those gowns that Mrs. Addams saw showed the lady’s ankles, which does just suggest that she appropriated them from someone shorter.”
Coffen chewed his lips and pulled his ear and finally said, “I wonder if Vulch di
dn’t get the story wrong and it was Nessie that was thinking a doll was a baby. She was said to be simple, if you remember.”
“That doesn’t work,” Luten said. “Vulch would have seen Lady Richardson any number of times after he returned home. He’d know whether she was the one who was bawling and looking for her baby and —" He stopped and stared into the grate, considering what he had said.
“And wouldn’t that be a fine chance for him to bleed the Richardsons dry if he knew they was shamming it!” Black cried.
Coffen shook his head. “You’re all forgetting the Redley nose. You can’t just steal a thing like that from someone else’s face and let on it’s your own.”
After a short silence, Black said, “I can have another go at Minnie in the morning if you think she knows anything else.”
“You mean she’s here!” Byron exclaimed, and the others added their cries.
“She came to claim her house,” he explained. “I thought I’d mentioned it. Mind you, I figure I leached out anything she knows on the trip here. Not knowing about the Redley nose, I didn’t ask for details of the crazy lady’s appearance. If she had the big nose, then I daresay she’s who she says she is, and that’s an end to it.”
Corinne felt a ripple of apprehension scuttle up her spine. “If Minnie knows anything dangerous, she shouldn’t be left alone,” she said.
Lady deCoventry, being Irish, had some little reputation as having the sight. “Are you getting a feeling?” Coffen demanded.