The Counterfeit Heiress: A Lady Emily Mystery (Lady Emily Mysteries)

by Tasha Alexander

  As for myself, no matter how I tried, I could not lure Morpheus to me that night, and I abandoned the pursuit once the golden pink streaks of sunrise began to pierce the dark sky. I took care to dress quietly, and obviously did not call for Meg at such an early hour. After splashing cold water onto my face in the bathroom attached to our room (Cécile viewed en suite baths as essential to civilized life), I slipped into the corridor and down to the first floor. No one else in the household was yet awake. I pulled open the curtains in the grand front sitting room and looked out the window. The street was quiet, only a few lonely pedestrians and a dissatisfied-looking cat on the pavement.

  The room was still a mess from the commotion caused by our arrival. Head wounds, even when they are not serious, bleed profusely, and Jeremy had left a dark red smear on the golden upholstery of the chaise longue onto which he had collapsed before making his way upstairs. A trail of smut and gritty dirt had followed him, Colin, and me from the Catacombs, and Cécile, seeing no use in more people losing sleep, had ordered the servants to leave it until morning. I tiptoed around the worst of it, not wanting to spread it further. A policeman, following my orders, had deposited on a table the large stack of papers we had taken from the attic of Mr. Jones’s apartment. I scooped them up and took them to what Cécile called the petit bureau, a cozy room tucked almost underneath the curving staircase. Paintings of Venice flanked the dark gray marble mantelpiece.

  To start, I sorted through the papers, dividing them into stacks surrounding me on the red silk settee that matched the walls. There were scores of travel itineraries—Estella’s, as her name was written on all of them, along with that of her companion, Miss Hexam—dating back for at least five years. I unrolled a crushed world map, larger than the one we had marked up in the library, that was covered with smudged red scrawls, made with a wax pencil, the sort one used for marking porcelain. The similarities between it and our own attempt at tracking Estella’s voyages were not inconsiderable. This one, however, included more stops and lines that I could only presume were intended to mark the path of her journey. There were lists of hotels, names of individuals—many I recognized as having received payments of £10 from Monsieur Pinard—and more train and boat timetables than I knew existed on the earth.

  Then, in the midst of all these papers, I found a slim softbound notebook, filled with handwriting now familiar to me: Estella’s. I started at the first page:

  ALEXANDRIA

  WE WILL BEGIN HERE.

  What followed were detailed plans for a trip from the city of the great Alexander (I could not remember if he had ever actually visited there, or if it was merely one of the many named in his honor) to Cairo, and on from there, to Giza, up the Nile and to the Valley of the Kings. Estella had recorded the opening times of various monuments, and had filled the margins of the book with sketches, most of them the sights she had seen in the ancient land of the pharaohs. After the first few pages, which were primarily dedicated to travel details, the book began to take on the form of a diary, recording her adventures. It was written in a style similar to most travel memoirs, self-indulgent and grandiose, but there was a charming naïveté to Estella’s narration. As well as frequent references to Miss Hexam (who proved a most excellent companion), there were many to someone called Hettie. Hettie was frequently described as being dragged from place to place, was never recorded as having a thought or idea of her own, and, after Estella discussed putting her on a high shelf after she had been intolerably surly on a day when the sun had been particularly strong, I came to the obvious conclusion that she must be one of Estella’s dolls.

  Mr. Jones was mentioned, but only frequently in the first quarter of the volume. She called him an excellent man and a stalwart supporter, and so far as I could tell, he had accompanied her at least so far as Cairo. I skimmed through the remaining pages, which ended abruptly with the announcement of Estella’s intention to depart for India and also of her intention to send Mr. Jones home. There was no hint in her tone, no veiled suggestion, that she had grown disaffected with the man; she did not explain her decision. As I closed the book, I could not help but wonder the circumstances in which a young lady—for Estella would not have been so old as I when she wrote these pages—would decide to give her diary, full of tender and personal feelings and observations, over to the care of a young man? Nothing she had written suggested she harbored romantic feelings for him. Quite the contrary, she appeared to treat him—appropriately—like a valued servant, and because of this, finding the book among his things did not sit well with me. Mr. Jones should never have been in possession of it.

  Evidently, Mr. Jones had returned to Paris, not England—which I surmised to be his true home—and continued to keep close tabs on his former employer. I consulted my own notebook to check the date on which Monsieur Pinard had started to write cheques to Swiveller, our erstwhile florist. The payments had begun only a few weeks after Estella’s initial departure from France. Perhaps I had leaped to a hasty conclusion when I had decided that Mr. Jones and Swiveller were one and the same. Thinking about it, I did not recall seeing Mr. Jones listed anywhere, ever, in Monsieur Pinard’s ledgers, but surely Estella had been paying him while he had been with her in Egypt? Nothing about Mr. Jones’s situation suggested he could afford to travel abroad. I would have to check the solicitor’s records again. If Estella had never paid him, it could be that his situation had changed, but had he been a gentleman of means when they met, she would not have written about him in the manner she had. I laid the diary aside and continued to make my way through the remaining papers. Among them was a brittle envelope, stuffed with five thin sheets of paper, each containing directions for telegrams. The first read:

  NOT STAYING AT SHEPHEARD’S IN CAIRO BUT CAN RECEIVE MAIL THERE UNTIL THE BOAT SAILS. DESPAIR NOT IF I DON’T REPLY!

  It was addressed to Monsieur Pinard at his office and written in Estella’s handwriting. The other four messages were equally innocuous, and I could not imagine why Mr. Jones would have saved them. Unless—an idea gripped me. What if Mr. Jones had harbored romantic notions about his employer? He had served her admirably, but when she learned of his affections and inclinations, she could have done nothing but reject him. Stung, he stole her diary—hoping, no doubt, to find some tender reference to himself—and fled the country. He might have remained in touch with Miss Hexam, although she, too, was most likely of too high a station to entertain him as anything beyond a servant. Through her, he could have tracked Estella’s every move, growing more and more obsessed with her as the years passed.

  That could not explain why he would have such detailed records of her travels. Miss Hexam—I had already decided she was reliable, though boring—would never have agreed to reveal her employer’s plans to someone who had been dismissed from service, and there was no one other than she or Estella who could have kept him so well informed of their arrangements. I tapped a finger against my lip. Perhaps dismissed was too strong a word, or even the wrong word altogether. What if Mr. Jones had been sent back to Paris to organize the details of Mademoiselle Lamar’s travels? No, that would be better and more easily done wherever she was.

  Then it struck me—what if Mr. Jones, after proving himself through loyal service, returned to Paris to keep an eye on Monsieur Pinard? What if Estella had come to doubt the character of the gentleman charged with overseeing her finances? This struck me as an excellent plot for a novel, but I had to admit it unlikely in reality. Mr. Jones would have had neither influence over Monsieur Pinard nor the ability to interfere with the solicitor’s actions. There was one other possibility: Monsieur Pinard could have been the one employing Mr. Jones from the beginning, sending his loyal man with Estella, ordering him to keep her away from Paris until he had figured out a way to make her fortune his own. What might Mr. Jones have done in Egypt when Estella had threatened to send him away?

  A chill ran down my spine. I rose from the table and paced the room, pausing to look out the window again. Vehicles h
ad already started to fill the boulevard to my south, but none of the traffic turned into Cécile’s street. A solitary man crossed the pavement in front of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, and for a moment I could have sworn it was Mr. Hopwood, husband of the unhinged woman whose baby Mary Darby had not been able to save. I blinked to better focus my eyes, but when I looked again, he was gone. Surely, he would have no reason to be in Paris?

  I went back to my work. There was no question that Mr. Jones—wretched, horrible man though he was—could be accused of living off the spoils of Estella’s fortune. The state of his rooms testified to that. Cécile and I, before the turn of events last night, had been prepared to call on Monsieur Pinard, and I was still convinced the solicitor was using Estella very ill. Could he, in fact, be Swiveller? Jeremy had asked his florist contact to describe the man, but he only remembered him as of moderate height. He had mentioned neither auburn hair nor handlebar mustaches, so it was not unreasonable to surmise that someone other than Mr. Jones had played the part. I frowned. How long did it take to grow handlebar mustaches?

  So plagued was I by this question, that I had started for my bedroom. Much though I wanted Colin to sleep, I needed his assistance, and I knew he would not be pleased if I left him to his slumber when there was work to be done. As if in anticipation of my needs, he was already descending to me as I mounted the stairs. The bruises on his face had bloomed overnight to alarming effect, and I placed a hand on his cheek, gently, so as not to cause him further pain.

  “My darling love, you are a fright. Does it hurt very much?” A kiss was my answer, and both the vigor and thoroughness attached to the action laid to rest any concerns I had about his physical condition.

  “It looks far worse than it feels. You are up early. Is there tea?”

  I had been so intent on my work that I had not taken any notice of the fact that the servants were now all up, tending quietly to their duties, until now, when the sight of the footman in the front hall reminded me that we were not alone. We requested a pot of the genial beverage and drank it while I recounted for Colin all that I had learned.

  “I do not think I will find any sign of Swiveller-Magwitch-Jones in the Catacombs,” he said, “but I will have to look.”

  “You are not in any condition to be trekking through those tunnels—”

  “I am perfectly able to do it. Another call on Pinard is worthwhile.” He sifted through the papers in front of him. “I am in agreement with your analysis of these for the most part, but must remind you to keep Mary Darby front and center. If Jones killed her—and I believe he did—it indicates a great deal rides on his ability to make the world think Estella Lamar is alive and well.”

  “You are of the opinion she is not?”

  He brought the edges of the papers into a perfect line. “It becomes harder and harder to believe anything else. And if she is dead—”

  “He likely killed her in Egypt. I could book us onto the next steamer—”

  “We are not going to Egypt.”

  I sighed. “If Estella is dead, what about the letter Cécile has only just had from her?”

  “I have already pointed out that we cannot determine when that was written, and now that we know Jones had the diary, we also know he could have used that to study and copy her handwriting.”

  “I have an idea—it is not much, but may prove useful, if only to occupy me while you descend into the Catacombs,” I said.

  “I know you would rather accompany me—”

  “I have had enough of those tunnels, and am fully aware that the police are unlikely to welcome me as a member of their search party.”

  After having seen Colin off, I checked on Jeremy, whose reaction to waking up and finding me in his bedchamber proved at once that his injuries were not grave, although he did his best to insist he would never have attempted to embrace me if his mind hadn’t been addled by Mr. Jones’s blow to his head. Upon hearing that my husband had already left to meet the police, he ordered me out of his room so that he might dress and follow. I tried to dissuade him, arguing that he ought to rest, but he would hear none of it.

  “Such a commotion coming from in here!” Cécile stood in the doorway, a wicked smile on her face. “But not the sort I would have expected from you, Bainbridge. It is a crushing disappointment to find you en déshabillé and engaged in so decidedly an unromantic disagreement.”

  Jeremy looked as if he might throw something at her, so I determined it would be best for us to leave him alone. Cécile and I had a leisurely breakfast and still managed to leave the house before him, and I can only conclude that mortification kept him upstairs until he knew we had departed. Monsieur Pinard greeted us warmly—an act for which I credit Cécile, as the solicitor made no attempt to hide his admiration for her—and did not balk at my request to revisit his records. Cécile and I had agreed in advance that I would deal with the ledger books while she interrogated Monsieur Pinard.

  My search revealed, as I had expected, no mention of Mr. Jones. More surprising was that not a single payment had been recorded for Miss Hexam, either. I suppose it was not impossible that Miss Hexam—or whatever her real name was—could be a lady of independent means, but if that were the case, one would expect her to be traveling as an equal of Estella’s, and the diary made clear that this was not the case. More likely, the arrangement to which she and Estella had agreed was that Estella would pay all travel expenses and had given her any nominal payment beyond that in local currency, from her own supply.

  I also checked the entries reflecting Estella’s payments to her solicitor. Monsieur Pinard billed her at a shockingly low rate—making me all the more suspicious that he was collecting Swiveller’s money. This reminded me of the cheque still waiting at the post office. How foolish of us to have been so convinced the auburn-haired man would be the one to collect it! If Monsieur Pinard was Swiveller—

  Cécile interrupted my thought. “Are you finished, Kallista?”

  “Yes, I think I have gleaned all that I can out of these.” I closed the ledger books. We thanked Monsieur Pinard—he lingered obscenely over Cécile’s hand—and took our leave.

  “That man is no criminal mastermind.” Cécile stepped into the waiting carriage. “He is barely capable of engaging in a little illicit flirting.”

  “He seemed most capable of that,” I said. “He could hardly pry his eyes away from you.”

  “I don’t mean that sort of flirting, Kallista. I asked him everything you wanted me to, and his answers do not even bear repeating. So I took a different tack, and began to query him about doing business with me. I have a large fortune, after all, and explained to him that I would be most agreeable to hiring a solicitor able to manage things for me in certain advantageous ways.”

  “Ways one might consider unethical?”

  “Precisely. He did not categorically refuse.”

  “So he did flirt with the idea?”

  “Oui, in a way, but he handled it all so very badly that it was clear he had not the slightest idea how to go about it. I believe him incapable of taking on the role of Swiveller.”

  I had no wish to deny Cécile the feeling of success she was so clearly enjoying, but was not confident that this single conversation was enough to absolve Monsieur Pinard of all suspicion. The carriage having arrived at our next destination, we alighted and stepped into one of my favorite stores in Paris. Neal’s Library, on the rue de Rivoli, was an English-language bookshop with a charming reading room and a select assortment of English stationery. I had brought with me the letter Estella had ostensibly mailed from Paris and pulled it out to show the paper to the clerk at the counter.

  “Could you tell me something about this envelope?” I asked. “It is so beautifully lined.”

  “Ah, oui, madame! It is one of my favorites. We sell full boxes of the envelopes with writing sheets to match. If you would follow me—” He took us to a shelf on which the stationery was displayed.

  “Is it a new design?” I asked.
<
br />   “We have had it for nearly a month now. It is meant, I believe, to honor the celebration of your queen?”

  “I suspected as much.” I smiled and told him I would like to purchase a box. It seemed a small price to pay for such an important revelation. The transaction complete, Cécile dismissed the carriage and we walked to the place de la Concorde and crossed the river.

  “How, Kallista, were you able to know how to find Estella’s stationery?”

  “If you look closely at the pattern lining the envelope, it is made up of little diamonds. I had seen similar designs on any number of things in London in the approach to the queen’s Diamond Jubilee. Mr. Jones is British, so I thought it reasonable that he would shop somewhere like Neal’s—his books, after all, are all in English. Neal’s will not be the only place in Paris one could buy that stationery—it’s a common brand—but I wanted to confirm that the paper, at least, is not something Estella could have used years ago.”

  “So this proves the letter was only recently penned?”

  “Yes, but it does not prove that Estella wrote it.” I told Cécile what Colin suspected after seeing the diary—that Mr. Jones could have used it to study her handwriting. “I have very grave concerns about your friend. Would you expect her to frequent an English stationers?”

  “Non.”

  Dire forebodings consumed my thoughts. Colin and his associates might not find evidence of Mr. Jones in the Catacombs, but what if they stumbled upon something far worse? He had left my husband there to die. What if he had done the same with Estella? I went over every detail of the case again and again, but could not conjure up a single piece of evidence to suggest Estella had ever returned to Paris. Yet something nagged at me, and I could not let the suspicion go. We needed someone capable of verifying, once and for all, whether Estella had written the letter herself.